hich had to be removed to uncover the sand-bank, was full of
jagged rocks that had come down in snowslides from the mountain and
below this top earth was a strata of small, smooth boulders--"river
wash."

This troublesome "overburden" necessitated the use of iron instead of
wooden riffles, as the bumping and grinding of the boulders would soon
have worn the latter down to nothing. So, for many weary trips, a string
of footsore pack-horses had picked their way down the dangerous trail
from Ore City, loaded to their limit with pierced iron strips, rods,
heavy sacks of nuts and bolts.

It had been laborious, nerve-racking work and every trip had had its
accident, culminating in the loss of the best pack-horse in the string,
the horse having slipped off the trail, scattering its pack, as Smaltz
announced it, "from hell to breakfast."

But the iron strips and rods were made into riffles now, and laid. Bruce
surveyed the whole with intense satisfaction as he stood by the
sluice-boxes looking down the long grade. It was _his_ work and he knew
that he had done it well. He had spared no labor to have it
right--nothing had been just "good enough."

There was cocoa matting under the riffles of the first six boxes.
Half-way the length of the sluice-boxes the finest gravel, yellow and
black sand, dropped through perforated sheet-iron grizzles into the
"undercurrents" while the rocks and boulders rushed on through the
sluice-boxes to the river.

At the end of the undercurrents there was a wide table having a slight
grade, and this table was covered with canton flannel over which was
placed more riffles of expanded metal. And, as a final precaution, lest
some infinitesimal amount of gold escape, there was a mercury trap below
the table. While Bruce was expecting to catch the greater part of it in
the first six sluice-boxes he was not taking a single chance.

Now, as he stood by the sluice-boxes looking their length, he allowed
himself to dream for a moment of the days when the mercury, turned to
amalgam, should be lying thick with gold behind the riffles; to
anticipate the unspeakable happiness of telegraphing his success to
Helen Dunbar.

Even with the tangible evidence before his eyes it was hard to realize
that after all the struggle, he was so near his goal. The ceaseless
strain and anxiety had left their marks upon his face. He looked older
by years than when he had stood by the river dipping water into his
old-fashioned