the
will-o'-the-wisp of sudden wealth. Tramps of the pick-and-pan
brigade--they should not come swarming into these hills on any
wild-goose chase, if he could help it. And he could and should. This
was not, properly speaking, a gold country. He knew it. The rock
formations did not point to any great deposit of the mineral, and if he
had found one, it was a fluke, an accident. He resolved that his first
consideration should be the keeping of his secret for the mental
well-being of his fellows.

Ward did not put it quite so altruistically. His thoughts formed into
sentences.

"This is cattle country. If men want to hunt gold, they can do their
hunting somewhere else. They can't go digging up the whole blamed
country just on the chance of finding another pocket like this one.
I'm in the cattle business myself. If I find any gold, it'll go into
cattle and stay there; and there won't be any long-haired freaks
pestering around here if I can help it, and I reckon maybe I can, all
right.

"I'd sure like to talk it over with Billy, but what she don't know
won't worry her; and I don't know yet what I've gone up against. Maybe
old Dame Fortune's just played another joke on me--played me for a fool
again. I'll take a chance, but I won't give that little girl down
below there anything to spoil her sleep."

Ward's memory was like glue, and while it held things he would give
much to forget, still it served him well. He had ridden past a tiny,
partly caved-in dugout, months ago, where some wandering prospector had
camped while he braved the barrenness of the bills and streams
hereabout. Ward had dismounted and glanced into the cavelike hut.
Now, after he had eaten a few mouthfuls of dinner, he rode straight
over to that dugout and got the goldpan he remembered to have seen
there. It was not in the best condition, of course. It was battered
and bent, but it would do for the present.

By the time he reached the wolf den, the sun was nearing the western
rim of hills, but Ward had time to examine the locality more carefully
than he had done at first and to wash a couple of pans of gravel. The
test elated him perceptibly; for while there did not seem to be the
makings of a millionaire in that gravel bank, he judged roughly that he
could make a plumber's wages if he worked hard enough--and that looked
pretty good to a fellow who had worked all his life for forty dollars a
month. "Two-bits a pan, just about," he put i