was necessary to carry
each sample of dirt a considerable distance to a small stream in
the bed of a canon in order to wash it. However, Mark hungered and
thirsted to find a big rich pocket, and he pitched in after the
manner of Joe Bowers of old--just like a thousand of brick.

"Each step made sure by the finding of golden grains, they at last
came upon the pocket whence these grains had trailed out down the
slope of the mountain. It was a cold, dreary drizzling day when
the 'home deposit' was found. The first sample of dirt carried to
the stream and washed out yielded only a few cents. Although the
right vein had been discovered, they had as yet found only the tail
end of the pocket.

"Returning to the vein, they dug a sample of the decomposed ore
from a new place, and were about to carry it down to the ravine and
test it, when the rain increased to a lively downpour."

Mark was chilled to the bone, and refused to carry another pail of
water. In slow, drawling tones he protested decisively:

"Jim, I won't carry any more water. This work is too disagreeable.
Let's go to the house and wait till it clears up."

Gillis was eager to test the sample he had just taken out.

"Bring just one more pail, Sam," he urged.

"I won't do it, Jim!" replied the now thoroughly disgusted Clemens.
"Not a drop! Not if I knew there were a million dollars in that pan!"

Moved by Sam's dejected appearance--blue nose and humped back--and
realizing doubtless that it was futile to reason with him further, Jim
yielded and emptied the sacks of dirt just dug upon the ground. They
now started out for the nearest shelter, the hotel in Angel's Camp, kept
by Coon Drayton, formerly a Mississippi River pilot. Imagine the jests
and shouts that went around as Mark and Coon vied with each other in
narrating interesting experiences. For three days the rain and the
stories held out; and among those told by Drayton was a story of a frog.
He narrated this story with the utmost solemnity as a thing that had
happened in Angel's Camp in the spring of '49--the story of a frog
trained by its owner to become a wonderful jumper, but which failed to
"make good" in a contest because the owner of a rival frog, in order to
secure the winning of the wager, filled the trained frog full of shot
during its owner's absence. This story appealed irresistibly to Mark as
a first-rate story to