instant an intangible
something seemed to flash out from all the body and spirit of Joe
Ladue. And it seemed to Daylight that he had caught this flash, sensed
a secret something in the knowledge and plans behind the other's eyes.

"You-all know the creek better'n me," Daylight went on. "And if my
share in the town site's worth a hundred to you-all with what you-all
know, it's worth a hundred to me whether I know it or not."

"I'll give you three hundred," Ladue offered desperately.

"Still the same reasoning. No matter what I don't know, it's worth to
me whatever you-all are willing to pay for it."

Then it was that Joe Ladue shamelessly gave over. He led Daylight away
from the camp and men and told him things in confidence.

"She's sure there," he said in conclusion. "I didn't sluice it, or
cradle it. I panned it, all in that sack, yesterday, on the rim-rock.
I tell you, you can shake it out of the grassroots. And what's on
bed-rock down in the bottom of the creek they ain't no way of tellin'.
But she's big, I tell you, big. Keep it quiet, and locate all you can.
It's in spots, but I wouldn't be none surprised if some of them claims
yielded as high as fifty thousand. The only trouble is that it's
spotted."

* * *

A month passed by, and Bonanza Creek remained quiet. A sprinkling of
men had staked; but most of them, after staking, had gone on down to
Forty Mile and Circle City. The few that possessed sufficient faith to
remain were busy building log cabins against the coming of winter.
Carmack and his Indian relatives were occupied in building a sluice box
and getting a head of water. The work was slow, for they had to saw
their lumber by hand from the standing forest. But farther down
Bonanza were four men who had drifted in from up river, Dan McGilvary,
Dave McKay, Dave Edwards, and Harry Waugh. They were a quiet party,
neither asking nor giving confidences, and they herded by themselves.
But Daylight, who had panned the spotted rim of Carmack's claim and
shaken coarse gold from the grass-roots, and who had panned the rim at
a hundred other places up and down the length of the creek and found
nothing, was curious to know what lay on bed-rock. He had noted the
four quiet men sinking a shaft close by the stream, and he had heard
their whip-saw going as they made lumber for the sluice boxes. He did
not wait for an invitation, but he was present the first day they
sluiced