eeing eyes. His interest was gone. The danger had somehow become
nothing now. There was no longer any thought of the active figure
moving up the face of the hill with cat-like clinging hands and feet.
There was no longer thought for his success or failure.

Buck reached his goal. He examined the auriferous facet with close
scrutiny and satisfaction. Then he began the descent, and in two
minutes he stood once more beside the Padre.

"It's high-grade quartz," he cried jubilantly as he came up.

The Padre nodded, his mind on other things.

"I'd say the luck's changed," Buck went on, full of his own discovery
and not noticing the other's abstraction. He was enjoying the thought
of the news he had to convey to the starving camp. "I'd say there's
gold in plenty hereabouts and the washout----"

The Padre suddenly thrust out his two hands which were still grasping
the cause of his discomfiture. He thrust them out so that Buck could
not possibly mistake the movement.

"There surely is--right here," he said slowly.

Buck gasped. Then, with shining eyes, he took what the other was
holding into his own two hands.

"Gold!" he cried as he looked down upon the dull yellow mass.

"And sixty ounces if there's a pennyweight," added the Padre
exultantly. "You see I--I fell over it," he explained, his quiet eyes
twinkling.

CHAPTER IX

GATHERING FOR THE FEAST

Two hours later saw an extraordinary change at the foot of Devil's
Hill. The wonder of the "washout" had passed. Its awe was no longer
upon the human mind. The men of the camp regarded it with no more
thought than if the destruction had been caused by mere blasting
operations. They were not interested in the power causing the wreck,
but only in their own motives, their own greedy longings, their own
lust for the banquet of gold outspread before their ravening eyes.

The Padre watched these people his news had brought to the hill with
tolerant, kindly eye. He saw them scattered like a small swarm of bees
in the immensity of the ruin wrought by the storm. They had for the
time forgotten him, they had forgotten everything in the wild moment
of long-pent passions unloosed--the danger which overhung them, their
past trials, their half-starved bodies, their recent sufferings. These
things were thrust behind them, they were of the past. Their present
was an insatiable hunger for finds such as had been thrust before
their yearning eyes less than an hour ago.

He sto