luck to a man in Sacramento the other day." And he related with great
earnestness his experience in the gambling saloon. Not content with
that--the sealed fountains of his childish deep being broken up by
some mysterious sympathy--he spoke of his hospitable exploit with the
passengers at the wayside bar, of the finding of his Fortunatus purse
and his deposit at the bank. Whether that characteristic old-fashioned
reticence which had been such an important factor for good or ill in
his future had suddenly deserted him, or whether some extraordinary
prepossession in his companion had affected him, he did not know; but
by the time the pair had reached the hillside Flynn was in possession
of all the boy's history. On one point only was his reserve unshaken.
Conscious although he was of Jim Hooker's duplicity, he affected to
treat it as a comrade's joke.

They halted at last in the middle of an apparently fertile hillside.
Clarence shifted his shovel from his shoulders, unslung his pan, and
looked at Flynn. "Dig anywhere here, where you like," said his companion
carelessly, "and you'll be sure to find the color. Fill your pan with
the dirt, go to that sluice, and let the water run in on the top of the
pan--workin' it round so," he added, illustrating a rotary motion with
the vessel. "Keep doing that until all the soil is washed out of it, and
you have only the black sand at the bottom. Then work that the same way
until you see the color. Don't be afraid of washing the gold out of the
pan--you couldn't do it if you tried. There, I'll leave you here, and
you wait till I come back." With another grave nod and something like a
smile in the only visible part of his bearded face--his eyes--he strode
rapidly away.

Clarence did not lose time. Selecting a spot where the grass was less
thick, he broke through the soil and turned up two or three spadefuls of
red soil. When he had filled the pan and raised it to his shoulder, he
was astounded at its weight. He did not know that it was due to the red
precipitate of iron that gave it its color. Staggering along with his
burden to the running sluice, which looked like an open wooden gutter,
at the foot of the hill, he began to carefully carry out Flynn's
direction. The first dip of the pan in the running water carried off
half the contents of the pan in liquid paint-like ooze. For a moment he
gave way to boyish satisfaction in the sight and touch of this unctuous
solution, and dabbled his