strode into camp. The latter glanced toward the hole
they had dug to reach the water.

"You've let the horse break the sides down and stand in it," he said.
"We'll clean it down to the gravel and pitch the soil out."

"Is it worth while?" Weston asked.

"Yes," said Devine, dryly, "as we'll probably be here a day or two, I
guess it is. I'll tell you about it when we get supper."

Weston might have noticed that there was something curious in his
manner, but he was very weary, and his mind was a little hazy then. He
took the shovel, and toiled for some few minutes before a strip of
stone he was endeavoring to wrench out broke beneath the blade. He
flung the fragments out of the hole, and one of them caught Devine's
eye.

"Pitch me up that big round stone," he said sharply.

Weston did as he was bidden, and his comrade, falling upon his knee,
smashed the fragments into little lumps, and then, clutching some of
them tight in one hand, stood up with a hoarse, exultant laugh.

"We've struck the lode!" he exclaimed.

Weston was beside him in a moment, and Devine poured the crushed
fragments into his hand.

"Look!" he said.

Weston did so, and while his heart thumped painfully the blood crept
to his face. The little lumps he gazed at were milky white, and
through them ran what seemed to be very fine yellow threads.

"That is wire gold?"

"It is," said Devine. "A sure thing."

Then the surveyor swept off his battered hat and swung round toward
the willows, a grotesque ragged figure with his hands spread out.

"You weren't crazy, partner. You brought us up out of the swamps and
sloos of poverty, and planked us down right on to the lode," he said.

Weston said nothing. After all, he was English, and to some extent
reticent, but he felt that his comrade's dramatic utterance was more
or less warranted, for the irony and pathos of the situation was clear
to him. Grenfell had found the mine at last, but the gold he had
sought so persistently was not for him. Men great in the mining world
had smiled compassionately at his story, others with money to invest
had coldly turned their backs on him, and it had been given to a
railroad hand and a surveyor, who had longed for an opportunity for
splitting roofing shingles in return for enough to eat, to prove that,
after all, the skill he had once been proud of had not deserted him.
He had patiently borne defeat, and now the thrill of the long-deferred
triumph had crushed him