aightway to the
place.

Here, in the moonlight, we stood waiting, Firm and myself and Suan Isco,
who had more dread than love of gold, and might be useful to keep watch,
or even to lend a hand, for she was as strong as an ordinary man. The
night was sultry, and the fire-flies (though dull in the radiance of the
moon) darted, like soft little shooting-stars, across the still face
of shadow, and the flood of the light of the moon was at its height,
submerging every thing.

While we were whispering and keeping in the shade for fear of attracting
any wanderer's notice, we saw the broad figure of the Sawyer rising from
a hollow of the bank, and behind him came Martin the foreman, and we
soon saw that due preparation had been made, for they took from under
some drift-wood (which had prevented us from observing it) a small
movable crane, and fixed it on a platform of planks which they set up in
the river-bed.

"Palefaces eat gold," Suan Isco said, reflectively, and as if to satisfy
herself. "Dem eat, drink, die gold; dem pull gold out of one other's
ears. Welly hope Mellican mans get enough gold now."

"Don't be sarcastic, now, Suan," I answered; "as if it were possible to
have enough!"

"For my part," said Firm, who had been unusually silent all the evening,
"I wish it had never been found at all. As sure as I stand here,
mischief will come of it. It will break up our household. I hope it will
turn out a lump of quartz, gilt on the face, as those big nuggets do,
ninety-nine out of a hundred. I have had no faith in it all along."

"Because I found it, Mr. Firm, I suppose," I answered, rather pettishly,
for I never had liked Firm's incessant bitterness about my nugget.
"Perhaps if you had found it, Mr. Firm, you would have had great faith
in it."

"Can't say, can't say," was all Firm's reply; and he fell into the
silent vein again.

"Heave-ho! heave-ho! there, you sons of cooks!" cried the Sawyer, who
was splashing for his life in the water. "I've tackled 'un now. Just
tighten up the belt, to see if he biteth centre-like. You can't lift
'un! Lord bless 'ee, not you. It 'll take all I know to do that, I
guess; and Firm ain't to lay no hand to it. Don't you be in such a
doggoned hurry. Hold hard, can't you?"

For Suan and Martin were hauling for their lives, and even I caught hold
of a rope-end, but had no idea what to do with it, when the Sawyer swung
himself up to bank, and in half a minute all was orderly. He showe