re calling men from ranch and seaboard. They were coming down from
Oregon along the wild spine of the coast ranges and up from the Mission
towns strung on highways beaten out by Spanish soldier and padre. The
news was now en route to the outer world carried by ships. It would
fly from port to port, run like fire up the eastern coast and leap to
the inland cities and the frontier villages. And next spring, when the
roads were open, would come the men, the regiments of men, on foot,
mounted, in long caravans, hastening to California for the gold that
was there for anyone who had the strength and hardihood to go.

The bearded man got up, went to his horse and brought back his pack.
He opened it, pulled off the outer blanketing, and from a piece of
dirty calico drew a black sock, bulging and heavy. From this in turn
he shook a small buckskin sack. He smoothed the calico, untied a
shoestring from the sack's mouth, and let a stream of dun-colored dust
run out. It shone in the firelight in a slow sifting rivulet, here and
there a bright flake like a spangle sending out a yellow spark.
Several times a solid particle obstructed the lazy flow, which broke
upon it like water on a rock, dividing and sinking in two heavy
streams. It poured with unctious deliberation till the sack was empty,
and the man held it up to show the powdered dust of dust clinging to
the inside.

"That's three weeks' washing on the river across the valley beyond
Sacramento," he said, "and it's worth four thousand dollars in the
United States mint."

The pile shone yellow in the fire's even glow, and they stared at it,
wonderstruck, each face showing a sudden kindling of greed, the longing
to possess, to know the power and peace of wealth. It came with added
sharpness in the midst of their bare distress. Even the girl felt it,
leaning forward to gloat with brightened eyes on the little pyramid.
David forgot his injuries and craned his neck to listen, dreams once
more astir. California became suddenly a radiant vision. No longer a
faint line of color, vaguely lovely, but a place where fortune waited
them, gold to fill their coffers, to bring them ease, to give their
aspirations definite shape, to repay them for their bitter pilgrimage.
They were seized with the lust of it, and their attentive faces
sharpened with the strain of the growing desire. They felt the onward
urge to be up and moving, to get there and lay their hands on the
waiting trea