of them, the greenhorn would swear, were fashioned by
man into roughly embossed hearts, or shells, or polished discs like
rude, defaced coins. One was a perfect staple, another the letter "L,"
another like an axe-head, and one like a peasant's sabot. Some were
almost black with iron stains, and some were set with "jewels" of
quartz, but for the most part they were formless fragments of a rich
and brassy yellow.

"Lots of the little fellas are like melon-seeds"; and the Boy pointed a
shaking finger, longing and still not daring to touch the treasure.

Each man had a dim feeling in the back of his head that, after all, the
hillock of gold was an illusion, and his own hand upon the dazzling
pile would clutch the empty air.

"Where's your dust?" asked the Boy.

Dillon stared.

"Why, here."

"This is all nuggets and grains."

"Well, what more do you want?"

"Oh, it'd do well enough for me, but it ain't dust."

"It's what we call dust."

"As coarse as this?"

The Sour-dough nodded, and Lighter laughed.

"There's a fox's mask," said the Colonel at the bottom of the table,
pointing a triangular bit out.

"Let me look at it a minute," begged the Boy.

"Hand it round," whispered Schiff.

It was real. It was gold. Their fingers tingled under the first
contact. This was the beginning.

The rude bit of metal bred a glorious confidence. Under the magic of
its touch Robert Bruce's expensive education became a simple certainty.
In Potts's hand the nugget gave birth to a mighty progeny. He saw
himself pouring out sackfuls before his enraptured girl.

The Boy lifted his flaring torch with a victorious sense of having just
bought back the Orange Grove; and Salmon P. passed the nugget to his
partner with a blissful sigh.

"Well, I'm glad we didn't get cold feet," says he.

"Yes," whispered Schiff; "it looks like we goin' to the right place."

The sheen of the heap of yellow treasure was trying even to the nerves
of the Colonel.

"Put it away," he said quite solemnly, laying the nugget on the
paper--"put it all away before the firelight dies down."

Dillon leisurely gathered it up and dropped the nuggets, with an
absent-minded air, into the pouch which Lighter held.

But the San Francisco _Examiner_ had been worn to the softness of an
old rag and the thinness of tissue. Under Dillon's sinewy fingers
pinching up the gold the paper gave way.

"Oh!" exclaimed more than one voice, as at some grave mishap.

Dil