y. The impatience was all theirs. When they had got down to fine
sand, "Look!" screamed the Boy.

"By the Lord!" said the Colonel softly.

"Is that--"

"Looks like you got some colours there. Gosh! Then I ain't been
dreamin' after all."

"Hey? Dreamin'? What? Look! Look!"

"That's why I brought you gen'l'men out," says the mackinaw man. "I was
afraid to trust my senses--thought I was gettin' wheels in my head."

"Lord! look at the gold!"

They took about a dollar and twenty cents out of that pan.

"Now see here, you gen'l'men jest lay low about this strike." His
anxiety seemed intense. They reassured him. "I don't suppose you mind
our taking up a claim apiece next you," pleaded the Boy, "since the law
don't allow you to stake more'n one."

"Oh, that's all right," said the mackinaw man, with an air of princely
generosity. "And I don't mind if you like to let in a few of your
particular pals, if you'll agree to help me organise a district. An'
I'll do the recordin' fur ye."

Really, this mackinaw man was a trump. The Colonel took twenty-five
dollars out of a roll of bills and handed it to him.

"What's this fur?"

"For bringing us out--for giving us the tip. I'd make it more, but till
I get to Dawson--"

"Oh!" laughed the mackinaw man, "_that's_ all right," and indifferently
he tucked the bills into his baggy trousers.

The Colonel felt keenly the inadequacy of giving a man twenty-five
dollars who had just introduced him to hundreds of thousands--and who
sat on the edge of his own gold-mine--but it was only "on account."

The Colonel staked No. 1 Above the Discovery, and the Boy was in the
act of staking No. 1 Below when--

"No, no," says that kind mackinaw man, "the heavier gold will be found
further up the gulch--stake No. 2 Above"; and he told them natural
facts about placer-mining that no after expert knowledge could ever
better. But he was not as happy as a man should be who has just struck
pay.

"Fact is, it's kind of upsettin' to find it so rich here."

"Give you leave to upset me that way all day."

"Y' see, I bought another claim over yonder where I done a lot o' work
last summer and fall. Built a cabin and put up a sluice. I _got_ to be
up there soon as the ice goes out. Don't see how I got time to do my
assessment here too. Wish I was twins."

"Why don't you sell this?"

"Guess I'll have to part with a share in it." He sighed and looked
lovingly into the hole. "Minin's an awful gambl