Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/32

18 the sewed and glued backs of the leaves and the rounded back of the binding. From this he pulled out a piece of brown cloth folded about three or four cylindrical objects. These proved to be the quills of some large bird, plugged with wooden stoppers, three in all.

"I'm losin' th' life in my arms," said Lyman. "Empty the quills out, separate."

Stone took some mail from his pockets and made little sacks of the envelopes of three letters, into which he poured the contents of the quills. All was gold, some fine as grit, some flaky, and some pellets from the size of birdshot up to the diameter of the quill.

"Thar was nuggets, too," said Lyman. "I had a brooch pin and bracelets made of 'em for my wife. I got the dust inside of three hours, dry washin', jest poundin' the dirt, chuckin' out th' pebbles, an' throwin' the rest up in th' air from a bit of hide. Winnowin' it. Come from four places up th' dry crick, the colours gittin' bigger as you went up, an' the nuggets close under the cliff. Them nuggets come clear from the Mother-of-Gold. Over nine hundred pure thet stuff runs. Purer than Californy gold.

"Forty years ago thet was. Dave an' Lem an' me, in Arizony. First we found th' stuff in Wet Crick, on the bars where the freshets had washed it. Then it quit an' we worked back an' located the dry wash. Up thet to the mesa cliff, with arrer heads an' nuggets in the gravel. An' the gravel nigh all quartz. Nex' day I found th' secret an' we found the Mother-of-Gold. Then the 'Paches come. Th'