Page:Cornelia Meigs--The windy hill.djvu/153

Rh It was, indeed, horse's feet that aroused him, but not, by good fortune, the unshod hoofs of Indian ponies. A band of men was riding toward him from the westward, hard, grizzled men, weather-beaten and toil-worn beyond anything Felix had ever seen.

"We met your party back yonder," said their leader. "They asked us to look out for you as we went by. Glad to see the Indians haven't got you yet."

"Oh!" exclaimed Felix, sitting up and rubbing his eyes, "Have you—have you been in California?"

The man nodded. He drew out of his pocket a greasy little buckskin bag, opened the strings, and poured a stream of something yellow into the boy's hand.

"Ever see gold dust before?" he asked.

It was Felix's first sight of the odd, flattened flakes of metal that shine dully in your hand, that are no two alike, so that you can turn them over and over, always seeing different shapes and sizes, different gleams and lights upon their changing surfaces.

"There's a lot of it back there where we've been," the man said, grinning slowly as he saw Felix's excited face. "We left it there for you and those like you."

"And did you find all you wanted? Are you going home now to be rich and comfortable all your days?" the boy inquired.

The man's grin grew broader still.