Page:Hugh Pendexter--Tiberius Smith.djvu/73

 capitulated, and we borrowed two men and a boat and ultimately knocked along the coast and landed at the mouth of the river. We ordered the men to drop anchor and await our return, and to send a posse after us if we failed to ring in after seven days.

"For the first day we hardly got out of sight of our boat, so intent was Tib on examining every bit of ledge and tampering with every bowlder with his hammer. But we didn't find enough gold to fill a tooth. For the next two days we pressed inward rapidly, and one night, while making coffee on a little island, about as large as your hat, and reached by jumping from rock to rock, I made a big hit. The island was apparently the butt-end of a gold-mine. In fact, it needed no geologist sharp to see we'd made a happy haul. Almost every layer of ledge, facing up-stream, that I jerked loose contained several scales of the lovely stuff. Tib said if we'd only follow the banks until we struck some falls we doubtless could scoop it out in hunks.

"Marking the place well in our minds, we packed up our profits and rambled on for several miles. I began to notice some abandoned huts here and there, and warned Tib we had reached Chuck McBurr's stamping-grounds, and he had just poohed at me, said Chuck was far away in other pastures, when an ensemble of the most villanous [sic] apologies