They saw him draw a bucket of gravel from the hole
and tilt it on the edge of the dump. Likewise they saw another,
man, strangely familiar, filling a pan with the fresh gravel. His
hands were large; his hair wets pale yellow. But before they
reached him, he turned with the pan and fled toward a cabin. He
wore no hat, and the snow falling down his neck accounted for his
haste. Bill and Kink ran after him, and came upon him in the
cabin, kneeling by the stove and washing the pan of gravel in a tub
of water.
He was too deeply engaged to notice more than that somebody had
entered the cabin. They stood at his shoulder and looked on. He
imparted to the pan a deft circular motion, pausing once or twice
to rake out the larger particles of gravel with his fingers. The
water was muddy, and, with the pan buried in it, they could see
nothing of its contents. Suddenly he lifted the pan clear and sent
the water out of it with a flirt. A mass of yellow, like butter in
a churn, showed across the bottom.
Hootchinoo Bill swallowed. Never in his life had he dreamed of so
rich a test-pan.
"Kind of thick, my friend," he said huskily. "How much might you
reckon that-all to be?"
Ans Handerson did not look up as he replied, "Ay tank fafty
ounces.
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