Part 11 (1/2)
Conscious although he was of Jim Hooker's duplicity, he affected to treat it as a comrade's joke.
They halted at last in the middle of an apparently fertile hillside.
Clarence s.h.i.+fted his shovel from his shoulders, unslung his pan, and looked at Flynn. ”Dig anywhere here, where you like,” said his companion carelessly, ”and you'll be sure to find the color. Fill your pan with the dirt, go to that sluice, and let the water run in on the top of the pan--workin' it round so,” he added, ill.u.s.trating a rotary motion with the vessel. ”Keep doing that until all the soil is washed out of it, and you have only the black sand at the bottom. Then work that the same way until you see the color. Don't be afraid of was.h.i.+ng the gold out of the pan--you couldn't do it if you tried. There, I'll leave you here, and you wait till I come back.” With another grave nod and something like a smile in the only visible part of his bearded face--his eyes--he strode rapidly away.
Clarence did not lose time. Selecting a spot where the gra.s.s was less thick, he broke through the soil and turned up two or three spadefuls of red soil. When he had filled the pan and raised it to his shoulder, he was astounded at its weight. He did not know that it was due to the red precipitate of iron that gave it its color. Staggering along with his burden to the running sluice, which looked like an open wooden gutter, at the foot of the hill, he began to carefully carry out Flynn's direction. The first dip of the pan in the running water carried off half the contents of the pan in liquid paint-like ooze. For a moment he gave way to boyish satisfaction in the sight and touch of this unctuous solution, and dabbled his fingers in it. A few moments more of rinsing and he came to the sediment of fine black sand that was beneath it.
Another plunge and swilling of water in the pan, and--could he believe his eyes!--a few yellow tiny scales, scarcely larger than pins' heads, glittered among the sand. He poured it off. But his companion was right; the lighter sand s.h.i.+fted from side to side with the water, but the glittering points remained adhering by their own tiny specific gravity to the smooth surface of the bottom. It was ”the color”--gold!
Clarence's heart seemed to give a great leap within him. A vision of wealth, of independence, of power, sprang before his dazzled eyes, and--a hand lightly touched him on the shoulder.
He started. In his complete preoccupation and excitement, he had not heard the clatter of horse-hoofs, and to his amazement Flynn was already beside him, mounted, and leading a second horse.
”You kin ride?” he said shortly.
”Yes” stammered Clarence; ”but--”
”BUT--we've only got two hours to reach Buckeye Mills in time to catch the down stage. Drop all that, jump up, and come with me!”
”But I've just found gold,” said the boy excitedly.
”And I've just found your--cousin. Come!”
He spurred his horse across Clarence's scattered implements, half helped, half lifted, the boy into the saddle of the second horse, and, with a cut of his riata over the animal's haunches, the next moment they were both galloping furiously away.
CHAPTER IX
Torn suddenly from his prospective future, but too much dominated by the man beside him to protest, Clarence was silent until a rise in the road, a few minutes later, partly abated their headlong speed, and gave him chance to recover his breath and courage.
”Where is my cousin?” he asked.
”In the Southern county, two hundred miles from here.”
”Are we going to him?”
”Yes.”
They rode furiously forward again. It was nearly half an hour before they came to a longer ascent. Clarence could see that Flynn was from time to time examining him curiously under his slouched hat. This somewhat embarra.s.sed him, but in his singular confidence in the man no distrust mingled with it.
”Ye never saw your--cousin?” he asked.
”No,” said Clarence; ”nor he me. I don't think he knew me much, any way.
”How old mout ye be, Clarence?”
”Eleven.”
”Well, as you're suthin of a pup”--Clarence started, and recalled Peyton's first criticism of him--”I reckon to tell ye suthin. Ye ain't goin' to be skeert, or afeard, or lose yer sand, I kalkilate, for skunkin' ain't in your breed. Well, wot ef I told ye that thish yer--thish yer--COUSIN o' yours was the biggest devil onhung; that he'd just killed a man, and had to lite out elsewhere, and THET'S why he didn't show up in Sacramento--what if I told you that?”
Clarence felt that this was somehow a little too much. He was perfectly truthful, and lifting his frank eyes to Flynn, he said,