few yards apart. Their meeting-point was only a few yards above him. But
the pay-streak was dipping deeper and deeper into the earth. By early
afternoon he was sinking the test-holes five feet before the pans could
show the gold-trace.

For that matter, the gold-trace had become something more than a trace;
it was a placer mine in itself, and the man resolved to come back after
he had found the pocket and work over the ground. But the increasing
richness of the pans began to worry him. By late afternoon the worth of
the pans had grown to three and four dollars. The man scratched his head
perplexedly and looked a few feet up the hill at the manzanita bush that
marked approximately the apex of the "V." He nodded his head and said
oracularly:

"It's one o' two things, Bill: one o' two things. Either Mr. Pocket's
spilled himself all out an' down the hill, or else Mr. Pocket's so rich
you maybe won't be able to carry him all away with you. And that'd be an
awful shame, wouldn't it, now?" He chuckled at contemplation of so
pleasant a dilemma.

Nightfall found him by the edge of the stream, his eyes wrestling with
the gathering darkness over the washing of a five-dollar pan.

"Wisht I had an electric light to go on working," he said.

He found sleep difficult that night. Many times he composed himself and
closed his eyes for slumber to overtake him; but his blood pounded with
too strong desire, and as many times his eyes opened and he murmured
wearily, "Wisht it was sun-up."