in liquid paint-like pools, when a trickling stream had formed a gutter
across it, there was always the same deep sanguinary color. Once or
twice it became more vivid in contrast with the white teeth of quartz
that peeped through it from the hillside or crossed the road in crumbled
strata. One of those pieces Clarence picked up with a quickening pulse.
It was veined and streaked with shining mica and tiny glittering cubes
of mineral that LOOKED like gold!

The road now began to descend towards a winding stream, shrunken by
drought and ditching, that glared dazzingly in the sunlight from its
white bars of sand, or glistened in shining sheets and channels. Along
its banks, and even encroaching upon its bed, were scattered a few mud
cabins, strange-looking wooden troughs and gutters, and here and there,
glancing through the leaves, the white canvas of tents. The stumps of
felled trees and blackened spaces, as of recent fires, marked the stream
on either side. A sudden sense of disappointment overcame Clarence. It
looked vulgar, common, and worse than all--FAMILIAR. It was like the
unlovely outskirts of a dozen other prosaic settlements he had seen in
less romantic localities. In that muddy red stream, pouring out of a
wooden gutter, in which three or four bearded, slouching, half-naked
figures were raking like chiffonniers, there was nothing to suggest
the royal metal. Yet he was so absorbed in gazing at the scene, and had
walked so rapidly during the past few minutes, that he was startled, on
turning a sharp corner of the road, to come abruptly upon an outlying
dwelling.

It was a nondescript building, half canvas and half boards. The interior
seen through the open door was fitted up with side shelves, a
counter carelessly piled with provisions, groceries, clothing, and
hardware--with no attempt at display or even ordinary selection--and a