"Maybe I don't want to see it!" exclaimed Kells. "A thirty-pounder!
I heard of one once, sixty pounds, but I never saw it. You can't
believe till you see."

"Jim's comin' up the road now," said one of the men near the door.
"Thet crowd hangs on. ... But I reckon he's shakin' them."

"What'll Cleve do with this nugget?"

Gulden's big voice, so powerful, yet feelingless, caused a momentary
silence. The expression of many faces changed. Kells looked
startled, then annoyed.

"Why, Gulden, that's not my affair--nor yours," replied Kells.
"Cleve dug it and it belongs to him."

"Dug or stole--it's all the same," responded Gulden.

Kell's threw up his hands as if it were useless and impossible to
reason with this man.

Then the crowd surged round the door with shuffling boots and
hoarse, mingled greetings to Cleve, who presently came plunging in
out of the melee.

His face wore a flush of radiance; his eyes were like diamonds. Joan
thrilled and thrilled at sight of him. He was beautiful. Yet there
was about him a more striking wildness. He carried a gun in one hand
and in the other an object wrapped in his scarf. He flung this upon