musically with the rush of waters, the tinkle of tools, and the
song of steel on rock. There were four "strings" of boxes abreast,
and the heaving line of shovellers ate rapidly into the creek bed,
while teams with scrapers splashed through the tail races in an
atmosphere of softened profanity. In the big white tents which sat
back from the bluffs, fifty men of the night shift were asleep;
for there is no respite here--no night, no Sunday, no halt, during
the hundred days in which the Northland lends herself to pillage.

The mine lay cradled between wonderful, mossy, willow-mottled
mountains, while above and below the gulch was dotted with tents
and huts, and everywhere, from basin to hill crest, men dug and
blasted, punily, patiently, while their tracks grew daily plainer
over the face of this inscrutable wilderness.

A great contentment filled the two partners as they looked on this
scene. To wrest from reluctant earth her richest treasures, to add
to the wealth of the world, to create--here was satisfaction.

"We ain't robbin' no widders an' orphans doin' it, neither,"
Dextry suddenly remarked, expressing his partner's feelings
closely. They looked at each other and smiled with that rare
understanding that exceeds words.

Descending into the cut, the old man filled a gold-pan with dirt
taken from under the feet of the workers, and washed it in a
puddle, while the other watched his dexterous whirling motions.
When he had finished, they poked the stream of yellow grains into
a pile, then, with heads together, guessed its weight, laughing
again delightedly, in perfect harmony and contentment.