Unless the wash should prove very productive we would have the worst end of it, for we had to carry the pay dirt down to the stream's edge. For the purpose we used the pack-sacks--or _alforjas_, as the Spaniards call them. Each held about sixty or seventy pounds of dirt. We found this a sweaty and stumbly task--to stagger over the water-smoothed boulders of the wash, out across the shingle to the edge of the stream. There one of us dumped his burden into the cradle; and we proceeded to wash it out. We got the "colour" at once in the residuary black sand.
All morning we laboured manfully, and discovered a brand new set of muscles. By comparison our former toil of mere digging and washing seemed light and pleasurable exercise.
"If this stuff don't run pretty high," grunted McNally, wiping the sweat from his eyes, "it's me voting for the bar. We can't stand all day of this."
He heaved the contents of his pack-sack into the cradle, and shook it disgustedly. Suddenly his jaw dropped and his eye widened with so poignant an expression that we both begged him, in alarm, to tell us what was the matter.
We followed the direction of his gaze, but saw only the meadow, and the horses feeding in it, and the thin smoke beyond, where Don Gaspar was bending his proud Castilian spirit to attend to fried steak and flapjacks.
"Look at those horses!" cried McNally with growing indignation.
"What's the matter with them?" cried Johnny and I in a breath.
"Matter with them! Nothing!" cried McNally with comical disgust. "The matter's with us." He rapped his knuckles on his head. "Solid, all the way through!" said he. "Why, save from nat'ral born human imbelicity, should horses be living like gentlemen while gentlemen are working like horses!"
We took the hint. That afternoon we saddled the pack-horses and led them, laden with the dirt, back and forth between the ravine and the cradle.
All of us worked until rather later in the day than usual.... The hunters, too, did not return until dark. We weighed the results of our labour with eager interest. From our cradle we had taken eleven ounces, while those working the bar had gained just over nine. That was a good day's work, and we were much elated.
"And most any time," exulted Johnny, "we'll run into a big pocket with thousands."