The General lifted his right arm in the attitude of the orator about to make a telling hit, but he was hampered by having a mug at his lips.  In the pause, as he stood commanding attention, at the same time that he swallowed half a pint of liquor, he gave Dillon time leisurely to get up, knock the ashes out of his pipe stick it in his belt, put a slow hand behind him towards his pistol pocket, and bring out his buckskin gold sack.  Now, only Mac of the other men had ever seen a miner’s purse before, but every one of the four cheechalkos knew instinctively what it was that Dillon held so carelessly.  In that long, narrow bag, like the leg of a child’s stocking, was the stuff they had all come seeking.

The General smacked his lips, and set down the granite cup.

“That’s the argument,” he said.  “Got a noospaper?”

The Colonel looked about in a flustered way for the tattered San Francisco Examiner; Potts and the Boy hustled the punch-bowl on to the bucket board, recklessly spilling some of the precious contents.  O’Flynn and Salmon P. whisked the Christmas tree into the corner, and not even the Boy remonstrated when a gingerbread man broke his neck, and was trampled under foot.

“Quick! the candles are going out!” shouted the Boy, and in truth each wick lay languishing in a little island of grease, now flaring bravely, now flickering to dusk.  It took some time to find in the San Francisco Examiner of August 7 a foot square space that was whole.  But as quickly as possible the best bit was spread in the middle of the table.  Dillon, in the breathless silence having slowly untied the thongs, held his sack aslant between the two lights, and poured out a stream-nuggets and coarse bright gold.

The crowd about the table drew audible breath.  Nobody actually spoke at first, except O’Flynn, who said reverently:  “Be—­the Siven!  Howly Pipers!—­that danced at me—­gran’-mother’s weddin’—­when the divvle—­called the chune!” Even the swimming wicks flared up, and seemed to reach out, each a hungry tongue of flame to touch and taste the glittering heap, before they went into the dark.  Low exclamations, hands thrust out to feel, and drawn back in a sort of superstitious awe.

Here it was, this wonderful stuff they’d come for!  Each one knew by the wild excitement in his own breast, how in secret he had been brought to doubt its being here.  But here it was lying in a heap on the Big Cabin table! and—­now it was gone.

The right candle had given out, and O’Flynn, blowing with impatience like a walrus, had simultaneously extinguished the other.

For an instant a group of men with strained and dazzled eyes still bent above the blackness on the boards.

“Stir the fire,” called the Colonel, and flew to do it himself.

“I’ll light a piece of fat pine,” shouted the Boy, catching up a stick, and thrusting it into the coals.

“Where’s your bitch?” said Dillon calmly.