The next morning, while the others were finishing their breakfast, Mukoki equipped himself for a journey.

“Go down chasm,” he explained to Rod “Fin’ where get out to plain.  Shoot meat.”

That day the gold hunters were more systematic in their work, beginning close to the fall, one on each side of the stream, and panning their way slowly down the chasm.  By noon they had covered two hundred yards, and their only reward was a tiny bit of gold, worth no more than a dollar, which Rod had found in his pan.  By the time darkness again compelled them to stop they had prospected a quarter of a mile down stream without discovering other signs of John Ball’s treasure.  In spite of their failure they were less discouraged than the previous evening, for this failure, in a way, was having a sedative and healthful effect.  It convinced them that there was a hard and perhaps long task ahead of them, and that they could not expect to find their treasure winnowed in yellow piles for them.

Early in the evening Mukoki returned laden with caribou meat, and with the news that the first break in the chasm walls was fully five miles below.  The adventurers now regretted that they had chopped down the stub, for it was decided that the next work should be in the stream above the fall, which would necessitate a ten-mile tramp, five miles to the break and five miles back.  When the journey was begun at dawn the following morning several days’ supplies were taken along, and also a stout rope by means of which the gold hunters could lower themselves back into their old camp when their work above was completed.  Rod noticed that the rocks in the stream seemed much larger than when he had first seen them, and he mentioned the fact to Wabigoon.

“The floods are going down rapidly,” explained the young Indian.  “All of the snow is melted from the sides of the mountains, and there are no lakes to feed this chasm stream.  Within a week there won’t be more than a few inches of water below the fall.”

“And that is when we shall find the gold!” declared Rod with his old enthusiasm.  “I tell you, we haven’t gone deep enough!  This gold has been here for centuries and centuries, and it has probably settled several feet below the surface of the river-bed.  Ball and the Frenchmen found twenty-seven pounds in June, when the creek was practically dry.  Did you ever read about the discoveries of gold in Alaska and the Yukon?”

“A little, when I was going to school with you.”

“Well, the richest finds were nearly always from three to a dozen feet under the surface, and when a prospector found signs in surface panning he knew there was rich dirt below.  Well find our gold in this chasm, and near the fall!”