“Thanks for the caution,” smiled Hazelton.  “But I have just enough intelligence left to understand the value of knowing from what section of the slope each particular lot of rock comes.”

Dinner was eaten in silence.  For one thing the campers were ravenously hungry.  In the second place, though each kept as quiet as possible, he was deep in the thrall of the fever to dig up hidden gold.

The meal was nearly over when Alf Drew came into camp.

“Are you leaving anything to eat?” he asked.

“Maybe,” said Jim Ferrers grimly, “but you were left to wash the breakfast dishes, and you haven’t done it yet.  Now, you’ll wash the breakfast things, and then the dinner things, before you get even a cold bite to eat.”

Alf didn’t protest.  Now that he was back safe in camp he felt much ashamed of himself for having run away and left the camp unwatched.

As soon as he had eaten his dinner Tom Reade went back to the assay furnace to improve the fire.

“Now, Harry, we’ll get the powdered stuff ready to roast,” Reade remarked.  “We’ve a lot of it to rush through this afternoon.”

“And we want to be sure to finish it at least two hours before dark, too,” Larry nodded.  “If we decide to file a claim Jim ought to be riding for Dugout City by dark, ready to file the papers the first thing in the morning.”

“And Jim can bring back half a dozen men to help us sink the first shaft,” proposed Tom.

“That’s where I feel like a fool,” muttered Ferrers.  “I haven’t a blessed dollar to put in as capital.”

“We’ll take your honesty for a good deal in the way of capital, Jim,” Tom hinted cheerfully.

“Harry, you might get out the transit, the tape, markers and other things.  If we stake out a claim we’ll do it so accurately that there can be no fight, afterward, as to the real boundaries of our claim.”

“What shall we call the claim?” inquired Hazelton, as he came back with the surveying outfit.

“Suppose we wait until the assay is done, and find out whether the claim is worth anything better than a bad name,” laughed Tom.

The crucibles were in the furnace now, and a hot flame going.  Jim Ferrers sat by, puffing reflectively at his pipe as he squatted on the ground nearby.  Alf Drew was smoking, too, somewhere, but he had taken his offensive cigarettes to some place of concealment.

Harry anxiously watched the course of the sun, while Tom kept his gaze, most of the time, near the furnace.

“Come on, Harry!” called Tom at last.  “We’d rake out the crucibles.  My, but I hope the buttons are going to be worth weighing.”

A withering blast of hot air reached the young engineers as the oven door of the portable assay furnace was thrown open.  The crucibles were raked out and set in the air to cool.

“Would fanning the crucibles with my hat do any good?” asked Hazelton eagerly.