Once the Frenchman’s head was not shaken.  A flush sprang up among the pragmatic lines of L’Epine’s face; his dark eyes glittered; his hand shook; for as he held out the hoe, on its blade were vaguely glimmering particles among the sand.

Later the two adventurers cherished a small nugget of red, red gold!

This find chanced below a bluff in a sort of grotto of rock, which the water filled when the river was high, and left quite dry and exposed as it receded in the droughts of summer.

Whether the two strangers were too much and too long out of sight; whether attention was attracted by certain perforated dippers or pans which they now brought into assiduous use, but which they sought to conceal; whether they had been all the time furtively watched, with a suspicion never abated, one can hardly say.  They had observed every precaution of secrecy that the most zealous heed could suggest.  Only one worked with the pan while the other lay motionless and idle, and vigilantly watched and listened for any stealthy sign of approach.  They fully realized the jealousy of the Indians concerning the mineral wealth of their territory, lest its discovery bring hordes of the craving white people to dispossess them.  This prophetic terror was later fulfilled in the Ayrate division of the tribe, but to the northward, along the Tennessee River, they sedulously guarded this knowledge.  Traditions there are to the present day in the Great Smoky Mountains concerning mines of silver and lead, and of localities rich in auriferous gravel which are approximately ascertained, but which the Cherokees knew accurately and worked as far as they listed;—­they carried their secret with them to the grave or the far west.

The exploration of L’Epine and O’Kimmon of necessity was conducted chiefly by day, but one night the prospectors could not be still, the moon on the sand was so bright!

The time which they had fixed for a silent, secret departure was drawing near.  Their bags were almost filled, but they lingered for a little more, and covetously a little more still.  And this night, this memorable night, the moon on the sand was as bright as day!

The light slanted across the Tennessee River and shimmered in the ripples.  One could see, if one would, the stately lines of dark summits along a far horizon.  A mockingbird was singing from out the boscage of the laurel near at hand, and the night wind was astir.  And suddenly the two gold-washers in the depths of the grotto became conscious that they were not alone.

There, sitting like stone figures one on each side of the narrow portal, were the two cheera-taghe of the town, silent, motionless, watching with eyes how long alert, listening with ears how discerningly attentive, it is impossible to divine.

The gold-washers sprang to their feet, each instinctively grasping for his weapon, but alack, neither was armed!  The pan had come to seem the most potent of accoutrements, with which, in good sooth, one might take the world by storm, and the rifle and knife were forgotten, in their absorption.  Doubtless the Cherokees interpreted aright the gesture, so significant, so obvious to their methods of life.  Both the cheera-taghe were armed with pistol as well as tomahawk and scalping-knife.