“Why?  Well, d—­n it all! they kind of oppress me, don’t you see.  I seem to feel ’em here, on my chest—­all the three,” returned Stacy only half jocularly.  “It’s their d——­d specific gravity, I suppose.  I don’t like the idea of sleeping in the same room with ’em.  They’re altogether too much for us three men to be left alone with.”

“You don’t mean that you think that anybody would attempt”—­said Demorest.

Stacy curled a fighting lip rather superciliously.  “No; I don’t think that—­I rather wish I did.  It’s the blessed chunks of solid gold that seem to have got us fast, don’t you know, and are going to stick to us for good or ill.  A sort of Frankenstein monster that we’ve picked out of a hole from below.”

“I know just what Stacy means,” said Barker breathlessly, rounding his gray eyes.  “I’ve felt it, too.  Couldn’t we make a sort of cache of it—­bury it just outside the cabin for to-night?  It would be sort of putting it back into its old place, you know, for the time being.  It might like it.”

The other two laughed.  “Rather rough on Providence, Barker boy,” said Stacy, “handing back the Heaven-sent gift so soon!  Besides, what’s to keep any prospector from coming along and making a strike of it?  You know that’s mining law—­if you haven’t preempted the spot as a claim.”

But Barker was too staggered by this material statement to make any reply, and Demorest arose.  “And I feel that you’d both better be turning in, as we’ve got to get up early.”  He went to the corner of the cabin, and threw the blanket back over the pan and its treasure.  “There that’ll keep the chunks from getting up to ride astride of you like a nightmare.”  He shut the door and gave a momentary glance at its cheap hinges and the absence of bolt or bar.  Stacy caught his eye.  “We’ll miss this security in San Francisco—­perhaps even in Boomville,” he sighed.

It was scarcely ten o’clock, but Stacy and Barker had begun to undress themselves with intervals of yawning and desultory talk, Barker continuing an amusing story, with one stocking off and his trousers hanging on his arm, until at last both men were snugly curled up in their respective bunks.  Presently Stacy’s voice came from under the blankets:—­

“Hallo! aren’t you going to turn in too?”

“Not yet,” said Demorest from his chair before the fire.  “You see it’s the last night in the old shanty, and I reckon I’ll see the rest of it out.”

“That’s so,” said the impulsive Barker, struggling violently with his blankets.  “I tell you what, boys:  we just ought to make a watch-night of it—­a regular vigil, you know—­until twelve at least.  Hold on!  I’ll get up, too!” But here Demorest arose, caught his youthful partner’s bare foot which went searching painfully for the ground in one hand, tucked it back under the blankets, and heaping them on the top of him, patted the bulk with an authoritative, paternal air.