“A kangaroo!” shouted Robinson, “it must have got up near that bush; come and look—­if it is we will hunt it down.”

George turned back with him, but on reflection he said, “No!  Tom, we have a long road to go, let us keep on, if you please;” and they once more turned their backs to the cave, whistled Carlo, and stepped briskly out toward the valley.  A few yards before them was the brook I have already noticed—­it was about three yards broad at this spot.  However, Robinson, who was determined not to make George lose any more time, took the lead and giving himself the benefit of a run, cleared it like a buck.  But as he was in the air his eye caught some object on this side the brook, and making a little circle on the other side, he came back with ludicrous precipitancy, and jumping short, landed with one foot on shore and one in the stream.  George burst out laughing.

“Do you see this?” cried Robinson.

“Yes; somebody has been digging a hole here,” said George very coolly.

“Come higher up,” cried Robinson, all in a flutter—­“do you see this?”

“Yes; it is another hole.”

“’It is.  Do you see this wet, too?”

“I see there has been some water spilled by the brook side.”

“What kind of work has been done here? have they been digging potatoes, farmer?”

“Don’t be foolish, Tom.”

“Is it any kind of work you know?  Here is another trench dug.”

“No! it is nothing in my way, that is the truth.”

“But it is work the signs of which I know as well as you know a plowed field from a turnpike-road.”

“Why, what is it then?”

“It is gold washing.”

“You don’t say so, Tom.”

“This is gold washing as beginners practice it in California and Mexico and Peru, and wherever gold-dust is found.  They have been working with a pan, they haven’t got such a thing as a cradle in this country.  Come lower down; this was yesterday’s work, let us find to-day’s.”

The two men now ran down the stream busy as dogs hunting an otter.  A little lower down they found both banks of the stream pitted with holes about two feet deep and the sides drenched with water from it.

“Well, if it is so, you need not look so pale; why, dear me, how pale you are, Tom!”

“You would be pale,” gasped Tom, “if you could see what a day this is for you and me, ay! and for all the world, old England especially.  George, in a month there will be five thousand men working round this little spot.  Ay! come,” cried he, shouting wildly at the top of his voice, “there is plenty for all.  GOLD!  GOLD!  GOLD!  I have found it.  I, Tom Robinson, I’ve found it, and I grudge it to no man.  I, a thief that was, make a present of it to its rightful owner, and that is all the world.  Here GOLD!  GOLD!  GOLD!”

Though George hardly understood his companion’s words, he was carried away by the torrent of his enthusiasm, and even as Robinson spoke his cheeks in turn flushed and his eyes flashed, and he grasped his friend’s hands warmly, and cried, “GOLD!  GOLD! blessings on it if it takes me to Susan; GOLD!  GOLD!”