Trowel and spade and tomahawk went furiously to work, and soon cleared away the gravel from a surface of three or four feet.

Beneath this they found a bed of gray clay.

“Let us wash that, captain,” said Jem eagerly.

“No!  Jem,” was the reply; “that is the way novices waste their time.  This gray clay is porous, too porous to hold gold—­we must go deeper.”

Tomahawk, spade and trowel went furiously to work again.

“Give me the spade,” said George, and he dug and shoveled out with herculean strength and amazing ardor; his rheumatism was gone and nerves came back from that very hour.  “Here is a white clay.”

“Let me see it.  Pipe-clay! go no deeper, George; if you were to dig a hundred feet you would not find an ounce of gold below that.”

George rested on his spade.  “What are we to do, then? try somewhere else?”

“Not till we have tried here first.”

“But you say there is nothing below this pipe-clay.”

“No more there is.”

“Well, then.”

“But I don’t say there is nothing above it!!!”

“Well, but there is nothing much above it except the gray, without ’tis this small streak of brownish clay; but that is not an inch thick.”

“George! in that inch lies all the gold we are likely to find; if it is not there we have only to go elsewhere.  Now while I get water you stick your spade in and cut the brown clay away from the white it lies on.  Don’t leave a spot of the brown sticking to the white—­the lower part of the brown clay is the likeliest.”

A shower having fallen the day before, Robinson found water in a hole not far distant.  He filled his calabash and returned; meantime George and Jacky had got together nearly a barrowful of the brown or rather chocolate-colored clay, mixed slightly with the upper and lower strata, the gray and white.

“I want yon calabash and George’s as well.”  Robinson filled George’s calabash two-thirds full of the stuff, and pouring some water upon it, said good-naturedly to Jem, “There—­you may do the first washing, if you like.”

“Thank you, captain,” said Jem, who proceeded instantly to stir and dissolve the clay and pour it carefully away as it dissolved.  Jacky was sent for more water, and this, when used as described, had left the clay reduced to about one-sixth of its original bulk.

“Now, captain,” cried Jem in great excitement.

“No, it’s not now, captain, yet,” said Robinson; “is that the way you do pan-washing?”

He then took the calabash from Jem, and gave him Jacky’s calabash two-thirds full of clay to treat like the other, and this being done he emptied the dry remains of one calabash into the other, and gave Jem a third lot to treat likewise.  This done, you will observe he had in one calabash the results of three first washings.  But now he trusted Jem no longer.  He took the calabash and said, “You look faint,