George was vexed.  Robinson grinned; expecting nothing, he was not disappointed.  Besides, he was winning an argument, and we all like to turn out prophets.  Presently a little cackle from Jacky.

“I find um!”

“Find what?” asked Robinson, without looking up.

“A good deal yellow stone,” replied Jacky, with at least equal composure.

“Let me see that,” said George, with considerable curiosity; and they both went to Jacky.

Now the fact is that this heap of quartz stones was in reality much larger than they thought, only the greater part of it had been overgrown with moss and patches of grass a few centuries of centuries ago.

Jacky, seated on what seemed a grassy mound, was in reality perched upon a part of the antique heap; his keen eye saw a little bit of yellow protruding through the moss, and he was amusing himself clipping it with his tomahawk, cutting away the moss and chipping the stone, which made the latter glitter more and yellower.

“Hallo!” cried George, “this looks better.”

Robinson went on his knees without a word.

“It is all right,” said he, in a great flutter, “it is a nugget—­and a good-sized one—­a pound weight, I think.  Now then, my lad, out you come;” and he dug his fingers under it to jerk it out.

But the next moment he gave a screech and looked up amazed.

“Why, this is the point of the nugget; it lies the other way, not flat.  George!  I can’t move it!  The pick!  Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!  The pick! the pick!”

“Stand clear,” shouted George, and he drove the point of the pick down close by the prize, then he pressed on the handle.  “Why, Tom, it is jammed somehow.”

“No, it is not jammed—­it is its own weight.  Why, George!”

“Then, Tom! it is a hundred-weight if it is an ounce!”

“Don’t be a fool,” cried the other, trembling all over; “there is no such thing in nature.”

The nugget now yielded slowly to the pressure and began to come up into the world again inch by inch after so many thousand years.  Of course, before it could come all out, the soil must open first, and when Robinson, glaring down, saw a square foot of earth part and gape as the nugget came majestically up, he gave another cry, and with trembling hands laid hold of the prize, and pulled and tugged and rolled it on the clean moss—­to lift it was not so easy.  They fell down on their knees by the side of it like men in a dream.  Such a thing had never been seen or heard of—­a hundred-weight of quartz and gold, and beautiful as it was great.  It was like honeycomb, the cells of which had been sliced by a knife; the shining metal brimmed over in the delicate quartz cells.

They lifted it.  Yes, full a hundredweight; half the mass was quartz, but four-fifths of the weight they knew must be gold.  Then they jumped up and each put a foot on it, and shook hands over it.