They found much more extensive excavations than they expected. The natives had, in fact, very completely tested the extent and value of the deposit. Casimiro explained that on the borders of the sandy expanse the depth of earth was only a few inches and practically no gold was mixed with it. Beneath the sand was a solid, sloping bed of rock, almost saucer-shaped, as Fraser discovered. The gold lay mostly at the bottom and in greatest richness within a space of only about one hundred yards square. The depth of sand to the gold and bed-rock was scarcely ten feet. None of these facts were at first apparent to the visitors. They saw no gold. Fraser and Brent picked up handfuls of the coarse sand here and there, but they found no trace of the precious metal. They went down into some of the older trenches, but discovered nothing. At length Casimiro led them to what was evidently a newer working. Some poor, wooden tools had been dropped by the users just where they had stopped work. Fraser sprang into the trench suddenly and got down upon his hands and knees. He scraped about among the earth with his bare fingers. In a few moments he rose to his feet, called his friend to the edge of the ditch, and put into his hand a yellow nugget, so heavy that Brent almost dropped it. It was the size of a small hen’s egg. “It’s thicker than plums in a Christmas pudding down here,” the old miner exclaimed in great excitement. “Come and see.” Brent, nothing loth and as much excited as his companion, leaped down and began scratching in the earth at the bottom of the ditch as madly as the Scotchman had done. Fraser clawed at the loose sand a few feet away. The lust of gold seized both men like a fever. They tore out the shining nuggets from their envelope of earth in frenzied haste, cramming them one after another into their pockets. They shouted to each other in exclamations of glee and disjointed words over each yellow lump, bigger than the last. They toiled on almost frantically, still on hands and knees and with only fingers for tools. They became breathless with their exertions, but panting they worked on. At last Brent looked up. He saw Casimiro a few feet above him. The old chief was standing silent as a statue, with folded arms, watching the mad outburst of the passion for gold in the two men at his feet. Upon his face was a melancholy but proud superiority, mingled with something of pity and of contempt. Brent rose to his feet. His hands fell at his side and he hung his head. His face, already dripping with sweat, flushed a deeper crimson under a sudden sense of shame. He stood abashed and humiliated before this savage, who became in his eyes the personification of a higher virtue than his own. Then as the revulsion of feeling grew upon him, the young man plunged his hand into his pockets and flung back into the trench the yellow treasure he had gathered. Casimiro stopped him. “The white man loves gold; let him keep it,” said the old man quietly.