For once every man was satisfied, and it was agreed that it was the richest place which had been discovered in California. But though all were doing well, their finds did not approach those of the party at the head of the valley. The spot on which these were at work was indeed a natural trap for gold. At the lower end of the claim the bed rock was found at the depth of three feet only; but it sloped rapidly down to the foot of the fall, and here an iron rod had been driven down and showed it to be forty feet below the surface. The bed rock had indeed, in the course of ages, been pounded away by the fall of water, and by the boulders and rocks brought down in time of flood, and in the deep hole the gold had lodged, a comparatively small proportion being carried away over the lower lip of the basin. When the bed rock was found at the lower end of the claim, they set to work to clear away and wash the whole surface to that depth, as far as the foot of the rocks on either side of the little amphitheatre. Frank and two of the men went down to Sacramento with horses to bring up pumps, for below the level of the lip of the hole it was, of course, full of water. The stream was carried in a shoot beyond this point, and when the pumps arrived they were soon set to work. Every foot that they descended they found, as they expected, the gravel to be richer and richer; and many nuggets, some of them weighing upwards of a pound, were found. At the end of each week four of the miners, armed to the teeth, carried down the gold and deposited it at the Bank of Sacramento. An escort was needed, for many attacks were made on gold convoys by parties of desperadoes; four men would indeed have been an insufficient guard, but at the same time other diggers in the valley sent down their find, and the escort was always made up to eight men from the general body. Frank, from the first, generally formed one of the escort; he himself was perfectly ready to take his share in the more laborious work of digging, but where Frank went Turk went, and Turk formed so valuable a member of the escort that the rest of the party begged his master always to go with the treasure. Every week had added to the weight and power of the animal, and he was now a most formidable-looking beast. He was extremely quiet and good-tempered at ordinary times, except that he would not allow any stranger to touch him; but when at all excited, his hair bristled from his neck to his tail, and his low, formidable growl, gave a warning which few men would have been inclined to despise,--indeed, of the many rough characters in the camp, there was not one who would not rather have faced a man with a revolver in his hand than have ventured upon a conflict with Turk.