"We were all rich by the time we reached Aranchez. But what use is metal? One can't eat it, nor drink it, nor even sleep on't; and the fellows up there had got as much as we had ourselves. Everything cost twenty--no, but two hundred and twenty times its value! I used to cut a goold button off my coat every morning for a day's grub, so that we had to make ourselves a kind of log-hut outside the village, and try to vittal ourselves as best we could. There war n't much savin' in that plan neither, for we drank brandy all day long, and it cost half an ounce of goold every bottle of it! Then we stayed up all night and played brag, and it was that finished Narvasque. He was a-betting with Shem Avery, and Shem, who felt he was in for a run of luck, layed it on a bit heavy like; and the end o' it was, he won all Narvasque's two months' diggin's, all to a twenty-eight 'ouncer' that he would n't bet for anybody,--no, nor let any one see where he hid it. Shem had his heart on that lump, and said, 'I 'll go fifty ounces against your lump, Narvasque;' and the other did n't take it at first, but up he gets and leaves the hut. 'Honor bright,' said he, 'no man follows me.' They all gave their words, and he went out a short distance into the wood, where he had a sheep's heart hanging near a rock, in the centre of which he had concealed his treasure. He was n't three yards from the spot, when a great spotted snake darts through the long grass, and, making a spring at the piece of meat, bolts it and away! Narvasque followed into the deep jungle, unarmed as he was; there a deadly combat must have ensued, for when his cries aroused us, as we sat within the hut, we found him bitten on every part of the body, and so near death that he had only time to tell how it happened, when he expired." "And the snake?" cried several, in a breath. "He got clear away; we gave chase for four days after him in vain. But a fellow with as much spare cash about him must have come to bad ere now." "The Injians has ripped him open afore this, depend on't," said another. "There 's scarce a snake of any size hasn't an emerald or splice of gold in him." "There's more gold lies hidden by fellows that have never lived, or come back to claim it, than ye know of," said the old trapper; "and that's the kind of 'Placer' _I'd_ like to chance upon, already washed and smelted."