Joe Graddy's breathing proclaimed that he had succumbed at once, but Frank lay for a considerable time winking owlishly at the stars, which returned him the compliment with interest by twinkling at him through the branches of the overhanging trees. Early next morning they arose, remounted their mules and turned back, diverging, according to arrangement, from their former track, and making for a particular part of the diggings where Frank had been given to understand there were many subjects of interest for his pencil. We would fain linger by the way, to describe much of what they saw, but the limits of our space require that we should hasten onward, and transport the reader at once to a place named the Great Canon, which, being a very singular locality, and peculiarly rich in gold, merits description. It was a gloomy gap or gorge--a sort of gigantic split in the earth-- lying between two parallel ranges of hills at a depth of several hundred feet, shaped like a wedge, and so narrow below that there was barely standing room. The gold all lay at the bottom, the slopes being too steep to afford it a resting-place. The first diggers who went there were said to have gathered vast quantities of gold; and when Frank and Joe arrived there was quite enough to repay hard work liberally. The miners did not work in companies there. Indeed, the form of the chasm did not admit of operations on a large scale being carried on at any one place. Most of the men worked singly with the pan, and used large bowie-knives with which they picked gold from the crevices of the rocks in the bed of the stream, or scratched the gravelly soil from the roots of the overhanging trees, which were usually rich in deposits. The gorge, about four miles in extent, presented one continuous string of men in single file, all eagerly picking up gold, and admitting that in this work they were unusually successful. But these poor fellows paid a heavy price for the precious metal in the loss of health, the air being very bad, as no refreshing breezes could reach them at the bottom of the gloomy defile. The gold at that place was found both in very large and very small grains, and was mixed with quantities of fine black sand, which the miners blew off from it somewhat carelessly--most of them being "green hands," and anxious to get at the gold as quickly as possible. This carelessness on their part was somewhat cleverly taken advantage of by a keen old fellow who chanced to enter the hut of a miner when Frank and Joe were there. He had a bag on his back and a humorous twinkle in his eye. "Well, old foxey, what do _you_ want?" asked the owner of the hut, who happened to be blowing off the sand from a heap of his gold at the time. "Sure it's only a little sand I want," said the man, in a brogue which betrayed his origin. "Sand, Paddy, what for?"