All morning we laboured manfully, and discovered a brand new set of muscles. By comparison our former toil of mere digging and washing seemed light and pleasurable exercise. "If this stuff don't run pretty high," grunted McNally, wiping the sweat from his eyes, "it's me voting for the bar. We can't stand all day of this." He heaved the contents of his pack-sack into the cradle, and shook it disgustedly. Suddenly his jaw dropped and his eye widened with so poignant an expression that we both begged him, in alarm, to tell us what was the matter. "Now, will you look at that!" he cried. We followed the direction of his gaze, but saw only the meadow, and the horses feeding in it, and the thin smoke beyond, where Don Gaspar was bending his proud Castilian spirit to attend to fried steak and flapjacks. "Look at those horses!" cried McNally with growing indignation. "What's the matter with them?" cried Johnny and I in a breath. "Matter with them! Nothing!" cried McNally with comical disgust. "The matter's with us." He rapped his knuckles on his head. "Solid, all the way through!" said he. "Why, save from nat'ral born human imbelicity, should horses be living like gentlemen while gentlemen are working like horses!" We took the hint. That afternoon we saddled the pack-horses and led them, laden with the dirt, back and forth between the ravine and the cradle. All of us worked until rather later in the day than usual.... The hunters, too, did not return until dark. We weighed the results of our labour with eager interest. From our cradle we had taken eleven ounces, while those working the bar had gained just over nine. That was a good day's work, and we were much elated. "And most any time," exulted Johnny, "we'll run into a big pocket with thousands." CHAPTER XXIV THE INDIANS Although we did not immediately run into the expected thousands, nor did the promise of that first glorious day of discovery quite fulfil itself, nevertheless our new diggings turned out to be very rich. We fell into routine; and the days and weeks slipped by. Bagsby and one companion went out every day to hunt or to fish. We took turns at a vacation in camp. Every night we "blew" our day's collection of sand, weighed the gold, and packed it away. Our accumulations were getting to be very valuable. For a month we lived this idyllic life quite unmolested, and had gradually come to feel that we were so far out of the world that nothing would ever disturb us. The days seemed all alike, clear, sparkling, cloudless. It was my first experience with the California climate, and these things were a perpetual wonder to my New England mind.