Johnny held the pail, while Yank and I vied with each other in being the first to get our shovelfuls into that receptacle. As a consequence we nearly swamped the pail first off, and had to pour some of the earth out again. Then we all three ran down to the river and took turns stirring that mud pie beneath the gently flowing waters in the manner of the "pot panners" we had first watched. After a good deal of trouble we found ourselves possessed of a thick layer of rocks and coarse pebbles. "We forgot to screen it," I pointed out. "We haven't any screen," said Johnny. "Let's pick 'em out by hand?" suggested Yank. We did so. The process emptied the pail. Each of us insisted on examining closely; but none of us succeeded in creating out of our desires any of that alluring black sand. "I suppose we can't expect to get colour every time?" observed Johnny disappointedly. "Let's try her again." We tried her again: and yet again; and then some more; but always with the same result. Our hands became puffed and wrinkled with constant immersion in the water, and began to feel sore from the continual stirring of the rubble. "Something wrong," grunted Johnny into the abysmal silence in which we had been carrying on our work. "We can't expect it every time," I reminded him. "All the others seem to." "Well, maybe we've struck a blank place; let's try somewhere else," suggested Yank. Johnny went over to speak to our neighbour, who was engaged in tossing out shovelfuls of earth from an excavation into which he had nearly disappeared. At Johnny's hail, he straightened his back, so that his head bobbed out of the hole like a prairie dog. "No, it doesn't matter where you dig," he answered Johnny's question. "The pay dirt is everywhere." So we moved on a few hundred feet, picked another unoccupied patch, and resumed our efforts. No greater success rewarded us here. "I believe maybe we ought to go deeper," surmised Yank. "Some of these fellows are taking their dirt right off top of the ground," objected Johnny. However, we unlimbered the pickaxe and went deeper; to the extent of two feet or more. It was good hard work, especially as we were all soft for it. The sun poured down on our backs with burning intensity; our hands blistered; and the round rocks and half-cemented rubble that made the bar were not the easiest things in the world to remove. However, we kept at it. Yank and I, having in times past been more or less accustomed to this sort of thing, got off much easier than did poor Johnny. About two feet down we came to a mixed coarse sand and stones, a little finer than the top dirt. This seemed to us promising, so we resumed our washing operations. They bore the same results as had the first; which was just the whole of nothing. "We've got to hit it somewhere," said Johnny between his teeth. "Let's try another place."