"There," said Uncle Will, as he finished, "you see we have here the yield of several panfuls, and it has taken but a few minutes to secure it. The rocker is a handy machine to carry from place to place wherever, by panning, we find the gold most abundant." "But what would you do without the ditch?" "We should pour in water from a pail. Now let us examine the sluice-boxes." Uncle Will led the way down the stream to the point where Lucky and Coffee Jack were at work. A second ditch, similar to the first, had been prepared for the sluicing; and the boxes, three in number, were set in the lower end of it, each consisting of a bottom board about twelve feet long and a foot wide, and two side boards of the same dimensions. The lower end of the first or upper box was reduced in width sufficiently to allow it to fit into the upper end of the second box, the latter fitting in like manner into the third, which extended slightly over the creek. All the boxes were inclined enough so that the water from the ditch would flow through them quite rapidly. Instead of transverse riffles, two sets of poles were laid lengthwise in the bottom of each box, each set having a length of about five and a half feet and consisting of three poles held an inch apart by pieces of wood nailed across their ends. Into the upper end of the upper box Lucky was shovelling gravel, which was immediately swept through the three boxes by the strong current of water. Coffee Jack, shovel in hand, kept the larger stones moving when they threatened to choke up the boxes. At the lower end a stream of muddy water and gravel was constantly discharged into the creek, the impetuous current of which bore it instantly away. "Sluicing," said Uncle Will, "is another step forward in placer--or gravel--mining, since the sluice will handle more material than even the rocker. It is the favorite method on a claim of this character." "And how is the gold caught here?" asked Roly. "It falls down between the poles, and is held there by its own weight and the cross-pieces." "You must have had to do a lot of whip-sawing to make so many boards," observed the boy. "Indeed we did," replied his uncle. "That was the hardest part of the work. We built a saw-pit--that raised log platform over yonder--and there we did the sawing, Lucky standing on top of the log and holding the saw from above, while I was under the platform to guide it on the down stroke. I rather had the worst of it, for the sawdust came into my eyes. When your father returned from Dalton's, he took a turn at it, which gave me time to make the rocker." "How often do you take the gold out of the sluice-boxes?" asked Roly. "We may as well clear the boxes now," answered his uncle. "It's three days since we began operations."