"That was last year, and I have been prognosticatin' round, off and on, ever since, whenever I could get away from my farmin'. I found a trace, mostly. You can always get a color round here, and no one place better than another. But when the rains begun this year, so I could find water to pan with, I tried it again, higher up. And in a little flat side draw, leadin' from between two miserable little snubby hills off all alone, too low to send much flood water down--there I begun to find float, plumb promisin'. I started to follow it up. You know how--pan to right and left till the stuff fails to show, mark the edge of the pay dirt, go on up the hill and do the like again. If the gold you're followin' has been carried down by water the streak gets narrower as you go up a hillside, and pay dirt gets richer as it gets narrower. If the hill has been tossed about by the hell fires down below, all bets is off and no rule works, not even the exceptions. That's why they say gold is where you find it. But any time you find a fan-shaped strip of color on a hill that looks like it might have stayed put, or nearly so, it's worth while to follow it up. If you find the apex of that triangle you're apt to strike a pocket that will land you right side up with the great and good. Sometimes the apex has done been washed away; these water courses have run quite elsewhere other times. Oh, quite! But there's always a chance. Follow up a narrowing color and quit one that squanders round casual. Them's the rules. "Well, sir, my pay dirt took to the side of that least hill, and she was shaping right smart like a triangle. Then my water give out. I was usin' a little tank in the rocks--no other without packing from MacCleod's Tank, five mile. And I had to get in my last cuttin' of alfalfa--pesky stuff! I cached my outfit and came on home. "So there you are. It's been rainin' again; and I'm goin' out and try another whirl to-morrow, hit or miss. Go snooks with you if you're a mind to side me. What say?" "Why, Big Chump, you're not such a bad old hoss thief, are you? Well, I thank you just as much, and I sure hope you'll make a ten-strike and everything like that; but, you see, I'm busy. Tell you what, Adam--you get Hob to go along, and I'll think about it." "Oh, well, maybe it's a false alarm anyway," said Adam lightly. "I've known better things to fizzle. I get my fun, whatever happens. I can't stay cooped up on that measly old farm all the time. I need a little fresh air every so often. I'm a lot like Thompson's colt, that swum the river to get a drink." "Don't like farmin', eh?"