"A darned sight harder than measuring cloth behind a counter," laughed Dave, as he lifted the hopper off the cradle and with a quick jerk threw the stones out of it and laid it down on the ground. "But a fellow gets something for his hard work--that is, he does if he is lucky," he added, as he picked up a large iron spoon from the ground near the cradle. "Now we'll see how the gold pans out," and bending over the cradle he began digging out the gravel and sand behind the riffle-bars with the spoon and throwing it into a gold-pan, which Hank held. By this time all the company, except Pedro, who had been left in charge of the pack-horses, had gathered around the two men and were watching the cleaning up process with the greatest interest. "'Bout how much dew you expect she'll pan out?" queried Ham, as Dave scraped out the last spoonful of sand and gravel and threw it into the pan. "Somewhere between three and four ounces," answered Dave. "At least that is about what we usually clean out. How does she feel, Hank?" and he turned to his partner, who was running his fingers speculatively through the wet sand in the pan. "I'll bet you an ounce of dust that there is a good five ounces of gold in this pan right now," declared the man, his eyes shining. Before replying Dave took the pan and ran his fingers a few times through the sand. "I'll go you. Wash her out," and he handed the pan back to Hank. Hank now took the pan to the little stream of water, where the swift current would help in separating the gold from the sand; and in a few minutes his skilful hands had succeeded in washing out of the pan all the sand and gravel, except a thin layer of black sand, that was too heavy to wash out without danger of washing out the gold with it, which now could be seen sparkling here and there in the sand. "Want to back out?" and Hank held the pan up in triumph in front of Dave's face. "Sure not. There is not over four ounces there," answered Dave, after a moment's close examination of the sand. "Get out your magnet." Hank now thrust one of his hands into his pocket and pulled out a large horseshoe magnet, the ends of which he at once began passing over the black sand in the bottom of the pan; and, since the black sand was nearly all iron, the magnet force caused it to cling to the horseshoe and in this ingenious manner the remaining sand was quickly drawn from the pan, leaving a thin, a very thin layer of gold-dust lying on its bottom. Dave now produced a small balance from one of his pockets and the gold-dust was quickly gathered up and weighed. "I win! Five ounces and a half!" shouted Hank triumphantly, at the same time giving Dave a resounding whack on his back with the flat of his hand. "That's the best clean up we've had since we started digging here. I reckon you boys brought us good luck," and he grinned joyously into the faces of Thure and Bud.