In less than ten minutes the excited miner was back with another pan full of the precious dirt, which he at once began to wash, his nervous excitement being so great that the pan shook and trembled in his hands. Suddenly, in the midst of his washing, he jumped to his feet with a wild yell. "A nugget! A nugget!" and he held aloft in one hand a little chunk of solid gold, about as large as an egg and nearly of the same shape, only rougher in outline. By this time quite a little crowd of miners had gathered around the lucky man; and handshakes and claps on the shoulders and verbal congratulations were showered on him from all sides, while the nugget was passed from hand to hand, with many wise and otherwise comments as to its weight and probable value and the likelihood of there being others like it where it came from. In the excitement caused by the finding of the nugget, the remaining dirt in the pan was forgotten, until Ham, suddenly remembering, turned to the excited Dickson. "Better finish cleanin' out th' pan, Dick," he said. "Thar's probably more gold in it." "Gosh, if I didn't forget it!" and Dickson grabbed up the pan and began washing its contents with feverish haste. In a few minutes he arose and held out the pan, his hands trembling. "There! Just look there!" he cried, pointing to the glitter of gold in the black sand that covered the bottom of the pan. "If there isn't a good fifteen ounces of gold there, then I miss my guess!" and he broke into a happy laugh. "Well, boys, my luck has turned at last! And there is a little woman up there in that little log cabin that has got to know about it at once," and Dickson dropped the pan and started on the run up the side of the hill toward a little log house that stood in a cluster of pines halfway up its side, followed by cheers from the miners, who appeared to be almost as rejoiced over his good fortune, as if it had been their own. All this had been very interesting and very exciting to Thure and Bud; but now that the climax had been passed their thoughts turned at once to their fathers. "Now," and Thure caught hold of Ham's coat sleeve, "now that we have seen how they get the gold from the ground, take us to our dads. We are more anxious than ever to get to them as quickly as possible."