"How'll we find it?" asked Terry. "Where is the gold? I don't see any." "This is Gregory gulch, is it?" queried Harry, of the nearest miner--a red-headed, red-stubbled little man squatting in mud to his ankles beside a trickling stream, and twirling a gold-pan. He was muddied all over his tattered trousers and red shirt, and also to his elbows. "It is; at laste it's the Gregory diggin's." He spoke with a strong Irish brogue. "Have you found lots of gold?" invited Terry. "Oi? Not a cint, b'gorry--an' here's another empty pan." As if in disgust the little man straightened up and surveyed them. "But that's not sayin' Oi won't. Oi've got a foine claim right under me feet. Did yez jist get in? Would yez like to buy a nice claim?" He eyed them shrewdly with his twinkling eyes set in his grimy, sweaty face. "Not yet, thank you," responded Harry. "Where's the gold?" "Gold? Faith, all yez got to do is foind it. Sure, ain't it here in Gregory gulch, an' don't yez see all the people diggin'? Didn't Gregory an' five men take out $972 in wan week from their vein, an' afterward sell for $2,100 an' lend the men who bought it $200 so they could go ahead?" "Where are they? Where is that vein?" "Up yonder on the side o' the gulch; but yez can't get annywhere near it, for the people an' the stakes. They don't want visitors. Jist drive your stakes where yez can, an' begin work. My name's Pat Casey. What might yez be called?" They told him. "Well, Oi'll see yez ag'in, boys," promised Pat, grasping his spade to refill his pan. "Who knows but in a few days we'll all be rich together?" "All right, Pat," laughed Harry. So they left Pat engaged with his spade, hoping to strike it with the next pan full. They toiled along, eyes alert for a camping spot. A tent bore the sign: "Groceries for Sail." Another was announced as "Miners' Hotel"--although where it slept its guests was a problem. Another tent, through the flaps of which might be glimpsed a woman, stated: "Back East Biscuits." Dinner of course was a hurried affair. Other gold-seekers were still descending the hill and spreading out wherever they could. So no time was to be lost. They each slung on a gold-pan by means of a thong tied through a hole in the rim; and with pick and spade (Shep staying to mount guard) they sallied forth. "I reckon," mused Harry, "we'll have to do like the rest do: scout about and whenever we see a goldish-looking spot, try it out." "Dad showed us how to work a gold pan. I don't suppose we've forgotten," panted Terry, as they hustled. "Yes, but he didn't show us how to find the gold," reminded Harry. "We ought to locate near water." For an hour they trudged up and down, and never sunk a spade or tried a pan. All the creek and all the side streams seemed occupied. Once they halted and were just about to dig, when a voice bawled: "Get off my ground!" "Excuse me," apologized Harry. The owner of the voice was some distance away. "Is this your claim?"