“Well,” replied Harry, “the same as you, judging from the way you rushed up when you saw me scoop it up.” Then they both laughed, and Joe took the yellow seal from his pocket and looked at it lovingly. “It was down this way somewhere that this came from,” he said. “What we’ve got here is fool’s gold, though.” “So it is,” said Harry. “All the same, a mica-schist country is liable to be gold-bearing. We had a course in mineralogy at the prep school, and I learned about such things. What do you say if we prospect for a day?” They would better have been hunting. They knew that, but the gold fever is a strange thing. The germs of it had been planted in their systems by the purchase of the singular nugget from the old Kowak River chief; now the sight of some mica in a stream had stirred the dormant microbes into action. They tore back to camp and brought the umiak paddle to use as a rude shovel. They had nothing better. Harry also brought their one pan. Hunger was not to be thought of, home and civilization could wait; they had the gold fever. There is surely something in the Alaskan air that makes men peculiarly susceptible to this disease. During the last fifteen years a hundred thousand men have left home and friends, lucrative positions, all the comforts of “God’s country,” and risked fortune, health, and life because of this burning fever in their veins. Where one has succeeded thousands have failed, yet still they throng to the wild north, driven by the insatiable thirst for sudden wealth. Though the boys did not know it, the crest of this wave of hardy immigrants, wild fortune-seekers, and adventurers was already surging toward them from the south, and had nearly reached the wild coast that harbored them. Perhaps its enthusiasm had preceded them in the air. Anyway, they had the gold fever. They dug the sparkling micaceous sand from the banks of the little creek, and Harry panned it, as the miners say. He filled the pan with it, added water, and by whirling and shaking the pan and flipping the water over the sides of it, he washed out all the lighter particles. As he reached the bottom, he proceeded more carefully, and both boys watched the result with eagerness. To “pan gold” well is not easy and requires much practice, but almost any one can with a trial or two pan it roughly. As the last of the sand was washed away by the whirling water, Harry set up a shout. “Black sand!” he said. “We’ve got black sand!” “Humph!” said Joe, much disappointed. “What of it? It isn’t black sand we want, it’s gold.” “Yes,” replied Harry excitedly, “but that’s a sign. The black sand always comes with the gold in placer mines. Wait till I wash this sand away.”