"Let me go in there," suggested Fred, and caught up the pick. Swinging the tool over his shoulder, he brought it down with all force at a spot where the rock showed a slight crack. "Look out, or you'll break that pick!" called out Randy, when the front half of the rock fell away, and Fred had to jump up to avoid having his feet crushed. As he made the leap, his eyes caught sight of a surface of yellow half hidden by muck and moss. He struck at it with the pick, and out came a nugget nearly as big as his fist. He grabbed it up in a transport of delight. "Look! look! A nugget! Oh, what a big fellow! How much do you think it's worth?" he cried; and rubbed the muck off with his coat sleeve. "It looks as if it was solid!" "It is almost solid," said Earl, weighing the find in his hand. "It's worth two or three hundred dollars at least." And then he added, by way of a caution, "You'll have to remember, Fred, that this is my uncle's claim." "Oh, I know that. But it ought to be worth something for finding it," said Fred, wistfully. "Certainly, we'll make it right." "Of course we will," added Randy. "Let us see if there are any more nuggets in there. This may be a pocket, like the one I found on Prosper Gulch." He went forward, but Earl was ahead of him, and was using the pick with all the speed and skill at his command. As the remainder of the rock came away, a mass of sand, gravel, and dirt followed. "Here are four small nuggets," said Randy, picking them up. "Fifty-dollar finds, every one of them." Earl said nothing, although he heard the talk. He had espied a gleam of dull yellow wedged in between the side of the split and a second rock. He tried to force the second rock out, and as it moved forward the gleam of yellow became larger and larger, until his hand could not have covered it. He worked on frantically, hardly daring to breathe. At last the rock fell and the face of the nugget lay revealed, shaped very much like the sole and heel of a large man's shoe. "What have you got?" asked Randy and Fred simultaneously, seeing something was up; but Earl kept right on, picking away below the find, and to both sides. It seemed to him the thing would never come out, and as he realized how large the nugget was, his hands trembled so he could scarcely hold the pick. "I've struck a fortune!" he muttered, at last, in a strangely hoarse voice. "See if anybody is looking, Randy." And then the nugget came loose, and he clutched it in both hands and held it up,--a dull, dirty, yellowish lump, worth at least three thousand dollars! CHAPTER XXVI. SLUICE BOXES AND PREPARATIONS FOR WINTER. A nugget worth three thousand dollars was, by far, the largest find yet made in that district, and the three young miners could scarcely believe it true, as they surveyed the lump in Earl's hands. "Do you suppose it's pure gold?" asked Randy, as he took it from his brother. "It's heavy enough."