The Saint of the Speedway

IT was a time of tense emotion. Each was a-surge with an almost uncontrollable excitement as the two men moved up the whole length of the riffled sluice. Neither uttered one single word. But they moved slowly on either side of the long, primitive, box-like construction, keeping pace, each with the other, as though in a mutual desire that such fortune as was theirs should be witnessed together, as though neither had courage to face alone the possibilities of this their first serious "washing." At each riffle the men paused. The more emotional of the two, Len Stern, thrust out a hand and stirred the deposit lying there. And at each stirring the same result was revealed. The riffles were filled with deposit. On the top was a spread of lighter soil, with here and there a dull yellow protrusion thrusting above it. But under this lay a solid thickness of pure alluvial gold in dust and smaller nuggets. From the top end of the sluice-box to the mouth which disgorged the red soil upon the miniature mountain of tailings below it, it was the same. There was not one single riffle that was not laden to its capacity with the precious metal. They came to a halt at the head of the box. Len Stern stood for a moment gazing down its narrow channel. But Jim Carver was disinclined for any dreaming. Stolid, practical, for all the emotion of those amazing moments, he climbed up the light trestle work and shut off the water stream which had supplied the washing. Then he dropped again to the ground and waited. The stream of water fell away, and instantly the torrid heat of the sun began to dry up the woodwork. And as his gaze passed down over the succession of riffles the unshining yellow of their precious burden suggested a golden pathway the whole length of the sluice. "It makes you feel good, Len," he said quietly, for all the burning excitement in his big blue eyes. The other nodded as though the thing he were contemplating had left him speechless. Jim Carver eyed him shrewdly. Then he glanced up at the blazing tropical sky. He gazed down at the slow-moving river, meandering on between jungle-grown banks on its way to the bay, less than five miles distant. Finally he bestirred himself.