He could not forbear another survey of the hill before filling the pan farther down the stream. His golden herds diminished.
Returning to where he had started operations, he began to pan up the stream. At first his golden herds increased--increased prodigiously.
Pan by pan, he went up the stream, the tally of results steadily decreasing.
He crossed the stream below the pool and disappeared through the green screen.
"Guess I'll take another whack at her," he concluded, starting to cross the stream.
He stumbled across the stream in the darkness and lighted his long-delayed fire.
Nightfall found him by the edge of the stream his eyes wrestling with the gathering darkness over the washing of a five-dollar pan.
The first cross-cut the man made, there was space for only three holes, so narrow had become the pay-streak and so close was he to the fountainhead of the golden stream he had been following for four days.
The stream once more drowsed and whispered; the hum of the mountain bees rose sleepily.