The two
watched it with the intensest eagerness.
"Don't see it yet; don't see it yet," whispered Cribbens, chewing his
mustache. "LEETLE faster, pardner. That's the ticket. Careful, steady,
now; leetle more, leetle more. Don't see color yet, do you?"
The quartz sediment dwindled by degrees as McTeague spooned it steadily.
Then at last a thin streak of a foreign substance began to show just
along the edge. It was yellow.
Neither spoke. Cribbens dug his nails into the sand, and ground his
mustache between his teeth. The yellow streak broadened as the quartz
sediment washed away. Cribbens whispered:
"We got it, pardner. That's gold."
McTeague washed the last of the white quartz dust away, and let the
water trickle after it. A pinch of gold, fine as flour, was left in the
bottom of the spoon.
"There you are," he said. The two looked at each other. Then Cribbens
rose into the air with a great leap and a yell that could have been
heard for half a mile.
"Yee-e-ow! We GOT it, we struck it. Pardner, we got it. Out of sight.
We're millionaires." He snatched up his revolver and fired it with
inconceivable rapidity. "PUT it there, old man," he shouted, gripping
McTeague's palm.
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