pockets stuffed with money. Hundreds of them, thousands of them. And theyâll all come out here to tour my mine. Itâll be the biggest attraction aroundâthe Gold Rush days live again. In a year or two Iâll make enough to retire to Florida.â
Lucky reached deep into his pants pocket and brought out a clenched fist. Stretching it out toward Joe and Frank, he said, âSee this?â
They looked down at his rough, dirty hand. âWhat?â Frank asked.
Lucky opened his hand. A gold nugget the size of a bean gleamed in the weak sunlight.
âWow!â Joe exclaimed.
Lucky smiled, revealing the stub of a front tooth.
âYou found that here?â Frank asked.
âSure I did,â Lucky replied. He turned and walked quickly toward the frozen creek, talking a mile a minute as he went. Frank and Joe had to hurry to stay up with him.
âI found this one thirty years ago,â he said, holding up the fist with the gold nugget. âFound it in the creek. This creekâs evil and cunning, but Iâm smarter than it is. For thousands of years now, itâs been washing gold out of the hillsides and carrying it down by here. It means to dump it inthe Yukon, so itâs lost forever. But as soon as it gets this far, I take it and I keep it!â
âDo you pan for it?â Frank asked him.
Joe remembered seeing pictures of gold miners, squatting beside streams with large, shallow pans in their hands. Theyâd fill the pans with gravel and creek water, then slowly swirl the sand and water out. Gold was heavier than rock, so it would sink to the bottom of the pan.
âPanning? Panningâs for fools,â Lucky said scornfully. âI run a placer mine.â
He pointed toward a long wooden trough that ran from farther up the creek to just next to his shack. âSee that? Come summer, I dig up the gravel from the streambed and put it in there. The water washes it down the chute, and the gold drops into the box because itâs so heavy. Then I go and collect the dust and specks and nuggets, and stash them away.â
âDo you find a lot of gold that way?â Joe asked.
âIâm not saying,â Lucky replied, giving them a shrewd look. âBut Iâll tell you one thing. You want gold these days, you donât go looking for it in the hills. You got to work too hard for it that way. The real gold is in touristsâ pockets.â
Frank laughed. âYou sound like you ought to be on the payroll of the ThemeLife Company,â he said.
âThey havenât asked me,â Lucky replied.
Joe broke in to say, âHavenât they? We heard that you were working for Curt Stone. Somebody saw him giving you a lot of money.â
Lucky spun around to face him, his fists clenched. âWho said that?â he demanded.
âJake Ferguson,â Joe told him.
âJake lies like a dog!â Lucky shouted, swinging his arms around like a windmill. âThereâs bad blood between us, and itâs all his doing. From the day he figured out that Iâm not going to let him cheat me the way he does everyone else, heâs been after me. As for Curt Stone, he never gave me anything but the time of day, and thatâs flat.â
Frank opened his mouth to ask another question, but Lucky went on, âGet off my claim, both of you, and donât let me see you around here again. I was right to start with. Youâre a couple of spies, thatâs what you are!â
Joe looked over at Frank and motioned with his head. They werenât going to get any more information out of Lucky. They turned and started back down the trail to town.
Once they were out of Luckyâs hearing, Frank said, âWell, somebodyâs lying. But who? Lucky? Why would he want to keep us from finding out that heâs working for Curtâunless heâs doing more than just talking to people?â
Joe was about to reply when he heard a sound