Free A Claim of Her Own by Stephanie Grace Whitson

anyway with this one, but even if you had a new one, you wouldn’t want it doing double-duty over the campfire. Grease would make the surface even slicker, and that would allow the gold to slip away.”
    “Understood,” Mattie said. “Rust is good.”
    Tom nodded even as he crouched down by the stream. “Now take your shovel and put about a peck of gravel here,” he said, pointing at the pan with his hook. Once Mattie had done that, he submerged the pan. The current in the stream stirred the gravel. “See how the dirt and silt is washing away?” Mattie nodded, and Tom brought the pan back to the surface. “Pick out the large pebbles, making sure you’ve rinsed them so any gold clinging to them stays in your pan.” By the time Mattie was finished, her fingers were numb with cold.
    “Now, this is the only part that takes a little practice.” He dipped the pan back beneath the water so the sand slopped over the edge. “If there were any gold nuggets, you’d see them and be able to pick them out now.”
    “But there aren’t,” Mattie observed.
    “No, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have any gold.” With a flick of his wrist, Tom swirled the remaining contents of the pan in such a way that the fine gravel spread across the bottom, a crescent moon in a rust-colored sky.
    “All right.” Tom pointed to the far tip of the moon. “That tip has been carried over there because it’s heaviest.”
    “And gold is heaviest,” Mattie murmured, looking excitedly at the tip of the crescent. She sat back on her heels. “But there’s no gold.”
    Tom took a toothpick and began to separate the grains of sand. Presently there were three tiny flecks of gold clinging to the side of the pan. “I’m out of practice,” he apologized. “There might have been some we missed. A skilled panner could put a dozen flecks of gold the size of a pinpoint in a pan of gravel, and by the time he was finished, he wouldn’t have missed a single one.” He pointed to the three tiny flecks. “A lot of your gold may come in pieces just about that size.”
    He stood back up, grimacing with the effort. “Be forewarned. Miners who do much panning end up with sore backs and weak knees.” He shrugged. “And for that reason alone, although I’m showing you how to do it, I sincerely hope you decide you don’t want any part of it.” Looking down at her he nodded. “And I see that look in your eyes, so just allow me to say it for you: I should mind my own business.” He paused. “And henceforth I shall.”
    Mattie called over to Freddie, “You finished with my dust-catcher yet?” He brought it over. She looked at the three minuscule flecks of gold and wondered how to capture them. Tom moistened the end of a toothpick and, using it as a kind of “gold magnet,” transferred the flecks of gold from the edge of the pan to what Mattie called her dust-catcher.
    “I’d guess your little dust-catcher there will hold a couple of ounces of flecks this size. Maybe a little more. That’s forty dollars worth.”
    Mattie considered. Forty dollars represented a lot of time crouching in that cold stream. Especially when she had routinely made more than that every night back in Abilene. But you didn’t really make that money, did you? Because Jonas wasn’t really keeping an account, and he wasn’t ever going to give it to you. She forced a smile. “But you can’t say there won’t be any nuggets.”
    Tom shook his head. “No one could say that.”
    Freddie spoke up. “Finn McKay got a thirty-dollar nugget this morning. That’s why they’re in town instead of on their claim.”
    “So,” Mattie asked, “should I follow their example and deposit every day’s find in the bank?” She wasn’t looking forward to the idea of a daily trek down and back.
    Tom cleared his throat. “I don’t think the McKays are very investment minded.”
    Freddie spoke up. “I saw them and they invited me to go with ’em to that new dance hall.” He