Still squatting on his heels, he continued examining the fragments and tossing them into the pan.  Suddenly there came to him a premonition of danger.  It seemed a shadow had fallen upon him.  But there was no shadow.  His heart had given a great jump up into his throat and was choking him.  Then his blood slowly chilled and he felt the sweat of his shirt cold against his flesh.

He did not spring up nor look around.  He did not move.  He was considering the nature of the premonition he had received, trying to locate the source of the mysterious force that had warned him, striving to sense the imperative presence of the unseen thing that threatened him.  There is an aura of things hostile, made manifest by messengers refined for the senses to know; and this aura he felt, but knew not how he felt it.  His was the feeling as when a cloud passes over the sun.  It seemed that between him and life had passed something dark and smothering and menacing; a gloom, as it were, that swallowed up life and made for death—­his death.

Every force of his being impelled him to spring up and confront the unseen danger, but his soul dominated the panic, and he remained squatting on his heels, in his hands a chunk of gold.  He did not dare to look around, but he knew by now that there was something behind him and above him.  He made believe to be interested in the gold in his hand.  He examined it critically, turned it over and over, and rubbed the dirt from it.  And all the time he knew that something behind him was looking at the gold over his shoulder.

Still feigning interest in the chunk of gold in his hand, he listened intently and he heard the breathing of the thing behind him.  His eyes searched the ground in front of him for a weapon, but they saw only the uprooted gold, worthless to him now in his extremity.  There was his pick, a handy weapon on occasion; but this was not such an occasion.  The man realized his predicament.  He was in a narrow hole that was seven feet deep.  His head did not come to the surface of the ground.  He was in a trap.

He remained squatting on his heels.  He was quite cool and collected; but his mind, considering every factor, showed him only his helplessness.  He continued rubbing the dirt from the quartz fragments and throwing the gold into the pan.  There was nothing else for him to do.  Yet he knew that he would have to rise up, sooner or later, and face the danger that breathed at his back.

The minutes passed, and with the passage of each minute he knew that by so much he was nearer the time when he must stand up, or else—­and his wet shirt went cold against his flesh again at the thought—­or else he might receive death as he stooped there over his treasure.