“Jest a spell arter ye rise the hill, ef ye keep ’longside the woods.  But it’s a right smart chance beyond, ef ye go through it.”

This was quite plain to him.  In the local dialect a “spell” was under a mile; “a right smart chance” might be three or four miles farther.  Luckily the spring and outcrop were near the outskirts; he would pass near them again on his way.  He looked longingly at the pan which she still held in her hands.  “Would you mind lending me that pan for a little while?” he said half laughingly.

“Wot for?” demanded the girl quickly.  Yet her tone was one of childish curiosity rather than suspicion.  Fleming would have liked to avoid the question and the consequent exposure of his discovery which a direct answer implied.  But he saw it was too late now.

“I want to wash a little dirt,” he said bluntly.

The girl turned her deep sunbonnet toward him.  Somewhere in its depths he saw the flash of white teeth.  “Go along with ye—­ye’re funnin’!” she said.

“I want to wash out some dirt in that pan—­I’m prospecting for gold,” he said; “don’t you understand?”

“Are ye a miner?”

“Well, yes—­a sort of one,” he returned, with a laugh.

“Then ye’d better be scootin’ out o’ this mighty quick afore dad comes.  He don’t cotton to miners, and won’t have ’em around.  That’s why he lives out here.”

“Well, I don’t live out here,” responded the young man lightly.  “I shouldn’t be here if I hadn’t lost my way, and in half an hour I’ll be off again.  So I’m not likely to bother him.  But,” he added, as the girl still hesitated, “I’ll leave a deposit for the pan, if you like.”

“Leave a which?”

“The money that the pan’s worth,” said Fleming impatiently.

The huge sunbonnet stiffly swung around like the wind-sail of a ship and stared at the horizon.  “I don’t want no money.  Ye kin git,” said the voice in its depths.

“Look here,” he said desperately, “I only wanted to prove to you that I’ll bring your pan back safe.  Now look!  If you don’t like to take money, I’ll leave this ring with you until I come back.  There!” He slipped a small specimen ring, made out of his first gold findings, from his little finger.

The sunbonnet slowly swung around again and stared at the ring.  Then the little red right hand reached forward, took the ring, placed it on the forefinger of the left hand, with all the other fingers widely extended for the sunbonnet to view, and all the while the pan was still held against her side by the other hand.  Fleming noticed that the hands, though tawny and not over clean, were almost childlike in size, and that the forefinger was much too small for the ring.  He tried to fathom the depths of the sun-bonnet, but it was dented on one side, and he could discern only a single pale blue eye and a thin black arch of eyebrow.

“Well,” said Fleming, “is it a go?”