He was off early the next morning.  He was sorely tempted to go first to the cabin, but every moment was precious until he had tested the proof of his good fortune.

It was high noon before he reached the fringe of forest.  A few paces farther and he found the spring and outcrop.  To avert his partners’ suspicions he had not brought his own implements, but had borrowed a pan, spade, and pick from a neighbor’s claim before setting out.  The spot was apparently in the same condition as when he left it, and with a beating heart he at once set to work, an easy task with his new implements.  He nervously watched the water overflow the pan of dirt at its edges until, emptied of earth and gravel, the black sand alone covered the bottom.  A slight premonition of disappointment followed; a rich indication would have shown itself before this!  A few more workings, and the pan was quite empty except for a few pin-points of “color,” almost exactly the quantity he found before.  He washed another pan with the same result.  Another taken from a different level of the outcrop yielded neither more nor less!  There was no mistake:  it was a failure!  His discovery had been only a little “pocket,” and the few flakes she had sent him were the first and last of that discovery.

He sat down with a sense of relief; he could face his partners again without disloyalty; he could see that pretty little figure once more without the compunction of having incurred her father’s prejudices by locating a permanent claim so near his cabin.  In fact, he could carry out his partners’ fancy to the letter!

He quickly heaped his implements together and turned to leave the wood; but he was confronted by a figure that at first he scarcely recognized.  Yet—­it was Katinka! the young girl of the cabin, who had sent him the gold.  She was dressed differently—­perhaps in her ordinary every-day garments—­a bright sprigged muslin, a chip hat with blue ribbons set upon a coil of luxurious brown hair.  But what struck him most was that the girlish and diminutive character of the figure had vanished with her ill-fitting clothes; the girl that stood before him was of ordinary height, and of a prettiness and grace of figure that he felt would have attracted anywhere.  Fleming felt himself suddenly embarrassed,—­a feeling that was not lessened when he noticed that her pretty lip was compressed and her eyebrows a little straightened as she gazed at him.

“Ye made a bee line for the woods, I see,” she said coldly.  “I allowed ye might have been droppin’ in to our house first.”

“So I should,” said Fleming quickly, “but I thought I ought to first make sure of the information you took the trouble to send me.”  He hesitated to speak of the ill luck he had just experienced; he could laugh at it himself—­but would she?

“And ye got a new pan?” she said half poutingly.

Here seemed his opportunity.  “Yes, but I’m afraid it hasn’t the magic of yours.  I haven’t even got the color.  I believe you bewitched your old pan.”