Her face flushed a little and brightened, and her lip relaxed with a smile.  “Go ’long with yer!  Ye don’t mean to say ye had no luck to-day?”

“None—­but in seeing you.”

Her eyes sparkled.  “Ye see, I said all ‘long ye weren’t much o’ a miner.  Ye ain’t got no faith.  Ef ye had as much as a grain o’ mustard seed, ye’d remove mountains; it’s in the Book.”

“Yes, and this mountain is on the bedrock, and my faith is not strong enough,” he said laughingly.  “And then, that would be having faith in Mammon, and you don’t want me to have that.”

She looked at him curiously.  “I jest reckon ye don’t care a picayune whether ye strike anything or not,” she said half admiringly.

“To please you I’ll try again, if you’ll look on.  Perhaps you’ll bring me luck as you did before.  You shall take the pan.  I will fill it and you shall wash it out.  You’ll be my Mascot.”

She stiffened a little at this, and then said pertly, “Wot’s that?”

“My good fairy.”

She smiled again, this time with a new color in her pale face.  “Maybe I am,” she said, with sudden gravity.

He quickly filled the pan again with soil, brought it to the spring, and first washed out the greater bulk of loose soil.  “Now come here and kneel down beside me,” he said, “and take the pan and do as I show you.”

She knelt down obediently.  Suddenly she lifted her little hand with a gesture of warning.  “Wait a minit—­jest a minit—­till the water runs clear again.”

The pool had become slightly discolored from the first washing.

“That makes no difference,” he said quickly.

“Ah! but wait, please!” She laid her brown hand upon his arm; a pleasant warmth seemed to follow her touch.  Then she said joyously, “Look down there.”

“Where?” he asked.

“There—­don’t ye see it?”

“See what?”

“You and me!”

He looked where she pointed.  The pool had settled, resumed its mirror-like calm, and reflected distinctly, not only their two bending faces, but their two figures kneeling side by side.  Two tall redwoods rose on either side of them, like the columns before an altar.

There was a moment of silence.  The drone of a bumble-bee near by seemed to make the silence swim drowsily in their ears; far off they heard the faint beat of a woodpecker.  The suggestion of their kneeling figures in this magic mirror was vague, unreasoning, yet for the moment none the less irresistible.  His arm instinctively crept around her little waist as he whispered,—­he scarce knew what he said,—­“Perhaps here is the treasure I am seeking.”

The girl laughed, released herself, and sprang up; the pan sank ingloriously to the bottom of the pool, where Fleming had to grope for it, assisted by Tinka, who rolled up her sleeve to her elbow.  For a minute or two they washed gravely, but with no better success than attended his own individual efforts.  The result in the bottom of the pan was the same.  Fleming laughed.