Men were already before them, scattered along the river's bars, waist
high in the pits. Here and there a tent showed white, but a blanket
under a tree, a pile of pans by a blackened heap of fire marked most of
the camps. Some of the gold-hunters had not waited to undo their packs
which lay as they had been dropped, and the owners, squatting by the
stream's lip, bent over their pans round which the water sprayed in a
silver fringe. There were hails and inquiries, answering cries of good
or ill luck. Many did not raise their eyes, too absorbed by the hope
of fortune to waste one golden moment.
These were the vanguard, the forerunners of next year's thousands,
scratching the surface of the lower bars. The sound of their voices
was soon left behind and the river ran free of them. Pack trains
dropped from the line, spreading themselves along the rim of earth
between the trail and the shrunken current. Courant's party moved on,
going higher, veiled in a cloud of brick-colored dust. The hills swept
up into bolder lines, the pines mounted in sentinel files crowding out
the lighter leafage.
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