A SEEKER AFTER GOLD. 



A few months ago I spent a day in the wildest part 

 of Brown county, looking for traces of that precious 

 metal which Dame Rumor says exists in quantity in 

 the fine sand and silt along the streams and in the val- 

 leys thereabouts. My eyes, unaccustomed to such 

 work, saw r no traces of yellow amidst the gray and 

 the black, and I was beginning to doubt its existence 

 except in the mind of some enthusiastic seeker, w r hen, 

 on turning a sharp bend in a stream, I came suddenly 

 upon an old man, weather-beaten, roughly clad, gaunt 

 of figure and haggard of face, who was bending over 

 a pan of moist sand and silt which he was shaking 

 with a rocking motion to and fro. So busily engaged 

 in his work was he that he did not notice my ap- 

 proach, and I stood beside him and heard his ejacula- 

 tion of ek'light as he reached down and picked from 

 the bottom of the pan a piece of gold about double the 

 size of a grain of wheat. "Ah, my little beauty, I have 

 found you at last," said he; then for the first time no- 

 ticing my presence, he sprang to his feet with an excla- 

 mation of surprise, letting fall his pan in his excite- 

 ment. His locks were unkempt, his face begrimed, but 

 his eyes sparkled with more than ordinary brilliancy 

 and through, them was revealed the soul of a man who 

 was an enthusiast in his chosen work the search for 

 gold. 



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