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Moon-Face and Other Stories-Part12_JACK LONDON(1876-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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fire.



"Keep yer shirt on, Bill; keep yer shirt on," he admonished himself. "What's

the good of rushin'? No use in gettin' all het up an' sweaty. Mr. Pocket'll



wait for you. He ain't a-runnin' away before you can get yer breakfast. Now,

what you want, Bill, is something fresh in yer bill o' fare. So it's up to you



to go an' get it."

He cut a short pole at the water's edge and drew from one of his pockets a bit



of line and a draggled fly that had once been a royal coachman.

"Mebbe they'll bite in the early morning," he muttered, as he made his first



cast into the pool. And a moment later he was gleefully crying: "What'd I tell

you, eh? What'd I tell you?"



He had no reel, nor any inclination to waste time, and by main strength, and

swiftly, he drew out of the water a flashing ten-inch trout. Three more,



caught in rapid succession, furnished his breakfast. When he came to the

stepping-stones on his way to his hillside, he was struck by a sudden thought,



and paused.

"I'd just better take a hike down-stream a ways," he said. "There's no tellin'



what cuss may be snoopin' around."

But he crossed over on the stones, and with a "I really oughter take that



hike," the need of the precaution passed out of his mind and he fell to work.

.



At nightfall he straightened up. The small of his back was stiff from stooping

toil, and as he put his hand behind him to soothe the protesting muscles, he



said:

"Now what d'ye think of that, by damn? I clean forgot my dinner again! If I



don't watch out, I'll sure be degeneratin' into a two-meal-a-day crank."

"Pockets is the damnedest things I ever see for makin' a man absent-minded,"



he communed that night, as he crawled into his blankets. Nor did he forget to

call up the hillside, "Good night, Mr. Pocket! Good night!"



Rising with the sun, and snatching a hasty breakfast, he was early at work. A

fever seemed to be growing in him, nor did the increasing richness of the



test-pans allay this fever. There was a flush in his cheek other than that

made by the heat of the sun, and he was oblivious to fatigue and the passage



of time. When he filled a pan with dirt, he ran down the hill to wash it; nor

could he forbearrunning up the hill again, panting and stumbling profanely,



to refill the pan.

He was now a hundred yards from the water, and the inverted "V" was assuming



definite proportions. The width of the pay-dirt steadily decreased, and the

man extended in his mind's eye the sides of the "V" to their meeting-place far



up the hill. This was his goal, the apex of the "V," and he panned many times

to locate it.



"Just about two yards above that manzanita bush an' a yard to the right," he

finally concluded.



Then the temptation seized him. " s plain as the nose on your face," he said,

as he abandoned his laborious cross-cutting and climbed to the indicated apex.



He filled a pan and carried it down the hill to wash. It contained no trace of

gold. He dug deep, and he dug shallow, filling and washing a dozen pans, and



was unrewarded even by the tiniest golden speck. He was enraged at having

yielded to the temptation, and cursed himself blasphemously and pridelessly.



Then he went down the hill and took up the cross-cutting.

"Slow an' certain, Bill; slow an' certain," he crooned. "Short-cuts to fortune



ain't in your line, an' it's about time you know it. Get wise, Bill; get wise.

Slow an' certain's the only hand you can play; so go to it, an' keep to it,



too."

As the cross-cuts decreased, showing that the sides of the "V" were



converging, the depth of the " V " increased. The gold-trace was dipping into

the hill. It was only at thirty inches beneath the surface that he could get



colors in his pan. The dirt he found at twenty-five inches from the surface,

and at thirty-five inches, yielded barren pans. At the base of the "V," by the



water's edge, he had found the gold colors at the grass roots. The higher he

went up the hill, the deeper the gold dipped.



To dig a hole three feet deep in order to get one test-pan was a task of no

mean magnitude; while between the man and the apex intervened an untold number



of such holes to be. "An' there's no tellin' how much deeper it'll pitch," he

sighed, in a moment's pause, while his fingers soothed his aching back.



Feverish with desire, with aching back and stiffening muscles, with pick and

shovel gouging and mauling the soft brown earth, the man toiled up the hill.



Before him was the smooth slope, spangled with flowers and made sweet with

their breath. Behind him was devastation. It looked like some terrible



eruption breaking out on the smooth skin of the hill. His slow progress was

like that of a slug, befouling beauty with a monstrous trail.



Though the dipping gold-trace increased the man's work, he found consolation

in the increasing richness of the pans. Twenty cents, thirty cents, fifty



cents, sixty cents, were the values of the gold found in the pans, and at

nightfall he washed his banner pan, which gave him a dollar's worth of



gold-dust from a shovelful of dirt.

"I'll just bet it's my luck to have some inquisitive cuss come buttin' in here



on my pasture," he mumbled sleepily that night as he pulled the blankets up to




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