A month later he paid eight hundred dollars for the adjoining claim.

Three months later, enlarging this block of property, he paid forty thousand for a third claim; and, though it was concealed in the future, he was destined, not long after, to pay one hundred and fifty thousand for a fourth claim on the creek that had been the least liked of all the creeks.
In the meantime, and from the day he washed seven hundred dollars from a single pan and squatted over it and thought a long thought, he never again touched hand to pick and shovel.

As he said to Joe Ladue the night of that wonderful washing:-- "Joe, I ain't never going to work hard again.

Here's where I begin to use my brains.

I'm going to farm gold.