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Faster and faster the boys were whirled along. The water was beginning to chill them now, and they were wet through. Once or twice a sudden change in the direction of the sluiceway nearly brought them to grief, and on one occasion Nat slipped off his plank.
From time to time the tramp uttered a brief order, and in this way he drove the boys before him, across the sluiceway, and then over the rickety floor of the mill to the lower corner. He unbolted the closet door and shoved them roughly in. It was not by any means a joyful reunion for the Jolly Rovers, but they were very glad to be together again nevertheless.
This seemed to be mining, but of a kind the boys had heard very little about, though it is more or less common in the west. A man was directing a stream of water, from a big pipe against the side of a gravelly bank, and the dirt and fluid that washed down ran into a big sluiceway. This was formed of boards, there being a bottom and two sides.
Those who followed the daily chronicles of daily events saw then, through the eyes of gifted scribes, how Fifth Avenue was turned into a four-mile stretch of prancing, dancing glory; and how the outpouring millions, in masses fluid as water and in strength irresistible as a flood, broke the police dams and made of roadway and sidewalks one great, roaring, human sluiceway; and how the khaki-clad ranks marched upon a carpet of the flowers and the fruit and the candy and the cigarettes and the cigars and the confetti and the paper ribbons that were thrown at them and about them.
The top of the flood now poured into the mouth of the newly dug trench, biting huge mouthfuls of earth from its sides in its rush; spreading the reddish water fan-like over the down-stream slope: first into gullies; then a broad sluiceway that sunk out of sight in the soft earth; then crumblings, slidings of tons of sand and gravel, with here and there a bowlder washed clean; the men working like beavers, here to free a rock, there to drive home a plank, the trench all the while deepening, widening now a gulch ten feet across and as deep, now a canon through which surged a solid mass of frenzied water.
There was no path, but the way was comparatively smooth. As the boys passed under the sluiceway trestle Jack exclaimed: "See, here is a sort of path, and it leads right up the valley. We are on the right road." "Be careful," cautioned Nat. "Remember what Mr. Tevis said about men shooting first and inquiring afterward in this country."
This, as the boys learned later, was what had been done. When the news of their escape was known several of the gang started in pursuit. They kept it up for awhile, until some one suggested shutting off the flow of the stream by means of a gate in the sluiceway. "Well, now we're here, what's to be done?" asked Nat.
This enabled them to cross the sluiceway in safety, and after noting with some alarm that the creek was still coming up rapidly, they entered the saw mill at the upper end, where the floor was level with the breast work of the dam or rather a few feet above it. The lower end was twelve or fifteen feet higher than the wasteway, and was supported by an open network of huge beams.
With cautious strokes they paddled on until a sudden glimpse of the sluiceway leading under the mill caused them to pull up short. They headed straight for shore, and as they scrambled out at the foot of the hill, and pushed through the bushes, intending to see what the chances were for a portage, they blundered into the two missing canoes and the tent. "Here's luck!" cried Clay.
The top was open, but was braced with numerous cross pieces. The sluiceway was about four feet wide and three feet deep, and there was a great quantity of water flowing through it. Part of the sluiceway was wider and more shallow, and this part had, nailed across the bottom, narrow strips of wood, in the shape of cleats.
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