One more dip, and he held his pan to the light coming through the rift in the chasm.

A thousand tiny, glittering particles met his eyes! In the center of the pan there gleamed dully a nugget of pure gold as big as a pea! At last they had struck it rich, so rich that he trembled as he stared down into the pan, and the cry that had welled up in his throat was choked back by the swift, excited beating of his heart.

In that moment's glance down into his treasure-laden pan he saw all of his hopes and all of his ambitions achieved.

He was rich! In those gleaming particles he saw freedom for his mother and himself.

No longer a bitter struggle for existence in the city, no more pinching and striving and sacrifice that they might keep the little home in which his father had died! When he turned toward Wabigoon his face was filled with the ecstasy of those visions.