I am afraid you could handle me." "It seems cur'us, don't it, Joe ?" said Joshua.

"When Mr.Kellogg used to haul me round the schoolroom, it didn't seem as if I could ever be a match for him." "We change with the passing years," said Kellogg, in a moralizing tone, which recalled his former vocation.

"Now you are a man, and we meet here on the other side of the continent, on the banks of the Yuba River.

I hope we are destined to be successful." "I hope so, too," said Joshua, "for I'm reg'larly cleaned out." "If I can help you any in the sway of information, I shall be glad to do so." Joe and Bickford took him at his word and made many inquiries, eliciting important information.
The next day they took their places farther down the river and commenced work.
Their inexperience at first put them at a disadvantage, They were awkward and unskilful, as might have been expected.

Still, at the end of the first day each had made about five dollars.
"That's something," said Joe.
"If I could have made five dollars in one day in Pumpkin Hollow," said Mr.Bickford, "I would have felt like a rich man.