"That's what those kangaroo-hunters call a
nugget," boomed over my shoulder directly at the largest of the specimens.
"You have noticed this
nugget I wear on my watch-chain, steward?
That ring with the rough
nugget on it was above it, and the twisted snake ring on the third finger.
It must be quite a
nugget. But I'm not likely to get a glimpse of it if you don't go with the professor."
Before a week was over he was to come across a large
nugget of pure gold, the largest
nugget that had ever been discovered, and bring it down to the coast in a waggon guarded by six mounted policemen.
Every sentence was a
nugget. In itself the book had no literary merit; Captain Jim's charm of storytelling failed him when he came to pen and ink; he could only jot roughly down the outline of his famous tales, and both spelling and grammar were sadly askew.
That, however, will surprise you the less when I pause to declare that I have paid as much as four shillings and sixpence for half a loaf of execrable bread; that my mate and I, between us, seldom took more than a few pennyweights of gold-dust in any one day; and never once struck pick into
nugget, big or little, though we had the mortification of inspecting the "mammoth masses" of which we found the papers full on landing, and which had brought the gold-fever to its height during our very voyage.
To give birth to an idea--to discover a great thought--an intellectual
nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain--plow had gone over before.
"I should melt it down into a
nugget, and bring it home from the U.S.A.
And then he strewed the table with the
nuggets, stuffed ptarmigans, bead work and seal pelts of the returned Kiondiker, and began to prate to us of his millions.
Gold is already coming down,
nuggets of it, and he is opening a depot to buy all the mahogany and ivory in the country.
The miners were in from Moseyed Creek and the other diggings to the west, the summer washing had been good, and the men's pouches were heavy with dust and
nuggets. The Klondike had not yet been discovered, nor had the miners of the Yukon learned the possibilities of deep digging and wood-firing.