Blackmore piloted me up to the main area of drift in the afternoon. It occupied a hundred acres or more of sand and mud flats which constituted the lower part of the extensive delta deposited on the edge of the lake by the waters of the good-sized stream of Middle River. At a first glance it seemed nothing more than a great wilderness of tree trunks--prostrate, upended, woven and packed together--extending for hundreds of yards below high-water-mark. It was between these logs that the smaller things had lodged. There were a number of boats, not greatly damaged, and fragments enough to have reconstructed a dozen more. I am convinced that a half day's search would have discovered the material for building and furnishing a house, though carpets and wall paper would hardly have been all one could desire. I even found a curling iron--closely clasped by the bent nail upon which it had been hung on the log of a cabin--and a corset. The latter seemed hardly worth salving, as it appeared--according to Blackmore--to be a "military model" of a decade or so back, and the steel-work was badly rusted.
However, it was not gewgaws or house-furnishing we were after. One could hardly be expected to slither about in soft slush for second-hand things of that kind. I gave a great glad whoop at my first sight of a silt-submerged cask, only to find the head missing and nothing but mud in it. So, too, my second and third. Then it was Blackmore who gave the "View Halloo," and my heart gave a mighty leap. _His_ treasure trove had the head intact, and even the bung _in situ_. But alas! the latter had become slightly started, and although the contents had both smell and colour they were so heavily impregnated with river mud that they would hardly have been deemed fit for consumption except in New York and California, and not worth the risk of smuggling even there. That cask was the high-water-mark of our luck. Several others had the old familiar smell, and that was all. But there is no doubt in the world that there is whisky in that drift pile--hundreds of gallons of it, and some very old. Blackmore swears to that, and I never knew him to lie--about serious matters, I mean. In hunting and trapping yarns a man is expected to draw a long bead. I pass on this undeniably valuable information to any one that cares to profit by it. There are no strings attached. But of course ... in the event of success ... Pasadena always finds me!...