About noon
`` Seems to me that stream would wash away all the gold , '' I said . `` I know it 's all caught in the riffles , but I think if that dump was mine I would want sluice-boxes a mile long and about sixteen hundred riffles . But I guess they know what they are doing . '' About noon we descended into the creek-bed and came to the Forks . It was a little town , a Dawson in miniature , with all its sordid aspects infinitely accentuated . It had dance-halls , gambling dens and many saloons : every convenience to ease the miner of the plethoric poke . There in the din and daze and dirt we tarried awhile ; then , after eating heartily , we struck up Eldorado .