_ = 4 = _

'Mmm.... ohm,' . . . 'Mmmm-hum.' . . . 'Ommmm . . . gurgle. . . shluuurp'

Greg woke to a warm sensation and rhythmic motion in his crotch. looking under the covers he saw a mass of red hair.

"Well, good morning." Greg grinned reaching down to caress Becka's ears

'S __h_ lurrrp'_ "Morning... You were 'up' and I was, hungry." Becka grinned looking up giving Greg the most loving smile he had ever been graced with as she slowly stroked his shaft. "I love the morning wood fairy..." she said returning to her early morning cock worship. Greg caressed the back of her head rubbing an ear between his thumb and forefinger.

"You are so loving Becka, thank you for this, hon. You are one special lady." Greg sighed really loving the attention.

"Oh Damn!" Greg exclaimed unexpectedly bucking his hips as the Badger drank down his creamy gift.

'mmmm!- Sluuuurp. "--Ahhh, thank you, and good morning. That was fun." Becka said slithering up his torso to lay atop the possum giving him a good morning kiss. Greg wrapped his arms around the Badger hugging her close as they shared a moment then started working the knots loose in her shoulders from all the digging she had done the day before. Becka moaned loudly going completely limp under his masterful touch.

"Oh gods, that feels soooo good I can't believe how sore I was this morning!" Becka muled into his chest fur as the possum deftly worked her back, shoulders, and arms. Ten minutes later they crawled out of bed to sit in the tent. Becka worked her shoulders amazed at how pain free she now was.

"How did you do that? I hurt so much I could barely move my arms, and I thought I was in pretty good shape lugging those crates for six months but this morning I felt like someone had worked me over with a sack full of doorknobs!"

"Let's just say I know how to touch a femme in all the right places." Greg Grinned. "You did a great job yesterday and I knew you would be paying for it in the morning. I just did some pinpoint massage I learned a while back to unlock tight muscles, glad it helped."

Greg went over to the large first aid chest opened one of the doors and took out a green glass bottle shaking two buff colored tablets into his paw and handed them to her. "Here, take these they should help."

"What are they," she asked looking at the nondescript tablets.

"Heat tabs, a combination of salts and minerals that help minimize fatigue and prevent muscle cramps and heat prostration due to excessive perspiration. You were sweating buckets yesterday and today we will be much more active, We are going to be well into the boulder field and moving some good sized rocks the last thing I want is to have you collapse from heat prostration. It will help you keep more of the water you drink where it belongs.

"So I will Sweat less?" Becka asked swallowing the tablets with some water by the bedside table.

"Nope, you will still be sweating buckets, but you won't be as worn out doing it. It's little things like these that make the difference between getting the gold and being airlifted out by a medivac chopper."

Greg paused as he pulled on his clothes for the day reached into a box and removed a large broad brimmed hat similar to his own and plopped it on Becka's head.

"Thought you might need this, it'll help keep the sun off yer noggin."

"Thanks!" she said securing it with the lanyard under her chin pulling on a pair of cargo shorts and halter top before slipping her feet into her hiking boots.

"Ya look good, though I personally prefer ta see ya topless."Greg grinned

"Me too, but I have to start the day with some form of decency. Once I work up a sweat, the Titties come out to play." she chuckled giving Greg a playful chest shimmy

"Wow, talk about loose boulders!" he chuckled at the look on Becka's face

"Now, lets rustle up some chow and then we can attack that bench fully fueled for a day of wrestling rocks and gettin Gold!"

Sitting around the campfire with tankards of morning coffee and plates piled high with flapjacks Greg passed on to Becka some back country wisdom

"Now, let me teach ya how ta make yerself a big ol pot-o-camp beans, Soak a pound of beans overnight, in the morning drain em off... it cuts down on the musical effects later. then in a dutch oven drop in a dollop of bacon grease and fry up your onion and garlic, one good sized onion and four cloves are good ta start with. Chop them up real good and some bacon, three or four strips, if ya got it, and let them get some color then add in a tomater or two or a can of chopped tomaters if ya don't have fresh handy. add yer beans and a quart to a quart and a half of beef stock a bit of pepper hold off on addin salt tel later or the beans won't soften up. then set it ta simmer over the coals for three or four hours make sure ya come back ta camp and check on it every now and again, give it a stir, add a bit more liquid if it look ta be going dry on ya. So by the time ya get back ta camp fer lunch ya got yerself some fine eatin." he instructed as he assembled the pot of beans as Becka watched demolishing her stack of flapjacks more ravenous than she would have expected.

"These are freekin awesome... I can't believe how hungry I am this morning." Becka said around a muzzle full of flapjacks. Greg chuckled.

"Yup got to fuel up. you are building muscle and working harder than you probably have ever worked before, more physical exertion but we have boulders to muscle out of our way to get that gold?

Back at the bench Becka looked at the work they had done the day before they had cleared a depression approximately ten to twelve feet wide and twenty feet long. They were down about two and a half to three feet with lots of rounded river Boulders poking through the gravel... frankly it didn't seem like they had gotten really that far!

"Not that impressive in the morning light, is it?" Greg chuckled patting the Badger on the shoulder.

"No, not really, but I'm guessing that was the hard part of opening up a sample hole is getting through the top layer and roots and all, now all we have to do is work our way down to the bedrock gold, right?"

Becka said hands on her hips.

"Yes Ma'am, than again that was only about three ta four hours work, the best way we can attack this is we clear the pay gravel from around the boulders, pile it up on the side and deal with it later as we move them out as we come to them. The back area here is where we build our steps as the hole goes down to bedrock, could be eight to fourteen feet down. Remember, we got some good chunky flakes at the three foot mark when we popped that first rock, so we may be on the pay streak, we will discover that the further down we go tel we hit bedrock." the possum advised picking up the pry bar to poke at some rocks to move

"Why don't we bucket the gravel up and run it through the sluice as we go" Becka asked with a grin.

"we could do that, means more huffing back and forth, but iffin ya want to go that rout with it you can check on the beans between trips, if ya wanna work it that way." the possum smiled with a nod.

Becka set the buckets and classifier up and started shoveling gravel into the top.

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"Thats it, slip that net over the top and we can winch it outta tha hole." Greg said as Becka adjusted the steel netting around the boulder as Greg set the Come-a-long. Klack-klack-klack, klack-klack-klack, klack-klack-klack, slowly the cable tightened and the boulder started to slide effortlessly.

"Amazing!" Becka exclaimed "That rock must weigh at least a ton and a half and that thing is moving it like it weighs ten pounds."

"yup, nothing like having the right equipment to get the job done." Greg said as the boulder came up out of the hole. "Now see if you can nudge it over onto the tailings pile with the pry bar."

Becka managed to get a purchase under the rock with the pry bar and it tumbled out of the net to slide with a clunk into the others freed from the sampling hole.

"Should be some good stuff in here, boulders like these tend to suck the gold out of the watercourse. they create major low pressure zones that gold tends to love to drop out into... well hel-lo!" Greg said reaching into the hole the boulder occupied scooping up some gravel with the hand shovel there were some good sized chunky flakes scattered throughout the scoop, Becka whooped.

"Yup this is going to be a rich clean out." the possum chuckled. "Looks like we are on the gold alright. Wanna start sluicing?" he asked "or just pan this scoop out?"

"Gotta pan it!" The topless badger said making a dash for the camp.

"Check on the Beans!" Greg called after her with a delighted chuckle at the exuberance of youth.

Almost eight feet down the gravel around the boulders was definitely dark indicating lots of black sand Greg's shovel scraped something hard, prodding around it with the pry bar told the old prospector it wasn't a boulder this time, this was bedrock!

Carefully shoveling the gravels off the surface here he knew was where the good stuff would be found if it was here. Returning to camp with almost a full bucket of bedrock gravel he found Becka hunched over the dish-tub carefully panning the sample, she was giggling maniacally. coming around Greg could see why... sparkling in the pan was twenty or thirty good size fat chunky flakes. 'pickers' in Greg's book as you couldn't vacuum them up with a sucker bottle. Setting the bucket down by the Badger.

"Yup. Looks like we are on the gold alright that looks ta be a good three or four pennyweight at least just in the pan... Oh, we hit bedrock." he announced with a huge grin at the look on Becka's face

"Bedrock?... oh my god!" she said looking at the bucket Greg had set next to her. handing him the pan Becka got up to stir the beans; they smelled divine! And her belly growled. "Break for Lunch? She asked as Greg deftly cleared the black sand from the pan.

"sounds good hon, how you holding up there, the gold fever getting set ta run away with you?" Greg asked transferring the gold to a shallow pan to dry it off so it can be weighed out.

"Almost! It was soo exciting seeing all that color sparkling in the pan like that it felt like electricity was flowing through my body and a voice in my head screaming GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! All I could do was sit there and giggle like a mad thing." Becka chuckled shaking her head dishing up two bowls of fragrant hearty beans. "And this stuff smells soo good!" she said handing Greg a bowl and taking a seat at the camp table.

"Yup, this is what keeps a person coming back for more. there are a couple more benches back up the hillside, this claim runs over twenty acres my other claim up river a piece I suspect was the sight of an old waterfall found a couple of pockets about ten years back that had about twenty ounces, tucked away in them. Took me about two seasons to get to it, following the bedrock down tel I hit one of the old pools, but I suspect there is more of the same further back in the hills... Ya never know."

"So you struck it rich then?" Becka asked excitedly. Greg shrugged

"Oh, I don't know about that, comfortable, maybe, it gives me enough to keep plugging away, gotta ask yourself, what do you need outta life? Turns out to be a lot less than most folks suspect. If ya live within your means or slightly below em, than you never really want fer anything. It's all perspective, I like what I do out here and am blessed to be able to do it and have a partner to pass on the legacy to, so what most folks think of as rich, I'd rather Be free , being able to come out here, I guess that makes a person rich. Don't know...if what you do affords you a comfortable life, why spend all your time and energy piling up more than you could ever spend in two lifetimes? Once ya fall into the trap of greed you can never have enough."

"Wow, never thought of it that way to me I guess being rich is having the big house, fancy cars maybe a yacht, jet-setting to exotic places whenever I wanted to... but it's a trap, isn't it?" Becka asked.

"The big house would cost a fortune to maintain, and there is the staff to run it, and taxes! Same with fancy cars and a boat, besides, if I am out prospecting for gold, how much time would I have to be on it? I like the idea of being comfortable over rich." Becka nodded.

"Always knew you were a smart young lady." Greg said with a nod and tip of the hat as they ate.

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