Quotation from: The Valley of the Moon

Written by: Jack London

Billy grinned, and fell to examining a spring which bubbled a
clear stream into the meadow. Here the ground was sunbaked and
wide open in a multitude of cracks.

Disappointment leaped into Saxon's face, but Billy, crumbling a
clod between his fingers, had not made up his mind.

"It's rich," he pronounced; "--the cream of the soil that's been
washin' down from the hills for ten thousan' years. But--"