"Only as long as you believe in my word, Thad," added the other.
"That's true," returned the other, quickly; "even a scout has no business sticking up for a comrade when he knows the other is in the wrong; but we believe in you, Aleck. And if only you could find that mine, I feel sure all of this funny business would stop. Once you had put in a claim, with the proper witnesses, and hurried to file it before the court, nobody could steal it away. And that's going to be just where the Boy Scouts can help you."
"Well, we'll know more than we do now, before a great many hours," asserted the miner's son; "unless this little map is all wrong, and poor dad only believed he had found a rich lode. But remember, he brought home specimens that were nearly pure silver; and every one who saw them said they beat the world for richness. I can remember my dad saying that there were tons and tons without end of that same sort, in his mine. And then he was suddenly taken down sick, and died with the secret untold. All these long years, when we've been poor and wanting many things, there that secret lay in my hand, oh! hundreds of times, and I never dreamed of it still accident showed me the paper, back of the glass in the little pocket mirror that dad had carried with him a long time."
They relapsed into silence again for a long time, each busy with his thoughts. Aleck knew what few simple directions his rude chart carried; he had gazed at it so many times that it was photographed on his mind, and there had been no need for him to rip the seam of his coat, and take the slip of faded paper out. Kracker had not dreamed how near the coveted clue had been to his hands, at the time he actually held the boy, and closely examined all his pockets.
"It's lucky," remarked Thad, after fully an hour more had passed, with both boys pushing forward steadily all the time, over rugged ways that severely tried their abilities—"it's lucky, I say, that we are heading exactly away from the direction where that Sheriff, and your uncle, must be coming from."
"Yes, but I knew we'd do that before we ever started out," replied Aleck.
"You've been sizing up the region all day in camp, and laying your plans, if the chance ever came to try them out; isn't that so, Aleck?"
"You never said truer words in your life, Thad," answered the other. "I found a pretty high rock on which I could perch; and that gave me a chance to look over in this region with those fine glasses of yours. And I tell you now, it gave me a great thrill when I recognized something dad had marked on that little chart. It seemed just as if I could hear his voice calling me from the grave, and telling me I was doing the right thing—to go ahead, no matter who tried to stop me."
"What sort of a land-mark was it you saw?" asked the other scout.
"Why, you see, he made a rough sketch of a rock that looks a whole lot like a human head," Aleck went on to say, earnestly.