In a day or so Boardman met Mr. Knowles again. The old gentleman had accomplished something for his young friends—and a very important something it turned out to be.
He had brought a man from Dawson City to look over the Chase mine and ascertain whether it was as valuable as its owner had thought it to be before his death.
The report of this man was such as to raise the girls to the seventh heaven of delight. According to this expert the Chase mine was a rich one.
“It’s all your doing, Ruth Fielding!” said Mary, on one occasion when Ruth again visited the cabin and heard the great news. “Our dear old friends up at the mine are crazy with delight over our good fortune.”
“It’s theirs, too, now,” said Ellen. “Or part of it.” And she went on to tell that she and Mary had decided to turn over a part interest in the mine to the three old men who had been so loyal to them in the time of their trouble.
“Uncle Eddie can have that famous doctor up from Seattle to see him now,” she finished. “When we told him, he—he cried!”
“We all did,” confessed Mary, with a smile. “I guess you would have thought we were all crazy if you could have seen us when we got the good news.”
“We all joined hands and danced around like mad, even Uncle Eddie,” said Ellen, adding with a chuckle: “Then we all sat down and cried.”
“I’m not so sure but what I’m going to weep, too,” cried Ruth, with eyes suspiciously bright. “Just to be in the swim, you know.”
But in her solitary moments Ruth was not at all gay. The problem of the Chase girls was definitely removed from her mind, but she was still living through one of the most trying times of her life.