“It’s ha’f a mile long, I bet. An’ the farther you go, the richer it gits. I tell you, we’re goin’ all to be as rich as red mud! Whoop!”
“Hold in your hosses, Pop,” commanded Min, sensibly. “Them folks down in camp may see you prancin’ around here, and they’ll either think you are crazy or know that you’ve struck pay dirt. And we don’t want ’em in on this yet.”
“By mighty! Listen here, girl!” gasped the old man. “We’re goin’ to be rich, you and me. You’re goin’ to dress in the fanciest clo’es there is. You’ll look a lot finer than that there leadin’ lady actress girl. Believe me!”
“You’re a-goin’ to be a lady,” declared Flapjack.
“Huh! Me, a lady, with them han’s?” and she put forth both her calloused palms. “A fat chance I got!”
With tears in her eyes Ruth Fielding said: “Those hands have earned the right to be a ’lady’s’, Min. If there is gold here in quantity, you shall be all that your father says.”
“Of course she shall!” cried the other college girls in chorus.
“Well, it’ll kill me, I know that,” declared Min. “I’d just about bust wide open with joy.”
Flapjack dug seven holes that afternoon, and they took seven specimens of the rock with the bright specks in it. The college girls thought they could detect an increasing amount of gold in the ore as they advanced up the ledge.