From an inner pocket of his purse Tom drew the odd little key the dead prospector had given him. It fitted into the hole and easily turned the lock. The cover sprang open, revealing a package of letters. He lifted them out, but did not pause to read them.
Then came an envelope containing a patent to ranch lands in Arizona, certificates of stock in Mexican and other mines that Burke had never heard of, and a commission as lieutenant of artillery in the Confederate army. All these documents were made out to “Arthur F. Pierson,” establishing the fact that the lost hat was really that worn by the old man, as his dog had recognized.
At the bottom of the box, however, Tom found what interested him most—a formal “claim” and description of the lode whence the gold had been taken, and how to reach it from this cache. It was written in pencil, in a very shaky hand, on two or three soiled leaves torn from a memorandum book and eked out with one of the covers.
Then Tom took up the letters. Most of them were recent and of business importance, but several were old and worn with much handling. One of these latter was from a lawyer in San Francisco, acknowledging funds “sent for the support of your infant daughter,” describing her health and growth, and the care taken of her “at the convent”—all in curt business phrase, but precious to the father's heart. Then there were two or three small letters, printed and scratched in a childish hand, to “dear, dear papa,” and signed “Your little Polly.” One of these spoke of Sister Agatha and Sister Theresa, showing that it was written while the child was still in the convent; but the others, a little later, prattled about a new home with “my new papa and mamma,” but gave no clew to name or place.
“This baby girl—she must be a young woman now, if she lives,” Tom mused—“is evidently the person the poor old chap wanted me to divide with. It ought not to be difficult to trace her from San Francisco, I suppose the convent Sisters knew where she went to when they gave her up. But, hello! here's a picture.”
It was an old-fashioned daguerrotype of a handsome woman of perhaps four-and-twenty, in bridal finery, whose face seemed to him to have something familiar in its expression. But no name or date was to be found, and with the natural conclusion that this was probably Pierson's wife he puzzled a moment more over the pretty face, and then put it away.
After a few days, when Burke was able to travel, the prospector's memorandum and their mountain craft together led them almost directly to the coveted gold vein, which ran across a shoulder of the mountain at the head of the gulch, like an obscure trail, finally disappearing under a great talus at the foot of a line of snowcapped crags.
Tracing it along, they presently came upon the old man's claim marks. The stakes were lettered pathetically with the name of the old man's choosing—“Polly's Hope.”
Adjoining the “Hope” Tom staked out one claim for himself and another for his sweetheart, intending to do the proper assessment work on it himself if Corbitt couldn't or wouldn't; and Cooper used up most of what remained of the visible outcrop in a claim for himself.
Returning to town their claims were registered in the Crimson Mineral District, and their report sent a flight of gold hunters in hot haste to the scene.