"We sure will," confirmed Harry. "We wrote that we were rich with a gold mine, and told your father the hundred dollars would be waiting here for him, and a lot more besides! Huh!"
"They think we're rolling in wealth," asserted Terry. "Now they'll laugh."
"No, I don't believe they'll laugh," said Harry. "We did make a long brag, though. But chances are they didn't get that letter before they started. We'll write them, to Denver, and just say we're doing well. Then they'll know where we are."
"George'll laugh," insisted Terry. "He'll laugh when he finds you're cooking pies and I'm working by the day for Pat Casey! I told him I'd have a claim ready for him, so he could start in digging."
"Ha, ha!" cheered Harry. "Well, we've got the claims, haven't we? And he can dig all he wants to. We're doing the best we can. You're earning a dollar and a half a day, and I'm the champion cook of the diggin's—I sold three pies and a batch of biscuits today, all for dust."
"How much've we got in our oyster-can, I wonder?"
"Quite a lot, after you've been paid off," alleged Harry, cheerfully. "But trouble is, flour and apples and soda and salt cost so plaguey much—and we have to eat, ourselves. So that means coffee and meat and—pshaw! But not a stitch of clothes do we buy, mind you, till we're square with Father Richards."
"Don't believe Dad'll need the hundred dollars," declared Terry.
"Maybe he will and maybe he won't," answered Harry. "But we let on we had a bonanza, and now we've got to make good. That's the joke."
"Shucks!" bemoaned Terry. "We can't go down to Denver or Auraria in these rigs, to meet real folks. We look like—like—I don't know what. Your pants are split clear across the knee."