Bob continued persuasively:
“You see, honey, I’ve got it all figgered out that when we git in about three feet further than we’ll make to-day we’re bound to uncover our everlastin’ fortunes. You want us all to be rich, don’t you?”
“It’s no use,” said the girl firmly. “You both know well enough that I will not permit you to break the Sabbath. Saint Jimmy’s mother says it is no way for Christians to do, and that settles it. Anything that Mother Burton says is wrong is wrong. You both consider yourselves Christians, don’t you?”
“You’re dead right, daughter,” said Thad, with an air of gentle complacency. “I hadn’t a mite of a notion to work on Sunday myself. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I was much of a Christian but”—he glared at his pardner—“it’s a cinch I’m no Zulu. As for anybody that intimates we got a chance to uncover a fortune anywhere in that hole out there, between the dump and China—wal, I’d hate to tell you what sort of a Christian I think he is.”
Bob grinned cheerfully.
“Mebby I ain’t so much of a Christian neither,” he agreed, “but if I’d a-been that old Pharaoh what built them pyramids——“
The girl interrupted:
“Now, there you go again. That’s the second time. What in the world started you to talking about Egypt and pyramids and Pharaoh and mummies and things like that?”
“Oh, I jest happened to take a peek into one of them books that Saint Jimmy got us to buy for you, that’s all,” returned the old-timer, with a sly wink at the smiling girl. “An’ anyway, it seems like I ought to know somethin’ about mummies by this time, after livin’ as long as I have with that there.” He pointed a long, gnarled finger at his pardner. “Egypt or Arizona, livin’ or dead, it’s all the same, I reckon. A mummy’s a mummy wherever you find it.”
Thad rubbed his bald head with deliberate care.