“Nope!” decided Rick. “Let’s have something worth while to tell him.”
“All right!” agreed Chot.
And so it was decided. Perhaps the boys were foolish in this, but they did not stop to consider the risks they took. Few boys do. It is not the quality of youth to think. Rush into danger, and, if possible, rush out again. That is why youth does so much—it seldom stops to count the cost.
“Come on, Ruddy!” called Rick, for the dog, after a brief inspection of the “tunnel,” as the boys called it, an inspection which did not seem to indicate that he liked it—had gone back to the hole beneath the tree.
Through the gathering darkness, but along a trail they now well knew, the boys and their dog tramped back to Uncle Tod’s camp. They went by the “outside route,” as they called it, as distinguished from the way leading through the tunnel in which Lost River once flowed to wash out the pay dirt at the mine.
“Where in the world have you lads been?” demanded Uncle Tod, as Rick, Ruddy and Chot appeared some time after supper had been served.
“Oh, prospecting,” answered Rick, vaguely enough.
Uncle Tod laughed.
“Guess he’s a chip from the old block—meaning myself,” he said to Sam. “Did you find any nuggets?” he asked.
“Not yet,” answered Rick with a look at Chot to make sure his chum would say nothing of their discovery, which, after all, might amount to nothing.