THE BIG HOLE
Hal Chester was very much in earnest. His eyes shone and he could not keep still. He fairly danced around Janet and Ted.
"Do you really think that tramp-man was looking for gold?" asked Ted.
"'Deed I do," declared Hal. "What else was he after?"
Neither Ted nor Janet could answer that.
"But how will we know where it is?" asked Janet. "We don't know where there's any gold, and mother won't want us to go near that tramp-man."
"And I don't want to, either," answered Hal. "But we can dig down till we find the gold, can't we?"
"If we knowed—I mean if we knew where to dig," agreed Ted, after thinking about it. "But digging for gold isn't like digging for angle- worms to go fishing. You can dig them anywhere. But you've got to have a gold mine to dig for gold."
"Well, we'll start a mine," decided Hal. "That's what the miners do out West. I read about it in a book at the Home when I was crippled and couldn't walk much. The miners just start to dig, and if they don't find gold in one place they dig in another. That's what we'll do. We'll dig till we find the gold, then we'll have a gold mine."
"Oh, yes, let's do it!" cried Jan. "I'd love to have some gold to make a pair of bracelets for my doll."