"Let's go into the cave," proposed the visitor.
"No, grandpa told us we must never go in without him," objected Jan. "It's all right to stay outside here and dig, but we mustn't go inside. The tramps might be in there."
"That's right," chimed in Ted. "We'll stay outside."
Hal was not very anxious, himself, to go into the dark hole, so they looked at the place where Ted had fallen through the loose leaves and talked about whether it would be better to start to make that hole larger or begin a new one. The children decided the last would be the best thing to do.
"We'll start a new mine of our own," said Hal. "I guess maybe somebody dug there and couldn't find any gold. So we'll start a new mine."
This suited the Curlytops and they soon began making the dirt fly with shovels and hoe, digging a hole that was large enough for all three of them to stand in. Hal said they didn't want to start by making too small a mine.
"If we've got to divide it into three parts we want each one's part big enough to see," he said, and Ted and Jan agreed to this.
The ground was of sand and very easy to dig. There were no big rocks, only a few small stones, and of course this was just what the children liked. So that in about half an hour they had really dug quite a deep hole. It was almost as easy digging as it is in the sand at the seashore, and if any of you have been there you know how soon, even if you use only a big clam shell for a shovel, you can make a hole deep enough for you and your playmates to stand up in.
"Do you see any gold yet?" asked Jan of the two boys, when they had dug down so that only the top parts of their bodies were out of the big hole.
"No, not yet. But we'll come to it pretty soon," Hal said.