"Let 'er go," cried Cal.
Chug-chu-g-chug!
Nat threw on the power and off moved the auto, soon leaving behind the camp on the knoll which had been the scene of so many anxieties and amusing incidents.
As they rode along Nat explained to the others the plan of campaign. It was hailed with much joy and Joe and Ding-dong immediately began asking questions. Cal explained that his mine was located in a canyon which had once been the scene of much mining activity, but like many camps in the Sierras, those who once worked it—the argonauts—had long since departed. Only a little graveyard with wooden head-boards on the hill above the camp remained to tell of them. Cal had taken up a claim there in the heyday of the gold workings and from time to time used to visit it and work about the claim a little. He had never gotten much gold out of it, but it yielded him a living, he said.
"Anybody else up there?" asked Nat.
"Only a few Chinks," rejoined Cal.
"I don't like 'em," said Joe briefly, "yellow-skinned, mysterious cusses."
"M-m-m-my mother had a C-c-c-c-chinese c-c-c-c-cook—phwit!—once," put in Ding-dong, "but we had to fire him."