"We don't think you're foolish, Meggy," said Betty, gently. "We think you're wonderful, and you deserve every bit of the splendid luck that has come to you. And I expect," she finished gayly, "that you will have the most beautiful horse in all Gold Run."
Meggy's eyes lighted with joy. Then they misted suddenly as she looked at the girls.
"It's jest like dad said," she murmured. "We wouldn't 'a' had nothin' ef it hadn't been fer you girls. You don't know how we feel about you, 'cause we jest never could tell you."
The days that followed seemed like a beautiful fairy tale to the happy girls. Peter Levine had known what he was talking about when he had asserted that "gold was running wild" about the northern end of the ranch and its environs.
It was as though the finding of gold in the new Higgins' mine had been the key that unlocked the door to a steady stream of it.
Every day brought glad tidings of a new find, and, as some of these were on the ranch, Betty began to realize that the Nelson family was becoming very wealthy. They had always been well-to-do, for her father had prospered in his business, that of carpet manufacturer in Deepdale. But now it seemed that they were to know what it felt like to be really rich.
The girls realized this, and once Mollie put the new idea into words.
"This is a wonderful thing for you, Betty dear," she said soberly. "You can have about anything in the world that you want now. I—I—hope you won't forget your old friends." She said the last laughingly, but Betty was deeply hurt and showed that she was.
"If—if you ever dare say such a horrid thing to me again, Mollie Billette," she cried, half way between tears and anger, "I'll never, never forgive you! You—you—ought to know me better."
And Mollie, heartily ashamed of herself, succeeded in placating the Little Captain only after having apologized most abjectly.