"Well," said Grace as she gave Nabob a gentle slap that started him on again, "Peter Levine must want that ranch very badly, to be following us all over the continent this way."
"He seems to be rather anxious," said Betty dryly. "He has offered mother twenty thousand for it this time."
"Going up," cried Mollie, with a chuckle. "If your mother holds on much longer, Betty, she will be a millionaire."
"Well, mother is more certain than ever that there is something unusual about Gold Run Ranch," went on Betty, as she urged Nigger up a gentle slope. "She confidently expects to discover a gold mine, and so that's another reason why she thinks Allen ought to be here."
"Goodness, let's all get out and dig," cried Mollie.
"Can we have all we find, Betty?" called Amy, with a laugh.
"Every last gold brick," answered Betty happily, and then they came upon another open space, and there, lying not more than half a mile below them, was the mining town of Gold Run.
"Now here's the place to have some lunch," said Betty, slipping to the ground and leading Nigger off a little way into the woods where she tethered him securely. "We can look right down into the town and eat our lunch at the same time."
The girls followed suit, and it did not take them long afterward to discover that they were very hungry. So out came the lunch basket, and never did biscuits and cheese and fried chicken taste more delicious than they did to the girls right there in that romantic little spot in the woods.
"I hope it doesn't rain the way it did the other day," said Mollie, as she lazily surveyed a cloudless sky.