"Wonder how he happened to leave out that one?" snapped Kit.
Bet held out her hand for the blank. "Let's see which one it is. Oh, girls, what a shame! It's the most unpromising claim of all. That's the last one we located, the one we called, 'Little Orphan Annie.' It's too mean for anything." There were tears of disappointment and anger in Bet's eyes.
"Do you want it recorded?" The girls heard the clerk's voice but it seemed to come from far away.
"What's the use of one claim? You can't make a mine out of just one miserable claim!"
"I don't care, I want it anyway!" Bet shrugged her shoulders defiantly.
"I told you there was a hoodoo on those claims," Joy spoke cheerfully, as much as to say, "I told you so."
Joy's pessimism was all that was needed to decide Bet.
"Yes, we'll record it, and we'll be locating some more soon," she announced with determination. "We are not going to let Kie Wicks and Ramon Salazar beat us. We'll get even with them somehow."
"They wouldn't have dared to do this if we were men. Just because we are girls, they think they'll get away with it."
"Oh, by all means!" Joy taunted provokingly, "Be sure to locate some more claims and let that man take them away from us again."