"Not yet, Dad. There will be time enough to grow up when I get to be thirty. Until then, I want to be just a girl and have lots of fun and adventure."
"You seem to be getting your wish, as you always do," Enid said as she tried to pat Bet's tousled locks into place.
"I didn't get my wish this time. Far from it. I wished for heaps of treasure, and I get nothing but a brass-bound chest."
Tommy Sharpe was gazing at the mud-crusted box with interest and suddenly burst out; "Say, Judge, if Kie Wicks gets an idea that the chest is worth more than a dollar and a half, he'll try to take it away from the girls. Don't you think we'd better take it back to the ranch?"
"You're right, Tommy. It may not be what we planned for, but just the same, the professor and the girls put up a fight for it and it belongs to them."
"And I love it, Dad!" exclaimed Enid, examining the carving on the box.
"Well, what are we going to do now?" asked the business-like Shirley.
"Will we abandon the tunnel and claims and let Kie Wicks have them?"
"No!" cried Bet decidedly. "I won't let him have anything! Not even the worthless old tunnel."
"That's the way I feel about it," said the professor. "Kie didn't treat me fairly and I don't wish him to be near my camp. On the other hand, we shouldn't be a burden to Judge Breckenridge, who has supplied men to guard the tunnel and help do the digging."
Bob interrupted with a shout. "Let us live here and guard the tunnel part of the time. What about it, Paul, can you think of any more interesting way to spend a vacation? To cook and live out like this?"