Suddenly Enid called excitedly, "Oh, Kit, is that greenish color on the rock copper stain?"
"That's it," said Kit, "but here there is hardly more than a tint.
Let's go on farther," and Kit urged her pony ahead.
After half an hour of slow travel through the creek, the girls were rewarded. The tiny canyon had widened out, the stream was larger and they found sufficient emerald green stain to suggest that there might be a large deposit of copper nearby. They also found more fragments of ore.
Dismounting, the girls left their horses standing with trailing bridles. Bet suggested unfastening the rope she had brought for practising, to tie her pony to a tree. Kit laughed.
"The very idea! Don't insult a mountain horse in that way. He'd never forgive you. Never! Look, here's a small outcrop!"
Kit led the way up over the hill, following an exposed vein of copper ore that appeared at intervals. Bet squealed with delight.
"Just look at it! Isn't that lovely? Kit, do you think it's rich ore?"
"I can't tell you that, Bet, but Dad said there were a lot of fine claims up this way."
"Oh, isn't it glorious?" enthused Bet. "We'll stake them out and own a mine!"
"And if we find any good claims, we'll locate them today, for Dad gave me some location blanks to give to the professor. Dad thinks that it is all foolishness to hunt for a lost Indian village, so he was trying to persuade the old man to go in for mining. And I have those blanks in my saddle bag right here." And Kit waved her hand back toward the canyon where Powder was standing patiently waiting his mistress's return.