“The mine,” he went on slowly, “may be located in any one of a number of likely places. It may be in the oval, stretching away behind us, or in the ravine, or somewhere on the other side of the ravine. In which of these places are we going to search first?”
“The ravine,” said Sandy. “I believe we’ll be more apt to find the mine there.”
“I think ravine too,” Toma agreed with him. “What you say we make camp here while we look for mine? No use take supplies an’ pony along everywhere we go.”
“That’s a good suggestion. This will be our base, which we can always come back to. Anyway, it won’t take more than an hour or two to travel through the ravine from one end to the other. If the mine’s there, we’ll be sure to find it in a very short time.”
“There’s one thing I don’t like about this arrangement,” Sandy pointed out. “If we make our base here—which seems a pretty good idea—aren’t we running the chance of losing everything? In our absence the Indians could easily slip down here and steal it all. Put us in a nice pickle, wouldn’t it?”
“It would!” Dick declared most emphatically. “One of us will have to remain here, that’s all.”
“Which one of us?”
The three boys looked at each other. It was quite apparent from the expression on the face of each, that none of them wished to remain behind. To go and look for the gold mine was much more interesting and exciting.
“I guess we’ll have to draw straws,” Dick grinned.
“That’s fair enough,” Sandy broke off a twig as he spoke.