"And we're just getting into it!" said George, triumphantly.
California John and all the rest of his good friends rejoiced exceedingly and genuinely. They liked the Babes. The little strike of the Lost Dog quite overshadowed in importance the fact that old man Bright's "Clarice" had run into a fabulously rich pocket.
The end of the month drew near. The Lost Dog had produced nearly eight hundred dollars. The Babes waxed important and talked largely of their moneyed interests.
"I think," said Jimmy, importantly, "that we will decide to keep three hundred dollars to boost the game; and nail down the rest where moths won't corrupt. Where do you fellows salt your surplus, anyway?"
"There's an express goes out pretty soon," someone explained, "with the clean-up of the Clarice. We send our dust out with that; and I reckon you can fix it with Bright."
They saw Bright, but ran up against an unexpected difficulty. Old Man Bright received them with considerable surliness. He considered himself as the originator, discoverer, inventor, and almost the proprietor of Bright's Cove and all it contained. Therefore, when he first heard of the new strike, he walked up to the Lost Dog to see what it looked like. The Babes, panic stricken at the intended affront to "Old Man Luck," headed him off. Bright had not the least belief in the reason given. He surveyed them with disfavour.
"I can't take your package," he told them. "Send it out yourself."
"And that old skunk has cleaned up a hundred thousand this month!" complained Jimmy, pathetically, to the group around the horse trough. "And he won't even take a pore little five hundred package of dust out to some suffering bank! I suppose I'll have to cache it in a tomato can for Johnson's old billy goat to chew up."
"Bring it over and I'll shove it in with mine," suggested California John.
So it was done. The express, carrying nearly four hundred pounds of gold dust, set forth over the steep road. In two hours the driver and messenger sailed in, bung-eyed with excitement. They had been held up by a single road agent.