g to be
game. You've voted, old fellow, to stay by this claim as long
as you can, and that's enough for me."

"But if we lose all our savings," Tom urged. He had now become
the cautious one.

"If we lose them, we lose them," declared Hazelton. "And we're
both of us young enough to be able to save more before we're
seventy-five or eighty years old. Go ahead, Tom. I'm one of the
investors here, but the whole game is in your hands. Go as far
as you like and I'll stand back of you."

"But-----"

"Say no more. Tom, I shall try never again to be a quitter.
Whoop! Let the money slip! We'll make the old mine a dividend
payer before we are through with it."

That afternoon about a dozen and a half more blasts were laid
and fired. Some five hundred feet of the surface of the vein
had been lightly blasted, and several tons of ore thrown up.

"I wouldn't call it ore, though," muttered Harry to himself.
"I don't believe this rook holds gold enough to put a yellow plating
on a cent."

"It does look rather poor, doesn't it, Harry?" Tom asked, trying
to speak blithely.

"Humph! We've got to go deeper than this before we can expect
to loosen rock worth thirty dollars to the ton," Harry declared
cheerily.

"Oh, we'll surely strike pay-rock in big lots after a while,"
predicted Reade, smiling happily and whistling merrily as he strode
away. "I'm glad Harry has his courage with him and his hopes high,"
Reade added to himself.

"I'm glad Tom is so cheerful and positive," thought Hazelton.
"I'll do my best to help him keep in that frame of mind; though,
for myself, I believe we would make more money if we stood on
a cliff and tossed pennies into the ocean."

"I'm glad to see that all your high hopes have returned," declared
Tom, at supper that evening.

"Oh, I've got the gold fever for fair," laughed Hazelton. "Tom, how
are we going to spend the money when we get it?"

"A new house for the folks at home will take some of my money, when
I get it," Tom declared, his eyes glowing.

"Any old thing that the folks take a fancy to will catch my share
of the gold," Harry promised.

"But, of course, we'll wait until we get it."

"You haven't any doubts about getting the gold, have you?"

"Not a doubt. Have you?"

"I'm an optimist," Harry asserted.

"What's your idea of an optimist, anyway?" laughed Tom.

"An optimist is a fellow who believes that banknotes grow on potato
vines," laughed Harry.

"Oh, we'll