ng her shovel. "I'm going to be a gold
miner just like you two. If I can't be that I won't play, and I'll take
my shovel right back! So there now!"

"Oh, you can be a gold miner too," Hal made haste to say. "But we've got
to have a cook--they always do in a gold camp."

"Well, I'll be a cook when I'm not digging gold," agreed Jan. "But I
want to get enough for my doll's bracelets."

"That's all right," agreed Hal. It would not do to have Jan leave them
right at the start.

If Mrs. Martin or grandpa saw the children starting out with hoe and
shovels they probably thought the Curlytops were only going to dig fish
worms, as they often did. Grandpa Martin was very fond of fishing, but
he did not like to dig the bait. But Trouble was fretful that day, and
his mother had to take care of him, so she did not pay much attention to
Jan or Ted, feeling sure they would come to no harm.

So on the three children hurried toward the hole into which Ted had
fallen just before they found the queer cave.

"This is just the place for a gold mine!" cried Hal when he looked at
the ground around the big hole. "I guess some one must have started a
mine here once before."

"It does look so," agreed Ted.

"Let's go into the cave," proposed the visitor.

"No, grandpa told us we must never go in without him," objected Jan.
"It's all right to stay outside here and dig, but we mustn't go inside.
The tramps might be in there."

"That's right," chimed in Ted. "Well stay outside."

Hal was not very anxious, himself, to go into the dark hole, so they
looked at the place where Ted had fallen through the loose leaves and
talked about whether it would be better to start to make that hole
larger or begin a new one. The children decided the last would be the
best thing to do.

"We'll start a new mine of our own," said Hal. "I guess maybe somebody
dug there and couldn't find any gold. So we'll start a new mine."

This suited the Curlytops and they soon began making the dirt fly with
shovels and hoe, digging a hole that was large enough for all three of
them to stand in. Hal said they didn't want to start by making too small
a mine.

"If we've got to divide it into three parts we want each one's part big
enough to see," he said, and Ted and Jan agreed to this.

The ground was of sand and very easy to dig. There were no big rocks,
only a few small stones, and of course this was just what the children
liked. So that in about half an hour they