aid Dallas; "but what do you mean?"

"There's that judge. I think he ought to have a pull out of this, too.
He nearly hung us up on a tree, but he meant well, and it was all for
law and order. What I propose is this. We'll make our own claims sure,
and get our friends up to secure theirs; and then let's tell the judge,
and he'll come up with a picked lot to keep all right."

"Excellent," said Dallas. "But who goes down first to see about
stores?"

"I will, my sons. I'm strongest, and as to bringing up plenty, I shall
have plenty ready to help. But I say, play fair; you won't run away
with my third while I'm gone?"

Tregelly started down the ravine in company with Scruff the very next
day, and many more had not elapsed before he was back with the whole
party from their old workings, eager to congratulate the fortunate
discoverers and place ample stores at their service.

They had just time to get up another supply, enough for the coming
winter, before it seemed to sweep down like a black veil from the
northern mountains.

But building does not take long under such circumstances. Wood had been
brought up from out of a valley a few miles lower down, and in the
shelter of a dense patch of scrub pine in a side gully, where the
new-comers found the gold promising to their hearts' content, they were
ready to defy the keenest weather that might come.

Two years had elapsed, and winter was once more expected, for the days
were shortening fast, when three men sat together in their humble hut,
discussing the question of going home; and the thought of once more
meeting one whose last letter had told of her longings to see her boys
again, brought a flush to the young men's cheeks and a bright light to
their eyes.

They had been talking long and loudly, those two, while Tregelly had sat
smoking his pipe and saying nothing, till Dallas turned to him sharply.

"Say something, my son?" the big fellow cried. "Of course I will. Here
it is. I've been thinking of all that gold we've sent safely home
through the banks, and I've been thinking of what our claim's worth, and
what that there company's willing to give."

"Well," said Abel, "go on."

"Give a man time, my son. I warn't brought up to the law. What I was
thinking is this: we three working chaps in our shabby clothes are rich
men as we stand now."

"Very," said Dallas.

"And if we were to sell our claim now we should be very, very rich."

"Very--very--ver