bait. She soon had
plenty for supper and breakfast. Wherefore she abandoned that
diversion, and took to prying tentatively in the lee of certain
bowlders on the edge of the creek--prospecting on her own initiative,
as it were. She had no pan, and only one hand to work with, but she
knew gold when she saw it--and, after all, it was but an idle method of
killing time.

She noticed behind each rock and in every shallow, sheltered place in
the stream a plentiful gathering of tiny red stones. They were of a
pale, ruby cast, and mostly flawed; dainty trifles, translucent and
full of light when she held them to the sun. She began a search for a
larger specimen. It might mount nicely into a stickpin for Bill, she
thought; a memento of the Klappan Range.

And in this search she came upon a large, rusty pebble, snuggled on the
downstream side of an over-hanging rock right at the water's edge. It
attracted her first by its symmetrical form, a perfect oval; then, when
she lifted it, by its astonishing weight. She continued her search for
the pinkish-red stones, carrying the rusty pebble along. Presently she
worked her way back to where Roaring Bill labored prodigiously.

"I feel ashamed to be loafing while you work so hard, Billy-boy," she
greeted.

"Give me a kiss and I'll call it square," he proposed cheerfully. "Got
to work like a beaver, kid. This hot weather'll put us to the bad
before long. There'll be ten feet of water roaring down here one of
these days."

"Look at these pretty stones I found," she said. "What are they, Bill?"

"Those?" He looked at her outstretched palm. "Garnets."

"Garnets? They must be valuable, then," she observed. "The creek's
full of them."

"Valuable? I should say so," he grinned. "I sent a sample to a
Chicago firm once. They replied to the effect that they would take all
I could deliver, and pay thirty-six dollars a ton, f. o. b., my nearest
railroad station."

"Oh!" she protested. "But they're pretty."

"Yes, if you can find one of any size. What's the other rock?" he
inquired casually. "You making a collection of specimens?"

"That's just a funny stone I found," she returned. "It must be iron or
something. It's terribly heavy for its size."

"Eh? Let me see it," he said.

She handed it over.

He weighed it in his palm, scrutinized it closely, turning it over and
over. Then he took out his knife and scratched the rusty surface
vigorously for a few minu