her
as she studied the ground. Suddenly her face brightened. "Why, of
course!" she exclaimed. "That mark represents the crack, and daddy
meant to stake the claim with the crack for the center. Well, here
goes!" She vehemently attacked a young sapling, and ten minutes later
viewed with pride her four roughly hacked stakes. Picking up one of
them and the axe, she paced off her distance, and as she reached the
first corner point, stared in surprise at the ground. The claim had
already been staked! Eagerly she stooped to examine the bit of wood.
It had evidently been in place for some time--how long, the girl could
not tell. Long enough, though, for its surface to have become
weather-grayed and discolored. "Daddy's stakes," she breathed softly,
and as her fingers strayed over the surface two big tears welled into
her eyes and trickled unheeded down her cheeks. "If he staked the
claim, I wonder why he didn't file," she puzzled over the matter for a
moment, and dismissed it. "I don't know why. But, anyway, the thing
for me to do is to get in my own stakes--only, I'll file, just as soon
as I can get to the register's office."

After considerable difficulty, she succeeded in planting her own stake
close beside the other, which marked the southwest corner of the claim, a
short time later the northwest corner was staked, and the girl stared again
at the rock wall. "Why, I've got to put in my eastern boundary stakes up on
top--three hundred feet back from the edge!" she exclaimed; "maybe I'll
find his notice on one of those stakes." It required only a moment to
locate a ravine that led to the top of the ledge which was not nearly so
high as the one that formed the opposite side of the valley. She found the
old stakes, but no sign of a notice. "The wind, and the snow, and the rain
have destroyed it long ago," she muttered. "And, now for my own notice."
Producing from her bag a pencil and a piece of paper, she wrote her
description and affixed it to a stake by means of a bit of wire. Then,
descending once more into the valley, she produced her luncheon and threw
herself down beside the little creek. It was mid-afternoon, and she
suddenly discovered that she was ravenously hungry. With her back against a
rock fragment, she sat and feasted her eyes upon her claim--hers--HERS! Her
thoughts flew backward to the enthusiasm of her father over this very
claim. She remembered how his eyes had lighted as he told her of its hidden
treasure. S