I right in coming to
the conclusion that you are all thinking of the same thing?"

"I guess I am," said Griggs.

"I'm sure I am," said Bourne.

"I'm thinking that the sooner we get to work the better," said Wilton.

"That's soon settled, then," said the doctor, "for there is no occasion
to ask the boys--it's written plainly in both their faces. We all think
that it would be madness to talk of leaving such a home as we can make
of this."

"All!" came in chorus, and then the appetite for breakfast, while they
worked afterwards as they had never worked before to master and drive
back the encroaching forest; fetch stores with their mule-train from the
distant port; rebuild and restore; and in due time plant, gather, and
farm, to provide the necessaries of life, till Golden Hollow, as it was
renamed, became a veritable Eden--a home which, attracted others, till
as time went on the peril finders' struggle to grasp at the phantom gold
seemed to grow more and more like some exciting dream.

"Ever think of the shooting now, boys?" said Griggs one day, as he stood
by the side of the great green basket of fruit he had gathered and just
set down, to turn over some half-a-dozen that were beginning to glow
like gold.

"Not often," said Ned, "but it will come at times."

"Do you?" said Griggs, turning to Chris, who looked thoughtful.

"Yes: I did only yesterday," was the reply. "I was at the bottom of the
big peach-orchard, when I regularly jumped, for there was a sharp whizz
close to my ear, and I began to think of the Indians hiding behind every
bush."

"But it couldn't have been an arrow," cried Griggs.

"No; only a hawk making a dash at one of those blue-breasted birds; but
it set me thinking of arrows flying, and using one's rifle too."

"Ah, rough times those," said Griggs, picking up two oranges, and then a
third, to keep them, juggler fashion, following one another through the
air. "Like to go again?"

"No!" shouted Chris and Ned together, in a way which disconcerted the
juggler so that the oranges all came down, to be picked up quickly, as
the American said sharply--

"Same here. Once was enough."

THE END.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Peril Finders, by George Manville Fenn

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