basketful!" and her dark eyes sparkled
at the thought.

"Yes, it has been a long time since we heard from the mines," answered
Ruth; "and our mothers are beginning to worry, more than they let us
know. They are afraid that the hunt for the Cave of Gold will get them
into some kind of trouble with the men who murdered the old miner for
the skin map, and then failed to get it. And--and not to hear a word
from them, when so many things might happen, is terrible worrying. Oh, I
do hope they find that Cave of Gold, and get enough gold to make us rich
all the rest of our lives!" and her face brightened. "That is the way it
would come out in a story book; and I can't see why it can't happen that
way in real life, just this once. I dreamt, only last night, that they
came back with a string of horses a mile long and all of them loaded
down with gold. And--and," and her face flushed a little, "Thure brought
me a nugget as big as my head, and a necklace of nuggets that reached to
the ground, when he threw it around my neck. Oh, if something like that
would only happen in real life!" and she laughed merrily at her own
extravagant conceit.

"And I dreamt--" and then Iola stopped abruptly.

A faint halloo, coming from far-off, at this moment had reached the ears
of both girls, and brought them out of the hammock in one jump, and
turned their two pairs of eyes to staring excitedly across the level of
the valley in front of the house.

A mile away they saw two horsemen, swinging their hats around their
heads and hallooing loudly, riding excitedly toward the house; and back
of them came a long train of horses and men.

For a minute the two girls stood, as if turned to stone, staring with
widening eyes at those two horsemen, at the train of horses and men
behind them; and then, with a yell that made their mothers jump from the
chairs where they were sitting in the cool of the house and rush to the
door, they leaped off the porch and ran toward the two horsemen.

"It's Thure and Bud! It's dad and the rest!" they shouted, as they ran.

In a few minutes the racing boys--for the two horsemen were Thure and
Bud--and the running girls met.

The boys jumped from their saddles, and, the next instant, they were in
the arms of the girls.

"We found it! We found it!" shouted Thure, a moment later, dancing up
and down with excitement. "We found the Cave of Gold! And here," and he
thrust one of his hands into his pocket, "is your breastpin