off this way."

Nelly did not reply. She felt a little guilty at letting Lucinda think it was only to find a pretty place she had gone; but she was sure it would not be best to tell anybody about the black stones till she had told her father. She had hid them all in a pile near the pine-tree whose branch she had broken down; and she meant to pick them up on her way home the next night. In the morning it looked to Nelly as if it never would be night, she was in such a hurry to see her father.

"Oh, Lucinda," she said, "do give me something to do! I don't want to go off to-day. I want to stay with you." So Lucinda gave her some brown towels to hem, and also let her snap the chalked cord with which she marked off the pattern on her quilt; and, by help of these two occupations, Nelly contrived to get through the day, till four o'clock, when she set out for home. As good luck would have it, when she was within quarter of a mile from home she saw her father at work in a field. She jumped over the fence and ran to him.

"Papa! papa!" she said, breathless: "look here!" And she held up her basket of black stones. "This is the kind of stone that comes where the silver is. There is a mine underneath it always: Mr. Kleesman said so. And I've found a mine: I'll show you where it is."

Mr. March laughed very heartily.

"Why, my dear little girl!" he said, "what ever put such an idea into your head? I don't believe those stones are good for any thing."

Nelly set down her basket, and pulled her pocket-handkerchief out of her pocket: the little piece of black stone she had got from Mr.

Kleesman was tied firmly in one corner.

"Look at that, papa," she said, "and see if the stones in the basket are not just like it." Then she told her father all about the man's coming into the a.s.sayer's office with a bag of stones like that one, and what Mr. Kleesman said to him.

"Don't you see, papa," she said, vehemently, "that it must be a mine? Why, there are piles of it: it has all slipped down into the bottom of this steep place; there used to be a brook down there. I know it's a mine, papa! And if I found it, it's ours: isn't it?"

Nelly's cheeks were red, and her words came so fast they almost choked her.

"Nelly, dear," said her father, "don't you recollect that once before you thought you had found silver ore, you and Rob, up in the Ute Pa.s.s?"

Nelly looked ashamed.

"Oh, papa," she said, "that was quite different. That was when we were little things. Papa, I know this is a mine. If you'd heard what Mr. Kleesman said, you'd think so too. He said in his country they had a proverb, that no mine was good for any thing unless it had a black hat on its head; and that meant that there were always black stones on top like this."

Mr. March turned the little bit of black stone over and over, and examined it carefully.

"I do not know much about minerals," he said. "I think I never saw a stone like this."

"Nor I either, papa," exclaimed Nelly: "except in this one place. I know it's a mine, and I'll give it to you all for your own. It's mine, isn't it, if I found it?"

"Yes, dear, it's yours, unless somebody else had found it before you."

"I don't believe anybody had," said Nelly; "for there weren't any stakes stuck down anywhere near; and all the claims have stakes stuck down round them. Oh, papa! isn't it splendid! now we can have all the money we want."

Mr. March smiled half sadly.

"My dear little daughter," he said, "there are a great many more people who have lost all the money they had in the world trying to get money out of a mine, than there are who have made fortunes in that way. You must not get so excited. Even if there is a mine in the place where you found these stones, I don't think I have money enough to open it and take out the ore. But I will show these stones to Mr. Scholfield. He knows a great deal about mines."

"Oh, do! do! papa," exclaimed Nelly. "I know it's a mine."

"I am going down there to-night," said Mr. March. "I will carry your stones, and see what he says. In the mean time, we will not say any thing about it to anybody. You and papa will just have a little secret."

When Nelly kissed her father for good-night, she nodded at him with a meaning glance, and he returned the nod with an equally meaning one.

"What are you two plotting?" cried Mrs. March. "I see mischief in both your eyes."

"Oh, it's a little secret we have, Nelly and I," said Mr. March. "It won't last long: we'll tell you to-morrow."

It turned out that Mrs. March did not have to wait till the next day before learning the secret. Mr. March got home about midnight from Mr. Scholfield's. Mrs. March had been sound asleep for two hours: the sound of Mr. March's steps wakened her.

"Is that you, Robert?" she called.

"Yes," he said. There was something in the tone of his voice which was so strange that it roused her instantly. She sat up straight in bed and exclaimed:--

"What is the matter?"

"Nothing," said Mr. March.

"Nonsense!" said Mrs. March: "you can't deceive me. Something has happened. Come in here this minute and tell me what it is."

Then Mr. March told her the whole story. He had taken Nelly's stones to Mr. Scholfield, who had said immediately that there was without doubt a mine in the place where that mineral was found; and, when Mr. March had told him as nearly as he could from Nelly's description where the spot was, he had said that no mines had yet been discovered very near that place, and no claims were staked out.

"Scholfield says we must go immediately and stake out our claim.

He'll go shares with me in digging; and at any rate will see what's there," said Mr. March.

"Do you believe in it yourself, Robert?" asked Mrs. March. She was much afraid of new schemes for making money.

"Why, I can't say I'm very enthusiastic about it," replied Mr.

March; "but then I don't know any thing about mines, you see.

Scholfield was near wild over it. He says we've got silver there sure."

"Will you have to find money to begin with?" asked Mrs. March, anxiously.

"Well, Sarah, considering that we haven't got any money, I don't see how I can: do you?" laughed Mr. March. "But Scholfield says that if I will give him a third of the mine, he'll take another man in, and they two'll pay for the working it at first. That seems very fair: doesn't it?"

"I don't know," said Mrs. March. "If the mine really does turn out to be very valuable, it is giving him a good deal."

"That is true," replied Mr. March. "But, on the other hand, perhaps it is not worth any thing; and, in that case, Scholfield has the worst of the bargain. He says, though, he can tell very soon. He has been in mining a good deal; and he can make his own a.s.says with the blow-pipe. We're to start very early in the morning, and take Nelly along to show us the way. The dear child was nearly beside herself last night."

"So that was your secret: was it?" said Mrs. March.

"Yes, and a very hard one it was for the child to keep too," said Mr. March. "She was half crazy to tell Rob."

"You'll take him along too: won't you?" asked Mrs. March.

"Oh, yes," said Mr. March: "no more secrets now; that is, not in this house. We won't have it talked round, if we can help it.

Scholfield says that the minute it is known we've found silver there, those ravines will just swarm with men prospecting for more claims."

The next day, Mr. March and Mr. Scholfield and Rob and Nelly set out immediately after breakfast for the ravine. They stopped at Billy's house and took him with them. Mr. Scholfield had said to Mr. March, as they walked along:--

"If Long Billy'll go in with us, I'd rather have him than any man I know about here. He's as honest 's daylight; I don't think he's doing much this summer; I think he'll go to work digging right away."

Wasn't Nelly a proud little girl as she walked ahead of the party?

She kept hold of Rob's hand, and every now and then they would run so fast that the older people had to run, too, to keep up with them.

"How do you know the way so well, Nelly?" said Mr. Scholfield.