"Why, does that tease you, Nell?" asked Rob, pretending to be very innocent. "I was only telling you what Billy said."

"I don't believe it," said Nelly: "do you, papa?"

"No," replied Mr. March. "I do not see why they should give it any other name than the one the owners give it."

"Well, you'll see," said Rob. "There are ever so many mines that go by two or three different names. There's one way off in the north somewhere, where Billy used to haul ore, is called 'Bobtail,' some of the time, and 'Miss Lucy,' some of the time. They tried to change 'Bobtail' into 'Miss Lucy,' and they couldn't."

"Couldn't!" exclaimed Nelly: "what do you mean by that?"

"Why, the people wouldn't," said Rob, saucily: "that's all."

"'That's all' about a great many things in this world, Rob,"

laughed his mother. "'Couldn't' is very apt to be only another word for 'wouldn't' with a little boy I know."

Rob laughed, and left off teasing Nelly about the name of her mine.

CHAPTER XIII

"THE GOOD LUCK"

Billy went to work the very next day at "The Good Luck." First, he put up a little hut, which looked more like an Indian wigwam than any thing else. This was for him and Mr. Scholfield to sleep in.

"We can't take time to go home nights till we get this thing started," said Billy. "If we've got ore here, the sooner we get some on't out the better; an' if we hain't got ore here, the sooner we find that out the better."

All day long, day after day, Billy and Mr. Scholfield dug, till they had a big hole, as deep as a well, dug in the ground. Then they put a windla.s.s at the top, with a long rope fastened to it, and a bucket on the end of the rope. This bucket they lowered down into the hole, just as you lower a water-bucket down into a well; then they filled it full of the stones which they thought had silver in them, and then turned the windla.s.s and drew it up.

Mr. Scholfield pounded some of these stones very fine, and melted them with his blow-pipe, and got quite big b.u.t.tons of silver out of them. He gave some of these to Mr. March. When he showed these to Nelly, she exclaimed:---

"Oh! these are a great deal bigger than any I saw in Mr. Kleesman's office. Our mine must be a good one."

Mr. Scholfield was in great glee. He made the most extravagant statements, and talked very foolishly about the mine: said he would not take half a million of dollars for his third of it; and so on, till old, experienced miners shook their heads and said he was crazy. But, when they saw the round b.u.t.tons of shining silver which he had extracted from the stones, they stopped shaking their heads, and thought perhaps he was right. The fame of "The Good Luck" spread all over town; and, as Billy had said there would be, there were many who persisted in calling the mine "The Nelly." Almost everybody in Rosita knew Nelly by sight by this time; and it gave the mine much greater interest in their eyes that it had been found by this good, industrious little girl, whom everybody liked. Whenever Nelly went to town now, people asked her about her mine. She always answered:--

"It isn't my mine: it is my papa's."

"But you found it," they would say.

"I found the black hat it wore on its head," was Nelly's usual reply: "that is all. Mr. Scholfield and Billy found the silver."

It happened that it was nearly three weeks before Rob and Nelly went to Mr. Kleesman's house again. They had now a new interest, which made them hurry through with all they had to do in Rosita, so as to have time on their way home to stop at "The Good Luck," and watch Billy and Mr. Scholfield at work. It was an endless delight to them to see the windla.s.s wind, wind, wind, and watch the heavy bucket of stone slowly coming up to the mouth of the hole. Then Billy would let Rob take the bucket and empty it on the pile of shining gray ore which grew higher and higher every day. Sometimes the children stayed here so late that it was after dark when they reached home; and at last Mrs. March told them that they must not go to the mine every time they went to Rosita: it made their walk too long. She said they might go only every other time.

"Let's go Tuesdays," said Rob.

"Why?" said Nelly.

"It never seems half so long from Tuesday till Friday as it does from Friday to Tuesday," said Rob.

"Why, why not?" asked Nelly.

"Oh, I don't know," said Rob. "Sunday's twice as long as any other day: I guess that's it."

"But you've got the Sunday each week," exclaimed Nelly: "it isn't any shorter from Tuesday to Tuesday than from Friday to Friday: what a silly boy! The Sunday comes in all the same. Don't you see?"

Rob looked puzzled.

"I don't care," he said "it seems ever so much shorter."

The first day that they were not to go to the mine, Rob said:--

"See here, Nell: if we can't go to the mine, let's go and see old Mr. Kleesman. His furnace must be done by this time. Perhaps he'll be making an a.s.say to-day."

"Oh, good!" said Nelly. "I declare I'd almost forgotten all about him: hadn't you?"

"No, indeed!" said Rob: "I liked the mine better; but let's go there to-day."

"And we'll go and eat our lunch at Ulrica's too," said Nelly. "We haven't taken it there for ever so long: she said so Tuesday. We'll go to-day."

"So we will," said Rob. "Perhaps she'll have stewed chicken."

"Oh, for shame, Rob!" said Nelly.

"What for?" said Rob: "I don't see any shame. Where's the shame?"

"Shame to think about something to eat when you go to see people,"

replied Nelly.

"Now, Nell March, didn't you think of it, honest Indian?" said Rob.

"Well, it's worse to say it," stammered Nelly. "Perhaps I did think of it, just a little, little bit; but I always try not to."

"Ha! ha! Miss Nell! I've caught you this time; and I don't think it's a bit worse to say it: so, there! Stewed chicken! stewed chicken!" And Rob danced along in front of Nelly, shouting the words in her very face. Nelly could not help laughing, though she was angry.

"Rob," she said, "you can be the worst torment I ever saw."

"That's only because you haven't had any other torment but me,"

cried Rob, still dancing along backwards in front of Nelly.

"Hullo! hullo!" said a loud, gruff voice just behind him: "don't run me down, young man! Which side of the way will you have, or will you have both?"

Very much confused, Rob turned and found himself nearly in the arms of an old man with rough clothes on, but with such a nice, benevolent face that Rob knew he was not going to be angry with him.

"I beg your pardon, sir," he said. "I didn't see you."

"Naturally you didn't, since you have no eyes in the back of your head," said the old man. "Do you always walk backwards, or is it only when you are teasing your sister?"

Nelly hastened to defend Rob.