The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure Part 18

"It's a good thing I've watched Dad and other folks build their monuments. Now I know just how to do it." Kit was jubilant. It was thrilling to be able to show the girls the way to locate claims.

Kit took the blank that had been filled in and placed it in the center of the monument. "There!" she exclaimed. "The first time we come back here we'll bring a tin can and put that paper in it and bury it in the rocks again. That will keep it dry."

"What a funny thing to do," laughed Bet.

"It's the rule up here. We're doing it the same as all the prospectors did. Every claim was located that way!" Kit carefully covered the blank, then folded up another, a duplicate and handed it to Bet. "Keep this one."

"What for?" asked Shirley.

"That is the one we send in to be recorded at the County Office."

"I'm excited!" cried Bet as she dropped beside the pillar of rock in the center of the claim. "Isn't it just too wonderful for anything to own a mine like this? I feel rich already. And just think there may be a big mine on this very spot some day!"

"Bet, you should have been a prospector. Every old miner in the hills thinks that his own particular claims are going to be the biggest mine in sight," laughed the Arizona girl. "As soon as he builds a monument he begins to talk of private cars and mansions."

"I almost wish I were a prospector. It must be lots of fun to have marvelous hopes of success. If I hadn't come a girl, I'd be a prospector. Just think of it, not having anything to do in life but roam around the hills and look at the rocks!" Bet lost herself in her dreams.

"And build funny little play monuments!" added Enid.

"Yes, and half starve to death before you get ore enough mined to sell," Kit reminded her.

"Oh, Kit, that isn't fair to wake me up so rudely. Why not dream pleasant things while you're about it?" Bet laughed. "Where do we locate the next claim?" They followed Kit to some distance from the monument and when they had found sufficient outcropping they repeated the same process.

There was a hot breeze that seemed to intensify the heat of the sun and brought the aromatic scent of the greasewood. The wild beauty of the canyon was not lost on the girls. From the cliff they could see down into the depths, they could hear the rippling of water over the rocky bed of the creek, the flash of a bright bird in the trees would bring them out of their day dreams. It was good to be alive, good to be roaming through the hills looking for romance and adventure.

"I'm glad we gave up the idea of hunting for treasure," declared Bet with a shade of contempt in her voice as she paced off the required number of feet for marking the fourth and last claim. "Somehow or other that seems silly now. This is far more important and worth while."

"After seeing those excavations that were made, I could never think of it seriously," Enid said quietly. "Kie Wicks must have spent a fortune trying to find treasure in that spot."

"Yes, but not _his_ fortune! He formed a company and sold stock, so it wasn't his own money he spent," Kit reminded them.

The girls stood looking over their claims with affectionate glances.

"I love them, Bet, and I'd just hate to have anyone else do the digging. Why can't we do it?" asked Kit.

Enid spoke up. "Don't do it, girls. Take my advice and hire it done, it will be cheaper in the end."

"Maybe Enid's right," agreed Bet. "We mustn't get too ambitious or we'll miss half the fun."

"Say, when do we eat?" demanded Joy suddenly. "I'm famished! I can't do another thing until I get my lunch."

"Poor starved child!" laughed Enid. "Do you suppose you could roll down the hill so we can build a camp fire by the stream? If you think you can't, we might fix up a stretcher and carry you."

Joy answered with a toss of her head and a puckered-up grin. "I think I can manage to crawl there, if I am sure of a feed immediately."

The girls scrambled down the steep cliff side and began to unpack the lunch. Joy chose a large granite rock in the middle of the stream and perched thereon, she surveyed her surroundings.

"Isn't that a lovely copper stain? And to think it's coming from our mine!" she enthused in a mocking tone, while the other girls unpacked the lunch or hustled around to find sticks for a fire.

Their lunch preparations were to be quite elaborate, roast potatoes and corn on the cob and steak. Enid and Kit built the fire with care and soon a bed of coals was ready. While the two girls worked over the fire and Shirley gave attention to spreading the feast, Bet sat on the cliff, dreaming of the mine to be.

"This is adventure! This is romance!" she cried to her friends.

"Romance!" chuckled Joy. "It's not what I call romance."

"Dark brown eyes and a heavenly smile on the face of a boy, is your only idea of romance. You are a silly girl!" Bet shrugged her boyish shoulders and laughed at Joy as she undid her long rope, and standing up straight, tried to send the loop over a stump in the manner approved by Tommy Sharpe, her teacher. Her efforts were not very successful.

Out of twenty attempts she managed one that coiled over the spot that she was aiming at. Bet decided then and there that she would not make a good cowboy. While she practised the throw again and again, she continued to talk to Joy who seemed half vexed as she snapped:

"You needn't talk about liking boys, Bet Baxter. I don't blush every time the mail arrives and a letter is handed me. And you seem to have no objection to dreamy brown eyes yourself. I've seen the way you looked at Phil Gordon. Now Phil's eyes haven't got enough snap in them for me--they're altogether too brooding to suit me. I think that young Mexican's eyes are much more exciting."

"Why, Joy Evans, how dare you say that I like to look at Phil's eyes?

He's a dear boy, one of our best chums, but I don't think at all about his eyes," retorted Bet.

"You don't think his eyes are nice? Answer me, Bet?" teased Shirley.

"They're all right I tell you, but I think you girls are just too horrid trying to insinuate that I'm in love with Phil," protested Bet, her face flushing, her blue eyes snapping with anger.

"We don't have to insinuate anything, Bet. You give yourself away every time his name is mentioned," was Joy's emphatic reply.

"I move we change the subject. It's a sore point with me for I'm half in love with Phil myself," laughed Kit. "He's one of the nicest boys I've ever seen. But when Bet's around he won't even notice me."

"What will Bob say to that?" laughed the impish Joy for it was no secret that Bob Evans had lost his heart to the Arizona girl from the first time he met her. His heart was hers to crush or treasure as she saw fit. But at present Kit preferred to hold on to her girlhood and not allow the thought of love and grown-up responsibilities to enter her head.

That was one nice thing about the relationship of the girls and their boy friends. There was comradeship and loyal friendship.

Bet suddenly jumped down from her perch on the cliff and said disgustedly: "Joy Evans, I think you are corrupting all of us with your silly ideas regarding boys. I love Bob and Phil and Paul Breckenridge and Tommy Sharpe just exactly the same, and I won't be teased about any one in particular."

"Methinks thou dost protest too much, my dear!" exclaimed Joy tantalizingly. "We'll change the subject for the time, but when I get you alone, Bet Baxter, I'll make you own up that Phil Gordon is a little dearer to you than any of them." Joy dodged and slid from the granite rock just in time to miss the loop of rope that Bet had aimed at her with no gentle hand.

"Come on girls, you selfish things, give your horses a chance," and Kit stroked Powder's muzzle and gave him a nosebag of oats. All the girls followed her example, then while the potatoes were getting ready, Bet took a book from her pack behind the saddle and lost herself in a story.

"Do read aloud, Bet," begged Enid, dropping down beside her friend. "I will always remember how you read to me on Campers' Trail when I was hurt."

So while Kit tended the fire, keeping a bed of hot coals just right for the baking, and Shirley fried steak and cooked the corn, Enid stretched out on a flat rock and listened to Bet. She had chosen "The Wonderful Window" by Dunsany, and when she finished Enid sighed softly.

"I like a story that gives you something to think about," said Bet, moved by the loveliness of the tale.

"I don't see anything particularly nice to think about in that story, Bet," objected Joy with a shrug. "It isn't lively enough to suit me."

"Of course you wouldn't!" laughed Enid. "Your idea of a story is Cinderella. There has to be a girl, a prince and a wedding. Isn't that right?"

"Of course," answered the b.u.t.terfly girl, twirling about on her toes as usual. "It's the only kind that counts. I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for any other kind."

With a bound, Bet jumped to her feet, caught the slight form of Joy, lifted her clear off the ground, then ran with her down to the creek.

"Come on, Enid, this girl needs to have her head soaked in cold water.

Let's do it." And in spite of the protests of the kicking, shrieking Joy, the girls managed to get her to a pool of water in the creek bed.

"Now, Joy Evans, will you behave yourself?"