The Rambler Club's Gold Mine

"Lots of wild animals between us and the gold, Bob Somers," finished Dick Travers, with a chuckle, as he shied a towel in the direction of stout Dave Brandon, who lay in his bunk, with one leg hanging over the side.

"And whoever imagined that good old Wanatoma, just because he thinks the Ramblers saved his life, would have given us his great secret, so that--"

"Listen to him," chirped little Tom Clifton. "Thinks!--thinks! Why, the Ramblers did save his life; isn't that so, Jacky Conroy?"

He turned toward a tall, athletic-looking boy sitting near the stove.

"No mistake about it, Tommy; that forest fire was almost the end of poor old Wanna. And the way he's acted about this gold mine shows he's made of the right stuff. Still--"

The big lad rose to his feet, began to whistle discordantly, and grinned as five pairs of scornful eyes were leveled toward him.

The boys were on a visit to Tim Lovell's uncle, a lumberman and mill owner whose logging camp was situated on the Columbia River in the state of Washington. At first Jack, who was a city boy, had found that roughing it was not altogether to his liking. There were many discomforts; bugs and other insects, both crawling and flying, seemed to have no manners whatever; and his nice white hands sometimes got sadly begrimed with dirt.

But, gradually, life in the deep forest among the lumberjacks had awakened another spirit within him--a determination to show his chums that he could, if he chose, be just as good a woodsman as they. With this dawning of a new feeling, his dislikes began to vanish--that is, when the weather wasn't rainy or cold and the boys didn't drag him too far away from camp.

The big lad's loud whistling was brought to an abrupt close by a pillow which thudded hard against him.

"Oh, you rude Tim!" he cried; and stout Dave Brandon smiled, as he watched his six friends sending the soft missile from one to another, and kept on smiling even when it collided violently with his head.

"For goodness' sake, Jack, don't have any more doubts," he drawled. "When you do, something nearly always hits me. What do I think? Don't think--I'm trying to sleep." He gave the pillow a mighty shove which sent it in a shapeless mass on the floor, and closed his eyes.

"As we were sayin'," grinned Jack Conroy, when a hearty chorus of groans had subsided, "it was mighty nice of the old Indian to do it; but, honest, I don't like to see you poor chaps goin' around thinkin' you'll be millionaires before the winter's over."

"You can't see us think," chirped Tim Lovell.

"Nor discover it, either--very often," said the big lad, witheringly. "Quit jokin', Timmy. Now, for savin' his life, old Wanna gives the crowd his mine; he's too old an' feeble to bother about it himself, he says. But--" He paused impressively.

"Well?" demanded Tim.

"Who knows whether it's really a gold mine or not? Maybe Wanna is mistaken--"

"Mistaken nothing!" snorted Tim. "Didn't we have the quartz in our hands? Didn't we see the yellow specks shinin' all through it like little stars in a cloudless sky?"

"Oh, my! What book have you been reading now?" asked Bob.

"Do you think that a real, live, bona fide Indian like Wanatoma could be mistaken?" persisted Tim. "You make me tired, Jacky Conroy."

The big lad came back to the attack with an exasperating grin.

"Supposin' there is a mine, are any o' you chaps really silly enough to imagine for eight seconds at a stretch that we can find it by that queer scrawl o' yours, Bob Somers? Looks to me like those Egyptian hiero--hiero--"

"Help him out, somebody--do," sniffed Tim.

"Hieroglyphics," came in sepulchral tones from the bunk.

"Score another for the literary boy," laughed Sam Randall. "Bet he even knows how to spell it."

"Jack's limit is nine letters," said Tim.

"See here, fellows," broke in Bob Somers, warningly, "we're making too all-fired much racket about this thing. Your voice isn't any gentle whisper, Jack; and if it should ever get noised about the camp that we're going off on a search for a gold mine, why--"

"The noise would become a perfect din of hurrying feet," interrupted Dick Travers. "No joking, Conroy. I don't know how many times you've been howling out loud, just as though you wanted to advertise the whole business."

"I'll bet there wasn't anybody around," growled Jack.

"But a chap can't always tell. And the idea of Conroy being sure about anything! Doesn't that jar you?"

"Something else will, if you keep up that line o' talk much longer."

"Trot out your map, Bob," went on Dick, with an air of scorn. "You may laugh, Jack, but we're crackerjack woodsmen. I know it seems hard to a chap who doesn't understand--"

"Cut it out!" howled Jack. "An' see here, Tommy Clifton, don't giggle like that again--mind now. Bring out your great gold mine map, Bob Somers, an'--"

"For goodness' sake, Jack, put a muffler on that voice," cried Dick, aghast; "curb it! Suppose Pete Colliver should be hanging around--or Ben Vincent--or Booney--or some of the men! Remember what Mr. Lovell told us--keep mum, mum, and mummer."

"Let's form the United Society o' Whisperers," scoffed Jack.

"Quit scrapping. Here's the map, fellows," interposed Bob.

He carefully spread out a sheet of brown paper upon a table in the center of the cabin, while Jack rudely elbowed the others aside.

"I'll let you see it one at a time," he announced, kindly.

Heavy lines traced the rude plan shown here.

"Why, it doesn't look a bit like that Egyptian thing with a jaw-breakin' name Jack spoke about," remarked Tim, after a critical glance over Bob's shoulder. "I'd call it a picture of a tree in a hurricane."

"Or struck by lightning," suggested Tommy, squeezing in between the others.