"Rich? Say, girl, rich ain't no name for it. I know what this Freezeout proposition was when it was placer diggings. Where so much dust and nuggets come from along a crick bed, we knowed there must be a regular mother lode somewheres here. Only we never supposed it was on that side of the stream an' so far away. It looked like the old bed of the crick lay to the west.
"Well, we've got it! A hundred and thirty-three dollars per ton at the grass-roots. Lawsy! No knowin' how deep the ledge is. An' you ladies only took specimens in one spot. We want to take others clean acrosst the ledge--as far as we kin trace it--git 'em assayed, then pick out the best claims before any of these cheapskates around here can ring in on it. Laugh at _me_, will they? I reckon they'll find out that Flapjack is wuth something as a prospector after all."
He quite overlooked the fact that the three college girls had found the ore--and that somebody had uncovered the ledge before them! But Min did not forget these very pertinent facts.
"We got to get a hustle on us," she announced. "No knowin' who 'twas that first opened that prospect, Pop. Mebbe he was green, or he ain't had his samples assayed yet. We got to get in quick."
"And the best three claims has got to go to Miss Ruth and Miss Cam'ron and Miss Stone. They found the place. You an' I, Pop, 'll stake out the next best claims. Then the rush kin come. But we want to git more samples assayed first."
"Is that necessary?" Ruth asked, quite as eager as the others now. Somehow the gold hunting fever gets into one's blood and effervesces. It was hard for any of them to keep their jubilation from the knowledge of the whole camp.
"We dunno how long this ledge of gold-bearing rock is," Min explained. "Maybe we only struck the poorest end of it. P'r'aps it'll run two hundred dollars or more to the ton at the other end. We want to stake off our claims where the ore is richest, don't we?"
"Couldn't hold it. Not by law. These big minin' companies git so many claims because they buy up options from different locaters all along a ledge. There's ha'f a hundred claims belongs to the Arepo Company, for instance, at one workin's. No. We've got to be careful and keep this secret till we're sure where the best of the ore lays."