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But, at length, Noel Conroyal, who had been elected President of the Never-Give-Up California Mining Company, into which our good friends, the Conroyals, the Randolphs, the Holts, and Hammer Jones, had organized themselves, stood up and pounded on the table with his big fist.
Bud, during this time, had been going through the same delightful performance with Iola. That was the most wonderful night in the history of the Conroyal and the Randolph households!
"That's a shrewd guess, Frank," declared Mr. Conroyal. "Now," and his face brightened, "why wouldn't it be a good plan for us not to pass through Humbug Canyon at all; but to go around it and to try to hit the trail again on the other side?
But, at length, as all good things will, the eating came to an end; and then, almost involuntarily, all eyes turned toward Thure and Bud. Their stomachs were filled; and now all were in the best possible condition to listen to their story. "Now, for that dead miner's wonderful tale," and Conroyal turned to Thure. "Jest wait a minit afore you begin," and Ham arose suddenly from the table.
Dill and Rex at once sprang to the door; and, moving in opposite directions, each slowly made the circuit of the house, their keen eyes searching the surrounding darkness. They neither saw nor heard anything suspicious. "Now, we'll have a look at that map and gold nugget," Mr. Conroyal said, as soon as Rex and Dill had returned and reported the coast clear.
"I reckon we otter make Humbug Canyon afore dark tew-night," Ham declared, as our friends, notwithstanding the break in their rest of the night before, moved out of the little valley, where they had camped, as soon as it became light enough to see the trail the next morning. "Yes," assented Mr. Conroyal, "but we will have to keep going to do it.
"You see Hank and I were both clerks in a drygoods store back East; but we will both be proprietors when we get back, if our good luck holds out only a few months longer," and the look on the faces of the two men told how much they were counting on that proprietorship. "I am sure your good luck will continue," smiled Mr. Conroyal encouragingly.
"Oh, I see now!" exclaimed Thure, his eyes beginning to shine with excitement. "And you call it a wing dam, because you have to make a sort of a wing to the main dam, extending for quite a ways out on the dry land, in order to give the water a sufficient turn to keep it from flowing back into the old channel until you are ready to have it." "Exactly," and Mr. Conroyal smiled.
Conroyal came to a halt in a narrow little valley. "I reckon we've thrown the scoundrels off the trail by now, if we are going to to-night," he said; "and so we might as well go into camp again and rest up until sunrise; and as this looks like a good place we will go into camp right there under those trees," and he pointed toward a little grove of evergreen oaks that grew a few rods away.
Conroyal, when they made ready for bed, "and keep somebody on guard night and day all the time; for now that we have found the secret of Crooked Arm Gulch them devils are likely to be down upon us at the first unguarded moment. We will put four men on guard again to-night.
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