Dick found Harry moodily smoking in the garden, and addressed him through the fence.

‘What d’ye think?’ he said, with the air of one propounding a conundrum.

Harry was not in a guessing mood; he gave it up at once and Dick took another course.

‘I got somethin’ p’tickler to tell you,’ he said.

‘Have you, Ginger?’ Harry was quite alert now.  ’About this gold-stealin’?’

‘No—­o, not quite about that.  I’m goin’ to tell all that to Downy, but it’s somethin’ jist as p’tickler—­about a reef we found.’

‘A reef?  Nonsense, Dick.  How could you find a reef?’

‘By diggin’ fer it, I s’pose.  What’d you think if I said we fellers’ ye got a mine—­a really mine—­me an’ Jacker Mack, an’ Ted McKnight, an’ Billy Peterson, an’ Phil Doon?  What’d you say, eh?’

‘I’d say you didn’t know what you were talking about, Ginger, my boy.’

‘But if I took you down the shaft an’ showed you the reef, an’ showed you stone with gold stickin’ in it—­suppose I done that, how then?’

‘Where is this reef?’ asked Harry, becoming impressed by the boy’s earnestness.

‘Tellin’s!’

‘But didn’t you come to tell me?’

‘Come to tell you we’d found it, an’ to ask what to do, so’s no one can jump it.  We want it took up on a proper lease, all right fer me an’ the rest o’ the fellers, an’ we’ll let you stand in.’

‘I can’t take up a lease unless I know where the reef is, can I?’

‘Well, it ain’t far from the Bed Rand.’

’Nonsense, Dick!  The bottom must be over three hundred feet deep there.  You couldn’t cut a reef any shallower than that.’

‘On’y we have.’

Harry sat for a moment lost in thought.  He had suddenly recalled old talk about mysterious indications of a shallow reef in that locality, a reef the existence of which would have been in open opposition to mining traditions, and contrary to all locally known theories of scientific mining.  He remembered hearing of a shaft that had been put down by a few believers, in defiance of local derision; he recalled, too, the eccentric and unheard-of drive thrown out by the Red Hand in some such absurd quest, and his respect for the boy’s opinion grew into something like conviction.

‘It’s very queer, Dick,’ he said; ’but if you’ll show it to me I’ll do all I can for you.’

’That’s good!  You see we’re all in it.  We’re the Mount of Gold Quartz-minin’ Company—­me an’ Jacker an’ them—­but it’s on’y a make-believe company, an’ I’d like Mr. McKnight, an’ Mr. Peterson, an’ Mr. Doon to come, an’ the detective cove too, cause there’s somethin’ else there—­somethin’ else p’tickler too.’

‘Very well, we can go an’ see McKnight an’ Peterson, but they’ll laugh at us.’

’When they laugh we’ll show ’em this,’ said Dick, producing a lump of quartz.

Harry took the stone in his hand; it was not larger than a hen’s egg and of a dark colour, but studded thickly with clean gold, and as he gazed at it his pipe fell from his mouth and his eyes rounded.  He pursed his lips to whistle his astonishment, and forgot to do it; he lifted his hand to scratch his head and it stuck half-way; he turned and turned the stone, stupid with surprise.