“Hello!” he said, “where did this come from?”

The boy’s heart began to throb, for once he had started to carry that very lump to his grandfather, had changed his mind, and thoughtlessly dropped it there.  The geologist was looking at it closely and then began to weigh it with his hand.

“This is pretty good-looking coal,” he said, and he laughed.  “I guess we’d better go up a little farther—­this didn’t come out all by itself.”

The boy dug Mavis sharply in the shoulder.

“Git back into the bushes—­quick!” he whispered.

The girl shrank away and the boy dropped down into the bed of the creek and slipped down to where the stream poured between two bowlders over which ascent was slippery and difficult.  And when the party turned up the bend of the creek, Arch Hawn saw the boy, tense and erect, on the wet black summit of one bowlder, with his old rifle in the hollow of his arm.

“Why, hello, Jason!” he cried, with a start of surprise; “found anything to shoot?”

“Not yit!” said Jason shortly.

The geologist stepped around Arch and started to climb toward the foot of the bowlder.

“You stop thar!”

The ring of the boy’s fiery command stopped the man as though a rattlesnake had given the order at his very feet, and he looked up bewildered; but the boy had not moved.

“Whut you mean, boy?” shouted Arch.  “We’re lookin’ for a vein o’ coal.”

“Well, you hain’t a-goin’ to find hit up this way.”

“Whut you want to keep us from goin’ up here fer?” asked the uncle with sarcastic suspicion.  “Got a still up here?”

“That’s my business,” said little Jason.

“Well,” shouted Arch angrily again, “this ain’t yo’ land an’ I’ve got a option on it an’ hit’s my business to go up here, an’ I’m goin’!”

As he pushed ahead of the geologist the boy flashed his old rifle to his shoulder.

“I’ll let ye come just two steps more,” he said quietly, and old Jason Hawn began to grin and stepped aside as though to get out of range.

“Hol’ on thar, Arch,” he said; “he’ll shoot, shore!” And Arch held on, bursting with rage and glaring up at the boy.

“I’ve a notion to git me a switch an’ whoop the life out o’ you.”  The boy laughed derisively.

“My whoopin’ days air over.”  The amazed and amused geologist put his hand on Arch’s shoulder.

“Never mind,” he said, and with a significant wink he pulled a barometer out of his pocket and carefully noted the altitude.

“We’ll manage it later.”

The party turned, old Jason still smiling grimly, the colonel chuckling, the geologist busy with speculation, and Arch sore and angry, but wondering what on earth it was that the boy had found up that ravine.  Presently with the geologist he dropped behind the other two and the latter’s frowning brow cleared into a smile at his lips.  He stopped, looking still at the black lump and weighing it once more in his hand.