quite a procession along thesteep trail towards the settlement again. Polly noticed that at themouth of the other tunnels they were greeted by men as if they werecarrying tidings of great joy; that they stopped to rejoicetogether, and that in some mysterious manner their conductors hadgot their faces washed, and had become more like beings of the outerworld. When they neared the settlement the excitement seemed tohave become greater; people rushed out to shake hands with the menwho were carrying them, and overpowered even the children withquestions they could not understand. Only one sentence Polly couldclearly remember as being the burden of all congratulations. "Struckthe old lead at last!" With a faint consciousness that she knewsomething about it, she tried to assume a dignified attitude on theleader's shoulders even while she was beginning to be heavy withsleep.
And then she remembered a crowd near her father's house, out ofwhich her father came smiling pleasantly on her, but not interferingwith her triumphal progress until the leader finally deposited herin her mother's lap in their own sitting room. And then sheremembered being "cross" and declining to answer any questions, andshortly afterwards found herself comfortably in bed. Then she heardher mother say to her father:--
"It really seems too ridiculous for any thing, John, the idea ofthese grown men dressing themselves up to play with children."
"Ridiculous or not," said her father, "these grown men of the'Excelsior' mine have just struck the famous old lode of RedMountain, which is as good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge,and were as wild as boys! And they say it never would have beenfound if Polly hadn't tumbled over the slide directly on top of theoutcrop, and left the absurd wig of that wretched doll of hers tomark its site."
"And that," murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew itcloser to her breast, "is all that they know of it."
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