The Shagganappi by E. Pauline Johnson
page 57 of 285 (20%)
page 57 of 285 (20%)
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bluff."
"_What_!" yelled Larry. "I bring you in other side. Bluff separate this river and Lake Nameless. There is your cache," laughed Fox-Foot, throwing a pebble and striking a point of red rock ten yards away. Larry and Jack fairly stumbled over their own feet to get there. Every mark that Matt Larson had left to identify the hiding-place of his treasure still remained undisturbed. The round white pebble placed near the shelving rock, the three-cornered flint, the fine, tiny grey bits of stone set like a bird's eggs in a nest of lichen, the two standing pines with a third fallen, storm-wrecked, at their roots--every landmark was there, intact. Larry almost flew for the pick, and began to hack away at loose rocks, swinging the pick above shoulder as a woodsman swings an axe. Two feet below the surface, the pick caught in a web of cloth. In another minute Larry lifted out an old woollen jersey undershirt, that had been fastened up bag-wise. He snatched his knife, ripped open the sleeves, and the setting sun shot over a huge heap of yellow richness, quarts and quarts of heavy golden nuggets--_the King's Coin_. Larry sat down limply, wiping the oozing drops from his forehead. The two boys stood gazing at the treasure as if fascinated. Then Jack moistened his lips with his tongue, drew the back of his hand across his blinking eyes, moistened his lips again, but no words seemed to come to him. It was Fox-Foot who spoke first. Touching one splendid nugget almost contemptuously with the toe of his moccasin, he sneered "It is the curse of the paleface, this gold. 'Most every white man he sell the |
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