we don't fancy there can be any great quantity of these mussels up here.
Perhaps we won't find a single one along the other little stream, which
they call the Elder River."

"How about that, Max?" asked Bandy-legs.

"It's the simple truth. I was told we might get a few of the shellfish up
along the Big Sunflower, but none in the water of the other creek,"
replied the one addressed.

"H-h-how do they account f-for that?" asked Toby, always eager to learn.

"Must be something in the water that prevents mussels from breeding in the
Elder," Owen replied; and so great was the confidence those fellows placed
in the knowledge of their bookworm chum that not one of them dreamed of
disputing his theory.

"Go on, please," Steve remarked. "You had it on your tongue to say
something more, didn't you, Owen?"

"Only this. We might scrape in a hundred, five hundred or a thousand
shellfish, and not be able to duplicate this lovely little gem once."

"T-t-that's so," observed Toby. "They s-s-say pearl hunting's the
b-b-biggest lottery in the whole w-w-world."

Steve was sitting there with his elbows on the table, both hands holding
his head, and his eyes glued on the pearl that lay between them.

"That would be a tough deal," he muttered. "I'd give a heap to have a