Toby and Bandy-legs had managed to recover from their keen disappointment
over the poor result of their afternoon's work.

"Reckon we must have struck a bad place," the latter remarked, as they all
lounged around the cheery fire after supper had been finished.

"That's a f-f-fact," commented Toby, nodding his head in a wise fashion;
"I've read that these p-p-pearls happen in a q-q-queer way. F-f-find 'em
all in a h-h-heap, and then nothin' doin' for w-w-weeks."

"Then our chums must have struck the jolliest place on the whole river,"
Bandy-legs observed.

"H-h-hope they m-m-marked it, then," Toby went on.

"How about it, Max, Steve?" demanded the other pearl hunter of the
afternoon.

"Sure we did," grunted Steve, who somehow seemed strangely quiet for him, a
fact that gave Max considerable uneasiness, knowing what he did.

"And I remember telling you where we did most of our tramping in the
water," he observed.

Toby grinned rather foolishly.

"G-g-guess that's so," he admitted.

"Yes," spoke up Bandy-legs, "but you see we expected that you'd cleaned out