Page:Dave Porter in the Gold Fields.djvu/252

236 "Not a seven-course dinner," said Phil, with a sickly grin.

"Never mind," returned Dave, cheerfully. "Just wait till after we have found that lost mine and get into Yellowstone Park. I'm sure the hotels there serve the best of meals."

"O dear! now I am here, it doesn't look so easy—I mean to locate that mine," sighed Roger.

"What, you're not going to give up so soon, are you, lad!" cried Tom Dillon.

"Why, we ain't begun no search yit," added Abe Blower. "Time to git kind o' tired arfter ye have been here a week or two an' nuthin' doin'."

To this none of the boys replied. But they could not help but think what a dreary time it would be, searching among those rocks and that loose dirt day after day, if the lost mine were not brought to light.

The day's exertions had tired all hands, and they slept soundly throughout the night, with nothing coming to disturb them. When the boys got up they found Abe Blower already at the campfire, preparing a breakfast of his favorite flapjacks and bacon. He fried his big flapjacks one at a time in a pan, and it was simply wonderful to the boys how he would throw a cake in the air and catch it in the pan bottom side up.

"It's the knack on't," said Tom Dillon, as he