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Rh haps we would have done better had we left the hunt till summer time."

"And let Baxter get ahead of us?" put in Tom. "Not much!" He turned to Dick. "What's the next directions on the paper?"

"There ought to be a flat rock here, backed up, by a sharp-pointed one," answered the eldest Rover. "I don't see anything of a sharp-pointed rock, do you?? [sic] That flat rock may be under us."

"No sharp-pointed rock within a hundred feet of here," answered Sam, gazing around. He began scraping away the snow. "Dirt under us, too."

"That settles it, then. Trial No. 1 is a failure. Mr. Barrow, we'll have to try the next stream."

"So it would seem, Dick. Well, you boys mustn't expect too easy work o' it. A big treasure ain't picked up every day."

"The trouble of it is, we don't know how much of a treasure it is," said Tom. "For all we know, it may be but a few hundred dollars—not enough to pay us, really, for our trouble."

"Well, even a few hundred dollars ain't to be sneezed at."

"We did much better out West, when we located our mining claim," said Dick. "But then we came up here for fun as much as for treasure."

The tramp to where the next stream leading