which her father came smiling pleasantly on her, but not interfering
with her triumphal progress until the leader finally deposited her
in her mother's lap in their own sitting room. And then she
remembered being "cross" and declining to answer any questions, and
shortly afterwards found herself comfortably in bed. Then she heard
her mother say to her father:--

"It really seems too ridiculous for any thing, John, the idea of
these grown men dressing themselves up to play with children."

"Ridiculous or not," said her father, "these grown men of the
'Excelsior' mine have just struck the famous old lode of Red
Mountain, which is as good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge,
and were as wild as boys! And they say it never would have been
found if Polly hadn't tumbled over the slide directly on top of the
outcrop, and left the absurd wig of that wretched doll of hers to
mark its site."

"And that," murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew it
closer to her breast, "is all that they know of it."

[Illustration]