of all other nuggets.' 'How big?' I asked. 'As big as me?' She
laughed. 'Bigger than you,' she says, 'much, much bigger.' 'They
don't grow that way,' I said. But she said she'd seen it and
Paloma backed her up. Why, to listen to them you'd have thought
there was millions in that one nugget. Paloma 'd never seen it
herself, but she'd heard about it. A secret of the tribe which she
couldn't share, being only half Indian herself."

Julian Jones paused and heaved a sigh.

"And they kept on insisting until I fell for--"

"The hussy," said Mrs. Jones, pert as a bird, at the ready instant.

"'No; for the nugget. What of Aunt Eliza's farm I was rich enough
to quit railroading, but not rich enough to turn my back on big
money--and I just couldn't help believing them two women. Gee! I
could be another Vanderbilt, or J. P. Morgan. That's the way I
thought; and I started in to pump Vahna. But she wouldn't give
down. 'You come along with me,' she says. 'We can be back here in
a couple of weeks with all the gold the both of us can carry.'
'We'll take a burro, or a pack-train of burros,' was my suggestion.
But nothing doing. And Paloma agreed with her. It was too
dangerous. The Indians would catch us.

"The two of us pulled out when the nights were moonlight. We
travelled only at night, and laid up in the days. Vahna wouldn't
let me light a fire, and I missed my coffee something fierce. We
got up in the real high mountains of the main Andes, where the snow
on one pass gave us some trouble; but the girl knew the trails,