idea that an ounce of prevention was
worth a pound of cure.

After breakfast they took up the march again, stopping an hour for
lunch, and then resuming the journey, reached Jennings just at sunset.

"Let's dodge the town altogether for the present, and go around it, and
find a spot where we can camp for the night. Then in the morning we can
follow the river up its course till we come to the bend mentioned in the
note on the back of the map," suggested Dick.

This suggestion met with the approval of the others, and so they circled
Jennings, and found a desirable place to sleep and eat.

Sun-up found them awake, and after a hasty breakfast, so anxious were
they to find the mine, they made for the river bank, without losing
time.

Up the river they went, getting more and more excited with each step. A
walk of less than an hour brought them to what was unmistakably the bend
in the river that was the first mark noted in the note. Here, using the
sun as a guide, they proceeded east for the necessary two miles. True
enough, here was a ravine, small enough, but still a ravine. The region
was only sparsely wooded, and the boys knew enough about geology, which
they studied the preceding winter at school, to know that the formation
of the land in that section was quite rocky, there being evidence of
much granite.

"You don't suppose the old chap that fixed that note was mixed in his
terms through ignorance, and meant that there was a good granite quarry
there, do you?" asked Dick dubiously.

"Never can tell," answered Garry. "Only thing to do is follow directions
and see what happens."

Following directions, they paced about a mile and a half, keeping a
sharp lookout for the triangle of stumps. To make sure they would not
miss it, they deployed and marched about twenty paces distant from each
other. Phil was the one to spy the landmark. His shouts brought the
others running to him.

"Let's dig, and dig quick," pleaded Phil. "I want to see if we've found
a fortune, or are only the victims of a practical joke, or gigantic
hoax."

The others were as curious as he, and using their axes, as a sort of
combined pick and shovel, dug away at the ground surrounded by the
stumps. In a few minutes, Phil's axe struck something hard, and
abandoning his axe, he scratched the earth away with his fingers. The
hard something was a tin can, evidently, about which had been wound
several feet of tape such as is used to repair bicycle pun