had really dug quite a deep
hole. It was almost as easy digging as it is in the sand at the
seashore, and if any of you have been there you know how soon, even if
you use only a big clam shell for a shovel, you can make a hole deep
enough for you and your playmates to stand up in.

"Do you see any gold yet?" asked Jan of the two boys, when they had dug
down so that only the top parts of their bodies were out of the big
hole.

"No, not yet. But we'll come to it pretty soon," Hal said.

"Say, how're we going to get up when the hole gets too deep?" asked Ted.
"We ought to have a ladder or something."

"There's a ladder in camp," answered Jan. "Grandpa had it when he put up
our real rope swing. Don't you remember, Ted?"

"Yes, that's right. We'd better get it if we're going any deeper, Hal,"
he added.

"Course we're going deeper. Gold mines are real deep. I guess the ladder
would be a good thing."

"Then we'll go for it. Jan, you can come and get us something to eat,
too. I'm awful hungry."

"So'm I," said Hal.

While Jan was in the tent-kitchen begging Nora for some cookies and
sandwiches, Ted and Hal carried the small ladder, which was not very
heavy, up to the big hole they had started. By putting one end of the
ladder down inside, allowing it to slant up to the top of the hole, the
children could easily get down in and climb up.

After they had eaten the things Jan got from Nora, they began digging
again. The hole was soon so deep that the dirt which was shoveled and
hoed away from the bottom and sides could no longer be tossed out by Ted
and Jan.

"We've got to get a pail and hoist up the dirt," decided Hal. "That's
what they do in gold mines. One of us must stay at the bottom and dig
the dirt and fill the pail, and the other pull it up by a rope."

"We'll take turns," said Teddy.

"And I want to help, too!" cried Jan, so the boys agreed to let her,
especially as they had seen that she could dig and toss dirt almost as
well as they could. They found an old pail and part of a clothes-line
for the rope, and the work at the "gold mine," as they called it, went
on more merrily than before.

By this time the hole was really quite deep--so deep that Hal Chester
could not see over the rim when he stood up straight on the bottom, and
only by using the ladder could the children get down and up.

"We ought to find gold pretty soon now," said Hal, as he climbed up to
let Ted take a turn at going down in the h