and to them all. His thoughts went back to
the humble home he had left, to his crippled father, and his toiling
mother. Now they could have peace, comfort and happiness. But, better
than all, his father could now be assured of a cure. No wonder it seemed
too good to be true.

But it was no dream. The gold was actually there. There were two score
sacks of it, as they soon discovered, for it did not take the three of
them long to get it from the hiding place. Only one had been broken by
Fred's pick, and the nuggets were carefully gathered up.

"Good for you, Fred!" exclaimed Jerry, as he and his father helped pile
the gold carefully to one side. "You won out, but I had begun to think
we were going to fail."

"So did I," added Mr. Baxter.

"I was beginning to get discouraged myself," admitted Fred. "How much do
you suppose is there, Mr. Baxter?"

"There must be half a million," said Jerry.

"Nonsense," answered his father. "No such good luck as that. Still, it
is a tidy little fortune. Let me see if I can calculate it."

He weighed in his hands the different bags, counted them and began to
figure in his head.

"There are forty bags," he said, "and I calculate that each one weighs
about eight pounds. That would give us about three hundred pounds of
gold."

"Three hundred pounds of gold!" repeated Fred, in an awe-struck voice.
"How much is that worth?"

"Well, if it's pure gold, such as these nuggets are, it is worth in the
neighborhood of twenty dollars an ounce."

"How many ounces have we?" asked Jerry.

"Well, of course gold is weighed by Troy measure, which goes twelve
ounces to the pound, but I have calculated this gold by the standard of
sixteen ounces to the pound, and, in three hundred pounds there are
forty-eight hundred ounces."

"And if the gold is worth twenty dollars an ounce that would be--why it
would be ninety-six thousand dollars!" exclaimed Fred, who was good at
arithmetic.

"Ninety-six thousand dollars!" repeated Jerry, staggered by the amount
of so much wealth.

"Of course that is only a rough estimate," Mr. Baxter hastened to add.

"Well, now we've got it, how are we going to get it home?" asked Fred,
when they had stood about a while, contemplating the wealth.

"That's so," agreed Jerry. "Three hundred pounds of gold is no light
weight to transport over three hundred miles on dog sleds."

"I think we will distribute it on the four sleds," said Mr. Baxter. "It
will be safer that