ge,
and in the end all went well.

Once again I thank my young readers for the interest they have shown in
my books. I trust that the reading of this volume will benefit them all.

EDWARD STRATEMEYER.
_February 1, 1914._

DAVE PORTER IN THE GOLD FIELDS

CHAPTER I

THE LANDSLIDE MINE

"Roger, that sounds like a fairy tale--a real gold mine belonging to
your mother lost through a landslide!"

"So it does sound like a fairy tale, Dave; but it is absolutely true.
The mine was owned by my uncle, Maurice Harrison, of Butte, Montana, and
when he died he left it to my mother, who was his sister. On the day he
died there was a big landslide in the mountains, where the mine was
located,--and that was the end of the mine, as far as my folks were
concerned."

"You mean you couldn't find the mine after the landslide?" asked Dave
Porter, with deep interest.

"That's it," answered Roger Morr. "The opening to it was completely
covered up, and so were the stakes, and several landmarks that showed
where the mine was located."

"But why didn't you tell of this before, Roger?" asked a third youth of
the group seated on the lawn of Senator Morr's country estate. "Did it
just happen?"

"No, Phil, this happened last fall, about nine months ago. The reason I
didn't mention it to you and Dave was because my folks wanted it kept
quiet. From what my uncle said in his will, the mine must be very
valuable, and my folks didn't want any outsiders to re-discover the mine
and set up a claim to it. So they started a search on the quiet--hiring
some old miners and prospectors they could trust. But the search has
been in vain."

"Couldn't they discover the mine at all?" queried Dave Porter.

"No, the landslide was too heavy and too far-reaching. The old miners
told my father it was the biggest landslide known in Montana. One
prospector said he thought the mine must now be a hundred feet or more
underground."

"Had your uncle worked it at all?" questioned Phil Lawrence.

"Not much, but enough to learn that it was a valuable claim. It was in a
district that had been visited by landslides before, and so he called it
the Landslide Mine."

"Well, your uncle could be thankful for one thing--that he wasn't in the
mine when that big slide took place. But you said he died anyway."

"Yes, of pneumonia, on the very day the slide took place. Wasn't it
queer? Dad and mother went out to Butte, to the funeral--Uncle Maurice