ay, it was only a month ago, as I was sitting there,
fiddling with that same little pocket mirror, the back came loose. I
was starting to pinch the metal tight again, when I discovered that
there was a piece of paper between the glass and the back!"

"The clue to the lost mine?" gasped Giraffe, nearly falling over into
the fire in his extravagant delight.

"Yes, that was what it turned out to be," continued the Rawson boy,
actually smiling to see how deep an interest his narrative seemed to
have for these splendid new friends fortune had raised up for him so
opportunely. "My father must have had a return of reason just before
he passed away; and not being able to say a single word, he had
pressed the glass into my hands, thinking that would be enough. But
somehow it had never occurred to me that he knew what he was doing."

"And that's what brings you up here right now, I reckon; you mean to
find that hidden mine, and claim it for your mother, and the girls?"
asked Thad.

"That is what I aim to do," replied the other, firmly. "But I think
that man must have kept a spy watching our house, after he failed to
find anything among the things that were stolen; for I've since had
reason to believe that every movement of mine was known to him. And
when he learned that I was going to start north he guessed that I had
a clue of some sort to the mine."

"And so he captured you, perhaps right here where our camp is now;
because Toby told us there were the footprints of a boy along with
those of Colonel Kracker, and his two cronies, Waffles and Dickey
Bird," Giraffe ventured to say.

"They did drop in on me right here; and taking me sort of by surprise,
made me a prisoner easy enough," remarked Aleck, somewhat
shame-facedly, as though he considered it far from being to his
credit; "but there was something that happened before that ought to
have warned me to be on the watch."

"What was it?" asked the impatient Giraffe, as the other paused, while
trying to eat and talk at the same time.

"Well, you see, down below here, I thought I ought to employ some sort
of guide, because I wasn't altogether accustomed to being all alone in
the wilderness; though I've always used a gun, and hunted. And along
about that time I ran across a man who seemed to be friendly, and knew
the country, he said, like a book. His name was Matt Griggs, he said;
and the upshot of it all was he engaged to pilot me around up here as
long as I wanted him.