The Queen of the Pirate Isle Part 3

"It really seems too ridiculous for any thing, John, the idea of these grown men dressing themselves up to play with children."

"Ridiculous or not," said her father, "these grown men of the 'Excelsior' mine have just struck the famous old lode of Red Mountain, which is as good as a fortune to everybody on the Ridge, and were as wild as boys! And they say it never would have been found if Polly hadn't tumbled over the slide directly on top of the outcrop, and left the absurd wig of that wretched doll of hers to mark its site."

"And that," murmured Polly sleepily to her doll as she drew it closer to her breast, "is all that they know of it."

[Ill.u.s.tration]