Patsey was off like a shot; his bare little red feet trembling under him.  In a few minutes he returned with an old fashioned revolver known as one of “Allen’s pepper boxes” and a large banana.  He was at once enrolled and the banana eaten.

As yet they had resolved on no definite nefarious plan.  Hickory looking down at Patsey’s bare feet instantly took off his own shoes.  The bold act sent a thrill through his companions.  Wan Lee took off his cloth leggings, Polly removed her shoes and stockings, but with royal foresight, tied them up in her handkerchief.  The last link between them and civilization was broken.

“Let’s go to the Slumgullion.”

[Illustration]

“Slumgullion” was the name given by the miners to a certain soft, half-liquid mud, formed of the water and finely powdered earth that was carried off by the sluice boxes during gold washing, and eventually collected in a broad pool or lagoon before the outlet.  There was a pool of this kind a quarter of a mile away, where there were “diggings” worked by Patsey’s father, and thither they proceeded along the ridge in single file.  When it was reached they solemnly began to wade in its viscid paint-like shallows.  Possibly its unctuousness was pleasant to the touch; possibly there was a fascination in the fact that their parents had forbidden them to go near it, but probably the principal object of this performance was to produce a thick coating of mud on the feet and ankles, which, when dried in the sun, was supposed to harden the skin and render their shoes superfluous.  It was also felt to be the first real step towards independence; they looked down at their ensanguined extremities and recognized the impossibility of their ever again crossing (unwashed) the family threshold.

Then they again hesitated.  There was a manifest need of some well defined piratical purpose.  The last act was reckless and irretrievable, but it was vague.  They gazed at each other.  There was a stolid look of resigned and superior tolerance in Wan Lee’s eyes.  Polly’s glance wandered down the side of the slope to the distant little tunnels or openings made by the miners who were at work in the bowels of the mountain.  “I’d like to go into one of them funny holes,” she said to herself, half aloud.

Wan Lee suddenly began to blink his eyes with unwonted excitement.  “Catchee tunnel—­heap gold,” he said, quickly.  “When manee come outside to catchee dinner—­Pilats go inside catchee tunnel!  Shabbee!  Pilats catchee gold allee samee Melican man!”

[Illustration]

“And take perseshiun,” said Hickory.

“And hoist the Pirate flag,” said Patsey.

“And build a fire, and cook, and have a family,” said Polly.

The idea was fascinating to the point of being irresistible.  The eyes of the four children became rounder and rounder.  They seized each other’s hands and swung them backwards and forwards, occasionally lifting their legs in a solemn rhythmic movement known only to childhood.