In Camp on the Big Sunflower | Page 7

prismatic colors from its surface.
"Say, this is a pearl, all right, and a jim-dandy one, too," declared Steve, after he had had his turn at handling the discovery, "I ought to know, because my mother's got a string of the same--left to her by an old aunt over in England."
"Owen, what d'ye suppose it's worth!" demanded Max, turning on his cousin.
"Well, now, you've got me there, fellows," declared the bookworm. "You see everything depends on how pure and perfect it happens to be."
"That's a fact," said Steve, thoughtfully, as he feasted his eyes on the little beauty. "D'ye know, fellows, I've always been fond of pearls. Why, when I was only a little kid my mother says I used to notice a ring my aunt wore, and would hang around her all the time, wanting to touch the pretty little gem. I reckon the old admiration still holds good."
Steve even sighed as he reluctantly passed the new-found pearl along. Max smiled to notice how his eyes seemed to follow it.
"Well, we've proved one thing, sure," remarked Bandy-legs, as he scraped the skillet carefully for the third time, evidently believing it was a sin to waste a single scrap of good food.
"Yes," spoke up Toby, who was watching this action with signs of disapproval, for he believed he would be compelled to complete his meal with crackers and cheese; "we k-k-know now there are p-pearls in some of these b-b-blessed old m-m-m"--whistle--"mussels, there!"
"But don't let's get too big notions, fellows," Owen thought fit to put in just then.
Owen was what his teacher at school always described as "conservative." He lacked the impulsive sanguine disposition of Steve. At the same time he was no "croaker," and far from being a "doubting Thomas."
Owen often acted as a safety brake in connection with his chums. When some of them showed signs of rushing pellmell along the road, regardless of difficulties and unseen pitfalls, it was Owen who would gently draw them in, and counsel caution.
They looked to him as a mentor, nor were any of them in the least offended when he restrained their headlong rush.
"In what way, Owen?" asked Steve.
"You see, it's like this," the other went on. "From what Max and I learned, we don't fancy there can be any great quantity of these mussels up here. Perhaps we won't find a single one along the other little stream, which they call the Elder River."
"How about that, Max?" asked Bandy-legs.
"It's the simple truth. I was told we might get a few of the shellfish up along the Big Sunflower, but none in the water of the other creek," replied the one addressed.
"H-h-how do they account f-for that?" asked Toby, always eager to learn.
"Must be something in the water that prevents mussels from breeding in the Elder," Owen replied; and so great was the confidence those fellows placed in the knowledge of their bookworm chum that not one of them dreamed of disputing his theory.
"Go on, please," Steve remarked. "You had it on your tongue to say something more, didn't you, Owen?"
"Only this. We might scrape in a hundred, five hundred or a thousand shellfish, and not be able to duplicate this lovely little gem once."
"T-t-that's so," observed Toby. "They s-s-say pearl hunting's the b-b-biggest lottery in the whole w-w-world."
Steve was sitting there with his elbows on the table, both hands holding his head, and his eyes glued on the pearl that lay between them.
"That would be a tough deal," he muttered. "I'd give a heap to have a handful of those pretty little things. My! just to think what luck to strike one the first pop."
"Besides," Owen went on, lowering his voice, as he seemed to cast a quick suspicious glance to the right and to the left, "that isn't all, fellows."
His manner somehow thrilled Toby and Bandy-legs. Even Steve raised his head to stare at Owen, though it required an effort for him to break the strange spell the milk-white pearl seemed to have cast about him.
"Tell us what you mean, Owen," begged the broad-shouldered young Samson, with the bowed legs.
"Yes, p-p-please do, b-because you s-s-see, we're all worked up now."
"Then listen, fellows," said Owen, impressively. "It's only fair, as Max and myself have decided, that you should know all we've found out."
"That's right," muttered Steve. "As well as what we suspect," Owen continued, in the same mysterious way.
Steve was so deeply impressed with the seriousness of Owen's manner, that, perhaps unconsciously, he allowed his hand to steal over to where the double-barreled shotgun leaned against the trees, and rest confidingly upon the same.
Max had occasion to remember afterwards just how much Steve was worked up.
"Well, what was it?" asked Bandy-legs, after Owen had allowed some seconds to elapse.
"For the last half mile, when we were pushing up toward the forks