"It's so dry, it'll break splendidly," said Rob. "I know what I'm going to wish for." "So do I," said Nelly, resolutely; "I'm going to wish hard." They both pulled with all their might. Crack went the wish-bone,--no difference in the length of the two pieces. "Pshaw!" cried Rob; "how mean! one or the other of us might have had it." Nelly drew a long sigh. "Rob," said she, "What did you wish for?" "A silver mine," said he, "both times." "So did I," said Nell. "I thought you did, too. I guess we sha'n't either of us ever have one." "I don't care," said Rob; "there's plenty of money besides in mines. I'm going to have a bank when I'm a man." "Are you, Rob?" said Nell. "What's that?" "Oh, just a house where you can go and get money," replied Rob, confidently. "I used to go with papa often at home. They gave him all he wanted." Nelly looked somewhat perplexed. She did not know any thing about banks: still she thought there was a loose screw somewhere in Rob's calculations; but she did not ask him any more questions. After tea, Mr. March walked away with the driver of the mule team. They did not come back until it was dark. Mr. March opened the door of the sitting-room, and said, "Sarah, I wish you'd come out here a few minutes." When she had stepped out and closed the door, he said, "I want you to come up where the wagon is: there's a nice bonfire up there, and it isn't cold; I want this man to tell you all he's been telling me about a place down south,--a hundred miles below this. If it's all's he says, that's the place we ought to go to. But I wanted you to hear all about it before I said any thing to the Deacon." The driver's name, by the way, was Billy; he was called "Long Billy" on the roads where he drove, because his legs were so long, and his body so short. He had made a splendid bonfire on the edge of the brook, and Mr. March and he had been sitting there for an hour, on a buffalo robe spread on the ground. Mrs. March sat down with them, and Long Billy began his story over again. It seemed that he had formerly been a driver of a mule team on another route, much farther south than this one. He had "hauled ore," as he called it, from a little town called Rosita, to another town called Canyon City. There the ore was packed on cars and sent over the little narrow-gauge railroad up to Central City, where the silver was extracted from the rock, and moulded into little solid bricks of silver ready to be sent to the mint at Philadelphia to be made into half dollars and quarters.