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. "Its orful far off!" said Patsey, with a sudden look of dark importance. "Pap sez its free miles on the road. Take all day ter get there." The bright faces were overcast. "Less go down er slide!" said Hickory, boldly. [Illustration] They approached the edge of the cliff. The "slide" was simply a sharp incline zigzagging down the side of the mountain used for sliding goods and provisions from the summit to the tunnel men at the different openings below. The continual traffic had gradually worn a shallow gulley half filled with earth and gravel into the face of the mountain which checked the momentum of the goods in their downward passage, but afforded no foothold for a pedestrian. No one had ever been known to descend a slide. That feat was evidently reserved for the Pirate band. They approached the edge of the slide hand in hand, hesitated--and the next moment disappeared! [Illustration] * * * * * Five minutes later the tunnel men of the Excelsior mine, a mile below, taking their luncheon on the rude platform of _debris_ before their tunnel, were suddenly driven to shelter in the tunnel from an apparent rain of stones, and rocks, and pebbles, from the cliffs above. Looking up, they were startled at seeing four round objects revolving and bounding in the dust of the slide, which eventually resolved themselves into three boys and a girl. For a moment the good men held their breath in helpless terror. Twice, one of the children, had struck the outer edge of the bank and displaced stones that shot a thousand feet down into the dizzy depths of the valley! and now, one of them, the girl, had actually rolled out of the slide and was hanging over the chasm supported only by a clump of chimasal to which she clung!