- John Brairly kept the only hotel and bar in the camp, so the boys naturally chose this as a storehouse for their gold. Each night Tess weighed it, gave them a slip with the amount and locked it away in the safe. She had been secretly pleased to watch the stranger. Ned Carlton's, store grow week by week, but as she had feared, before many moons the other newcomer, Jim Kirby, had won every ounce of it from him. Carlton's hopes rose high in anticipation of the day he would have saved enough to speak to her, but now all this was swept away at one bound. In desperation he picked up his gun to make an end of his humiliation, but Tess quietly took the weapon from him. That she should have seen his weakness doubly humiliated him, so hatless and wild-eyed he fled to the mine. After a moment's hesitation, Tess ran after him and in her excitement dropped the keys, which Jim Kirby found upon entering. Instantly be recognized the key of the safe. In a moment more he had opened the safe, put the boys' gold in the sleeve of his coat and was hurrying down the path to seek a hiding place for his treasure. After vainly calling to Carlton. Tess was about to return, when she observed Kirby hastening along and was dumbfounded to see half a dozen bags of gold fall to the ground. "Could he have won all of that?" Dashing into the house she found her worst fears were realized; the safe was open and empty! Both her father and Lee, the Chinaman, were out, but she could at least follow Kirby and see where he went. Retracing her steps with what speed she could, the girl was fortunate enough to see him burying the gold under a tree. Waiting until he had gone, she stole to the spot, snatched the treasure and ran breathlessly back to the house, where she secreted it again. None too soon for poor Ned Carlton, whom Brairly, the sheriff and a posse of miners had captured. For Brairly, returning in Tess' absence, seeing the safe and Carlton's hat, which the crafty Kirby had placed beside it, together with Carlton's wild exit from the house, naturally made him suppose the young miner to be the thief. To avoid a hanging. Tess very truthfully declared that she had put the gold in another place, but privately informed the gambler, Kirby, that the country would no longer be healthy for him. As for Carlton, this experience had taught him a lesson and his pledge that he had done with cards was never broken.—Moving Picture World synopsis
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