Read "The Golden Spider" by Francis Lynde online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
While the three young prospectors, standing just within the mouth of the cliff crevice, stared at the spider-web with its eight-legged globule of molten gold hanging in the center, a small cloud drifted across the face of the rising sun and instantly the golden illusion vanished. The halo-like wheel of silken silver became just an ordinary spider-web, and the big spider changed its hue to a dusty brown. Dick drew a long breath.
"It sure got me for a minute," he said. "For about two shakes of a dead lamb's tail I thought we were looking at old Jimmie Brock's golden spider――thought we'd blundered into his lost mine by the back door."