greatly excited, making quick gestures.
Finally she ran out of the hut.

"Where is she going?" asked Tom suspiciously.

"To get her grandfather. He very old Indian. He know story of buried
cities under trees. Very old story--what you call legend, maybe. But
Goosal know. He tell same as his grandfather told him. You wait.
Goosal come, and you listen."

"Good, Ned!" suddenly cried Tom. "Maybe, we'll get on the track of
lost Kurzon after all, through some ancient Indian legend. Maybe we
won't need the map!"

"It hardly seems possible," said Ned slowly. "What can these Indians
know of buried cities that were out of existence before Columbus came
here? Why, they haven't any written history."

"No, and that may be just the reason they are more likely to be right,"
returned Tom. "Legends handed down from one grandfather to another go
back a good many hundred years. If they were written they might be
destroyed as the professor's map was. Somehow or other, though I can't
tell why, I begin to see daylight ahead of us."

"I wish I did," remarked Ned.

"Here comes Goosal I think," murmured Tom, and he pointed to an Indian,
bent with the weight of years, who, led by Tal's wife, was slowly
approaching the hut.

CHAPTER XXI

THE CAVERN

"Now Goosal can tell you," said Tal, evidently pleased that he had, in
a measure, solved the problem caused by the burning of the professor's
map. "Goosal very old Indian. He know old stories--legends--very old."

"Well, if he can tell us how to find the buried city of Kurzon and
the--the things in it," said Tom, "he's all right!"

The aged Indian proceeded slowly toward the hut where the impatient
youths awaited him.

"I know what you seek in the buried city," remarked Tal.

"Do you?" cried Tom, wondering if some one had indiscreetly spoken of
the idol of gold.

"Yes you want pieces of rock, with strange writings on them, old
weapons, broken pots. I know. I have helped white men before."

"Yes, those are the things we want," agreed Tom, with a glance at his
chum. "That is--some of them. But does your wife's grandfather talk
our language?"

"No, but I can tell you what he says."

By this time the old man, led by "Mrs. Tal"--as the young men called
the wife of the Indian they had helped--entered the hut. He seemed
nervous and shy, and glanced from Tom and Ned to his grandson-in-law,
as the latter talked rapidly in the Indian dialect. Then Goosal made