a full meal there in the
beanpot.

So without any further delay we set off up the ridge I had started to
cross that morning. Schwartz lagged, sulky as a muley cow, but we
managed to keep him with us. At the top of the ridge we took our
bearings for the next deep bay. Already we had made up our minds to
stick to the sea-coast, both on account of the lower country over which
to travel and the off chance of falling in with a fishing vessel.
Schwartz muttered something about its being too far even to the next
bay, and wanted to sit down on a rock. Denton didn't say anything, but
he jerked Schwartz up by the collar so fiercely that the German gave it
over and came along.

We dropped down into the gully, stumbled over the boulder wash, and
began to toil in the ankle-deep sand of a little sage-brush flat this
side of the next ascent. Schwartz followed steadily enough now, but
had fallen forty or fifty feet behind. This was a nuisance, as we bad
to keep turning to see if he still kept up.

Suddenly he seemed to disappear.

Denton and I hurried back to find him on his hands and knees behind a
sagebrush, clawing away at the sand like mad.

"Can't be water on this flat," said Denton; "he must have gone crazy."

"What's the matter, Schwartz?" I asked.

For answer he moved a little to one side, showing beneath his knee one
corner of a wooden box sticking above the sand.

At this we dropped beside him, and in five minutes had uncovered the
whole of the chest. It was not very large, and was locked. A rock
from the wash fixed that, however. We threw back the lid.

It was full to the brim of gold coins, thrown in loose, nigh two
bushels of them.

"The treasure!" I cried.

There it was, sure enough, or some of it. We looked the rest through,
but found nothing but the gold coins. The altar ornaments and jewels
were lacking.

"Probably buried in another box or so," said Denton.

Schwartz wanted to dig around a little.

"No good," said I. "We've got our work cut out for us as it is."

Denton backed me up. We were both old hands at the business, had each
in our time suffered the "cotton-mouth" thirst, and the memory of it
outweighed any desire for treasure.

But Schwartz was money-mad. Left to himself he would have staid on
that sand flat to perish, as certainly as had poor Billy. We had
fairly to force him away, and then succeeded only because we let him
fill all his pockets to bulging with the coins. As