nt
his head. Ellhorn also doffed his sombrero and bent forward in
reverent attitude, ready to begin.

"Good Lord," he said, and then he stopped and hesitated so long that
Tuttle looked up to see what was the matter. "Go on, Nick," he urged
in a low tone.

"Good Lord, Ye'd better do as Ye think best about lettin' 'em fry in
their own fat--so long. They were scrubs, that's straight, but they're
dead now, and can't do any more harm. Good Lord, we hope--Ye'll see
Your way to have mercy on their souls. Amen."

They began piling rocks across the mouth of the narrow chasm, and
worked for some moments in silence. Nick glanced inquiringly at Tom
several times, and finally he spoke:

"Say, Tommy, that was all right, I guess, wasn't it?"

"Nick, I sure reckon Emerson would say it was." And Ellhorn knew that
his companion could give no stronger assent.

They built a wall high enough to keep the coyotes away from the two
bodies, and then followed the trail upon the canyon wall and across
the mountain side to the spring. There they found Bill Frank's camping
outfit and the few things that Jim and Haney had transferred from the
canyon below. They found, also, the pan and the hand mortar, rusty and
battered by the storms of many years, with which Dick Winters had
slowly and with infinite toil beaten and washed out the gold he was
never to enjoy. After an hour's search they found the store of nuggets
where Bill Frank had hidden them. Haney and Jim had never guessed how
near they had come to the wealth for which they were searching.

The two men looked over the contents of pail, coffee pot, oven and
cans and talked of the long, wearisome, lonely labor Dick Winters must
have had, carrying the sacks of ore on his back, from his mine down
the canyon, up the trail, and across the mountain side, to this little
spring, where he had then to pound it up in his mortar and wash out
the gold in his pan.

"It's no wonder the desert did him up," said Nick. "He had no strength
left to fight it with. It's likely he was luny before he started."

"Nick, you don't reckon there's a cuss on this gold, do you? Just see
how many people it has killed. Dick Winters and Bill Frank and Jim and
Haney, besides all the prospectors that have died huntin' for it.
You-all don't reckon anything will happen to us, or to Emerson, if we
take it?"

The two big Texans, who had never quailed before man or gun, looked at
each other, their faces full of sudden seri