he rock was covered with a fuzzy yellow web of pure
metal. What ore had been blown out by? the blast had been gathered up
slick and clean.

"A bagful of that stuff," said Merry, "would mean a whole lot in dollars
and cents. Somebody has been 'high grading.'"

"And he dropped a little of his swag as he went off with it," added
Clancy, stepping off a few yards from the ledge and pointing to a bit of
ore that lay on the ground. "There is some of the fellow's loot," Clancy
went on. "It lies gold side up, and shimmers in the sun like a double
eagle."

He looked at the sample for a few moments, and then slipped it into his
pocket.

"Finding is keeping," he grinned. "This ought to pay you back, Chip, for
the five you gave McGurvin in exchange for stuff that was actually worth
about ten cents."

Frank ran past Clancy for a couple of rods straight out into the valley.

"It was a thundering bad leak, Clan," he called, stooping down and
gathering in another ore sample. "That makes two chunks of the stuff the
thief lost. He was probably in a rush to get away, and didn't notice how
the ore was dribbling out."

"Wait a minute, Chip," said Clancy, "and let's figure this down as fine
as we can. There are prints of a horse's hoofs along the course where
this ore was dropped. Ballard ought to be here to do the Sherlock Holmes
racket for us. I'm not very swift at this detective business, but I'll
take my oath the thief loaded his bag of loot on a horse."

"You don't think, do you," said Frank dryly, "that he'd carry a bag
weighing two or three hundred pounds over his shoulder? Of course, he
had a pack animal. It wasn't a horse, though, but a burro."

"How did you guess it was a burro?"

"Small hoofmarks."

"Oh, scissors! Of course, of course! This claim of the professor's is
too valuable to be left unguarded. He ought to begin working it, or else
sell it to some one who'll see that it's taken care of. Let's take our
gold ore and make tracks for the chuck sack. I fell hungry, somehow."

As they started across the valley, at a distance of perhaps a hundred
feet from the spot where Frank had picked up the second bit of ore, they
found another. Fifty feet from that they found a fourth piece; and then
as they paused at the lane leading through the heart of the ruined camp,
their eyes, wandering toward the took-in one glittering point after
another--each point a scrap of wire gold, glimmering in the sun.

"The thief left a trail