t like steps going down!"

"I'll have to force it back a little farther," he returned. "Maybe it
will balance there. If not we'll have to get loose stones and wedge
under it."

He pried it further and further until at last it would not budge
another inch. He loosened his grip a trifle on the rifle-lever and the
rock began to settle back into its former place. But Betty had seen
and already was bringing fragments of stone to block under the edges.

"Now," she called. "Come see."

He jumped down; the boulder, wedged securely, lay on its side. He went
to Betty and from what they saw before them they looked into each
other's eyes wonderingly.

"The tale was true," he said with conviction. "You and I have found
the way to the treasure."

In the floor was an opening a couple of feet square. Very rude, uneven
steps led down, vanishing in a forbidding black dark. Kendric lay flat
and looked down. Little by little he could penetrate a bit further,
but in the end there lay a region of impenetrable darkness into which
the steps merged.

"You're going down _there_!" gasped Betty.

"_Am_ I?" he laughed. "You wouldn't want us to skip out tonight
without even having looked into it, would you?"

"N-o." But she hesitated and even shuddered as she too lay down and
peered into the forbidding place.

"We'll not take any chances we don't have to." He got up and began
immediately to make his few preparations. "Here's the rifle; I'll
leave it handy for you in case our friend Rios should surprise us.
I'll take a handful of stuff with me to burn for a torch. And we'll
have another look out into the canon to begin with."

He drew out the rifle and gave it to Betty. He placed other stones
with the ones she had slipped under the edges of the boulders. And
finally he went to look out into the canon.

"No one in sight," he reported. "And now, here goes."

He sat down at the edge of the opening in the floor, set a match to his
crude torch, grinned comfortingly up at Betty and wriggled over and set
his foot to the first step. As he did so there came to him an
unpleasant memory of the fashion in which Zoraida had guarded her own
secret places with rattlesnakes; he wondered if any of the ugly brutes
lived down here? As it happened the thought had its influence in
saving him from mishap later. For, though he came upon no snakes, he
went warily and thus avoided another danger.

His torch burnt vilely and smoked copio