ll himself by doin' it."

"Bosh!"

"And how do you know he ain't figurin' it this way: 'Now I'll send
Dick Townsend down there to look at it. He'll say it's no good. Then
I'll buy him out and unload this Cross of Gold hole and plant it on
some tenderfoot and get mine back!' You cain't make me believe in any
of those Wall Street fellers! They all deal from the bottom of the
deck and keep shoemaker's wax on their cuff buttons to steal the lone
ace!"

As if giving the lie to his growling complaints and pessimism, he
laughed with a bellowing cachinnation that prompted the burros, now
rested, to look at him with long gray ears thrust forward curiously,
and wonder at his noise.

Townsend appeared to comprehend that his partner was but half in
earnest, and smiled good-humoredly.

"Well, Bill," he said, "if the mine's not full of water or bad air, so
that we can't form any idea at all, we'll not be long in saying what
we think of it. We ought to be there in an hour from now. Let's
hike."

They began the slow, plodding gait of the packer again, finding it
easier now that they were on the crest of a divide where the trail
was less obstructed and firmer, and the yellow lines on the peak,
their goal, came more plainly into view. The cross resolved itself
into a peculiar slide of oxidized earth traversing two gullies, and
the arm of the cross no longer appeared true to the perpendicular. The
tall tamaracks began to segregate as the travelers dropped to a lower
altitude; and pine and fir, fragrant with spring odor, seemed watching
them. The trail at last took an abrupt turn away from the cross-marked
mountain, and they came to another halt.

"This must be where they told us to turn off through the woods and
down the slope, I think," said Townsend. "Doesn't it seem so to you,
Bill?"

The old prospector frowned off toward the top of the peak now high
above them, and then, with the peculiar farsightedness of an outdoor
man of the West, looked around at the horizon as if calculating the
position of the mine.

"Sure," he agreed. "It can't be any use to keep on the trail now. We'd
better go to the right. They said we'd come to a little draw, then
from the top of a low divide we'd see the mine buildings. Come on,
Jack," he ended, addressing the foremost burro, which patiently
turned after him as he led the way through the trees.

They came to the draw, which proved shallow, climbed the opposite
bank, and gave an exclamation o