ation: in a long dormitory off
the corridor a number of scrupulously clean beds were ranged against
the whitewashed walls, with spotless benches and tables. To the complete
astonishment and bewilderment of the party another room, fitted up as a
kitchen, with the simpler appliances of housekeeping, revealed a
larder filled with provisions and meal. A shout from Winslow, who had
penetrated the inner courtyard, however, drew them to a more remarkable
spectacle. Their luggage and effects from the cabins of the Excelsior
were there, carefully piled in the antique ox-cart that had evidently
that morning brought them from Todos Santos!

"There's no mistake," said Brace, with a relieved look, after a hurried
survey of the trunks. "They have only brought our baggage. The ladies
have evidently had the opportunity of selecting their own things."

"Crosby told you they'd be all right," said Banks; "and as for
ourselves, I don't see why we can't be pretty comfortable here, and all
the better for our being alone. I shall take an opportunity of looking
around a bit. It strikes me that there are some resources in this
country that might pay to develop."

"And I shall have a look at that played-out mine," said Crosby; "if it's
been worked as they work the land, they've left about as much in it as
they've taken out."

"That's all well enough," said Brace, drawing a dull vermilion-colored
stone from his pocket; "but here's something I picked up just now that
ain't 'played out,' nor even the value of it suspected by those fellows.
That's cinnabar--quicksilver ore--and a big per cent. of it too; and if
there's as much of it here as the indications show, you could buy up all
your SILVER mines in the country with it."

"If I were you, I'd put up a notice on a post somewhere, as they do
in California, and claim discovery," said Banks seriously. "There's no
knowing how this thing may end. We may not get away from here for some
time yet, and if the Government will sell the place cheap, it wouldn't
be a bad spec' to buy it. Form a kind of 'Excelsior Company' among
ourselves, you know, and go shares."

The four men looked earnestly at each other. Already the lost Excelsior
and her mutinous crew were forgotten; even the incidents of the
morning--their arrest, the uncertainty of their fate, and the fact that
they were in the hands of a hostile community--appeared but as trivial
preliminaries to the new life that opened before them! They sudden