and love, had been banished to the
limbo of lost dreams. So he turned across the creek and led the way to
the cave that was destined to be his home.

It was an ancient cavern beneath the rim of a low cliff which overlooked
the town and as Denver was helping to unlash the packs Bunker Hill came
toiling up the trail.

"Got back, hey?" he greeted stepping into the smoke-blackened cave and
gazing dubiously about, "well, it'll be cool inside here, anyway."

"Yes, that's what I figured on," responded Denver briefly, and as he
cleaned out the rats' nests and began to make camp Old Bunk sat down in
the doorway and began a new cycle of stories.

"This here cave," he observed, "used to be occupied by the
cliff-dwellers--them's their hand-marks, up on the wall; and then I
reckon the Apaches moved in, and after them the soldiers; but when the
Lost Burro began turning out the ore, I'll bet it was crowded like a
bar-room. Them was the days, I'm telling you--you couldn't walk the
street for miners out spending their money--and a cliff-house like this
with a good, tight roof, would bring in a hundred dollars a night, any
time that it happened to rain. All them melted-down adobes was plumb
full of people, the saloons were running full blast, and the miner that
couldn't steal ten dollars a day had no business working underground.
They took out chunks of native silver as big as your head, and it all
ran a thousand ounces to the ton, but even at that them worthless
mule-skinners was throwing pure silver at their teams. They had mounted
guards to ride along with the wagons and keep them from stealing the
ore, but you can pick up chunks yet where them teamsters threw them off
and never went back to find 'em.

"Did you ever hear how the Lost Burro was found? Well, the name, of
course, tells the story. If one of these prospectors goes out to find
his burros he runs across a mine; and if he goes out the next day to
look for another mine he runs across his burros. The most of them are
like the old Professor down here, they wouldn't know mineral if they saw
it; but of course when they grab up a chunk of pure silver and start to
throw it at a jackass they can't help taking notice. Well, that's the
way this mine was found. A prospector that was camping here went up on
that little hill to rock his old burro back to camp and right on top he
found a piece of silver that was so pure you could cut it with your
knife. That guy was honest, he gave th