systematic plan evolved from the genius of Mr. Beard, who has devoted
over a year to this labor. It was first suggested to him by the finding
of a ring, now definitely identified as part of the treasure which was
supposed to have been dropped from Wells, Fargo & Co.'s boxes by the
robbers in their midnight flight through Blazing Star.

In the same journal appeared the no less important intelligence, which
explains, while it completes this veracious chronicle:--

"It is rumored that a marriage is shortly to take place between the
hero of the late treasure discovery and a young lady of Red Chief,
whose devoted aid and assistance to this important work is well known
to this community."

IN THE CARQUINEZ WOODS.

CHAPTER I.

The sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shafts of
sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in
unfathomable depths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the
enormous trunks of the redwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast
columns, and the dull red of their cast-off bark which matted the
echoless aisles, still seemed to hold a faint glow of the dying day.
But even this soon passed. Light and color fled upwards. The dark,
interlaced tree-tops, that had all day made an impenetrable shade,
broke into fire here and there; their lost spires glittered, faded, and
went utterly out. A weird twilight that did not come from an outer
world, but seemed born of the wood itself, slowly filled and possessed
the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like columns
of upward smoke. The few fallen trees stretched their huge length into
obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles. The strange breath
that filled these mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture;
a dry, fragrant dust arose from the noiseless foot that trod their
bark-strewn floor; the aisles might have been tombs, the fallen trees,
enormous mummies; the silence, the solitude of the forgotten past.

And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like
breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous
gasps. It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy
feline or canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more
powerful organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or
as if a fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate. At
times this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as
misshapen