ssed before he made out through
the gloom that the wall was man-made and carved with the same symbols of
Sun, Moon, and Feathered Serpent, which ornamented the cylinder of gold.
But when he did realize at last, the shout with which he expressed his
feeling was anything but a groan.

It simply meant that the skeleton which once had been a man, had almost
surely found the golden cylinder beyond the wall and not in the canyon.
And if the dead man had passed that smooth, carved barrier, another man
could do it!

Kirby jumped forward, began to search in the darkness for some hidden
entrance.

Minute after minute passed. He gave another cry. He saw a long, upright
crack in the stone surface, and a quick push of his hands made the
stones in front of him give almost an inch.

All at once his shoulder was planted, and behind that square shoulder
was straining all the muscle of his two hundred pound body. The result
was all that he desired. When he ceased pushing, a slab of rock gaped
wide before him, giving entrance to a pitch dark tunnel.

For a moment he held the portal back, then, releasing his pressure, he
stepped into the dark passage. By the time a ponderous grating of rocks
assured him that the door had swung shut of its own weight, he had
produced matches and struck a light.

* * * * *

The puny flame showed him a curving passage hewn smoothly through the
heart of bedrock. Before the flare died he walked twenty feet, and as
another match burned to his fingers, he found the right hand curve of
the passage giving way to a left hand twist. After that he dared use no
more of his precious matches. But just when the darkness was beginning
to wear badly on his nerves, he uttered a low cry.

As he increased his rapid walk to a run, the faint light he had suddenly
seen ahead of him grew until it became a circular flare of daylight
which marked the tunnel's end.

Out of the passage Kirby strode with shoulders square and head up, his
cool, level, practical blue eyes wide with wonder. Out of the tunnel he
strode into the valley of the perfumed geyser.

"God above!"

The words were vibrant with hoarse reverence. He saw the sunlight of a
cliff-surrounded diminutive Garden of Eden. He saw a vale of flowering
grass, of palms and live oaks, saw patches of lilies so huge as to
transcend belief, and dizzying clumps of tree cactus almost as tall as
the palms themselves.

What was more, he saw i