wed the path
along the side of the ravine, but marked the same track through the more
open country. Without these signs, Jim knew he could never have traced
the old trail so easily, yet he felt the gold prospector's hot glow of
resentment--another man had located his claim. Then he smiled,
remembering he had turned his back on it as no good, nearly fourteen
years before. Without a word to his companions, however, he kept his
eyes fastened steadfastly on the ground and his ears alert for every
sound each step of the way, but no other human being appeared in the
vast solitude. Once Jim and Jack sighted a covey of quail and killed
half a dozen. Ruth and the other girls were willing to eat quail so long
as they did not have to see them killed.

About three o'clock in the afternoon the travelers had their first
vision of Jim's three pine cone hills with the stream of brackish water
running down the side of one of them, and in the background a dense
thicket of evergreens. Forgetting their tired feet, Jack and Carlos made
a sudden rush, but Jim caught hold of them, making them keep close to
his side until he saw the place was deserted. At last he brought them in
breathless silence to a yawning cave in the middle hill. It was only a
great, black hole, dull and uninteresting. Jack peered well into it for
a sign of anything that sparkled or shone like a precious metal. It
showed only a mixture of earth and stones and sand, and the whole place
was so gloomy it gave her a shiver of apprehension. The sun was not so
bright as it had been a short time before. Suddenly she felt cold and
weary, though she could not explain the cause.

"It's a pretty dismal place, isn't it, Jim?" Jack said quickly. "I am
awfully glad to have seen it of course, but I don't wonder you ran away.
I am sure no gold could be discovered here." And the girl heaved a sigh
of fatigue and disappointment. She was sure she had made the trip simply
from idle curiosity, yet the chance of their finding a gold mine had
been lurking in the back of her mind.

Jim was stalking about the deserted mine like a hound that had been
given a scent. He had seen, not far from one of the hills, a piled-up
heap of ashes, which showed that a fire had been built there within the
past few days, and the rank grass in the vicinity pressed down by human
bodies. Jack had picked up a tool from the earth immediately in front
of the mine, and the tool had been lately used.

"Wait here for m