like; and I know how to make them."

Daybreak at last, and with that dawn all doubts about the mule-convoy
were at an end, for the first streaks of dawn showed them about a mile
ahead, trudging steadily along, while no broadening of the day, not even
the rising of the sun, revealed that for which a most anxious lookout
was kept, namely, so many dark dots to indicate that the Indians were on
their trail.

"I say they won't come now," said Griggs decisively. "We'll halt, sir,
at the first water, and have a good rest and feed."

"Will it be safe?" said the doctor.

"We must chance that, sir, for the sake of making horse, mule, man and
boy fit for what more he has to do."

"Well, perhaps so."

"It won't be losing time, and the mules and horses have done a good
spell of work."

CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR.

ONWARD.

Whether the Indians followed up their trail the peril finders never
knew, for they saw no more of that tribe, and wandered on for days in
safety, passing into a new tract of country which Griggs hailed with
delight.

"It's not goldy land," he said, pointing, "but a place where we can do a
deal of hunting and lay up stores--dried meat for stock--before we enter
the mountains yonder."

"Why do you say that?" asked Ned. "Because of those old bleached
bones?"

"Yes: buffalo. That means going on for months. Once we hit upon the
tail-end of a drove we can hang on to them as long as we like, and head
them in towards the mountains and forest-land yonder. There's a peak
there that looks very like the one we want to find."

But the weeks went on, during which the bison-drove was found, and
supplied the party with all the meat they needed, and sport besides, at
the long gaunt wolves always on the lookout for the weakly calves.
There was sport too with the bears, and a narrow escape for the doctor
from a grizzly which overtook and clawed him from his pony's back, the
end seeming very near. But Chris Lee's rifle-bullet was quicker than
the huge bear, whose skin when sun-dried, became the doctor's bed by
night when it was hot, his cover when it was cold.

Then the great peak, reached at last, gave the adventurers a wondrous
view all round, but not of the golden city, which always seemed to be
farther off, while none of the peaks they found accorded with the old
prospector's map.

But as the time glided on adventures were always at hand. Another
strange rock city was discovered, evidently inhabited at a l