ting us all to come over and see them when we
chose, and offering to take charge of any gold Gunson might feel
disposed to bring over to the Fort.

Then we were off, all well laden, and with two of the men and their
Indian wives to carry stores.

The way chosen was through the forest, and away over the mountain ridge,
so as to avoid passing all the little camps; and in due time we reached
the claim, dismissed the bearers, and once more settled down to our
work.

"We must try hard to make up for lost time, my lads," said Gunson.
"Why, Gordon, you don't seem to relish the task."

"Oh, yes," I said, "only I feel a little dull at leaving the Fort."

CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE.

MR. RAYDON QUOTES LATIN.

"Nothing has been touched," said Mr Gunson, the next morning. "I don't
believe Raydon's men have even washed a pan of gold, and my bank is
quite safe."

I looked at him inquiringly.

"I examined it while you were asleep, Mayne," he said.

"Then you have a good deal stored up here?"

"Yes--somewhere," he said. "I'll show you one of these days. Now then;
ready?"

We declared our readiness, and once more we began work, out in the
silence of that beautiful valley, digging, washing, and examining, as we
picked out the soft deadened golden scales, beads, grains, and tiny
smooth nuggets.

We all worked our hardest, Quong being indefatigable, and darting back,
after running off to see to the fire, to dig and wash with the best of
us.

We had very fair success, but nothing dazzling, and the gold we found
was added to the bank on the fourth day, this bank proving to be a
leather bag which Mr Gunson dug up carefully in my presence, while I
stared at him, and burst out laughing at his choice of what I thought so
silly and unsafe a place for his findings.

"Why do you laugh?" he said, quietly. "Do you think I might have had a
strong box instead of a leather bag?"

"I should have thought that you would have buried it in some
out-of-the-way, deserted corner," I said. "I could find hundreds
about."

"Yes," he said; "and so could other people, my lad. Those are the very
spots they would have searched. I wanted a place where no one would
look."

"And so you hid it here," I said, wonderingly, for I could not quite see
that he was right, and yet he must have been, for the gold was safe.

His hiding-place was down in the sand, right in the beaten track people
walked over on their way up the valley.

We worked on b