s haunted."

"Have you got that map?" asked the professor.

"Yes, if you'll reach my coat I'll show it you," said the miner.

Jack gave him the ragged garment off a hook at the back of the door.
Zeb fumbled in the pockets for a minute and then brought out a knife.

"A rip more or less won't make no difference," he said, and cut a
slash down the lining. There, carefully stowed inside, where it could
not be suspected, was a folded, time-yellowed paper.

The miner opened it slowly and spread it out on the counterpane. The
boys, not without a sense of shock, noted a dark, rusty-looking stain
upon it. It struck them that the marks might be the life blood of the
treacherous Foxy's friend who had met a tragic end in Yuma.

Zeb, with a broad and blackened forefinger, traced the course of the
Colorado. At length his finger paused at an island marked in red.
There was some fantastic Indian lettering, or sign-drawing, about it,
and underneath, in a white man's handwriting, were the words:
"Rattlesnake Island."

"I reckon Foxy Joe's friend must hev written that in," commented Zeb.

"It looks that way," said the professor, who had poured the sample of
mineral-bearing sand back into the vial and restored it to Zeb
Cummings.

"Rattlesnake Island," repeated Jack. "Are there any rattlers down that
way?"

"Yes, and gila monsters and tarantulas and centipedes," replied Zeb
cheerfully. "But you soon get used to 'em."

Some other islands were marked on the map, but Rattlesnake Island was
the only one designated by name.

"That must be the place whar all that stuff is, then," decided Zeb. "I
wish thar was some way of gittin' thar."

"If there is even only a small fraction of the mineral-bearing sand
there," said the professor, "there's a fortune in it."

"Wa'al if you can't git it out what good is it?" said Zeb
philosophically. "Anyhow, I'm glad that Sanchez spoke the truth with
his dying words. Maybe thar is some way, except by water, in spite of
what he said."

"Maybe there is," said Jack. "It seems a shame to think of all that
rich stuff lying there neglected and unobtainable."

"It does indeed," agreed the professor. "In that sample I find traces
of metals from which filaments for electric lights could be made and
substances invaluable in medicine for X-ray purposes as well as the
Z.2.X. which your father is convinced would make the radio telephone
as practical as the wireless telegraph."

They would like to have st