'd like to carry in."

"That's so; but we may bag something more, and then we could bring a
pony up almost as far as this. I don't mean to do any too much
carrying."

His broad, muscular frame looked as if it had been built expressly for
that purpose, and he could have picked up at least one big-horn with
perfect ease; but he had been among the Indians a good while, and they
never lift a pound more than they are compelled to.

"Give me the next shot, Murray."

"I will, if it's all right; but you must use your own eyes. It won't
do to throw away any chances."

The game was quickly lifted to the bowlder pointed out by Murray, and
he and Steve pressed on up the great beautiful gate-way, deeper and
deeper into the secrets of the mountain range.

Every such range has its secrets, and one by one they are found out
from time to time; but there seemed to be little use in the discovery
of any just then and there. It was a very useless sort of secret.

What was it?

Well, it was one that had been kept by that deep chasm for nobody could
guess how many thousands of years, until Steve Harrison stumbled a
little as he climbed one of the broken "stairs" of quartz, and came
down upon his hands and knees.

Before him the canyon widened into a sort of table-land, with crags and
peaks around it, and Murray saw trees here and there, and a good many
other things, but Steve exclaimed,

"Murray! Murray! Gold!"

"What! A vein?"

"I fell right down upon it. Just look there!"

Murray looked, half carelessly at first, like a man who had before that
day discovered plenty of such things; but then he sprung forward.

"We're in the gold country," he said; "it's all gold-bearing quartz
hereaway. Steve! Steve! I declare I never saw such a vein as that.
The metal stands out in nuggets."

So it did. A strip of rock nearly five feet wide was dotted and
spangled with bits of dull yellow. It seemed to run right across the
canyon at the edge of that level, and disappear in the solid cliffs on
either side.

"Oh, what a vein!"

"It's really gold, then?"

"Gold? Of course it is. But it isn't of any use."

"Why not?"

"Who could mine for it away down here in the Apache country? How could
they get machinery down here? Why, a regiment of soldiers couldn't
keep off the redskins, and every pound of gold would cost two pounds
before you could get it to a mint."

For all that, Murray gazed and gazed at the glittering rock,