his friends; and,
before they started westward, saw that nothing at all was lacking in
their outfit.

Three weeks later the men drew rein in a tort of valley, very deep but
not very wide. It was on the edge of an immense prairie, while a river
of considerable size flowed by the rear, and by a curious circuit
found its way into the lower portion of the ravine, dashing and
roaring forward in a furious canyon.

The edge and interior of the ravine was lined with immense bowlders
and rocks, while large and stunted trees seemed to grow everywhere.

'Yar's what I call Wolf Ravine,' said Baldy when they had spent some
time in looking; about them.

'And be the same towken, where is the goold?' inquired Mickey.

'Yes, that there is what I call the important question,' added Ethan.

'That it is, of the greatest account, as me grandmither observed, whin
she fell off the staaple, and axed whether her pipe was broke.'

'It's in thar,' was the reply of the hunter, as he pointed to the
wildest-looking portion of the ravine.

'Let's geit it then.'

'Thar be some other things that have got to be looked after first,'
was the reply, 'and we've got to find a place to stow ourselves away.'

This was a matter of considerable difficulty: but they succeeded at
last in discovering a retreat in the rocks, where they were secure
from any attack, no matter by how formidable a number made.

After this, they hunted up a grazing place for their animals, which
were turned loose.

They soon found that the trapper had not deceived them. There was an
unusually rich deposit of gold in one portion of the ravine, and the
men fell to work with a will, conscious that they would reap a rich
reward for their labor.

The name, Wolf Ravine, had been given to it by the trapper, because on
his first discovery of it he had shot a large mountain wolf, that was
clambering up the side; but none others were seen afterward.

But there was one serious drawback to this brilliant prospect of
wealth. Indians of the most treacherous and implacable kind were all
around them, and were by no means disposed to-let them alone.

On the second day after their labor, a horde of them came screeching
down upon them; and had it not been for the safe retreat, which the
trapper's foresight had secured, all three would have been massacred.

As it was, they had a severe fight, and were penned up for the better
part of two days, by which time they had slain too many of thei