ut I never knew a man yet who went out in the mountains
looking for one as did."

"But up northward there, men have discovered mines and made themselves
enormously rich."

"To be sure they have, my lad, but not by going and looking for the gold
or silver. It was always found by accident like, and you and me is much
more like to come upon a big lead where we're trying after sheep or deer
than he is with all his regular trying."

"You think there are mineral riches up in the mountains then?"

"Think, Master Bart! Oh, I'm sure of it. But where is it to be found?
P'r'aps we're walking over it now, but there's no means of telling."

"No," said Bart thoughtfully, "for everything about is so vast."

"That's about it, my lad, and all the harm I wish master is that he may
find as much as he wants."

"I wish he may, Joses," said Bart, "or that I could find a mine for him
and Miss Maude."

"Well, my lad, we'll keep our eyes open while we are out, only we have
so many other things to push, and want to push on farther so as to get
among better pasture for the horses. They don't look in such good
condition as they did."

There was good reason for this remark, their halting-places during the
past few days having been in very sterile spots, where the tall
forbidding rocks were relieved by very little that was green, and
patches of grass were few.

But these were the regions most affected by the Doctor, who believed
that they were the most likely ones for discovering treasure belonging
to nature's great storehouse, untouched as yet by man. In these barren
wilds he would tramp about, now climbing to the top of some chine, now
letting himself down into some gloomy forbidding ravine, but always
without success, there being nothing to tempt him to say, "Here is the
beginning of a very wealthy mine."

Every time they journeyed on the toil became greater, for they were in
most inaccessible parts of the mountain range, and they knew by the
coolness of the air that they must now be far above the plains.

Bart and Joses worked hard to supply the larder, the principal food they
obtained being the sage grouse and dusky grouse, which birds they found
to be pretty plentiful high up in the mountains wherever there was a
flat or a slope with plenty of cover; but just as they were getting
terribly tired of the sameness of this diet, Bart made one morning a
lucky find.

They had reached a fresh halting-place after sundown on the pre