ght above the ground?"

"Well, perhaps they could, if they were looking," said Bart rather
sulkily.

"And they are looking this way. They always are looking this way and
every way, so don't you think they are not. Now let's go down."

He set the example of how they should go down, by crawling back for some
distance till he was below the ridge and beyond sight from the plain,
Bart carefully following his example till he rose, when they started
down the hill at as quick a trot as the rugged nature of the ground
would permit, and soon after reached the waggon, which the Doctor had
drawn into a position which hid it from the view of any one coming up
from the entrance of the valley, and also placed it where, in time of
peril, they might hold their own by means of their rifles, and keep an
enemy at bay even if they did not beat him off.

CHAPTER FIVE.

"SURROUNDED BY INDIANS."

A good breakfast and a few hours' rest seemed to put a different aspect
upon the face of affairs; the day was glorious, and though the region
they were in was arid and wanting in water, there was plenty to interest
any one travelling on an expedition of research. A good look-out was
kept for Indians, but the party seemed to have gone right away, and to
give them ample time to get to a greater distance, Dr Lascelles
determined, if he could find a spring anywhere at hand, to stay where
they were for a couple of days.

"You see, Bart," he said, as they hunted about amongst the craggiest
part of the amphitheatre where fortune or misfortune had led them, "it
does not much matter where we go, so long as it is into a region where
Europeans have not penetrated before. Many of these hills are teeming
with mineral treasures, and we must come upon some of Nature's wasting
store if we persevere."

"Then we might find metals here, sir?" said Bart eagerly.

"As likely here as anywhere else. These rocks are partly quartz, and at
any time we may come upon some of the stone veined with gold, or stumble
upon a place where silver lies in blocks."

"I hope," laughed Bart, "when we do, I may stumble right over one of the
blocks and so be sure of examining it. I think I should know silver if
I found it."

"I am not so sure," said the Doctor. "You've led a life of a kind that
has not made you very likely to understand minerals, but I daresay we
shall both know a little more about them before we have done--that is,"
he added with a sigh, "if the Indi