he choked all up. Come! It is yet light
enough to see!" and both boys made a jump for the huge trunk of the
great oak tree and began climbing up it almost with the agility of two
squirrels.

"Gosh! Thar might be somethin' in that!" and Ham, and all the others,
jumped to their feet and followed the movements of the two boys with
deeply interested eyes.

The third limb was about twenty feet from the ground, of huge size and
thrust itself straight out to the rocky wall of the canyon, against
which its end appeared to be tightly pressed.

Along this limb Thure and Bud now scrambled, as swiftly as hands and
feet and body could propel them, Thure in the lead. The limb was
sufficiently large and strong to make this neither difficult nor
dangerous. In a few minutes they were at the face of the wall of rock.
Here Thure paused for a moment, then he was seen to rise on his feet,
push a few branches aside, and, with a yell, disappear. The next moment
he was followed by Bud.

"Wal, I'll be teetotally durned!" and Ham and the others stared blankly
at the spot where the two boys had disappeared.

For five minutes they stood staring at the spot, without speaking a
word, so intense was their interest. Then the heads of the two boys
appeared through the branches almost simultaneously; and a loud yell of
triumph broke wildly from the mouth of each.

"Found! Found!" yelled Thure.

"We've found the gulch! Crooked Arm Gulch!" cried Bud. "Come up and
see."

"Durned if I don't!" and Ham leaped for the trunk of the tree, followed
by every other man in the company, except Pedro, who, together with Mrs.
Dickson, remained below.

"Not too many on the limb at a time," cautioned Rex, who had succeeded
in reaching the third limb first. "It might break," and he began working
his way along it, closely followed by Dill.

In a couple of minutes he had reached the opening in the wall of rock, a
jagged hole some four or five feet in diameter, into which the sturdy
limb had thrust itself in such a manner that its branches completely
concealed all signs of the opening from below.

"Great! This is great!" Rex exclaimed, as he pushed his way through the
branches into the hole.

In a few minutes more all were through the hole, and were standing on a
narrow shelf of rock, looking down into a deep, narrow gulch, whose
bottom was considerably below the level of the bottom of Lot's Canyon.

"By gum! if we ain't struck th' right spot at last!" and H