to
be left behind? Then, with a smile on his face, Frank Holt stepped
forth.

"Reckon I'll stay and keep company with Pedro," he said. "I'm not as
young as I once was, and crawling along that limb some twenty feet above
the ground looks some dangerous to legs as old as mine. But I'd like to
have one of you, if you find the cave all right, come and let me know,"
and the sparkle in his eyes told how great was his interest in the
result.

"I'll come right back and relieve you, dad, just as soon as we find the
cave and see what it is like," Rex Holt promised. "Then you can go and
see for yourself. It was great of you to offer to stay. I'll be back
soon. Good-by," and he hurried after the others, who were already
climbing the Big Tree.

Pedro, all the morning, had been as feverish with excitement as had any
of the others, and had watched their every movement, as a cat watches a
caught mouse, and had tried to overhear every word uttered; but, at the
first mention of a guard being left with him, he had muttered a Mexican
oath and had turned angrily and sullenly away, all his excitement gone.
Evidently he had counted a great deal on being left alone with the
horses and the camp supplies, when the search for the Cave of Gold was
made; and, consequently, the leaving of a guard with him had been a very
great disappointment. But he was too cunning to allow this
disappointment to be seen by his employers, and had turned quickly away
to hide his feelings, until he was again his usual suave self; and so he
did not hear the promise of Rex to hasten back as soon as the cave was
found and relieve his father.

You may be sure that there were no laggards among the climbers up the
Big Tree and along the limb and through the entrance into Crooked Arm
Gulch; and soon all stood on the little shelf of rock, from which they
had had their first view of the gulch the night before.

"Now, th' first thing tew dew is tew git down tew th' bottom," commented
Ham, as the eyes of all eagerly searched the walls of the gulch.

"That looks easy! Right this way!" and Thure began excitedly clambering
down the rocks.

The shelf of rock on which they stood was some fifty feet above the
bottom of the gulch; and from it a series of shelves and jutting rocks
made an easy pathway downward, for mountaineers as experienced as they
were, and soon all our friends stood at the bottom of Crooked Arm Gulch.

"Now for the Golden Elbow!" shouted Thure. "I want to