at cave."
In a moment more they had lifted the body off the bearskin and had laid
it down on the grass; and the gold nugget was in their hands.
"Glory! But isn't it heavy?" and Bud balanced the nugget in one hand.
"And it looks and feels and weighs like gold! It must be gold."
"It sure does look like gold," agreed Thure. "It looks and feels just
like the nuggets dad sent home, only larger. Oh, if we only could find
the cave where it came from! Let me see, he said that it was in the
Golden Elbow of Crooked Arm Gulch, in Lot's Canyon, near a white pillar
of rock and a big tree that we must climb to the third limb--a mighty
queer place I call that to find a cave! I reckon he must have been
lunaticy," and Thure turned a disappointed face to Bud.
"Well, he certainly found gold, and this proves it," and Bud tossed the
big nugget up in the air and caught it as it came down, "to say nothing
of the five thousand dollars' worth of gold nuggets that he claims his
murderers stole from him. But, didn't he say something about a map, a
skin map, that would tell us how to find the cave?" and his face
lighted.
"Yes, yes, that was the little roll of white skin I pulled first out of
the bag," and Thure's eyes searched eagerly the ground. "Here it is!"
and, stooping quickly, he picked up the little roll of white
parchment-like skin that he had pulled out of the little bag and dropped
on the ground, and began unrolling it with fingers that trembled with
excitement, while Bud crowded close to his side, his eyes on the
unrolling piece of tanned skin.
The skin was some ten inches long by seven inches wide, of a somewhat
stiff texture, and tanned so that it was nearly white. On the inner side
an unskilled hand had rudely drawn a map; and beneath the map was
written the words:
Map, showing the location of the Cave of Gold in the Golden Elbow
of Crooked Arm Gulch, which opens into Lot's Canyon near the white
pillar of rock and the big tree, made by John Stackpole, the
discoverer of the Cave of Gold.--1849.
In the lower left-hand corner of the map was a rudely drawn tree, with
three huge limbs, and, from near the end of the upper and third limb, an
arrow pointed slantingly downward, away from the trunk of the tree. In
the lower right-hand corner was a hand holding a flaming torch. Between
the tree and the torch was a cross, marked with the four main points of
the compass. In the lower left-hand corner of the ma
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