e begun at once.

In three hours everything was ready for the journey. The gold, there was
fifty bags of it, each weighing about one hundred pounds, was packed on
the fifteen horses they had secured from the robbers. Mrs. Dickson was
given one of the other horses to ride, and the food and the camp
supplies were packed on the remaining five horses.

The twenty-two prisoners were now all gathered in a bunch under the Big
Tree, and the hands of each man strongly tied behind his back. Then Mr.
Conroyal stepped out in front of them.

"You cowardly pack of scoundrels," he said, "if we could, we would
gladly take you to where we could deliver you up to the justice you so
richly deserve; but, under existing circumstances, that is impossible;
and so we have decided to leave you here, bound as you now are, without
weapons of any kind, but with food enough to last you three days, which
ought to be enough to keep you until you can get to one of the
mining-camps. Doubtless, by working real hard, you can manage to get the
hands of one of you untied in course of the next two or three hours, and
then he can soon untie the hands of the others, and you can start for
one of the mining-camps as soon as you please. But," Mr. Conroyal spoke
slowly, so that every man could understand every word that he uttered,
"do not, if you value your lives, follow our trail. We will shoot, and
shoot to kill, on sight. Now, that is all I have to say to you, except,"
and he grinned joyously, "to thank you for bringing us those fifteen
horses and for your help in getting out the gold. I do not know what we
would have done without the horses and without your help. Hope this will
learn you to give up trying to steal gold and start you to digging for
it," and he turned and led the little company down the canyon, bound, at
last, for home.

CHAPTER XXVII

HOME

Ten days later than the events just recorded in the last chapter, Iola
Conroyal and Ruth Randolph sat swinging in a hammock, stretched under
the broad porch that shaded the front of the Conroyal house.

"I wish we could hear from our dads and the boys," Iola said, as the two
girls swung gently back and forth. "It seems like a long time now since
Thure and Bud left us; and we haven't heard a word from them since they
went away; and so many things might have happened to them. Why, they may
already have found the Cave of Gold, and right at this moment they may
be picking up gold nuggets by the