zly bear hanging across the back of his horse
behind the saddle, rode into the open court in front of the Conroyal
rancho, there was great excitement; and, even before they could
dismount, they were surrounded by a crowd of gesticulating,
question-shouting women and children and old decrepit men, all wild with
curiosity to know what had happened. In the midst of all this
excitement, the door of the house was flung open and two young ladies
catapulted themselves through the crowd to where Thure and Bud sat on
their horses.

"Mercy! What has happened?" and Iola Conroyal, her horrified eyes fixed
on the face of the dead miner, came to a sudden halt by the side of
Thure, with Ruth Randolph, round-eyed and white-faced, clinging to one
of her arms. "Is--is he dead?"

"Yes, he is dead," Thure answered gravely. "Murdered for his gold."
Then, seeing how white the faces of the two girls had suddenly grown, he
added quickly: "You girls hurry right back into the house and tell your
mothers that we found a miner, who had been robbed and stabbed, and
started to bring him home with us, but that he died before we got here;
and ask them to have some blankets laid on the floor of the sala for the
body to lie on and a sheet to cover it. Now, hurry. We'll tell you how
it all happened later," and not until the two girls were back in the
house did Thure make a move to get rid of his ghastly burden. Then,
reverently the body of the dead miner was lowered from the horse, and
borne into the large hall-like room of the house known as the sala, and
laid down on the blankets there prepared for it, and covered over with a
sheet.

In the meantime Bud had thrown the great hide of the grizzly to the
ground with the information that it was the skin of _El Feroz_ himself.

"How did you kill him?" "Who shot him?" and, with shouts of wonder and
delight, all the men and the boys, who had not gone into the sala with
the body of the dead miner, crowded around the skin of the fallen
monarch.

"Thure and I found the old villain just after he had killed a horse, and
shot him," Bud answered hastily, anxious to get to his mother with the
wonderful news of the Cave of Gold as quickly as possible. "Here,
Angelo!" and he turned to a young Mexican boy standing near, "Take my
horse and see that he is properly cared for. And you, Juan, take the
hide of _El Feroz_ and let us see how fine a robe you can make out of
it."

"Si, si, senor," answered the old Mexican