of gold.

The fourth day Tom had come down from above at twelve o'clock, and found
that the men had only just finished the clear-up, and had sat down to
have some food.

Having nothing to do, he strolled away to the spot where the Mexicans
had been massacred, a short distance away, on some ground at the side of
the valley. Some three or four feet above the ground level of the bottom
he saw a charred stump of a pole sticking up; he went across to it.

"I suppose this is where the leader of the party had a tent or rough
hut," he said.

He was confirmed in the belief by a number of bits of charred wood lying
round the pole.

"It was sort of arbor, I suppose," he said to himself.

There were several relics lying about: two boots shriveled by fire, a
tin cup flattened by some weight that had fallen on it, a pistol with
its stock blackened by fire. He called the men to the spot.

"Yes, like enough it is as you say, Dick, but it is scarcely worth
getting up to look at."

"No, there is not much to look at, Dave, but you have been wondering
ever since you came that you had not come upon any of the gold they must
have gathered, and you said you didn't believe the Indians had taken it
away. Now if this was the hut of the leader of the party, it struck me