stood.

"You shin up there, Sarge," Mac commanded, "and locate that mark. It
ought to be an easy climb."

I "shinned," and reached the ledge with a good deal of skin peeled from
various parts of my person. The first object my eye fell upon as I
hoisted myself above the four-foot shelf was a dull, yellow spot on the
gray rock, near enough so that I could lean forward and touch it with my
fingers. A two-inch circle of the real thing--I'd seen enough gold in
the raw to know it without any acid test--hammered into the coarse
sandstone. I pried it up with the blade of my knife and looked it over.
Originally it had been a fair-sized nugget. Hans or Rowan had pounded it
into place with the back of a hatchet (the corner-marks told me that),
flattening it to several times its natural diameter. I threw it down to
MacRae, and looked carefully along the ledge. There was no other mark
that I could see; I began to wonder if we were as hot on the scent as we
had thought.

"Is there a loose piece of rock up there?" Mac called presently. "If
there is, set it on the edge, in line with where this was."

I found a fragment about the size of my fist and set it on the rim of
the ledge. He squinted up at it a moment, then nodded, smiling.

"Come on down now, Sarge," he grinned; and, seating himself on a rock
with the carbine across his knees, he began to roll a cigarette, as if
the finding of Hank Rowan's gold-_cache_ were a thing of no importance
whatever.