upon the fire. Wabigoon still remained at the edge of the pool,
dripping and shivering. His hands were clenched, and Rod could see
that they were filled with sand and gravel. Mechanically the Indian
opened his fingers and looked at what he had unconsciously brought up
from under the fall.

For a moment he stared, then with his gasping breath there came a low,
thrilling cry.

He held out his hands to Rod.

Gleaming richly among the pebbles which he held was a nugget of pure
gold, a nugget so large that Rod gave a wild yell, and in that one
moment forgot that John Ball, the mad hunter, was dead or dying
beneath the fall!

CHAPTER XVI

JOHN BALL AND THE MYSTERY OF THE GOLD

Mukoki, hearing Rod's cry, hurried to the pool, but before he reached
the spot where the white youth was standing with the yellow nugget in
his hand Wabigoon had again plunged beneath the surface. For several
minutes he remained in the water, and when he once more crawled out
upon the rocks there was something so strange in his face and eyes
that for a moment Rod believed he had found the dead body of the
madman.

"He isn't--in--the--pool!" he panted. Mukoki shrugged his shoulders
and shivered.

"Dead!" he grunted

"He isn't in the pool!"

Wabigoon's black eyes gleamed in uncanny emphasis of his words.

"He isn't in the pool!"

The others understood what he meant. Mukoki's eyes wandered to where
the water of the pool gushed between the rocks into the broader
channel of the chasm stream. It was not more than knee deep!

"He no go out there!"

"No!"

"Then--where?"

He shrugged his shoulders suggestively again, and pointed into the
pool.

"Body slip under rock. He there!"

"Try it!" said Wabigoon tersely.

He hurried to the fire, and Rod went with him to gather more fuel
while the young Indian warmed his chilled body. They heard the old
pathfinder leap into the water under the fall as they ran.

Ten minutes later Mukoki joined them.

"Gone! Bad-dog man no there!"

He stretched out one of his dripping arms.

"Gol' bullet!" he grunted.

In the palm of his hand lay another yellow nugget, as large as a
hazelnut!

"I told you," said Wabi softly, "that John Ball was coming back to his
gold. And he has done so! The treasure is in the pool!"

But where was John Ball?

Dead or alive, where could he have disappeared?

Under other conditions the chasm would have rung with the wild
rejoicing of the gold seekers. But t