ringly with the
coast natives. They had little to trade, and the little he could spare
would only postpone the disaster that seemed hanging over the camp like a
cloud. The natives would not hunt or fish and each day found them growing
more insolent and threatening.

This to the eager young miner was a great trial. Mining operations were
going on splendidly. Mine No. 2 yielded a richer pay dirt each day.
Indications were that in a very few days they would be mining the
mother-lode from that digging and would be storing away pure gold in moose
hide sacks, some to be sent to the men whose wealth had made the
expedition possible and some to the orphans of Vladivostok.

It was at this time that the native with the dark and frowning visage came
with the announcement that he had located some immense tusks of extinct
monsters, a short distance inland. He begged Johnny to go with him to look
at them and assured him that if they pleased him, they should be brought
to the coast for barter.

"All right, come sun to-morrow, I go," said Johnny.

"I better go along," said Pant, when the native had left.

"Go if you want to," said Johnny.

Next morning, just at dawn, the three men started on their quest for the
ancient ivory.

The way led first up the frozen river bed, then over low-lying hills to a
stretch of tundra. At the distant border of the tundra towered high
cliffs, flanked by snow-blown mountains. Toward these they journeyed,
tramping along in silence.

As they neared the cliffs, Johnny fancied that he saw some dark creatures
moving among the rocks. The distance was too great for him to know whether
they were human beings or animals.

It was with a creeping sense of danger and a feeling of thankfulness for
Pant's companionship, that, after arriving at the cliffs, he found himself
being led into a dark cave in a hill of limestone rock.

"U bogak ivory" (look, here is ivory). The native whispered the words as
if afraid the extinct monsters would waken from the dead and demand their
tusks.

He had lighted a single tallow candle which gave forth a sickly,
flickering light.

The place seemed fairly spooky. Only the pit-pats of their footsteps
wakened dull echoes through the vaulted cavern. Johnny could not help
feeling that there were more than three men in this cave. In vain he
strained his eyes to catch a glimpse of the walls to right and left of
him.

They had gone perhaps seventy-five paces into the darkness wh