ecret paper
contained. It was the natural secretiveness of the Indian that he had
not been able to throw off.

We traveled thus for half an hour, the canyon broadening, and then we
came to a steady and rugged ascent.

"There is the face," exclaimed Tom suddenly.

There was no denying it. It was formed in the end of the western wall of
the canyon, a perfect outline of an old woman's face with a pronounced
chin and munched-in mouth.

"Yes, oh, yes," said Juarez, a dark flush showing on his cheeks. "She is
looking at the place of the sign."

With great difficulty we made our way up to the top of the western end
of "Lean Canyon," where we could ask the question of the sphinx who
watched the sign of the treasure. In one place that was narrow we had to
leap across to the other wall.

There was a fall of three hundred feet below us. If we had allowed
ourselves to become nervous we might have missed the narrow ledge which
gave us footing, but we were too eager in our quest to take account of
danger.

Our moccasined feet helped to give us a secure foothold and we made the
jump of six feet with safety. Juarez was the first to leap and he did it
with a measured nonchalance, while Jim, with his long legs, seemed to
step lightly across.

As Jim and Juarez stood on either side to catch me, I jumped with
confidence. Tom, however, got a bad takeoff and would have fallen back
into the canyon head first if Jim and Juarez had not gripped him.

It tested their steel sinews to maintain their balance and to keep from
being carried down into the canyon below. We made our way without
further incident to the top of the canyon and could see the outline of
the old woman's face three hundred feet above us.

She seemed to be looking at a great cliff about a half mile distant. We
scanned every inch of the cliff for something that looked like the
mystic sign, but even my imagination could not conjure up anything that
resembled it.

Jim meanwhile had moved off some distance and was studying the old woman
in the rock with the keenest interest and intelligence.

"Say, boys," he exclaimed suddenly, "she is not looking out or up. The
old lady is looking down."

"It's so," someone exclaimed. "Now we may locate it."

Jim moved from one point to another of observation. Finally he came to a
pile of stones, something like a surveyor's monument, only it was about
ten feet high. This he climbed.

No sooner had he taken his position on top of