quired Fred.

"Oh, I should say it is a good forty miles."

"Is it hard to get there?"

"I haven't ever been this way," replied Zeke, "but I'm thinkin' we can
make it."

"In which direction does the Gulch run?"

"It's a funny place," explained Zeke; "it runs mostly north and south. It
takes a sharp turn at the lower end."

"Probably that was to let out the water that had been caught in there."

"Probably," said Zeke scornfully. The guide had slight confidence in the
explanations which the boys had to give for the formation of the great
chasms found near the Colorado River and its tributaries. "I'm thinkin'
that the One who made that Canyon could just as well make it the way it is
as the way you say."

"No doubt about that," Fred laughingly had conceded. "It isn't a question
of ability, it is simply how it was done."

"According to what I can find out," said Zeke, "there seems to be styles
in explainin' things, same as there is in clothes. My wife doesn't want to
wear the dress she had two years ago even if it isn't worn out very much.
When I ask her what's the matter with it she says it's out o' style. It's
the same way with explaining how this great hole in the ground came here.
There seems to be a sort of 'style' about it. Some people say it's
erosion, others say it's the work of a big glacier. Then too I have heard
some say as how it was neither and some said it was both. That doesn't
make any difference though, but I know where Thorn's Gulch is and I can go
there if you want to."

"If Simon found a mine what was it?"

"Can't say," replied Zeke sharply. "It might be gold, it might be zinc and
more likely might be copper. Most likely of all though is that he didn't
find no mine 't all."

"There isn't anything more in the diary about it anyway," said Fred, who
now had looked through all the pages without discovering any further
description. "How long is Thorn's Gulch?"

"Somewhere between fifteen and twenty miles," answered Zeke.

"Whew!" whistled John. "If we're going to look up the lost mine we'll have
some 'looking' to do I'm thinking."

"Right you are," said Fred soberly. "Do you think we had better try to
find this place?"

"That's for you to say," said Zeke. "It's all one to me whether I help you
find a copper mine or whether I keep you from, tipping over in the boat.
I'm inclined to think the boat business is a good deal safer than the
other."

"But we can't throw away a clue like this," pr