oint."

"I get the point, all right," retorted John, "when you're able to make it
plain. All the same," he added, "what are we going to do next?"

"I'm not so sure," said Grant slowly. "Probably we'll have to stay here a
few weeks and keep on trying to find the right spot."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Fred blankly. "I wouldn't stay here
a few weeks for all the money there is in every mine in Arizona!"

"This is the time and this is the place when the majority have got to
rule," said Grant quietly.

"If the majority want to stay here and look a little longer for Simon
Moultrie's claim then I guess the others will have to stay too. There's
going to be no journeying across the desert or back up the gulch and the
canyon by any party of one or two. We've had enough Go Ahead Boys get
lost."

"Don't be so proud," retorted Fred. "_You_ haven't been lost, but it
wasn't any fault of yours. It was simply your good luck."

"I'm not denying that," said Grant. "I am quite sure I should have been
lost if I had been where you were. All I'm saying is that we aren't going
to lose any more."

"Well, what _are_ we going to do?" asked George.

"We've got to decide what we'll do first," said Grant. "What do you
think?" he added, turning to the guide as he spoke.

Zeke had been silent throughout the conversation. It was plain that he was
perplexed and perhaps downcast at the outcome of their first attempt.
However, the expression of his face was unchanged when he said, "I've
decided one thing and that is that you boys are going to stay right here
and watch a little while."

"'Watch'?" repeated Grant. "What do you mean? What are we going to watch?"

"You're going to be on the lookout," was all that Zeke was willing to
explain. "There's going to be some things goin' on around here worth
seein', in my opinion," he added, "but I don't know just what and I'm not
sure just where. I do know though the first thing that's going to be
done."

"What's that?" inquired Grant.

"I'm going to get under the shadow of that big rock yonder and then I'm
going to cook some dinner."

"But it isn't more than eleven o'clock," protested Fred.

"I don't care what time it is. I'm going to cook the dinner if it's
seventeen o'clock to-morrow mornin'."

"And after dinner what?" asked Grant.

"What I told you," said Zeke. "I'm going to leave you boys here on the
lookout while I go down over the rim."

"What are you going for?" asked Fre