er a week or ten days' voyaging, as I imagine--he saw a canoe
just pushing out from beneath the wooded bank with two of the missing
Caribs therein, going to Belize on some errand. Their astonishment was
loud, but not angry; they had no quarrel with Mr. Ponder. After a very
little hesitation they consented to lead him to the camp, the Indians
remaining in their boat.

It was not a long walk, nor uncomfortable. A broad path had been cut to
the top of the ridge, for hauling down the trunks, and the rollers had
smoothed it like a highway; but not so broad that the great trees on
either hand failed to overshadow it. Mr. Ponder questioned his guides
laughingly. Was it a real good placer, with nuggets in it?--how much had
they pouched, and was the game likely to last? They grinned and patted
their waist-scarves, which, as he now remarked, were round and plump as
monster sausages.

'Oh, I know that trick,' laughed Mr. Ponder. 'You've filled them with
maize-flour for your journey.'

They whooped and roared with triumph. 'Say, Mis'r George, you tell
nobody--honour bright?-not nobody?' One of them turned down the edge of
his scarf, with no small effort--for it was twisted very tightly and
secured. Presently the contents glimmered into sight--little golden
figures, mostly flat, carved or moulded, one to three inches long. 'Our
placer all nuggets, Mis'r George!'

Any child in those seas would have understood. The Caribs had discovered
not a washing nor a mine, but a burial-ground of the old Indians, called
in those parts a 'huaco.' There are men who make it their sole business to
look for such treasure-heaps. Since they bear, in general, no outward
indication whatsoever at the present time, one would think that the hunt
must be desperate; but these men, like other gamblers, have their
'system.' Possibly they have noted some rules which guided the antique
people in their choice of a cemetery. And if they find one in a
lifetime--provided they can keep the secret--that suffices.

Mostly, perhaps, huacos are discovered by accident. So it was in the
memorable instance on Chiriqui lagoon, where many thousand people dug for
months and many brought away a fortune--for them. And so it was here. The
Caribs told their story gleefully. From the crest of the ridge the land
sloped gently down towards a stream. When they reached this place to
secure the timber, now dry, the rains were very heavy. But Sam and
another, heaven-directed, roamed d