them. Suddenly they were silent. Then there were swift mutterings. And
then a great, triumphant, many-voiced shout. In Gus Ingle's
treasure-cache they had at last come to Gus Ingle's treasure. And, among
other things, to the skeleton of Gus Ingle himself, sprawling here for
sixty years in the dark over a great heap of gold.

_Chapter XXIX_

Swen Brodie, whose will had at all times directed, was now absolute
dictator. Big and brutal and fearless, drunken with gold, he loomed
above his companions, driving them, commanding them, swearing violently
that they would do what he told them to do or he'd dash their brains
out.

"I led you to it," he reminded them in a great shouting voice. "But for
me never a man of you would of smelled it. There's enough here to make a
thousand men rich, and that's lucky for you! But we've got to hold what
we got, and we got to get out of here with it--somehow. That somehow is
for me to figure out. And, being as one man's got to run any job and the
rest has got to take orders and take 'em on the jump, you're doing what
I say! If any man jack of you don't like that, let him open his head
right now!"

"There's no sense scrappin'," muttered Benny. "An' we're all satisfied,
I'd say. But there's no call to start wavin' a red flag."

"We're going down to the lower cave," said Brodie. "Everything we can
pry loose is going down with us. We'll pitch the loose chunks of gold
over the cliff and we'll stow 'em away somewhere else--where King, if
things break some way we don't look for, won't find 'em! We start right
now, while there's daylight. What's more, we move our camp from down the
canon to the cave below. Steve Jarrold, you and Tony are elected to that
job, and you'd better get a move on. Bring up what grub's left, and the
blankets and stuff. The rest of us will start in firing gold overboard
and putting it somewhere more safe--all that's loose. And at that, think
of the great, big, wide, yellow, rotten-soft seam of it down below!"

"Where are you goin' to put it?" demanded Jarrold.

"Not hiding it from you and Tony, Steve," cried Brodie sharply. "Put
your suspicious ways in your pocket. And, if you're on the jump, you'll
have our camp truck moved before we're done. Look alive, will you? A
man never knows what's going to happen."

"Why not leave it here until we know----?"

"For one thing, because Mark King knows this place. Now, move! Come
ahead, you other fellows. You, too, Gratt