yet, and what his name is, and then--"

"Mebby we'd better find out _where_ it is first," suggested one.

"And then jump him?" queried the rider over his glass.

"And then jump him," chorused the group. "He's out there alone. It's
easy." And each poured himself a drink, for which, strangely enough, no
one offered to pay, and for which the bartender evidently forgot to
collect.

Meanwhile the prospector toiled through the drought of that summer
hoarding the little yellow flakes that he washed from the gravel in the
canon.

CHAPTER II

WATER

All round him for miles each way the water-holes had gone dry. The
little canon stream still wound down its shaded course, disappearing in
a patch of sand at the canon's mouth, so the prospector felt secure.
None had ridden out to look for him through that furnace of burning sand
that stretched between the hills and the desert town.

The stream dwindled slowly, imperceptibly.

One morning the prospector noticed it, and immediately explored the
creek clear to its source--a spurt of water springing from the roof of a
grotto in the cliff. Such a supply, evidently from the rocky heart of
the range itself, would be inexhaustible.

A week later he awoke to find the creek-bed dry save in a few
depressions among the rocks. He again visited the grotto. The place was
damp and cool, glistening with beads of moisture, but the flow from the
roof-crevice had ceased. Still he thought there must be plenty of water
beneath the rocks of the stream-bed. He would dig for it.

Another week, and he became uneasy. The stream had disappeared as though
poured into a colossal crevice. A few feet below the gravel he struck
solid rock. He tried dynamite unsuccessfully. Then he hoarded the
drippings from the grotto crevice till he had filled his canteen.
Carefully he stowed his gold in a chamois pouch and prepared to leave
the canon. His burro had strayed during the week of drought--was
probably dead beside some dry water-hole.

The prospector set out to cross the range in the light of the stars.

Fearful that he might be seen, panic warped his reasoning. He planned to
journey south along the foothills, until opposite the desert town and
then cross over to it. If he approached from such a direction, no one
would guess his original starting-place. He knew of an unfailing
water-hole two days' journey from the canon. This water-hole was far out
of his way, but his canteen supply would more t