tement.

"Stranger things have happened!" The Judge followed the girls and
looked at the wall. "Well, well," he exclaimed, "this certainly looks
interesting."

The professor had already begun to pick away the crumbling rock at the
small opening, and found that they had hit upon the spot where the
mouth of the tunnel had been filled up. After half an hour's work he
had opened it sufficiently to look in. Using a flashlight, he could
see that the tunnel was very shallow, another wall confronted him and
this appeared to be the solid rock of the mountain.

He was about to give up when he noticed a peculiar stone on the floor
of the tunnel, or what appeared to be a stone. With the pick he
dragged it forward and was able to reach it. Drawing it forth, he
stood before the Judge with glowing face.

"See this!" he exclaimed excitedly. "This comes up to any story of
buried treasure that I've ever read in my life." He displayed his
find, a tiny disc of copper and on it were engraved strange figures and
signs. They had no meaning to the group of people that stood about the
tunnel. But that little copper plate was telling a story, of that
there could be no doubt.

"What do you think of it?" the professor gasped in a hoarse whisper.
The old man was almost too excited to speak. He made several attempts
then gave up, but he held the disc as if it were a jewel.

"Let's sit down away over here and have a look at it," the Judge
suggested. "And if anyone is spying on us, he'll not be apt to suspect
anything."

Judge Breckenridge examined the disc carefully then spoke.

"Now there is a possibility--a slight one, we'll say, that there is a
treasure in that vault somewhere. Do you think your friend Ramon is
suspicious?"

"It's hard to say," Kit burst out. "Kie Wicks may be watching us this
minute from over the hill across the canyon."

"We will want to carry on the work as quietly as possible, but if Kie
hears about a treasure, we'll not have a minute's peace," said the
Judge, rising and surveying the ground. "The first thing we ought to
do," he continued, "is to stake out a claim covering this wall. Then
we'll own it."

"Yes, and have Kie Jump that claim, if he is watching us." Bet
shrugged her boyish shoulders.

"We'll get ahead of him on that. We'll stake the claim and I'll send a
man over to record it first thing in the morning, and tonight we'll
have a watchman--two in fact. We'll not leave the tunnel un