ld believe that they
had crossed that narrow ridge to find a hiding-place beyond?

And here these two men, so strangely met, with mysterious lives, and
both in hiding from the world, settled down to win a fortune from the
generous earth, to earn riches that would make them comfortable in their
latter years far from the scenes that had known them in other days and
to which they dared not return.

Each day they worked several hours in their gold-hunting, and then one
of them would take his gun and go in search of game, while the other
would do the chores about their cabin.

It was upon one of these hunting expeditions one day that Andrew Seldon
found himself belated from having pursued his game much farther than he
had thought.

It was some miles back to camp and the sun had long since ceased to send
its rays down into the depths of the mighty chasm of the Grand Canyon.

He started back, with his game swung up on his back, and the shadows
rapidly deepening about him.

As he neared his old destroyed home he stopped suddenly, for across the
canyon a light flashed before his gaze.

"It is a firelight as sure as I live," he muttered.

"What does it, what can it, mean?"

He stood like one dazed by the sight for some time, and then slowly fell
from his lips the words:

"It can mean but one thing--_that some one has come into the canyon_."

After a moment more of silent thought he said almost cheerily:

"Ah! it is Lucas."

But again his voice changed as he added:

"No, he dreads the spot where he was so nearly buried alive and will not
go there. Whoever it is, he is a stranger. I must know, for if they have
come here to remain, if they are our foes we will be forewarned and
hence forearmed.

"I will at once solve the mystery, for I had hoped never to behold a
human face here other than Lucas Langley's and my own," and the
gold-hunter walked away in the direction of the firelight which had so
startled him.

He went cautiously, for he knew well the danger if he was discovered,
and the builders of the camp-fire proved to be foes.

He knew the locality well, and that he could approach within a hundred
yards of the fire, and discover just what there was to be seen.

Arriving within an eighth of a mile of the spot he halted, laid aside
his game and rifle, and then moved forward from rock to rock, tree to
tree, armed only with his revolvers.

He now saw that there were three fires, two near together and one a
c