o
other float like this.

It was as though, after the years of long and constant search he found
himself faced by a grim challenge, to attain the consummation of his
hopes on pain of death.

When he had examined the bits of rock he mounted his mule and struck
out for the mouth of the dry wash.

After he had ridden for some distance up the stony bed of the arroyo
he dismounted and came on slowly leading the patient animal. He
searched the rocks for fragments of float. At times he left the mule
and crept to the summit of a near-by ridge where he remained for some
minutes looking out over the country for some sign of Indians.

The day wore on and as he went further the hills to the south became
loftier; the banks drew closer in on both sides of him; the boulders
in the arid bed were larger. Cactus and Spanish bayonet harassed him
like malignant creatures; skeleton ocatillas and bristling yuccas
imposed thorny barriers before him. The sun poured its full flood of
white-hot rays upon him. He wound his way in and out among the
obstacles, keeping his intent eyes upon the glaring rocks, save only
when he lifted them to look for lurking savages. The shadows of
noonday lengthened into the shades of afternoon; they crept up the
hillsides until only the higher peaks remained a-shine; evening came.

Schiefflin picked up a sharp fragment of blackish rock.

Horn silver. In those days when the great Comstock lode was lessening
its yield and the metal was at a premium, such ore as this which he
held meant millions--if one could but find the main ledge. He scanned
the specimen closely, looked round for others and then, as his eyes
roved up the hillside the exultation born of that discovery passed
from him.

Dusk was creeping up from the valley. The time had passed when he
could return by daylight to the Bruncknow house. He must make the most
of the scant interval which remained before darkness, if he would find
a hiding-place where he could camp.

He glanced about him to fix the landmarks in his memory, that he might
return to this spot on the morrow. Then he led the mule away into the
hills and picketed it out behind a ridge where it would be out of
sight from passing Apaches.

He found his own hiding-place a mile away from where he had tethered
the animal. Here three huge bare knolls of granite boulders rose
beside the wash. From the summit of any one of these a man could
survey the whole country; between its ragged rocks h