e day?"

"It can wait. It will be there after we get out the gold."

"And you are in full agreement with this, James Boyd?"

"I am."

"And you are in full agreement with this, too, Thomas Bent?"

"I am."

"Then I accept. A quarter of a million dollars is a great sum. I
scarcely thought there was so much money in the world, but one may do
much with it. I am already forming certain plans in my mind. Will you
let me take another and thorough look at your map, William?"

He studied it long and attentively, and then as he handed it back to the
owner, he said:

"It will be a long journey, as you have said, full of dangers, but I
think I am not boasting when I say we be four who know how to meet
hardship and peril. I make the prediction that after unparalleled
dangers we will find the mine. Yet a quarter of a million is too vast a
sum for my services. I could not accept such an amount. Make it about
ten thousand dollars."

Will laughed.

"You must bear in mind, Mr. Brady," he said, "that we haven't all this
gold yet, and it will be a long time before we do get it. We're all to
be comrades and full partners, and you must be on exactly the same terms
as the others. We've probably saved your life, and we demand, therefore,
that you accept. Standing squarely on our rights, we'll take no
refusal."

The stern eyes of Brady gleamed.

"Since you give me no choice, I accept," he said.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MOUNTAIN RAM

It snowed for two days and two nights without ceasing, and then turned
so cold that the snow froze over, a covering like glass forming upon it.
Will broke a way to the stable, where he talked to the animals and fed
them with the hay which had been cut with forethought. With the help of
the others he also opened a path down to a little stream flowing into
the lake, where the horses and mules were able to obtain water, spending
the rest of the time in the cavern.

The men usually had a small fire and they passed the time while they
were snowed in in jerking more meat, repairing their clothes and doing a
hundred other things that would be of service later on. Brady stored his
traps in a remote corner of the cavern, hiding them so artfully that it
was not likely anyone save the four would ever find them.

"I shall have no further use for them for a long time," he said, "but
after we reach our gold I mean to return here and get them."

Will, who noticed his grammatical and good English, rather un