trail of gold. In the sands of the streams some fragments no
larger than seeds of the grass were found, and in the canyon of
Po-et-se some of the adventurers dug weary hours in the strange soil
where the traces are yet plain of black ashes, and charred cinders far
beneath the sagebrush growth of to-day.

But while the Te-hua men gave good will for their digging, yet more
than that they could not give, for the reason that no more than two
persons could hold in trust that secret of the Sun Father's
symbol--and only certain members of the Po-Ahtun order knew even the
names of those two people.

After much patient delving had Ka-yemo learned that this was so, for
the thing was not a tribal matter, but a thing of high medicine in the
Po-Ahtun order. Not even the governor knew who held the secret. When
the time came for certain religious ceremonies, some of the yellow
stone was placed on the shrine of the weeping god with other prayers,
but it was a sacred thing, as was the pollen of the corn, and no man
asked from whence it came. To be told meant that the person told was
made guardian until the death blankets wrapped him. It was a great
honor. No man could ask for it. A brother might not know that his
brother was the keeper of the trust. Only the head men of the secret
order of Spirit Things could know.

In vain Juan Gonzalvo swore, and Padre Vicente used diplomacy and made
wondrous fine impression as the ambassador for the king of all Spain
and the Indian Island!

Don Ruy took the secretary and Yahn Tsyn-deh, and went to the governor
of Kah-po where his reception was kindly, but the information given
him was slight.

That dignitary told him that his men of Mexico might dig great caves
if they chose in search for the yellow metal of the sun symbol, but
that to Povi-whah had been given the secret of the gold at the time
when Senor Coronado had burned the two hundred men at the stake in
Tiguex. All the old men knew that gold was the one thing the men of
iron searched for. Before that time all villages had men who knew
where it was hidden by the Sun Father. But a council of head men had
been called. It had been a great council and long. At the end of it,
one village was chosen, one order of that village, and two members of
that order, and in the ears of those two alone was whispered the
hiding place. No man could know who the two keepers of the secret
might be, for it had to do with sacred things and with strong magic,
a