in the gully, and
nothing could keep him from returning in the morning for
salvage. He worked there two or three days, carrying heavy loads
up the mountain, and finally, when it was all in their den, he
and Albert felt equipped for anything. Nor had the buffalo robe
been neglected. It was spread over much of the treasure.
Albert, meanwhile, had assumed the functions of cook, and he
discharged them with considerable ability. His strength was
quite sufficient to permit of his collecting firewood, and he
could fry bacon and make coffee and tea beautifully. But they
were very sparing of the coffee and tea, as they also were of the
flour, although their supplies of all three of these were greatly
increased by the wagon in the gully. In fact, the very last
thing that Dick had brought over the mountain was a hundred-pound
sack of flour, and after accomplishing this feat he had rested a
long time.

Both boys felt that they had been remarkably fortunate while this
work was going on. One circumstance, apparently simple in
itself, had been a piece of great luck, and that was the absence
of rain. It was not a particularly rainy country, but a shower
could have made them thoroughly miserable, and, moreover, would
have been extremely dangerous for Albert. But nights and days
alike remained dry and cool, and as Albert breathed the marvelous
balsamic air he could almost feel himself transfused with its
healing property. Meanwhile, the color in his cheeks was
steadily deepening.

"We've certainly had good fortune," said Dick.

"Aided by your courage and strength," said Albert. "It took a
lot of nerve to go down there in that pass and hunt for what the
Sioux might have left behind."

Dick disclaimed any superior merit, but he said nothing of the
many tremors that he felt while performing the great task.

An hour or two later, Albert, who was hunting through their
belongings, uttered a cry of joy on finding a little package of
fishhooks. String they had among their stores, and it was easy
enough to cut a slim rod for a pole.

"Now I can be useful for something besides cooking," he said.
"It doesn't require any great strength to be a fisherman, and I'm
much mistaken if I don't soon have our table supplied with
trout."

There was a swift creek farther down the slope, and, angling with
much patience, Albert succeeded in catching several mountain
trout and a larger number of fish of an unknown species, but
which, like