ictim."

"Is there anything to prove that Peg-leg really ever found the Three
Buttes?" asked Tom, whom this romance of the desert, like his
companions, had strangely interested.

"You tell 'em, Zeb," said the old man. "Likely they wouldn't believe
me."

"Proofs?" said Zeb, "plenty of 'em. The records of the old Bank of San
Francisco show that McGuire deposited thousands of dollars' worth of
gold nuggets there, and my old dad knew Peg-leg Smith and saw the
black rocks with the gold fillings that he brought out uv ther desert.
Them three golden buttes is out thar somewhar's, and some day
somebody's goin' to locate 'em and then there'll be another
millionaire in the country."

Old McGee chuckled over his pipe. It was clear that, ancient and
feeble as he was, he still believed with all the fanaticism and
optimism of a prospector that he would be the one to find the three
buttes of gold.

"It stands ter reason thar's gold out thar," declared old man McGee,
waving his pipe about argumentatively. "Ther good Lord never made
nuthin' thet wasn't of some use, even ther fleas on a houn' dawg, for
they keep him frum thinkin' uv his troubles. Very well, then, the
desert is good fer nuthin' else but mineral wealth, and Providence
made it so plagued hard ter git at so that everyone couldn't git rich
at oncet."

The boys had to laugh at this bit of philosophy, but as they went to
bed they could not help thinking of the toll of lives the great barren
stretches of the Colorado desert has exacted from gold-seekers. In
Jack's dreams he seemed to be traversing vast solitudes of sand and
desolation dotted with bleaching bones, and he woke with a start to
find that it was daybreak and that Tom was shaking him out of his
sleep.

Below, old man McGee was ready with his team and had already got on
his wagon some of the crates from the freight shed. They made a hasty
breakfast and then started out. There was hardly anybody about and
they congratulated Zeb on his strategy in conducting affairs with such
secrecy.

But as they passed into the outskirts of the town, where the Mexicans
and Indians lived, Dick Donovan uttered a sudden exclamation.

"Hopping horn-toads!" he gasped.

"What's up?" asked Jack, who sat beside him.

"Oh, nothing," said Dick, "the wagon gave an extra hard jolt, that was
all, and I thought my head was coming off."

But the cause of Dick's exclamation had been this: From behind a
squalid hut he caught sight of