, cold day, with my dog for
guide and company.

"I knew the general direction that the two partners traveled, for
their trail was not lost until they had gone some twenty miles
northwest of my cabin. I made fast time over the frozen snow on my
skis, until by noon I had covered nigh onto fifteen miles. The dog
was trotting along ahead of me when suddenly he disappeared into a
deep gulch.

"In a second or two he set up a howl long-drawn-out and I knew then
that he had found the quarry. I discovered the body of the man under
some thick bushes at the bottom of the gulch. He had not been frozen
to death either, for there was a slit in his back, where the knife had
been driven.

"No wonder that I had found it hard to ask the Senor Sandez what had
become of his partner. Here was the answer. It was evident that this
deed of treachery had been the end of a bitter quarrel, perhaps over
the division of the wealth or some other matter of dispute. I always
felt that there was more back of it than appeared on the surface. I
found nothing to establish the identity of the dead man, neither his
name nor his place of residence.

"I did find, however, in an inner pocket the picture of a rather
pretty Spanish woman, and on the back of it was drawn a diagram
showing a certain part of the mountain. I instantly jumped to the
conclusion that it was the clue to the Lost Mine. I spent several
months thereafter trying to locate the place. I got most of the way
by the map and then I came to a mark that fooled me completely, and
I lost the trail."

"What did you do with that diagram, Jeems?" asked Jim intently.

"I kept it back of a rock in the chimney of my cabin, and it's there
yet for all I know."

"Unless the mountain rats have chewed it up," remarked Tom gloomily.

"I suppose you can find that cabin of yours, can't you?" inquired
Juarez.

"It's a good many years, but I reckon I could," Jeems replied.

"Well, I reckon you will have the chance," said Jim, "just as soon as
we land."

"That yarn of yours was not only interesting, Jeems, but it has some
practical value," remarked Jo.

"Ahoy there, Skipper," boomed out the old captain's voice from the
quarter deck. "It's about time the man at the wheel was relieved." Jim
sprang to his feet, and gave his head a hard thump with his fist to
wake himself up.

"Right, Captain," he replied, "I've been sitting here listening to a
yarn and forgetting my work. Jo, to the wheel. I'll stand