led Harry; and then to
Juan, "I shan't take no notice of him. You see he's a bit sore."

Harry was quite right, poor Joses being so sore that for some days he
could not mount his horse, and spent his time in drying the two
bear-skins in the sun, and dressing them on the fleshy side, till they
were quite soft and made capital mats for the waggon.

One morning, however, he expressed himself as being all right, and
whatever pains he felt, he would not show the slightest sign, but
mounted his horse, and would have gone forward, only the Doctor decided
to spend another day where they were, so as to more fully examine the
rocks, for he fancied that he had discovered a metallic deposit in one
spot on the previous night.

It was settled, then, that the horses should go on grazing in the little
meadow-like spot beside a tiny stream close by the waggon, and that the
Doctor, Juan, Joses, and Bart should explore the ravine where the Doctor
thought he had found traces of gold, while Sam and Harry kept watch by
the camp.

For days past the neighbourhood had been well hunted over, and with the
exception of a snake or two, no noxious or dangerous creature had been
seen; the Indians seemed to have gone right away, and under the
circumstances, all was considered safe.

Explorations had shown them that the place they were in rose like, as it
were, a peninsula of rocks from amidst a sea of verdure. This peninsula
formed quite a clump some miles round, and doubtless it had been chosen
as a convenient place by the bear, being only connected with the
mountain slope by a narrow neck of _debris_ from the higher ground.

As the party went on, the Doctor told Bart, that his intention was to
journey along by the side of the mountain till he found some valley or
canyon, up which they could take the waggon, and then search the rocks
as they went on whenever the land looked promising.

Upon this occasion, after a few hours' walk, the Doctor halted by the
bed of a tiny stream, and after searching about in the sands for a time
he hit upon a likely place, took a small portion of the sand in a
shallow tin bowl, and began to wash it, changing the water over and over
again, and throwing away the lighter sand, till nothing was left but a
small portion of coarser fragments, and upon these being turned out in
the bright sunshine and examined, there were certainly a few specks of
gold to be seen, but so minute that the Doctor threw them away with a
s