watch of Thure; and the dawning of morning found both
boys and all their belongings safe and sound.

"Did you see or hear anything suspicious during your watch?" was Bud's
first query, when Thure awoke him the next morning.

"No. Why?" answered Thure. "Did you?"

"Well, I--I don't know," and Bud jumped to his feet and began looking
sharply around over the ground near the camp-fire.

Suddenly he uttered an exclamation and, bending quickly down, picked up
a large flat stone that was lying between the log, near which Thure had
slept, and the camp-fire.

"I--I don't remember of seeing this stone here last night," and he
turned it over curiously; and then uttered another exclamation that
brought Thure to his side on the jump.

The stone was flat, some three inches thick, nearly round, and,
possibly, a foot in diameter. One side was nearly white and smooth; and
the astonished eyes of the boys read, rudely written on this side,
evidently with a piece of charred coal, these ominous words:

LEVE THE MAP TO THE MINERS CAVE UNDER THIS STON NEAR YOUR CAMP FIRE
WHEN YOU BRAKE CAMP IN THE MORNING AND NEVER TELL NOBODY WHAT THE
MINER TOLD YOU ABOUT THE CAVE--OR WELL GIT YOU THE SAME AS WE GOT
THE MINER--LIFE IS WURTH MOREN GOLD AND YOULL NEVER LIVE TO GIT THE
GOLD.

Under these words were the red prints of two thumbs--one the mark of a
huge thumb and the other the mark of a much smaller thumb--as if their
owners had covered their thumbs with blood and then pressed them against
the stone, in lieu of signatures.

For a full two minutes the two boys stood staring at these words, their
faces whitening and their eyes widening.

"How--how did this get here?" Thure was the first to speak.

For answer Bud leaped to the log, by the side of which Thure had slept,
and, bending over it, looked closely at the ground on the other side.

"Right from behind this log!" he exclaimed, after a moment's scrutiny of
the ground. "The fellow that threw that stone crept up behind this log
and then got up on his knees and tossed the rock to where we found it.
You can still see the prints of his knees and toes in the ground. I
thought I heard a sound like the fall of something heavy during my
watch; but I was half asleep when I heard it," and Bud's face flushed a
little; "and when I couldn't see anything suspicious or find anything
suspicious or hear any more suspicious sounds, I concluded I had only
fancied I had heard t