and
fathers had kept them from following. Now, the one great hope of their
lives was to win permission to go to the mines, where men were winning
fortunes in a day, and try their luck at gold-digging.

The Conroyal rancho, the Randolph and the Conroyal families had united,
when the men went to the mines, and both families were now living at the
Conroyal rancho, was some five miles from the scene of the robbery and
attempted murder of the miner; and, for the first two miles of the
homeward ride, the wounded man lay unconscious and motionless in Thure's
arms. Then he began to move restlessly and to mutter unintelligible
things.

"He sure isn't dead," Thure declared, as the struggles of the man nearly
pitched both of them out of the saddle. "Just give me a hand, Bud; for,
I reckon, we'll have to lower him to the ground until he gets his right
senses back or quits this twitching and jerking. I am afraid he will
start the wound to bleeding again."

Bud quickly sprang off the back of his horse; and together and as gently
as possible the two boys lowered the wounded miner from the saddle and
laid him down on a little mound of grass. A few rods away a small stream
of water wound its way, half-hidden by tall grass and bushes and low
trees, through the little valley where they had stopped.

"Get your hat full of water," Thure said, as he bent down to see if the
bandage over the wound was still in its place. "Seems to me he ought to
be getting his senses back by this time."

Bud at once started off on the run for the water and soon was back with
his broad-brimmed felt hat full of the cooling fluid; and, kneeling down
by the side of the wounded man, who now lay quiet, with eyes closed,
although he was still muttering incoherently, he bathed the hot forehead
and the swollen lumps on the back of his head.

Suddenly the miner's eyes opened and stared wonderingly around him and
up into the faces of the two boys. For a minute he did not seem to be
able to comprehend what had happened. Then the blank wondering look
suddenly left his eyes.

"Did they get the gold?" and his hand went quickly to his waist. There
was no belt there. "Gone! A good twenty pounds of as fine gold as was
ever dug from the earth, gone!--Gods, if they had but given me any kind
of a show, they would not have got it so easily!" and his eyes flamed
and he attempted to sit up, but fell back with a groan and a whitening
face.

For a minute or two he lay with e