the risk of leaving the boat alone for a time—alone with Captain Joe and
Teddy on guard!”

“The dog ought to guard the boat, all right,” suggested Tom.

“He usually does, but twice lately people have come aboard without any
warning from him. One was Don, your brother, and the other was King, the
deputy in search of your brother. However, he may keep awake to-night,
and awake the lads if any one comes sneaking around.”

Tom reluctantly took to the water again, and soon returned with a small
rowboat which he had rented from an all-night fisherman. Instead of
entering the boat at once, Clay called the boy on deck and handed him a
suit of dry clothes. The garments were much too large for the slender
youth, but they were preferable to the wet ones he removed. Then, taking
two electrics and two automatic revolvers, the two rowed to the shore,
secreted the boat in a little slip, and set out for the old house by the
river.

“Now,” Clay observed, as they walked along, “you might tell me something
about those papers. What do they stand for, and why are they scattered
so widely? Is there any one on earth who can read them?”

“The papers,” replied Tom, “refer to a locality in one of the canyons of
the Colorado river. We don’t know exactly what it is they stand for. We
have been told that our fortune lies there, and so we are trying to get
it. It may mean gold, diamonds, copper, silver, or good advice! We never
will know unless we get the third paper and go look for the thing which
lies behind the big ‘X.’ It is a long story.”

“In one of the canyons of the Colorado river?” repeated Clay. “And that
is the reason you two rascals decided to take passage on the _Rambler_!
You expect us boys to take you up to your fortune?”

“We shall pay you for the trouble, you know,” falteringly.

“But suppose you don’t find anything of value there? Suppose the
suggestion you recently made about good advice is the correct one? How
are we to get our pay, then?” asked Clay, with assumed gravity.

“Then we’ll pay you in good advice,” was the quick reply. “The good
advice will be not to take tramp boys on board your boat on the strength
of any plausible fairy tale they may tell you! How’s that?”

“Where did these mysterious papers originally come from?” asked Clay,
without replying to the last question, but smiling at the quick humor of
the other. “Who unloaded them on you boys?”

“Uncle David Durand,” was the reply. “He was a sort of a hermit, and
lived in the Grand Canyon for a long time, all alone, after we left him.
I guess he lived on the fish he caught and his grouches! Every time I
saw him he had fish scales on his vest front and a three-cornered grouch
under his crust. He left the papers to us as an inheritance, with the
warning that we'd have a beaut of a time finding our fortune! We are
having all of that!”

“But you said Don stole the papers. What about that?”

“This man Josiah Trumbull stole the two first. This Josiah is a crook.
He lived with Uncle David for a time, trying to worm his secret out of
him, but did not succeed. Then he salted a mine and sold it to a friend
of David’s for $50,000, and got out of the country, with the officers
close behind him. That’s the $50,000 Don took when he stole the handbag
to get the papers.”

“And you don’t know where this location is?”

“No more than a rabbit! We think it is near where Uncle lived, but we’ll
find out when we get the third paper. That gives the clue to it all.”

“Who put it in the old house where we are going to look for it?”

“A paper in Trumbull’s bag located it there, that’s all I know. Don was
to get it when he reached Yuma, but King was too hot after him. The boy
will be glad to know that we unearthed it—if we do.”

“It seems to me to be about as clear as mud!” Clay exclaimed, and you’ll
have to tell me about it at some other time. Do you see the old house by
the river yet? We have been quite a time on the way.”

“It is there,” answered Tom, pointing. “You can see the roof from here.
It is an old derelict, formerly occupied, ages ago, by Uncle David, now
mostly given over to rats. I stood here a long time before I saw your
boat and heard your voices, wondering if I had the courage to go in
there alone without a gun or a light. I found that I hadn’t, and so went
scouting along the river, looking for you.”

“Rats!” repeated Clay. “You say the old house is mostly given over to
rats? Is that what you said a moment ago?”

“It surely is,” replied Tom. “Rats own the place now.”

“Must be a peculiar kind of rats that carry a lantern,” Clay observed.
“If you look you’ll see a light passing from window to window.”

There surely was a light passing from side to side of a large room which
faced the street. There were no sash in the window openings, and the
large front door hung on one hinge. Taken altogether, it was as
dreary-looking a structure as one would be apt to come across.

The boys made no attempt to enter the house by the front door. Instead,
they passed around to the west, or river side, and vaulted through an
open window which lighted a room back of the one in front. The river ran
close to the foundation wall on the west, and eddied about under this
window, proclaiming an unusual depth of water there. The house stood in
a hollow, lower than the river, but protected by the raised bank.

Listening for sounds, watching for lights, Clay and Tom stood by the
window opening a long time without hearing or seeing anything worthy of
note. There was only the murmur of the waters and the uncertain light of
the stars. After a time Clay whispered:

“Where is the paper you came here to find?”

“It is supposed to be in an old cupboard in the cellar,” was the reply.
“It is enclosed in a wallet with other documents. I’ll show the way, as
near as I can without having been over the ground since I was a little
chap.”

“But why—”

Clay cut the sentence short, for he realized that that was no time or
place to ask questions regarding the motives of the person who had
placed the paper in such a place. Besides, he believed that the person
who had shown a lantern was still in the house. Directly a creaking on
the cellar stairs confirmed this opinion.

Followed by Tom, who was actually shivering with fright, he crept to the
head of the cellar staircase and looked down into a dark passage. But
while he looked a light sprang out and King’s face was revealed. The
deputy was digging with a shovel in one corner of the cellar!

The cupboard Tom had mentioned was close to the stairs, and Clay decided
that he could get to it while King worked with his shovel, seize the
wallet, and get out of the house without being seen.

But King, while industrious, was always watchful. Time and again he
lifted his lantern and glanced keenly around the place.

Clay started down the steps several times, but always drew back, for the
least noise attracted King’s attention. The boy had no idea how the
deputy had reached Yuma so soon after being put off the _Rambler_, or
why he was digging in the old house, but all this was of less importance
to him than the recovery of the paper said to be in a wallet in the old
cupboard, which stood in plain sight from where he crouched, near the
head of the stairs. At last King picked up his lantern and began looking
in an other and more distant corner of the cellar.

Then the boys moved down the steps, gained the cupboard, and threw the
door open. Three shelves were revealed, each one covered with a
collection of miscellaneous articles and dust. There were cracked
dishes, broken knives and forks, unknown things tied up in brown paper,
and scores of such articles as a miserly man or woman might store away,
not having the heart to discard them utterly. And there was the wallet!

Clay seized it eagerly and thrust it into a pocket. Then, as he reached
up to make an investigation of an article on the top shelf, his foot
slipped and he came near falling.

He would have fallen only that he clung to the shelf for support. But
the shelf was not stable, for his body swayed back as he clung to it,
and then he saw the entire interior of the cupboard swing out! The
displacement of the woodwork revealed an opening in the west wall of the
cellar, against which the cupboard stood.

Standing back of Clay, Tom saw King lift his lantern and move toward the
stairway. If he came on discovery was certain, so the lad pushed his
companion on into the dark opening and followed him.

At first Clay resented the action, for the place beyond the opening was
dark, and damp gusts of wind sighed out of it, but at a whispered word
from Tom he groped in and made way for his companion. The light of
King’s lantern flashed almost in their faces as they turned to look out
into the cellar again.

King was advancing toward them, so Clay reached out and softly drew the
shelves toward the wall. There was a sharp snap, as of metal meeting
metal, and then all was dark and still.

Clay brought out his electric and flashed it around the place. It was
just a dungeon cut off from the cellar on the river side. The walls were
of stone, and the ceiling was of iron. Through the wall on the west the
murmur of the river could be heard.

“Looks to me like a miser’s vault,” Clay whispered, as he swung his
electric around. “You say your Uncle David lived in this house once?”

“Yes, but that was a long time ago. He owned it at the time of his
death, and, the people of Yuma say, used to visit the place once a
year.”

“He might have stored gold or silver here,” Clay suggested. “This den
wasn’t prepared to keep vegetables in!”

Tom went to the door and listened, having no answer to the supposition.
He could hear King moving about in the cellar, and finally there came a
tap on the door, which, the boy saw, was covered with a plate of rusty
iron. Then a voice, muffled by wood and metal, came to his ears. It was
King speaking and his tone was one of triumph.

“Good-night, boys!” the deputy said. “You are welcome to all you find in
there! I’ve been over every inch of it! Good-night. I’ll see that you
remain there for a time!”

“We might starve to death here, and no one would ever know!” Tom
complained. “I knew Uncle David had such a hole as this, but I never
thought I’d be locked up in it!”

“How do you think King found out about it?” asked Clay.

“There must have been papers Don didn’t get with the handbag,” was the
reply. “I don’t know! He found out, anyway, and so did we! I suppose we
are about nine thousand feet under the surface of the earth!”

“Make it a good one while you are at it,” chuckled Clay.

“How are we ever going to get out?” asked Tom. “I’m afraid down here in
this musty hole! I always was afraid in the dark. I see ghosts in every
shadow! Guess I was born that way!”

“We’ll have to dig out,” Clay answered. “We’ve just got to get back to
the _Rambler_! What will the boys think?”

“Think we’ve run away, I presume.”

“Then you’ve got another presume coming! They’ll think we have been
abducted and killed. So many strange things have occurred lately that
they have a right to think almost anything! It is after midnight now,
and I was to awaken Case at that time and go to bed.”

“We’ll both go to bed in the promised land, I guess!” Tom declared,
gloomily. “I don’t see how we’re ever going to dig out of here!”

“If you’ll cast your mournful eyes over into that corner,” Clay said,
“you’ll see a shovel, or a spade, or some digging implement King must
have left here. I reckon we can do something with that! Do you get me?”

“I never knew that a shovel could dig through stone or iron,” observed
Tom, still despondent. “You’re just trying to think you can dig out.”

“Son,” chuckled Clay, “these stones are laid on solid ground. I don’t
know how deep the foundation runs below the bottom of the cellar, but,
no matter about that. We’ll dig down until we get under the wall, and
then the stones will come tumbling down and we’ll walk out—to the
confusion of King and the great delight of the boys and Captain Joe and
Teddy.”

“I’d like to know how King got up here,” Tom muttered, as Clay took up
the shovel and set to work. “You said he was down the river.”

“He won’t stay put,” said Clay. “He probably attracted the attention of
a steamer crew and came up ahead of us. There! Look here,” he added.
“The foundation is on a level with the bottom of the cellar. I’ll have
this wall tumbling in no time. Then for the _Rambler_ before daylight.”

Clay dug away manfully, and the great stones of the wall soon began
sagging down. Directly there was a line of light just under the sill of
the house.

“Now we’ve got it!” laughed Clay. “Here’s light and fresh air. The moon
must have come up after we came down here. See how light it is! A few
more minutes, and we’ll be out of here and on our way!”

Quite a section of the wall now fell in, so that Clay had to make quick
motions in order to avoid being crushed by the great rocks. Still there
was insufficient space at the top to permit of their passing out.

Clay mounted the fallen stones and tried to work his way through, but
found that he could not do so. When he stepped down and took up the
shovel again he found himself standing in water!

The excavation he had made had connected with the river, and the cellar
was being flooded!

CHAPTER XI.—ALEX GETS HIS RECEIPT.

When Alex and Case awoke at daylight and discovered Clay’s absence, they
began a search of the shore with their glass, supposing that he had gone
into the city for supplies. Then Alex discovered the remains of Tom’s
supper, and Case came across the clothing taken off by the lad. The
clothes were still wet.

“There’s something queer been going on here!” Case exclaimed. “Clay had
a visitor who swam out to the boat last night!”

“And the guest had supper here!” Alex contributed. “And Clay must have
gone away with him. Wonder he wouldn’t have awakened us before leaving
the boat!”

While the boys cooked breakfast, discussing the remarkable disappearance
of Clay as they did so, a boat bumped against the prow of the _Rambler_
and a voice called out:

“Hello, there! Where’s my rowboat?”

Alex, leaning over the railing, saw a swarthy face looking up at him.
The fellow seemed to be angry for he was swearing and gesticulating
wildly.

“If you think I’ve got your boat you may search me!” the boy said.

“But you got it last night!” insisted the other. “You rented it for an
hour and never brought it back. What have you done with it?”

“Guess again!” Alex replied. “I slept all night. Never saw your old
boat. It was some one else who rented it.”

“Well, the boy who got it said he wanted to bring a friend off this
boat, and that he would return it before midnight.”

“You’ve been buncoed!” Alex laughed.

“Wait a minute,” Case broke in. “There may be something to this. You say
a boy got a boat of you to row out to the _Rambler_?” he asked of the
man, now getting ready to board the boat and make physical trouble for
the boys.

“That’s what I said. Where is that boy now?” “What sort of a looking boy
was it?” asked Case, patiently.

“A little bit of a chap. He was wet as a rat, and said he had swum off
this boat and wanted to row out to bring a friend off.”

“Well, did you watch him after he left with the boat?”

“Yes, and he came out here; and then another boy got into the boat with
him and they rowed ashore. I want my boat or good pay for it—right now!”

“If you come up here with your threats,” Alex declared, “you’ll get a
rap over the head—and I’ll set the dog on you!”

“I’ll have you all arrested!” shouted the other. “I want my boat.”

“Sing it!” chuckled Alex. “You might make a fine song with that ‘I want
my boat’ story of yours. Have you looked along the river bank for it?
The boy might have left it there.”

“I have not,” was the reply. “It is up to you to return it, and not my
place to look for it. That boat was worth $50 of any man’s money.”

“Will you wait a moment, please?” Case asked of the boatman, as he drew
Alex to one side. “I may want to go to shore with you before long.”

The other nodded and stood angrily in his boat, waiting.

“Now,” Case explained to Alex, “there is no need of making an enemy of
this man with your impudent talk. He is probably right. Some one swam
out here, had supper, swam back and got a boat, and took Clay to the
shore. Now, who could it have been? This beats me?”

“Couldn’t have been Don, could it?” asked Alex, doubtfully.

“I’m all at sea,” Case replied. “I don’t understand how Don could have
got up to Yuma, and yet I’m half inclined to believe that it was he who
took the money, though why he should have done so without letting us
know is more than I can figure out.”

“There’s no head or tail to this business,” Alex declared. “We’re all
mixed up with other folks’ troubles, just as we were on the Amazon and
Columbia river trips! Are you going ashore with this man?”

“Of course. I’ve got to find out, if I can, where Clay went.”

“Of course we’ve got to do that.” Alex agreed, “but don’t you go to
mixing with any one else!

Bring Clay aboard and we’ll fly up the river like little birds! I don’t
want to see any one else for a month! The river and the mountains and
the canyons will do for mine!”

“That’s just the way I feel about it,” Case replied. “I’m tired of
mixing in affairs that don’t concern me. I want to get up the river and
be let alone. I hope Don will find his money, but I’m not going to
bother my head any more about it.”

“That’s me!” Alex agreed. “You go ashore and get Clay. He’s not far off.
Take Captain Joe with you. He will follow the boy’s track from the place
where he landed. And when you get Clay, make a run for the _Rambler_!
Don’t stop, even to pick up money, until you get on board, then we’ll
shoot up stream like a shark after a pig! No more of this for me.”

So, after further talk, Case went ashore with the boatman, and Alex got
out his automatic and sat watching the river bank. Teddy stood up on his
hind legs and invited the boy to a boxing match, but he was too blue and
too anxious to play with the cub.

“I wonder if Don did get that money?” he thought, over and over again as
he sat watching the shore. “If he did, why didn’t he let me know that he
was taking it?”

He could find no answers to his questions, so he studied the shore of
the river where the town loomed up and wished from the bottom of his
heart that his friends were on board, and that the _Rambler_ was a
hundred miles away from King, Don, and all the rest! Then he heard a
hail from the river and ran to the prow.

A small boat lay rocking in the current, and out of it looked the
grinning face of Don Durand! Alex almost dropped over the side in his
amazement. Now that the boy was before his eyes, however, he was
unaffectedly glad to see him.

He tossed down a rope end so Don could secure his boat to the rail of
the _Rambler_ and, later, gave him a helping hand. When Don gained the
deck he received a cordial greeting.

“Can you get me out of sight, quickly?” the boy asked. “King is in Yuma,
‘and he’s goin’ to get me if I don’t watch out!’”

“Of course I’ll help you,” Alex answered. “I don’t like your ways, but
I’m sore on King. He came on board and mussed up the furniture and tied
up the dog, and marooned Clay and Case on a desert island!”

“That must have been nice!” Don grinned, going to a heap of pancakes
which had been cooked for breakfast and left to grow cold because of the
excitement of the time. “I’m going to eat these few dozen pancakes while
you converse!” he added. “Why don’t you like my ways?”

“Eat away!” Alex returned. “You’re always hungry when you come on board
the _Rambler_. “I’ll get you coffee in a short time.”

“There’s nothing to eat in the desert,” Don said, stuffing his mouth
with cakes. “Besides, I’m going to board with you all the way up the
Colorado, so I may as well begin now to make you acquainted with my
appetite. But you didn’t tell me why you don’t like my ways.”

“Why didn’t you let us know you took the money?” asked Alex, at a
venture, almost trembling as he awaited a reply.

“Didn’t you get my receipt for it?” asked Don. “It was on the silk
wrapper. I wrote in there! Where is the wrapper?”

Alex took the silk from a pocket and examined it. Surely enough, there,
on the edge, were the words: “Received contents. Don.”

“Why, you old fraud!” shouted Alex, overjoyed at the discovery. “You old
river thief! Why didn’t you wake us up and tell us you were after the
money? You’ve made us a lot of trouble!”

Don grinned and continued his work on the cakes, and Alex finally put
the coffee pot over the coils and made him a cup of hot drink while he
told of running across the point and floating down to the _Rambler_ on a
plank he found in the water. Alex grabbed him, then, and demanded to
know where the money was.

“Let go!” yelled Don. “I’ve got it in my belt, and I didn’t want any one
but you to know I took it because I didn’t want the others to know where
it was, if anybody should come on board and ask about it, and, then,” he
went on, with a sly wink, “I made the receipt a little blind because I
wanted to teach you not to go to sleep with fifty thousand dollars in
gold notes lying in your lap! That was careless of you!”

“The notes were in the silk covering, in my pocket,” insisted the boy.

“Well, perhaps they were, at one time, but Teddy was about to
investigate the package when I crawled up out of the water, off the
plank I’d floated down on! Now, tell me about King coming on board, and
what he did and said.”

“He must have landed on the _Rambler_ from a small boat dropped off a
river steamer,” Alex answered, still so pleased with the news that the
money was safe that he could hardly talk straight, “and he came in the
night.”

“And no one saw him? What about the dog’s giving an alarm?”

“We have figured that out. King had been on board before, and had been
treated kindly, so the dog probably thought he had a right to come back.
But he insulted Captain Joe, after he got on the deck, for he tied him
up. He won’t get on here again right away. Joe will eat him up if he
tries to.”

Then the boy told of the manner in which Teddy had gotten rid of the
unwelcome visitor, and Don began to make inquiries for Case and Clay.
Alex had to tell him about that, too, and Don looked frightened at the
recital.

“The boatman said it was a little bit of a fellow?” he asked. “Then that
was my brother, Tom! I was to meet him here, after King got out of the
way. Now, where do you think they are?”

“I don’t try to think any more,” was the reply.

“I believe I know where they went,” Don burst out, in a moment. “They
went to the basement of an old house owned by my uncle, and something
has happened to them to prevent their coming back.”

“If you know where they went, suppose you go bring them back.”

“And run plump into King! Not for mine. You go! I’ll tell you where the
house is, and you can go and bring them back.”

“If King hasn’t arrested them, perhaps I can,” Alex added. “He may have
caught them, you know. Well, where do I go? I’ll make a bluff at finding
the boys, and then we’ll go on up the river. Trouble is too thick down
in this country! Show me where the house is.”

“You see that old tumble-down structure on the river bank, just a little
below the city?” asked Don. “Well, that’s it.”

“What would they go there for?” demanded the other. “More mystery!”

“They will tell you that! Now, while you are gone, I’ll fry more cakes
and get a good breakfast. I’m going up the Colorado with you, you know,
and I may as well begin to make myself useful.”

“You say it well!” returned Alex, but he did not appear to be much
annoyed at the thought of taking on this agreeable passenger.

Alex descended into the rowboat and cast off. Then he stood up,
excitedly, and pointed to the old building Don had designated.

“What’s the matter with the old barn?” he called out. “Get the glass and
look at it. It seems to me to be tumbling into the river.”

“It surely is!” Don cried, looking through the glass. “There’s been
something exciting going on there, and the old house is sliding into the
water. I guess I’d better go ashore with you!”

“No you don’t!” the boy answered. “You’re going to guard the boat while
I find out about this. If King comes on board, set Teddy at him!”

“No one will pick money off me while I’m asleep!” roared Don.

Alex made good time to the shore, but when he reached the little pier
which ran out just south of the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers
he found a crowd ahead of him. The old house was just below, and the
creaking of parting timbers told of rapid disintegration.

“What is the trouble?” he asked of the first man he met after landing.

“Why, the old Durand place is tumbling down,” was the reply, “going into
the river! It is believed that large sums of money are hidden in the old
miser’s den, and the people are flocking here to see if they can snatch
some of it. Doesn’t look now as if any one would get it!”

“Some of the folks here may be after money,” another on-looker cut in,
“but most of them are watching to see if the boys get out alive. They
say there are two young boys locked up in an iron room down there.”

“How do you know that?” demanded Alex, his heart in his throat.

Before the other could answer the question Case came running up.

“Clay and another boy are in there!” he cried, wringing Alex’s hand.
“They are locked in a deep cellar, with water pouring in on them! If
they don’t drown, the falling walls will kill them!”

“How do you know they are in there?” Alex asked, hoping to find the
story told by the on-looker and by Case an uncertain one, after all.

“King came for help to get them out, when he found the cellar was
filling with water,” Case answered. “He said he had arrested them and
put them in the den for safe keeping. He admitted that his act of
authority might be the death of the boys, and he would have been lynched
if he hadn’t run away. How are we ever going to get them out?”

While they stood there in an excited, anxious group Don came panting up,
wet from a swim from the _Rambler_. Alex began grumbling because the
boat had been left alone, but Don stopped him.

“I heard what they are saying about the iron room,” Don said, “and the
boys being locked in there! I used to know the location of the spring
that opened that door from the cellar, but I can’t think of it now. If I
only could!” he cried beating his forehead with his fists.

The old house was tumbling fast. The thin bank which ran along the river
side was now caving, and the ground around the structure, which was
considerably lower than the surface of the river, was being flooded.
Captain Joe pulled at Alex’s leg, drawing him toward the house!

“I’m going in there to try to find the spring,” Don said, but as the
three lads started for the crumbling old house the officious crowd
seized and drew them back!

CHAPTER XII.—ANOTHER GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT.

At first the incoming water seeped through the bank of the river, under
the surface, as Clay’s excavation had cut almost through the narrow bulk
of earth between the house and the water’s edge. Then, as the
underground current carried earth with it, undermining the bank, the
cellar began to fill from the surface and the line of light under the
sills became simply an aperture for the delivery of water into the
basement of the old house.

“This is getting serious!” Clay exclaimed, as the cellar filled to the
depth of a foot or more. “We’ve got to do something right off or we’ll
be drowned like rats in a trap!”

“I learned once, when a kid, how to open this iron door from the
inside,” Tom announced, “but I have forgotten. We lived with Uncle David
for a time, Don and I, until he became too stingy to buy food and
clothing for us, and one day he showed us all about this treasure room,
as he called it. Don remembered, but I did not. If Don were only here
now!”

Clay turned his electric light on the door, weaving it over every inch
of the iron sheathing and the stone walls on each side.

“If there’s a spring or anything of that kind here, we ought to be able
to find it,” he declared. “Was it down low or up high. You were a little
shaver then, did you stand up in a chair to reach it, or did you bend
down to the floor? You ought to be able to remember.”

“But I can’t!” groaned Tom. “I’m afraid! I always was afraid in this old
house. Uncle said there were ghosts in the cellar! I’ll never get over
my dread of the place—never! What shall we do?”

“Keep poking at everything you see,” commanded Clay, annoyed at the
boy’s attitude. “There must be something to push, or something to pull.
We are certain to find it if we keep on looking. We never came to this
country to be drowned like this! Bet your life we never did!”

“But the water is getting deeper every minute,” wailed Tom. “Oh, I can
fight out in the open, and like it, too, but I’m terrified in the dark
and in places where strength doesn’t count!”

“Courage always counts!” Clay answered. “You just keep on looking for
that spring, or that lever, or whatever it is that opens the door!”

The lads did keep on looking, but the water rose higher and higher. They
could now hear voices outside, though they came dully to their ears, and
now and then a crash came which told of falling timbers.

Clay realized that the foundations of the house were falling in more
places than one, and that the sills and studding were giving way, but he
did not care to inform Tom of this new peril. He knew that the boy was
not lacking in courage, as courage is usually classed, but he also knew
he possessed the same natural antipathy to darkness that the house cat
possesses for water. Probably because of prenatal influences, the boy
was a coward at the present time, though he tried hard not to show just
how hopeless, and frightened, and despairing he was.

“There’s a crowd gathering outside,” Clay encouraged, “and they’ll find
some way to get us out. But we’ve got to keep on looking for the means
to open this door. Why, boy, just look here, will you?”

Clay was pulling at a half-concealed lever which he had found pressed
into a niche in the stone wall as he spoke. It came out slowly and a
stone above it moved as he drew it away from its hiding-place “I thought
I had it!” he cried. “It moves something, but not the door! Queer old
trap, this! Look at it!”

As the lever came out a stone in the wall started from above and dropped
down on hinges, revealing an opening about a foot in size.

The boy held his light to the opening for a moment and then drew out a
thick package of papers. One end of the wrapper had been torn off, and
Clay drew a paper out and looked at the lettering on the back of the
fold. Then he thrust the papers into an inside pocket and looked Tom in
the face, his own eyes staring with amazement.

“What is it?” asked Tom. “What did you find?”

“Government bonds!” Clay almost shouted. “There are thousands of
dollars’ worth in that package! Think of drowning with all that wealth
in sight! Buck up, young fellow! You’ll soon be a rich man!”

“I was in hopes the lever opened the door!” Tom muttered. “I’m not
interested in government bonds just now! What good would a million do us
if they found us dead here on this floor?”

“You give me that tired feeling!” Clay exclaimed. “Keep on looking for
the lever or key which opens the door! Listen! Do you know that voice?”
he added. “That’s Captain Joe, and he’s telling us that he is on his way
to the rescue! Clever old dog, that Captain Joe!”

The boys searched every square foot of the walls, even reaching up to
the ceiling, but found nothing which would open the door. The water rose
steadily, and the voices outside gradually grew fainter.

Now the water was up to their hips, now to their waists, now it came to
their arm-pits, now Tom was obliged to stand up on an old chest to keep
his head dry. All around them the building was falling, but nothing
seemed to disturb the iron ceiling above.

The walls of the cellar were falling, too, in places, but they only
crumpled down in great heaps of stones, leaving no opening through which
the boys might make their way to the free air outside. It was now broad
daylight outside, but the flashlights were still needed in the cellar.

“We’ve got about a minute more!” Clay admitted, as the water touched his
chin. “We’re up against it at last! I’d like to leave a note for the
boys, but it is too late to write one now. Hear Captain Joe out there?
Say, old sport, I believe he is coming nearer! He surely is! Hurrah!”

Then the iron door swung open and, the water being somewhat higher in
the den than in other parts of the basement, a strong current set toward
the east, lowering the flood a foot or more where the boys stood.

First, they saw Captain Joe’s ugly head poking through the water which
filled the doorway. Then Don’s face showed. However, there was a current
setting toward the main basement from the den, and both the boy and the
dog were forced back.

The outsweep of water had lowered the body of it in the den, so that the
boys were no longer in danger of drowning, but they knew that in time
the little apartment would fill again, as the main cellar filled. Clay
took Tom by the shoulder and pushed him to the doorway.

“Dive through!” he said, “and when you get out into the cellar make for
the stairs and climb up. This old shack will be afloat in no time!
Hurry, now! Perhaps Captain Joe will help you if you tumble down!”

Tom shivered and hesitated until Clay became angry.

“All right!” he said. “I’ll go first. You keep close to me!”

And so the lads dove through the doorway, groped, half strangled, up the
stairs, over fallen timbers and planks, and so on into the main hall,
where there was no water as yet, but where the floor was sagging because
of the washed-out foundations.

Case, Alex, and Don were there to meet them. Outside the crowd was
cheering wildly and shouting congratulations to the boys who had entered
the flooded basement to open the door.

Clay and Tom began expressing their gratitude and their appreciation of
the brave act, but Don cut them off with a question.

“Did you get the wallet?” he asked.

“Of course we did!” replied Clay, “and we got something else, too.”

“What else was there to get?” asked Don.

“Mighty little left in that old house the last time I was there.”

“You’ll see, in time!” Tom said, with a knowing wink at Clay.

“Explanations in the future!” Clay exclaimed. “Just now we’ve got to get
past that sympathetic crowd and back to the boat. Say, Don,” he added,
in a moment, “I can’t wait to get back to the Rambler before asking one
question, and that is this: Did you come aboard the _Rambler_ and get
the money? If you did, say so—quick!”

“I certainly did!” Don answered. “If I hadn’t would have been lost, for
Teddy was playing with it!”

“That’s enough!” Clay said. “I’ll learn how and why later on. Wonder if
King is in that crowd out there? It was he who locked us in.”

“He is not,” grinned Case. “The mob got after him for locking you up in
such a dangerous hole, and he took to his heels! He won’t dare show
himself around here for a few days.”

“Then all we have to do is to get rid of the crowd,” Clay explained.

Of course there were many who wished to shake hands with the rescuers
and the rescued, and even Captain Joe came in for a fair share of
praise, but the boys were soon out of the crowd and on their way to the
boat.

At the water front they found the riverman, still growling and sulking
over the loss of the boat Tom had hired the night before. Tom told him
where the boat had been left, and Clay paid him for the use of it, so he
eagerly consented to row the boys to the _Rambler_, and, later on, to
convey their provisions and gasoline to them.

“I’m glad we find the boat still here!” Alex said, as he mounted to the
deck, “and I’m glad we have gotten rid of King. Now for a trip up the
river! Now for freedom from sleuths and mysteries!”

The other boys echoed the sentiment, but when they opened the cabin
door, a moment later, and looked in, there sat King, busy with the cold
pancakes Don had cooked just before he left the boat to assist in the
rescue of Clay and Tom. He smiled as the boys entered.

“Well, of all the iron nerve—”

Alex could not finish the sentence. There were no words which could do
justice to the occasion, he thought.

“Help yourself!” Clay said. “If you’ll wait a little while we’ll give
you hot coffee. We’re going to make some for ourselves!”

Tom’s greeting was not so cordial.

“If this was my boat,” he said, “I’d break you in two with my foot. You
came near drowning us. Do you know that?”

“The people on shore told me!” smiled King. “They came near stringing me
up by the neck for what I did.”

“You deserved it!” grumbled Don. “Indeed you did.”

“Now, see here, boys,” King went on, “I had my duty as an officer to do.
If you had been relieved of fifty thousand dollars and valuable papers,
you would expect the law to get them for you, wouldn’t you?”

No one replied, and the officer went on, calmly eating cold cakes as he
did so—eating and tossing a piece to Teddy now and then.

“You see,” he resumed, “I hold no grudge against the bear, if he did
dump me into the river! He did just what I would have done under the
circumstances. I don’t blame him. He is a good little beastie!”

“You wasn’t helping the law any by locking us in there to be drowned!”
Clay remarked, his eyes flashing.

“Wasn’t I?” asked King. “Let us see about that. You, Don, took fifty
thousand dollars of another man’s money out of Chicago. You carried it
in a belt about your waist. I had to find that money, didn’t I? I
searched the _Rambler_ for it! I had to maroon two of the boys on a sand
island and tie Captain Joe up in order to do it.”

Captain Joe licked his chops as if he was thinking of making settlement
for the insult right there. Clay called him away, or he would have taken
hold of the deputy’s leg.

“Yes, I searched the _Rambler_, and got up-river in a steamer after
being dumped off. Here I heard that lights had been seen in the old
house the night before. Now, what was more reasonable than to suppose
that Don had visited the old shack and buried the money in the cellar? I
was there looking for it when you boys came in. I should have released
you as soon as I had finished my search, only I couldn’t unlock the
door. All I could do was to go for assistance, and you all know how that
came out. I nearly lost my life at the hands of a mob, any member of
which would have done exactly as I had done.”

“You say it well!” snarled Tom. “I don’t trust you, though!”

“Now,” King continued, without taking notice of the remark, “I’ll tell
you what I’ll do. I understand that there is a question as to whom this
money belongs. It may belong to Don, for all I know! Well, if you will
put the cash in the hands of a banker here I’ll go back home and say
nothing about the deal until you boys have had time to turn around. But
I want it understood, too, that my client, this Josiah Trumbull, is not
to be molested by you for anything he has done in the past.”

Don agreed to this, and King continued.

“I have a notion that my client is a roughneck, as well as a three-card
sharp, but I’m going to do the best I can for him, for all that. If it
can be shown that the money belongs to you, Don, or to you, Tom, it
shall be turned over to you. But if this cannot be shown, Trumbull is to
have it, as against any other claimant. Is that right?”

This was reluctantly agreed to, and then the boys and King prepared the
best meal the larder was capable of, and enjoyed it hugely. After this
they went to the town, leaving Tom and Clay on board, and the money was
put in escrow in one of the banks. Don also put the government bonds on
deposit there. King’s eye stuck out when he saw the bonds and was told
where they had been found, but he only expressed congratulations.

All this business completed, provisions and gasoline bought, and letters
sent away, the boys went back to the _Rambler_ to study up the three
mysterious papers as forming a whole. But the black wallet held no paper
of any kind! There were a few half-rotten banknotes in it, a small flat
key, and nothing else!

“We are up against it again!” cried Case. “Well,” with a smile, “we’ll
go right on and try to uncover the mystery without the third piece of
paper. I wonder what this key fits, and if King got that third paper? He
might! What?”

CHAPTER XIII.—ALEX PLANS A NIGHT ADVENTURE.

The boys talked over the possibility of King having the third paper for
a long time. They could not see how the deputy had been able to secure
it, if he had done so, unless he had discovered it in the cellar, which
seemed to them to be highly improbable.

“That uncle of yours must have been a quaint old chap,” Clay said,
laughingly. “How, for instance, did he know that you would ever find the
bonds in the strong room?”

“I’m sure that he left a paper somewhere which tells about them,” was
the boy’s reply. “Perhaps this third paper will unravel the whole
mystery. Uncle told us about some papers the last time we saw him at the
shack in the Grand Canyon, but he did not tell us where they were. He
said we would find them after he was dead. I believe that all the papers
were left in a letter for us, and that this man Trumbull stole it.”

“How do you account for his having a chance to get them?”

“He was there, in the canyon, living near Uncle, when the latter
died—suddenly and alone, and was the first one there, the others say. It
is said, too, that a letter was left for us, and that it disappeared. I
knew Trumbull to be a thief, because he salted a mine and sold it, so I
naturally suspected him of taking the letter. This is how I came to get
the two papers and the money!”

“How did you come to find Trumbull in Chicago? All this is very
interesting to me. Wasn’t that a long chance—to find him at all?”

“We were in Chicago, earning our own living, when Uncle died. The people
living near the canyon wrote us about Uncle’s death, and about this man
Trumbull being there, and about the disappearance of the letter. I
thought the letter might have contained the promised papers, and so
watched for Trumbull, never expecting to see him there, though!”

“But you did find him! However did it happen?”

“After being in Chicago a short time, I got a position as errand boy in
a bank. I suspected at the time I got the place that the manager took
more than the usual interest in me, and I thought that he might know
Uncle David. That was before Uncle died, you see.

“Well, the manager took me on as errand boy, but after a time he kept me
working for him, and about his own private office in the bank, most of
the time, and often asked me about my uncle’s affairs, of which I could
tell him nothing, of course. I had not been there very long when Josiah
Trumbull came into the private office one day and laid a mining
proposition before the manager.

“I heard some of the talk, and discovered who he was, and also learned
that the mine he proposed developing was in the Grand Canyon of the
Colorado. He said it had been proven that the ore was virtually
inexhaustible, and added that he had come upon papers which showed him
where it was. The location was in the part of the canyon where Uncle had
lived.

“Then I recalled the talk Uncle David had had with me about valuable
documents, every word of it! I recalled, too, that that this man
Trumbull had been suspected of taking the letter! I watched him closely,
you may be sure! Quite like a detective story, eh?”

“It may prove to be one before the end is reached,” Clay said. “Go on!
I’m more interested than I can tell you!”

“Well, one day Trumbull came into the private office with a handbag and
set it down on a desk. He said he had drawn a little money and had
placed the papers he had spoken of with it. He added that he was going
out to the canyon mine to look into the matter.

“I stole that bag. I did not know that it contained a large sum of
money. I knew only that it contained the papers I wanted. By this time,
you see, I was certain that Trumbull had stolen the papers, that the
papers concerned a mine, and that he was about to acquire what belonged
to Tom and myself.

“I escaped, as you know. Just how I’ll not tell you now. I should have
consulted the manager, but ran off without doing so. That same day I
read in the newspapers about you boys and the _Rambler_. You see, I had
no money, save the $50,000, and I would not touch that, so I planned to
get to the Gulf of California and go up the Colorado with you! Tom was
crazy about it, and we started away. You know what wretched objects we
were when we came up with you.”

“But what got the notion into your head that the third paper was in the
wallet in the old cellar?” asked Alex.

“One day Uncle David told me of the old house being empty and in the
last stages of decay. We had visited the place with him, earlier, you
see, and I knew something about the treasure room. He had always told
me, though, that no money or thing of value would be found there. He
said that I must work for all I got of him.

“He said, though, that I might find some good advice in the treasure
room after he was dead. I did go there, with Tom, on my way to Chicago,
after we left him, but discovered nothing. I had even forgotten the
manner of getting into the treasure room. But when I found the two
papers in Trumbull’s bag I at once drew the conclusion that the third
paper must be in an old wallet Uncle had referred to as being in the old
cupboard. I was pretty sure it would be found there, as you know. The
only question in my mind was as to whether I should be able to get into
the treasure room and make a search of it without tearing the house
down. Tom did not know of this difficulty, and I never told him.”

“You’re telling me now!” laughed Tom.

“When we got to Yuma,” Don went on, “we were too busy dodging King to do
much investigating at the old house. Trumbull must have told King about
it, for he watched the place, as you know, and even dug there for
treasure. Tom and I got separated on the way across, and King saw me
while I was waiting for Tom to come up.

“When he did come, I left him there and went on down the river to
connect with you. There was nothing Tom could be arrested for. Now,
that’s how I got the money and the two papers, and also how I didn’t get
the third paper!” the boy laughed, “and so we’ll talk about something
else if you don’t mind.”

“But how are you ever to get this third paper, and how are you to get
the treasure if you don’t?” asked Case.

“With your permission I’ll go on up with you to where Uncle used to live
and search his old shack. The third paper may be there. Of course the
bonds are what Uncle David referred to as ‘good advice’ in the treasure
room. That was just like him, to call bonds ‘good advice.’ If I ever
discover the third paper, I have no doubt it will tell me where to look
for the bonds. He never thought of their being found in the manner Clay
found them!”

“Where did you ever hear anything about a third paper?” asked Clay.

Don took the original papers holding the drawings out of the belt and
held it up to the light.

“Did you see this line at the bottom?” he asked. Alex gave a start of
surprise. He had studied every figure and letter on the paper and had
seen no line at the bottom, yet there it was, plain to see when the
paper was held up to the sun. The line read:

“Worthless without No. 3!”

“There you are,” Don went on. ‘Worthless without No. 3.’ Josiah Trumbull
and King found that line, and they are, or were, hunting for No. 3, just
the same as we are! Now, if you boys think this mystery will spoil your
trip, just put us off and we’ll get to the canyons some other way, but,
still, we’d like to go with you!”

“I’m so seriously interested in the mystery,” smiled Clay, “that I
wouldn’t feel like making the trip, now, without you and the two pieces
of paper. How do you feel about it, boys?”

How did they feel about it? What would two healthy boys naturally say to
a mysterious adventure of the sort proposed? Hunting for the buried gold
of Captain Kidd looked like a summer afternoon game of marbles compared
to this! The Grand Canyon and a mystery! Marks on a rock, perhaps
thousands of feet below the level of the plateau! A missing paper and a
contest as to who should get to it first! Surely, no game could be more
exciting. And the boys said so, and all shook hands on the proposition,
after which they ate dinner and Clay went on shore to see about buying
gasoline, provisions and a small rowboat.

He returned just before nightfall, perspiring with the heat of the
desert sun, and the articles he had bought were soon on board.

“I saw the last of King,” he reported. “At least the last of him for
some days to come, as he took train for Phoenix. He’s a good sort, is
King, but if he thinks his conscience will hurt if he doesn’t know more
about the secrets of the Grand Canyon, he’ll hire a motor boat and
follow us. I imagine he has telegraphed to Trumbull, for I saw him
waiting at the office for a message. I heard him tell the clerk in the
office to query Chicago.”

“Good luck to him!” laughed Don. “He is loyal to that thief of a
Trumbull, all right, for he made us promise not to prosecute him if it
should be discovered that he had committed some crime in connection with
his dealings with Uncle David, also to restore the money to him if it
did not prove to belong to Tom and myself.”

“Some one ought to be in Chicago, watching Trumbull,” suggested Tom.
“Suppose I go? I can get there if the rods hold out! What do you say?”

“It would be a great idea,” Don agreed, “but we have had enough of
riding on the rods, and we have no money.”

“But the bonds!” laughed Alex. “What about them? How much are they
worth, Clay?” he added. “You handled them.”

“Something over one hundred thousand,” was Clay’s reply, “but there is
no proof that they belong to Don and Tom, you know.”

“That’s why I put them in bank,” Don cut in.

“If you think you ought to go back to Chicago, Tom,” Clay said, “I’ll
furnish the money. But what can you do there?”

“He can go to the manager of the bank where I worked,” Don explained,
“and tell him the whole story, and he’ll help. I believe that manager
knows more about this matter than he pretends to!”

“How did you manage to get into that bank in the first place?” asked
Alex. “It ain’t every street boy that gets such a chance.”

“Oh, I met one of the bank’s messengers one day, and he told me I might
get a job there. Odd, wasn’t it?”

Clay broke into a roar of laughter, whereat Don assumed a manner of
wounded dignity and walked away.

“Come back here, you foolish lad!” Clay called. “You may be sure that
manager does know more about this matter than he pretends to know! The
chances are that he had been keeping track of you for a long time, just
to see what kind of a boy you were!”

“Then why didn’t he help me?” asked Don.

“How do you know what your uncle told him to do? I reckon this Uncle
David of yours knew what he was about! He didn’t want you and Tom
spoiled by inheriting a lot of money! He wanted you to dig it up!”

“Yes,” replied Don, mournfully, “and I guess he buried it so deep that
no one will ever be able to dig it up!”

“Anyway, you two boys have shown the proper spirit,” Case said, “and
that ought to count for much. And you have the bonds!”

So it was arranged that Tom should go to Chicago that night and go to
the banker and tell him the part of the story he did not know. The
parting was a grave one, for the brothers were deeply attached to each
other, and there was no knowing what perils would confront either of
them before they met again.

After supper the _Rambler_ was speeded up the river for twenty miles or
more, “to get her out of the odor of trouble,” as Alex expressed it.

“Now,” Clay declared, when they came to anchor below Norton, with
Chimney Peak showing not far away, “we are going to have a night free
from boarders and troubles about money. We are off in good earnest at
last.”

“That’s a pretty tolerable old mountain,” Alex declared, pointing to
Chimney Peak. “I’d like to take a spin over to it.”

“You’ll stay right on this boat,” ordered Clay. “I’m not going to lose
any time hunting you up.”

“I won’t get lost in any cellar!” returned Alex, with one of his
provoking grins.

It was agreed that Case should stand guard that night, and the others
went to their bunks early, with the exception of Captain Joe, who took
his station on the prow and watched the slow-moving water with a
meditative air. Teddy tried for a time to engage him in a boxing
contest, but the dog declined with thanks and continued his inspection
of the river.

It was a beautiful starlit night, and Alex was too full of the old
spirit of adventure to sleep. He tumbled about in his bunk for a time
and then arose and peered out on deck.

Captain Joe was still on sentinel duty, but Case was actually asleep in
his chair! The boy was worn out with the excitement and worry of the
day. Alex did not disturb him, but sat down by his side and looked
longingly off toward Chimney Peak.

“Captain Joe!” he finally whispered.

The dog pricked up his ears and walked sedately up to the boy.

“Will you remain here and watch the boat while I go ashore?” asked Alex,
patting the dog on his head. “Will you, old top?”

Captain Joe looked off toward the mountain summit and made no rash
promises! He was a wise dog, and knew the ways of boys!

“It is just this way, Captain Joe,” Alex went on, talking to the bulldog
as if he understood every word, “it is just this way. Those sleepy heads
in the cabin, and this one out on deck, would sleep in the presence of
the pyramids! You know it, don’t you?”

The dog said that he did in a tongue which Alex understood.

“Well, then we’ll go ashore and see what that hill is made of,” the boy
went on. “We’ll take the rowboat and pay a visit to the Chimney!” It
looks pretty classy from here, eh?”

Captain Joe admitted that it did, and the boy got out the rowboat and
left the _Rambler_, the dog sitting in the prow with an air of being
necessary to the expedition. The boy and the dog saw adventure ahead and
were recklessly, foolishly glad of it!

CHAPTER XIV.—A VISIT FROM RIVER PIRATES.

Case slept a long time in his chair on the deck of the _Rambler_. The
currents pulled at the anchor chain, and now and then a floating
derelict of a log or discarded box bumped against the sharp-nosed prow,
but the boy was tired, mentally and physically, and did not mind in the
least.

Teddy, the bear cub, nosed close to him, seeking physical warmth from
the chill of the night, and finally went to sleep himself. When Alex and
Captain Joe looked back from the rim of sand which lay between the shore
line and Chimney Peak, there were no lights to be seen on board the
motor boat—only the bulk of the craft outlined against a starlit sky.

Finally, when Case did awake, it was with a sense of impending danger.
There is a quality in the human brain which stirs at the vibrations of a
hostile influence, and Case felt it now.

It was not long before he understood this threat fully, for his chair
was knocked from under his body and he fell with a bump on the deck,
lighting on Teddy, who set up a most dismal howling. While the cub
scrambled out from under the boy’s legs, there came a commotion in the
cabin. Case tried to get up, for he knew that a struggle was on there.

But he was not permitted to get up. There was a strong hand at his
throat and a knee which dripped water on his chest.

“All right!” some one said, in the direction of the cabin.

“All right here!” the figure above Case replied, and then the boy was
jerked to his feet. “I’ll bring him along in. Get a move on, kid!”

At first Case thought it was King’s voice, but in a second he saw that
it was not, for the fellow broke into a series of oaths and cries of
pain as Teddy seized him by the leg and set his sharp teeth together.

“Come out here!” the fellow shouted. “Come out here and kill this bear!
He’s chewing my leg off. Hurry up! Bring a gun, too!”

There was a movement in the cabin and the door opened. Case saw that
Clay and Don were in no better shape to prevent the murder of the cub
than himself. He was afraid that the little bear had used his teeth once
too often. But Case usually acted on the theory that a game is never out
until it is played out, and he did so on this occasion.

“Take a swim, Teddy!” he shouted to the bear, giving him a push with one
foot. “Take a run and jump into the river. Get busy now!”

The cub had often heard these words. When the boys were ready for a
river bath Teddy was usually ready, too, and he was always addressed in
the words Case used now, or some almost exactly like them.

So the bear, thinking, doubtless, that a new game was on, gave one
parting snap at the fellow’s leg and went headfirst into the river. Case
tripped the man who ran to the railing with a revolver in his hand, and
was rewarded by a violent blow on the head.

“Coming! Coming, Teddy! Get a move on!” Case called out to the bear, and
it was with a good deal of satisfaction that he heard the intelligent
animal snorting with the race spirit as he made clumsily for the shore.
Doubtless the bear wondered why Case was not at his heels on this, as on
other occasions, but he kept on swimming and so escaped death.

Dazed as he was by the blow he had received, Case heard the fellow
shooting at Teddy, and heard Clay and Don arguing with the men who were
the cause of the commotion in the cabin.

“Come!” the boy heard a hoarse voice saying, “we have no time to lose.
“You boys went to a bank at Yuma to-day and drew out a lot of money and
a package of government bonds. We want them! Produce!”

“You are mistaken,” Clay replied, his voice sounding harsh and strained,
as if he was just out of a struggle. “We put our money in the bank, and
the bonds in the bank. We drew nothing out. Take what I have in my
pocket and go. There’s nothing else here for you.”

Case heard one of the men rattling the coal stove, and a shudder of
horror went through him. Would the midnight raiders be brutal enough to
resort to torture? He had heard of terrible, inhuman things that river
pirates had done. He tried to get up, but was held fast.

“Here!” a voice in the cabin said. “Don’t wait to heat up that old
stove! Just turn the electric current on this coil. That will prevent
his going to bed with cold feet to-night!”

“He is telling the truth about the money and bonds,” Case said to his
captor. “They were left in the bank at Yuma, and he gave another lad
money enough to get to Chicago, so we're about broke.”

“Tell that to the marines!” chuckled the other. “We know what we are
doing, all right. You were seen to take the money away from the Yuma
bank! He’ll remember about it as soon as the coils get hot, too!”

“Some one lied to you about the transaction at the bank,” Case insisted.
“Who said we took the money and bonds away?”

“I wish I had that fool bear back here!” Case’s captor snarled. “I’d
burn his teeth out of his head! I shall be lame for a month.”

“Who told you we took the money and bonds away?” persisted the boy.

“Why, an old gentleman who stood close by saw you, and we heard him
speaking about it later. He said it wasn’t safe for boys like you to
have so much ready money in this wild country, and we agreed with him.
So we are going to help you take care of it. You’ll hear that fresh kid
inside telling the truth as soon as his feet touch the hot coils.”

“If you brutes burn Clay,” Case declared, “we’ll give up our trip up the
river and follow you to the end of the world but we’ll bring you to the
gallows! You just remember that!”

“You’ll crow lower when your own feet feel the fire!” laughed the other.
“You’re brave, all right, but you’re a fool, too!”

Case threw himself back on the deck and closed his eyes. Every instant
he expected to hear Clay’s cries of anguish as the torture began. There
seemed to be no help anywhere. Don was as helpless as himself.

All around the boat the night shut down, chill, silent, inscrutable. Far
up the stream the lights of a small town shone indistinctly. To the west
the peaks of Chimney mountain rose into the starlit sky. From the ocean,
a long distance away, a light wind ruffled the water.

Everywhere was peace, and everywhere the great facts of Nature stood in
friendly attitude to each other. It was only the human element that was
warring! There seemed to be no hope of rescue anywhere!

Case blamed himself for sleeping while on watch. He blamed Captain Joe
for not giving the alarm when these ruffians sneaked on board. But where
was the dog? He had not seen him since his rude awakening. And where was
Alex? He had not heard the boy’s voice in the cabin. He knew that Alex
would be doing a lot of talking if present!

The boy knew that there were four men on board. He could hear a craft of
some kind bumping against the side, and so he knew that they had
followed the _Rambler_ from Yuma by way of the river. He could not see
the faces in the cabin, for the door was kept closed, but he could hear
the preparations for torture going on!

He lay not far from the hatch which covered the motors when the boat was
at anchor. If he could only get a little closer and run his hand down
into the pit he might be able to switch off the electric current so the
coils would not heat. He resolved to try.

Things were not going well in the cabin, for the boy heard the captors
snarling and cursing at the coils. They did not seem to understand how
to turn on the current, and so there was delay. Case pushed along to the
hatch. As he did so his enemy released his hold for a moment and turned
toward the cabin, saying as he did so:

“If you chumps don’t know how to run that stove come out here and guard
this kid and I’ll do the work myself! It is easy enough!”

The fellow started for the cabin and one of the men inside turned toward
the deck. For just an instant Case was free. He reached over to the
hatch, lifted it so as to get his hand into the pit and turned off the
electric current from the containers. In a second the boat was in
darkness, and the pirates were groping about for their prisoners!

Case made a quick motion toward the railing, but was seized and drawn
back. Clay and Don, who had succeeded in getting out of the cabin, were
thrust back again. Still, the turning off of the current had resulted in
delay, and that was something.

Clay called out to Case to know if he was still alive, and was given a
courageous reply. Case’s guard bent over him with clenched fists.

“You turned off the electricity!” he shouted.

“Turn it on again, or I’ll spoil your face for you. Do it quick, too!”

There seemed to be no help for it. Case took all the time he could in
lifting the hatch and turning the switch, but at last the lights flared
up again, making the boat as light as day, for during the dark interval
one of the men had turned the switch which fed the prow light.

While Case lay there, not daring to move hand or foot, his mind went
back to Alex and the dog. Had they been killed at the first moment of
invasion? Had they resisted and been thrown into the river?

“Come, now,” a voice in the cabin said, “you may as well tell us where
the money is. We are bound to have it, you know!”

“I have told you the truth about the money?” Clay responded.

“Heat up the coils!” shouted the first speaker. “We’ll have to warm his
feet for him! It is a cool night, anyway, and it may do him good.”

The boys listened for some sound of life on the river—for some trading
boat to come creeping up! But there were no indications of the approach
of any river craft whatever. Still, there was a slight jar!

Perhaps the _Rambler_ had been struck by a floating log! Perhaps an eddy
had sent the boat pulling harder against her chain! There was a slight
movement on the aft deck. Perhaps the dog had been asleep there, or
perhaps Teddy had returned to the _Rambler_ and was creeping up out of
the water The deck guard stepped to the prow to shut off the light.

Then a shot came from the rear, and the pirate threw up his hands,
balanced unsteadily on the rail for an instant, and fell into the river
like a stone. Case sprang out of the way as the fellow’s companions
rushed from the cabin, brandishing their guns and demanding to know who
had done the shooting.

Other shots came in quick succession, and another pirate dropped limply
to the deck while the remaining two sprang over the railing and, not
stopping to secure their small launch, struck out for the shore.

When Clay and Don came out of the cabin they found Alex and Captain Joe
watching the two heads bobbing in the water. Case had arisen to his feet
and was looking with all his eyes at Teddy, perched in a boxing attitude
on the roof of the cabin.

There was little excitement in Alex’s face as he turned to Clay.

“I ought to shoot them both,” he said, pointing to the swimmers. “I know
what they were about to do. Shall I shoot them?”

Clay shook his head and Alex put up his revolver.

“How did it happen?” the latter asked. “Who are those men?”

“They are river pirates,” Clay replied, “and I don’t know how it
happened. Case was on guard, but the first thing I knew the men were in
the cabin, holding a gun in my face. I guess Case must have been
asleep.”

“I was,” Case said, sheepishly. “I ought to be shot!”

“He was asleep when I went away,” Alex, with a sly wink, contributed. “I
ought to have got him up, but he looked too sleepy!”

“Where did you go?” demanded Case. “You’re a fine boy, not to make me
get up and attend to business! And Captain Joe must have been sound
asleep, too, or he would have given the alarm!”

“Captain Joe went to the beach with me,” the boy cut in. “We were just
striking out for the mountain when we saw that something unusual was
going on on board the _Rambler_. Then I saw Teddy swimming to shore and
he told me what was doing! At least he insisted with his teeth on my
returning right off. Guess we got back here just in time!”

“I guess you did!” Clay admitted. “The pirates were thinking of warming
my feet! I almost wish you had killed them all!”

A motion on the deck caught the attention of the boys, and Clay went out
to find the pirate who had fallen at the second shot trying to crawl to
the railing. The boy did not interfere. The wounded man reached the
railing at last and threw himself into the river.

“I don’t believe he is strong enough to swim ashore,” Clay said, “but
we’ll leave that part to him. If he lives, he’ll be hanged some day, so
he may as well drown now. Any man who will resort to physical torture to
extort money has no claims whatever on humanity.”

“Now,” Don observed, with a quiet smile, “suppose we go on up the river?
You boys were having trouble enough with me before this pack of pirates
took the notion to steal my money from you. It seems to me that the only
safe place for us is up in the Grand Canyon! I move that we get under
way to-night and keep going as long as the river will permit.”

“That’s good advice,” Clay replied. “We’ll get as far away from this
country as possible before daylight! This thing is getting on my own
nerves! I’ve been looking for a quiet week or two, but I haven’t found
them.”

The boys lost no time in getting the motors started. Then followed
beautiful days on the river. The boys fished and slept and held boxing
tournaments with Teddy, and sailed on under the sun and under the stars
until the banks grew higher, the mountains closer to the river, and they
knew that they must begin to take great care in navigating, for the
Colorado river is not noted for its peaceful disposition!

One night they drew into a little creek running into the Colorado from
the California side and built a roaring fire on the shore.

“Across the river,” Case said, pointing, “are the Blue Ridge mountains,
and the summits you see are Mount Perkins and Mount Davis. Ten or
fifteen miles up the river is Black Canyon, and thirty miles above the
entrance to the canyon is Fortification Rock! There the Colorado turns
to the east. Here our wild sport begins.”

CHAPTER XV.—TEDDY MEETS A RELATIVE.

“And right here is where we back up!”

It was one day later, and the _Rambler_ lay in what looked to be a great
lock, with gates out of sight! There were high walls on either side, and
just ahead the view was shut off by an abrupt bend in the rocky
formation. The Colorado river was pouring like a Niagara over a ledge
where the narrow canyon turned.

“This Black Canyon thing does seem to tell us to go back!” Don remarked,
with a sigh. “Looks like I’d have to leave you and take to the plateau
in order to get to the Grand Canyon, after all. “This seems to be a
locked door, all right! No boat can ever get above that tumble!”

“I’ve heard of boats going past Black Canyon,” Case insisted.

“They must have gone up in a balloon, then!” Alex suggested.

“There may be a passage around this series of falls,” Clay said.

“Well,” Alex sighed. “We’re out of sight of river pirates, anyway. We
can see the blue sky over our heads, and that is about all!”

“Fine place to camp, on that shelf of rock!” Case put in. “I’d like to
stay here a few days and investigate some of the caverns.”

“That’s a good idea,” Clay exclaimed. “And while we are looking in the
odd crevices the water has made we may find some way of getting the
_Rambler_ up the river. Anyway, I’m not going to give up the trip until
I have to! A man once went the whole length of the Grand Canyon in a
boat! He must have got many a ducking!”

“Yes, but he was coming down, while we want to go up! If we were up
above these falls, we might get down, by risking the boat and our own
lives, but I don’t see how we are ever to get up!”

“There’s always a way!” laughed Alex. “I’ll get some of that drift out
of the eddies and build a fire on that rock while you boys get supper.
If you want fish, catch ’em. Seems to be plenty here.”

“You’ll have a fine time making that wet wood burn!” cried Case.

Alex pointed to an opening in the wall of the canyon, back of the rock.

“I’ve been looking into that nest,” he said, “and I’ve discovered that
there’s dry wood and leaves in there. Some day when the Colorado was on
the rampage, logs and limbs drifted in there and never got out again.”

“Why wouldn’t that be a good place to camp?” asked Don. “Aren’t you boys
getting tired of sleeping in those narrow bunks every night?”

“You bet I am,” Alex answered, “and I’ll sleep in the cave if any one
else will. It seems nice and dry in there, and Captain Joe can keep
watch! Who’s in for it? Now, don’t all speak at once!”

“I am, for one!” Don explained. “I’ll just enjoy it.”

“The _Rambler_ is good enough for me,” Case asserted, and Clay expressed
the same opinion, so Alex and Don were the only ones to move their
blankets and pillows into the cavern that night when they were ready to
go to bed. Teddy went with them, but the dog crept back to the boat.

“Bears live in caves, anyway!” laughed Don. “I guess Teddy feels at home
here, the way he is tumbling about. Cute cub, that!”

There was a fire, fast dying down, just outside the mouth of the cave
where the two boys were, and they lay side by side in their blankets for
a long time watching the flickering blaze and talking of the strange
events which had brought them together. At length Don spoke of the
papers.

“Do you really hope to find the third paper in the shack your uncle
inhabited in the Grand Canyon?” asked Alex. “I ain’t so sure of it.”

“I am sure it is there,” Don answered, “but I can’t say whether we shall
find it or not. I’ve been thinking that we might find the spot marked by
an ‘X’ without it. I’m certain that the third paper tells only of
surroundings—perhaps points the way to some bend or cliff. By looking
over the locality very carefully, we may be able to find the sunburst
and the big X. Don’t you think so?”

“Why, of course,” Alex replied, sleepily.

“Oh, if you're going to sleep,” laughed Don, “you’ll get no more of my
wisdom! I'm sleepy myself, so here goes.”

But sleep did not come at once, for there was an interruption. Teddy
arose from the blanket he had chosen as his bed and moved toward the
entrance. The fire was low, now, and the boys could just see his figure
outlined against a mass of red coals. He was growling.

“Come here, you foolish cub!” Alex called to him. “Don’t you go to
starting anything here! We want to go to sleep. Understand, you cub!”

Teddy gave a low whine and moved back into the cave. Then the boys
closed their eyes. But Don was restless and sat up in a few moments.
Alex heard him, but kept his eyes closed. Then Don whispered in the
boy’s ear and pulled at his shoulder.

“Alex!” he whispered. “Look out to the door and tell me if I am seeing
double, will you? There’s Teddy outside again, but he is three times as
large as he was a little while ago. Do you think there’s something in
the atmosphere of this cave that induces growth in bears?”

“Aw, go to sleep!” was Alex’s response to the query.

“But that cub has grown to be about nine feet high!” Don went on. “He is
as big, now, as one of the grizzlies at the Lincoln Park Zoo! Just wake
up and see if you think we can get him on board the boat in the morning!
If he continues to grow, he’ll be too big to get on a man of war by
daylight! Come, wake up! This thing is getting on my nerves!”

Alex opened his eyes and looked, and the bear he saw was about as large
as four Teddies all rolled into one. The great bulk of the animal almost
closed the entrance! Alex sat up with a little cry of alarm.

“That isn’t Teddy,” he gasped. “That is a bear that wants to come to
bed! I’d give a year off my life to be out of here right now!”

“Will he bite?” asked Don, innocently. “Teddy doesn’t bite!”

“Will he bite?” repeated Alex, and retreated to the end of the cave, for
the big bear was entering, snuffing and growling, evidently angry
because there were intruders in his bedchamber! Soon he began nosing at
the blankets where the boys had lain.

The fire outside flared up and they saw Teddy advancing toward the
larger animal. The cub was walking sidewise, turning his head from right
to left, as playful puppies do when not quite certain of the character
of the reception their advances are to meet with.

The big fellow looked critically at the cub. The boys were sure they
could see an interrogation point in each eye! To them, at least, he
seemed to be asking:

“Now, whose baby are you, and what right have you to come into my
bachelor quarters, where babies are never allowed to come?”

Still sniffing the air, bruin rose on his rear feet as if to take the
intruder into a crushing embrace. This was too much for the little cub
who had been taught boxing lessons by three reckless boys.

He shot out of the obscurity of the interior of the cave, ambled up to
the person of the house, and gave him a cracking box on the ear! The big
bear went down under the impact of the blow, not having been prepared
for it, and Teddy stood there ready for another round! There was added
peril in every instant now, but, in spite of all, Alex snickered and Don
broke into a ringing laugh.

“Go it, Teddy!” Alex cried. “Give him another! Hand him one on the bread
basket!”

Just such words, just such advice, just such encouragement, had the cub
often heard while facing one of his instructors! He knew no more now
than to obey. Bruin received another wallop on the ear, but poor Teddy
went down for the count, and the larger animal sprang at him!

It seemed for an instant as if the last days of the cub had come, but
fortune favored him. Bruin hesitated for a moment whether to attack the
cub he had floored or to take a bite out of the boys who had invaded his
home. He chose the latter course and sprang for Don.

Now it began to look as if the boys would never get out of the cave
alive. The bear was between them and the entrance, so they could not run
away from him. Alex felt for his automatic, but remembered that he had
left it on board the _Rambler_.

Don managed to elude the claws of the bear as the rush came, but all the
time he was being crowded into a corner from which there would be no
escape. He, too, reached for his automatic, but did not find it.

He found something quite as useful, however, as the result showed, in
the form of an electric flashlight! As the bear advanced the boy opened
the sliding switch and turned the round eye of light full into his face.
Then he advanced, shouting wildly.

Bruin’s small eyes flinched under the strong flame. He threw up his
nose, sniffed at the intangible thing which cut such a path of fire in
his quarters, and began backing out. Don followed him, still shouting.

The bear stopped for an instant to give Teddy, now rising from the
floor, a box on the ear and backed out of the cave. At that moment Clay
and Case, who had heard the shouting, appeared on the deck of the motor
boat with weapons in their hands.

“Shoot him!” Alex cried out to them. “Shoot the big stiff! He’s injured
Teddy. Give him a couple of bullets!”

Both boys fired and the bear went down. Vital spots had been, in both
cases, reached by the bullets, and the big fellow moved only in
convulsive struggles after he dropped on the smooth rock in front of the
cavern.

“It seems a pity!” Case said, standing over the fallen giant with his
still smoking revolver in his hand. “The poor old chap had just as good
a right to life as any of us. I’m sorry I shot him!”

“I guess you didn’t see him slamming Teddy around, and backing Don up
into a corner!” Alex cried. “Only for the searchlight, there would have
been a dead boy instead of a dead bear—perhaps two dead boys!”

“How is Teddy?” Clay called out.

“He’s getting on his feet again!” Alex replied. Then he broke into a
laugh which echoed through the cave and out into the canyon and pointed
to the cub bear.

“Just look at him now!” he cried. “He’s game! He wants to box the big
fellow some more! Come here, Teddy!”

The cub dropped from his boxing position and approached the boy.

“Got knocked out, didn’t you?” Alex jeered. “Knocked plumb out!”

Teddy rubbed the sides of his face with his paws and snorted.

Alex and Don went back to the boat for the night. They had had quite
enough of the cavern. In the morning, the first thing, the hide was
stripped from the bear, rubbed faithfully with salt, and hung up to
cure.

After breakfast Clay and Don climbed to the lip of the canyon and walked
a long way to the north, the idea being to see if the river above the
falls was suitable for navigation. They returned at noon and reported
that if they could get over the falls they could run up for miles with
little difficulty. There were rapids, but none the _Rambler_ could not
make headway against, they declared.

“And we discovered another thing,” Don exclaimed. “This rock we are on
is an island! The river splits something about a mile above here.”

“Then where does the new channel come into the canyon again?” asked
Case. “Perhaps we can follow up this new channel and so get around the
falls. It is worth looking into, at any rate.”

“It must be down stream,” Clay suggested, “for we did not pass any
junction. Perhaps we’d better drop down and find it.”

They found it half a mile below. The new channel was carrying a swift
current, but the water was deep and there were no falls, so the boys got
up full power and started up. The motor boat had the fight of her life,
but she went up gallantly, sometimes hesitating, but always gaining in
the end, until they came out above the falls.

“A few more like that,” Clay declared, wiping the sweat from his face,
“and we’ll have to take the _Rambler_ to the repair shop. That was a
hard struggle for the old boat.”

From that time the voyage was not so strenuous, still, the going was
rather more difficult than that encountered on the Columbia river trip.
There were times when the boys were obliged to unload the boat and
almost carry her, times when ropes were used to assist her up swift
sweeps of water; but, then, there were wide valleys where Indians tilled
small patches of earth, and where there were green things in view
always. Whenever opportunity offered the boys procured water from
springs in the hills, for the waters of the Colorado are full of the
silt washed down from the mountains.

The Colorado river was born when the Rocky Mountains lifted their peaks
above the continent. From their lofty heights the collected moisture
flowed down on the plains below until a river was formed. From the base
of the mountains to the ocean level there is a fall of a mile, so the
river runs swiftly. The water cuts out the light soil and also heaps it
up. In the canyons the river runs 6,000 feet below the level of the
plateau, and people on the desert above might die with thirst because of
the impossibility of getting down to the water.

The Colorado is forever changing its course and currents. Here mud flats
are forming, there a bank is being washed away. Here a mighty rock
topples into the stream, there the water cuts around a tower, leaving a
pillar three hundred feet high, standing out alone! The river, ages ago,
entered the Gulf of California where Yuma is now; in a few centuries it
will fill up and make a level plain of the entire Gulf. It deposits silt
enough in one year to cover sixty-six square miles of territory with
sediment a foot deep! It is working hard to level the continent, ably
assisted by the Columbia, the Mississippi, the Frazer, the Snake and the
Gila!

The boys will never forget those days and nights on the Colorado. It was
a golden time, and at last the Grand Canyon opened before them!

CHAPTER XVI.—CONCERNING A HEADLESS GHOST.

“Now,” Clay suggested, on the morning following the arrival at the mouth
of the mightiest canyon on earth, “we may as well make up our minds that
we can’t go very much farther in the _Rambler_. We will go in as far as
we can, then tie up and investigate the great mystery.”

“If you want to see the Grand Canyon to good advantage,” Don advised,
“get up on the plateau and look down and across. At the level of the
river you see little save blue sky and rock, and you see those like one
looking out of a well! Besides, it is pretty hot down here.

“There is little breeze, and we are a mile or more nearer the center of
the earth than those at the lips of the cut. When it snows up above it
rains down here. Clumps of willows which grow in the canyon look like
fringes of grass from above. The houses where the guides and a few
Indians live look like soap-boxes from the top.

“And, then, from the top, you can get the full contrast of the colors in
the layers of rocks. You’ll see a wall of black granite rusty with the
iron that is in it, and, a short distance away, you’ll see red, amber
and green pinnacles with white tops. We’ll have to climb some to get to
the shack where Uncle David lived, and so you may be able to satisfy
your love of nature without going to the top.”

“Did any one ever sail down through this canyon?” asked Alex.

“Yes,” Don answered, “Major Powell succeeded in getting through with a
boat, but some members of his party lost their lives. We can nose the
_Rambler_ up for quite a distance yet, but of course we can’t go
through.”

“Then suppose we camp in the canyon itself to-night?” Alex questioned.
“It will be fine to hear the waters singing!”

“We may safely do that,” Don answered. “We will, of course, be in what
is known as the inner gorge, that is, away down to bed rock! We can get
to within a couple of miles of the shack by night and make camp there.
Then, in the morning, we can climb up and have a look at the old place.”

“You lived there for a time with your uncle?” asked Case.

“Yes, for a couple of years. But Uncle never made much of us boys. He
seemed to want to be alone, and, besides, he often said that we ought to
be out in the world learning to fight humans! Uncle had a notion that
men and women were worse than wild animals!

“So, after a time, he sent us away, giving us tickets to Chicago by way
of San Francisco and the S. P. While on the way back, as I have already
told you, we visited the old house at Yuma. I never saw Uncle again. He
was a strange old fellow. Where he got all his wealth is more than I
know, but he certainly was rich.”

It was hard work sailing against the currents of the Colorado, but the
motors were strong and reliable, and at night the boys found themselves
shut in by towering walls of rock. Above, on either side, were shelves,
ledges and precipices. Away at the top grew yellow pine and fir, below
juniper thrived, and farther down were willows and various kinds of
bushes. The light was dim long before sunset, and the river ran dark and
sullen between the frowning walls.

“We’ve got to stop here,” Don declared, as the _Rambler_ reached a point
where the inner gorge widened out into a small valley—a very small
valley indeed—“for the shelf where the shack stands can be reached only
from this point.”

“How far up is it?” asked Clay.

“Something like two thousand feet.”

“Almost to the surface?”

“Not half way,” was the laughing reply. “There was a copper mine there,
once, years ago, and the shack was left by the miners when the drive was
deserted. It is an uncanny place!”

“How do you get there?” asked Alex. “Is it a hard climb?”

“Rather! In places the path is only thirty inches wide, with a wall a
thousand feet up on one side and a drop of a thousand feet on the other!
In places the way is so steep that steps have been cut in the rock, to
prevent the burros slipping.”

“Burros!” echoed Alex. Walking up and down that wall!”

“Both burros and horses, after proper training,” Don answered.

“I think I'd rather walk!” Alex muttered, and Case nodded agreement.

“You’ll find that horses’ feet are surer than your own,” Don predicted.
“There is rarely an accident here.”

The boys anchored the _Rambler_ close to the shore, opposite the little
spread-out of rocky soil and built a fire of driftwood. When night
settled down the stars looked into the gulch bright and clear, and in
time the moon arose and lighted the upper air, though its rays did not
penetrate to the inner gorge at first, of course.

After supper the lads sat on the deck of the motor boat and watched the
line of moonlight drop down on the west wall. Now it touched the top of
a monument erosion had wrought, now it painted a shadowy wall where
rocks were tottering to a fall.

“It is going to be a ghost night!” Don said, presently.

The other boys laughed at the expression, and Clay asked:

“Do they have ghost nights at the bottom of the canyon?”

“The ghost nights,” Don explained, gravely, “are found only near the
broad level made by the dumpings of the old copper mine. Anybody who
ever lived hereabouts can tell you that ghosts come forth at midnight
and walk the ledges where they came to their deaths!”

“Bunk!” grunted Case. That’s all bunk!”

“About the ghosts? Of course, but there is something mysterious in the
Grand Canyon! There are noises no one can account for, and sights which
no one can explain are common. It is a haunted place!”

“I’m glad of that!” Alex exclaimed. “I’ve always wanted to form the
acquaintance of a really, truly ghost! One may come to-night!”

“If one should,” laughed Clay, “you would be the first one to jump out
of your skin with fright! I don’t want to be bothered with ghosts, for
one, for I’m tired and sleepy. Besides, we have a hard climb before us
for to-morrow.”

When the boys went to bed the west wall of the canyon was silvered with
moonlight, while the east wall was still clothed in shadows. Case’s bunk
was nearest to the door of the cabin, and Captain Joe, seeking
companionship, snuggled down by it.

The last thing the boy heard, before he dropped into a sound sleep, was
the uneasy breathing of the dog. After a time he awoke with a start.
Captain Joe was bristling and growling.

“You ornery pup,” Case whispered, “keep still! You’ll wake the boys up!
What do you see out there to growl at?”

Captain Joe advanced to the prow of the boat and pointed with a
quivering nose to the east wall of the canyon. Then he looked back at
Case and invited an apology for previous coarse treatment!

Case looked and turned back to awake the other boys, then changed his
mind and stood waiting. On a descending shelf of rock five hundred feet
above the level of the river, a white object could be seen creeping
slowly downward. It was in the shadow at first, but presently came into
a light reflected from the opposite wall.

Then the boys saw a white horse without a head and a white rider, also
without a head! The horse moved slowly down the shelf toward the river,
and the rider sat upright and stiff, not swaying at all with the motions
of the horse! While Case looked the pair, the white horse and the white
rider, came to an abrupt ending in the shelf.

To the amazement of the lad they did not stop there. They went on over
the edge of the precipice and something white fell down, down, to a
rocky bed below. As the white thing shot through the air a shriek of
terror echoed over the canyon, and then all was still.

Case watched and listened with a wildly beating heart. The horse and
rider had certainly gone down the precipice! He awoke Don and told him
of what he had seen. Don looked serious.

“It is the ghost of the canyon,” he said. “For years, on moonlight
nights, the horse and rider have gone over the precipice. It is said
that a rider met death there years ago, and that his bones, and the
bones of his horse, were found at the bottom of the precipice by a
hunter. For a long time no one would come within sight of that shelf at
night.”

“I don’t believe in ghosts!” Case asserted. “I don’t believe it was a
ghost at all! It is some trick to drive us away!”

“But the sight has been seen for a long time—years before we ever
thought of coming here,” urged Don.

“You don’t actually believe in it?” asked Case.

“There is something strange about it,” was all the boy would say.

“Will it ride again to-night?” asked Case. “If I thought it would I’d
sit up and watch for it. I’m interested in this ghost.”

“It is never twice seen on the same night,” Don replied. “In fact it
comes only when the moon reaches just such a position in the heavens.
Always when the rider moves down the ledge you will see the shadow of
that granite monument resting on the white boulder which nestles like a
setting in that cliff.”

“Who compiled all the ignorance there is in the world regarding ghosts?”
Case grinned. “I guess if people got a chance to return to earth after
death, they wouldn’t be monkeying around in fool ways like that! This is
some trick! You’ll see if we don’t get to the bottom of it before we go
away! Headless horse, and headless rider! Why, even Captain Joe knew
that they were not ghosts, for he woke me up growling at them!”

“Where is he now?” asked Don, looking around for the dog.

“He was here a minute ago,” Case replied. “He is not far away.”

“Don’t let the ghosts get him,” laughed Don, and went back to his bunk.

Case did not go to sleep. He was wondering if there really were people
who actually believed in supernatural visitations! Reared in the hard
school of the streets, he had long ago learned to accept nothing as true
which did not comply with the standards of the knowable.

He wondered, too, where Captain Joe had taken himself off to. Usually
the dog remained close to the boat at night, so his sudden disappearance
was a puzzle to the boy. He whistled softly, but the dog did not come.

Then Case remembered the remarks Alex had made concerning the moonlight
and the ghost nights. The lad certainly would be ripe for a visit to the
bottom of the precipice. Case did not know what he might find there, but
he had his suspicions as to what had gone down!

Alex kicked out vigorously and rubbed his eyes sleepily when Case shook
him up in his bunk. He had no thought of getting up! Then Case whispered
in his ear—whispered because he did not want the others to awake and
learn that they were going away on a ghost hunt!

“The ghost walks!” Case rumbled in the boy’s ear!

“Leave mine in my pocket!” Alex yawned. “Where is he?”

“Not the money ghost,” Case snickered, “but the ghost that falls off
mountains without being injured, and rides about the country with his
head under his arm, or somewhere else out of sight. Get up!”

“Me for the ghost!” Alex exclaimed. “Bring him to me!”

“We’ve got to go and get him!” Case replied. “And you’d better keep
still, or the whole bunch will want to go. Get up and dress.”

“I’m dressed,” replied the boy. “I was going out anyhow as soon as the
others got to sleep. Where’s Captain Joe?”

“The ghost carried him off!” laughed Case. “Indeed he did,” he went on,
as Alex expressed disapproval. “He hasn’t been seen since the headless
ghost rode the headless horse down the bottomless precipice!”

“Wheels!” cried Alex, in derision. “You’ve got buzzing wheels!”

Case got the sleepy youngster out of the cabin and told him about the
white rider and also about Don’s account of the tradition.

“Now,” he added, “I propose that we go down the shore a little way and
climb up the slope to the foot of that precipice. You can see from here
where the shelf ends. Well, anything dropped off the break would fall
into a coulee on the other side of the ridge. See?”

“Perhaps we can get to the foot of the precipice, and perhaps we can
not,” Alex said, “but we’ll try, anyway. What do you expect to find
there? The dead ghost of a headless horse and rider?”

Case laughed and the two started away, following the river bank down
until the rise to the east ran out, and then following the coulee back
of it. In a very short time they were at the foot of the smooth wall of
rock which dropped down from the shelf above. The moon was now far up in
the sky, and its light fell directly into the canyon.

The lads looked carefully about the foot of the wall, but were not
rewarded in any way for their labor. Presently, however, Case bent over
a depression in the soil which had gathered in a corner—washed down from
the heights above—and called to his chum.

“What do you make of it?” he asked, flashing his electric on the spot
indicated. “Does that look like a ghost’s track?”

“Dog’s track!” Alex exclaimed. “Captain Joe’s track! Now what was he
doing here? But here’s another footprint!” he went on, all excitement,
“and it wasn’t made by a dog, either. Healthy ghost, that!”

“The ghost that made that track,” Case answered, “wore a No. 10 shoe
with the taps worn down so as to show the nailheads! And the shoe was
here not long ago, at that. Now, what was the dog doing with a
stranger?”

“I reckon Captain Joe has been abducted!” grinned Alex. “I’d like to see
the man that did it. He’d be some chewed up, I take it!”

“Well,” Case went on, “the dog has been captured, for here are the marks
where he pulled back as he was dragged away! And I guess it was no ghost
that did it, either. Just listen to that!”

CHAPTER XVII.—THE SUNBURST ON THE WALL.

The sound to which Case called attention was a long, quavering howl,
such as a dog in captivity will sometimes make. It sounded far away.

“There’s the proof of it!” the boy said. “Captain Joe has been taken
prisoner, and he’s trying to tell us about it. Now, how the Old Harry
did any living person get him into a mess he couldn’t get out of?”

“What we want to know, just now,” said Alex, “is where he is, and not
how he got there. The sound came from up above?” he asked.

“I thought so,” was the reply.

“Well, how are we going to get up there?” demanded the other.

The boys passed to the east of the precipice and came to a rugged
incline which seemed to lead to the vicinity of the shelf of rock from
which the ghostly visitors had apparently fallen. It was hard climbing
for those unused to such exercise, but at last they stood on a summit
which connected with the shelf farther along.

Below, five hundred feet or more, ran the Colorado river, its red waters
hidden from the moonlight except in spots, for the outcropping walls
make a view of the river from the top almost impossible. The boys could
see the _Rambler_ lying at anchor, however, and see the embers of the
cooking fire not far away. There were no lights on board the boat when
they first looked, but presently a glimmer was seen on the aft deck.

“What is it?” asked Case, mystified.

“Some one boarding the boat!” Alex cried. “The boys are asleep and
Captain Joe is gone! Now do you see why the dog was abducted? We’ve got
to get down there just as soon as we can. No knowing what may happen!”

“I guess we’re not going to lack for excitement!” Case mused. “We’ve got
out of the path of commerce, but we seem to have struck a live wire,
after all!”

“Shall we go back, or just wake the boys and go find the dog?” asked the
other.

“If we don’t go back, we may not have any boat to go back to!” Case
predicted. “The people down there are never prowling around for their
health.”

“But the boys would be all right, awake, and I hate to leave the dog in
bad company!” Alex protested.

“Say,” Case suggested, “suppose we take a couple of shots at the chaps
who are monkeying with the _Rambler_? That will wake the boys!”

“That surely will wake the boys, anyway,” was the reply, and before Case
could get his gun out Alex was peppering away at the air a few feet
above the cabin of the motor boat.

The effect, below, was instantaneous. A light flashed out in the cabin,
and then the prow lamp was turned on. Clay and Don could be seen
scrambling out of the doorway, only half dressed.

There was no one else in sight. The intruder had made himself scarce at
the instant the revolvers had been fired. It was evident that he had not
visited the _Rambler_ with the intention of attacking the boys.

“Hello, the boat!” yelled Alex, directly.

“Hello yourself!” came back in Don’s voice.

“What’s the shooting about?” demanded Clay.

“Take a run around the boat and see!” Case called back. “There is some
one hiding near there! He can’t be very far away.”

“Why don’t you come on down?” asked Don. “Where are you?”

“Looking for the ghost!” Alex called out. “Come up and help.”

Finally Clay, who had made a quick circuit of the shore near the fire,
reported that there were tracks of heavy shoes, such footgear as no one
but a heavy man would be apt to wear, all around the remains of the
fire! He asked the boys to return to the boat, but they advised a close
watch and decided to continue their search for the dog.

“Because,” Alex reasoned, “they’ll take him farther away before morning,
and, then, we want to see the ghost before he fades away at the coming
of the dawn! The ghost with big feet!”

“He’ll fade away before the coming of the dawn if I get a shot at him,”
grumbled Case. “He’s too free with our property!”

The boys heard the voice of the dog no more. Below they saw the motor
boat blazing with light, the boys stealthily on guard in the cabin.
Above, the moonlight flooded the lips of the canyon. To north and south
the great river roared away, ever diving deeper into the bowels of the
earth, as if to hide its red waters from the light of the sun.

From shelf to shelf, from coulee to coulee, from slope to slope! It was
a weary night! Many times they thought they heard the dog calling to
them. Once or twice they thought they heard voices. But always
investigation of the localities from which the sounds had seemed to come
brought no satisfactory result.

“Suppose we go back to the boat?” asked Alex.

Case threw himself down on a rock, yawned, and pointed to the western
lip of the big canyon. It showed a tinge of pink.

“It is time, I think,” he said. “This light is not that of the moon, but
of the sun! We’ve been all night blundering around here!”

But it was not possible to reach the boat in a few minutes. The lads
were far up the east side of the canyon, and the path to the bottom was
long, winding, and uncertain. They had wandered far to the north, too,
and the location of the boat was hidden by a rocky summit.

Below them lay the level filling in front of the old copper mine. At the
northern extremity of the fill stood a single shack, built of the boles
of yellow pine and roofed with shingles rough-hewn from the same useful
tree. Case pointed down and gave his chum a nudge in the ribs.

“Uncle David’s home!” he said. “The deserted shack!”

“Deserted!” echoed the other. “If it is deserted, tell me what the
dickens the chimney is smoking for?”

What the boy said was true, for a thin column of smoke was ascending
from the chimney of the old mine house, supposed to have been deserted
by mankind long ago!

“Suppose we go down and make a social call?” suggested Case.

“It would be all right to find out who lives there,” Alex agreed.

“Probably some old hermit, like Don’s uncle,” Case ventured.

“Yes, probably; still, it may be the headless ghost! What do you make of
that ghost business, anyway?” the boy added.

“I think it is easy enough to solve that puzzle,” Case replied. “Some
man rode a horse down that shelf. Both were sheathed in white except
their heads, which were wrapped in black. When they reached the end of
the shelf the white garments, or blankets, or whatever they were, were
tossed down the precipice. Then the black-clad horse and man went softly
up the shelf again. There you have the solution according to Sherlock
Holmes’ methods! Now, who is it that is playing ghost, and why is he
doing it? That’s the question now.”

“But we went to the bottom of the precipice and found nothing white
there. How do you account for that, wise one?”

“But we found footprints, didn’t we? That shows that there was some one
there to-night, doesn’t it? And we found tracks showing that Captain Joe
had been seized, muzzled, and dragged along, didn’t we? No ghost would
do that! Circumstantial evidence is good in this case, but it wouldn’t
convict the ghost of falling over the ledge or of stealing the dog,
because, you see, there is proof that some other person had a chance to
do these same things! Do you understand me?”

“All right, figure it out to suit yourself,” Alex agreed. “Perhaps
you’ll be able, after a time, to reason out the purposes and personality
of this false-alarm ghost, and to release the dog by induction!”

“I half believe you think there is a ghost here,” Case argued, half
provoked at the mental attitude of the other. “Don’t you, now?”

“I certainly do not,” was the answer. “What I object to is your lofty,
cocksure manner of accounting for everything. Here you go ahead and
explain the events of the night as if you had seen every move made. But
you may be right! Really, I half believe you are, and I’m sorry I didn’t
beat you to it by figuring the thing out for myself!”

“Well, then, as we agree on the ghost matter, suppose we go down to the
house and see who is there? Perhaps the occupant of the shack will
invite us to eat! I’m hungry as a wolf, and then some.”

As the boys were about to descend to the level space in front of the old
mine bore, Case caught Alex by the arm and pointed to the opposite wall
of the canyon, some distance away. There was excitement in the boy’s
tone and manner as he said:

“You remember the sunburst on the paper?”

“I should say so,” replied Alex. “I’ve got a copy of it right here with
me. Why do you bring that mystery up now?”

“There’s a sunburst over there on the smooth wall!” Case said. “The sun
shines on the rocks so as to produce the effect of one, anyway.”

“You’ve got to show me!” Alex exclaimed, with a provoking grin.

Case took out his watch and noted the time. Six o’clock.

Alex, puzzled, held the paper he had taken from a pocket out to his
chum, asking:

“Six o’clock, you say? Now, look here! On this paper there is a figure
six marked by the side of the drawing of the sunburst exactly at the
point where the sun now strikes the sunburst on the wall. What does that
mean?”

“Well,” Case answered, scratching his head, “there is a seven below the
six. We’ll see if the seven stands in the same relation to the sunburst
that the six does.”

“What do you mean by that?” asked Alex. “I don’t understand.”

“Look here! The figure six marks where the line of sunlight lies on the
wall at six o’clock! That’s easy, isn’t it? Does the figure seven stand
so as to show where the line of sunlight will lie on the wall at seven
o’clock? Do you get that, muddlehead?”

“Well, what of it? I don’t see no sustenance in that?”

“Look at the other paper?” suggested Case. “Look at the big ‘X.’ That
means ten o’clock, what? Suppose it means ten o’clock? Does that give
you no idea? I guess you’re dense this morning, kid!”

“My head is so empty that it rattles, just as my stomach does!” Alex
replied. “I don’t know a thing!”

“Well,” Case went on, “I’d like to be here at exactly ten o’clock and
see where the line of sunlight lies on the wall then!”

“Oh,” cried Alex, “you think the papers point to time! When the line of
sunlight reaches ten on the wall, as shown by the paper, a door will
open and a troop of trained bankers will issue forth bearing chests of
gold in their hands. Something like that, old chum? Do I get you at
last?”

“No use trying to explain anything to you!” Case replied, turning away
in a rage. “You’d better run back to the boat before you get lost.”

“Now, don’t get a grouch!” laughed Alex. “You know what I mean. When ten
o’clock comes the line of sunlight will lie over the place where Don’s
uncle hid something. Is that your idea?”

“Exactly!” was the reply. “Why didn’t you say that before, instead of
giving out fool talk about trained bankers?”

“Then we’ve found the treasure!” Alex cried, eagerly.

“That depends,” answered Case. “We’ll come back here at ten this
forenoon and see where the line is. There may be a cross on the wall
there, or there may be a rock formation which resembles an ‘X.’ We’ll
have to investigate. But wouldn’t it be fine if we could dig up this
secret while Clay and Don were puzzling over it?”

“Indeed it would! But suppose we go down to the shack and see what kind
of people live there. There may be something to eat in it!”

“If I had your appetite,” Case grumbled, “I’d go somewhere and run a
restaurant! You’re either hungry or sleepy all the time!”

The lads laughed at the idea of Alex owning a restaurant, and scrambled
down the slope to the level dump where the shack stood.

Smoke was still coming from the chimney. The windows had been covered
with boards, securely nailed on, and the boys found the doors locked
when they, after knocking, tried to enter. Circling around the shack,
which was of good dimensions, they finally discovered a small door which
was unfastened, and through this they entered.

They passed, with their electric lights on, through what must at one
time have been a storeroom, came out in an old kitchen, passed on to a
sitting room, which faced the front of the shack, and stopped to listen.

The smothered breathing of a dog came from an adjoining room, and they
hastened to open the door. Captain Joe was tied up with a chain to a
hook in the wall, the chain so short that he could not move more than a
few inches. His head was covered with a heavy burlap bag, which was tied
tightly around his neck.

When released and caressed, the dog appeared to be dazed, and the boys
saw at once that he had been doped with some stupefying drug. This
undoubtedly accounted for his being in captivity. In his usual health
the dog would have made the tying of him up a difficult and dangerous
proceeding. After a time Captain Joe lay down and rubbed the sides of
his head with his paws, as if he had a very bad headache!

In the room where the dog was there was a bed, rumpled and dirty, and a
couple of chairs. Under the bed was a pair of heavy boots, and Alex
whispered to his chum as he looked at them.

“Big boots,” he said, “and the taps have been worn so that the nails
protrude. Our ghost wore them, all right.”

Case went to a closet and began rummaging about. Presently he came out
with a couple of milk-white sheets and a couple of black bags with eye
and nose holes in them.

“We have either struck the home of a train robber or a ghost!” the boy
said. “I’d like to know which!”

“You are likely to be informed soon,” Alex replied, “for there is some
one coming in at the front door right now!”

CHAPTER XVIII.—CASE AND ALEX UNDER ARREST.

Clay and Don remained awake after the shooting. They kept the lights
burning and waited anxiously for the return of Case and Alex, but they
did not come.

While they waited Don told Clay the story of the headless horse and
rider, expressing the opinion that the boys had gone out on a ghost
hunt!

Clay was all interest in a moment, and indignant, too, because he had
not been called in time to view the ghostly procession.

“That’s just what the boys have done!” he agreed. “They’ve gone off in
search of that ghost! I’d like to be with them!”

“All the ghosts they find won’t fat them up any,” laughed Don.

“But they may solve the mystery!” Clay insisted. “That will be worth
while, won’t it?”

“Of course! Now, I have an idea where they will bring up,” the lad went
on, “and I suggest that we head them off as soon as it is daylight. The
boat will be safe in the daytime, I think.”

“Where will they go?” asked Clay. “I’d like to surprise them.”

“If they follow along that shelf, after once getting to the top of it,”
Don went on, “they will come out in time near the old mine, at the shack
where Uncle David lived so long. They will go into the house and look
for the ghost. Let us get there first!”

“All right! We’ll go just as soon as it gets light.”

But with the first glimpse of the summer sun came two husky men in a
shell of a boat. They rowed up to the shore and stepped out close to the
place where the _Rambler_ was anchored. They were rough-looking fellows,
with half-breed faces and cruel black eyes. The boys felt for their guns
as they approached, although their movements were intended to be
friendly.

“Hello!” one of the men shouted. “Hello, strangers!”

“Come aboard,” Clay said, thinking that he could do no less than invite
the unwelcome guests to join in a cup of coffee, as the beverage was
then bubbling on the electric coils at the back of the cabin.

The strangers re-entered their boat, pushed over to the _Rambler_, and
mounted to the deck, their snaky eyes taking in every detail of the
craft as they did so. Clay served them coffee and such food as had been
prepared for breakfast, and waited for them to make their business
known. At length one of them broached the subject.

“You’re Don Durand?” he asked, facing the boy.

“Yes; but how did you know that?” answered Don.

“I was about here when you lived with Dave.”

“I don’t remember you,” the boy said, suspiciously.

“I’m Flint,” reminded the other. “I worked in the mine for Dave.”

“I was a little chap, and didn’t know the miners,” Don hastened to say,
for he was nervous under the evil eyes of the fellow who called himself
Flint and claimed acquaintance.

“Uncle died after you left,” Flint continued, and Don nodded.

“You’ve come back to look up his property?”

Don hesitated, but decided to tell the exact truth.

“I came back to see the country, and if there is anything here that
belongs to me I’ll take it away with me.”

“There’s nothing here,” Flint said, with a scowl. “A man named Frost
came and took everything there was in the house.”

“And the papers?” asked Don. “Where are they?”

“He took them also. He hunted for a buried treasure until he got the
whole county to laughing at him! I reckon Dave didn’t have any treasure
to hide when he died! He was as poor as the rest of us.”

“I’m going to look through the old house,” Don said. “There may be
something there this man Frost overlooked. By the way, I think I know
this man Frost. But what right had he to come here and remove the
property?”

“He had some kind of a writing, he said. I never saw it.”

“Do you know where he came from?” asked Don, then. “From Chicago?”

“He said he lived in Chicago,” was the evasive reply.

“Well,” Don concluded, “I’m going to tear the old house down, if it is
necessary to do so to find the papers I want.”

“The old house belongs to me and Ike, here,” with a nod at his
companion, “and we wouldn’t like to have it torn down.”

“Who gave it to you?” demanded the boy, angrily.

“I got it from this man Frost. He sold it to me. I let Ike in on a half
interest, so, as I was sayin’, I wouldn’t like to have it torn down—not
right away! In fact, I’ll shoot any person that even tries to get into
it. Nothing personal, lad! I just speak generally.”

“Will you give me permission to look through it?” asked Don.

“I can’t see as it would do you any good to look through it. There is
nothing there but dust and a few living things, such as dishes and the
like. You wouldn’t care to see them, I take it.”

Don was about to make a hasty reply, but Clay seized him by the arm and
drew him to one side. The boy was shaking with anger.

“Keep cool!” Clay warned. “We’ll get into that house, all right, but
we’ll do it without permission from him.”

Flint and Ike went away while the two boys talked together. When they
had disappeared down the river, the lads finished their breakfast and
prepared for a visit to the old mine. It was nearly seven o’clock when
they came within sight, from the south, of the building. They had been
climbing for three hours or more.

At first they saw no one on the old dump, but before long they saw a
heavy, flabby man in a broadcloth coat and silk hat working away at the
front door of the house. Don’s voice shook as he said:

“That’s Josiah Trumbull! I guess he’s got me at last!”

“Looks more like you had him!” Clay retorted. “He seems to have a key to
that door. I reckon he’s been here before.”

“A good many times!” Don replied. “Too many times!”

“I wonder if King is anywhere about?” asked Clay. “I don’t think
Trumbull came here alone. I hope he’ll get kicked out of the house, if
he gets in!”

Trumbull unlocked the door and swung it open. The house was in the
shadow, for it was on the east side of the canyon, but there was a
strong light across the great cut, where the morning sun was shining on
the rocks. Trumbull stopped in the doorway, lighted a cigar, drew a long
breath and turned to enter.

Then two quick shots came from the interior, and Trumbull crinkled up on
the slice of stone which stood for a platform in front of the door.
Thinking only of the tragedy which had taken place before their eyes,
and not of themselves on their own safety, Clay and Don ran forward and
bent over the fallen man. They saw in a moment that he was quite dead.

Then Case and Alex came rushing through the doorway, the latter carrying
a smoking revolver in his right hand, his face white and pinched.

“Great God, lads!” Clay shouted. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you
wait? Why did you do it?”

Alex threw down the weapon and was about to make some reply when he was
grabbed from behind. In an instant steel handcuffs were on his wrists as
well as those of Case. There was no struggle. The boys were too dazed to
resist and Clay and Don were too dumfounded to say a word.

Then, in another moment, King, Flint, and Ike appeared beside the body,
bending over it, and Clay and the others dumbly realized that it was
King who had manacled their chums.

“You’re caught with the goods!”

The man who had been called Ike was the speaker, and there was a note of
triumph in his tone.

“You boys went too far this time. I’m sheriff here, and I saw the
shootin’.”

“What does it mean?” asked Case. “Neither one of us did the shooting.
Alex’s gun lay on a chair, and we missed it, and the next—”

“That will do for you!” broke in Ike. “Tell it to the judge.”

“Let him talk if he wants to,” King said, lifting his eyes bravely to
the accusing ones of the boys. “He has a perfect right to make any
statement he desires to make.”

“You’re a new one on me!” the man who had been called Ike said, with a
scowl at King. “Who are you, and how did you get into the house? I saw
you running, too, when the shots were fired.”

“I came here with Trumbull,” was the reply. “He went to the front door
to get in, while I walked around to the rear to see what was going on
there. I had noticed a window up when we approached.”

“How do we know that you didn’t do the shooting?” demanded Clay.

“The truth will come out in the end,” King said. “I was in there when
the shots were fired, and so were these men. Who are they?” he asked,
addressing his conversation to Clay.

“I’m the sheriff,” declared Ike, “and this man and me own the house. We
seen the boys do the shootin’. Yes, we’ve got a clear case.”

He picked up the revolver Alex had thrown down.

“Is this yours, kid?” he asked.

“Yes,” was the dazed reply.

Ike whirled the cylinder, showing two empty cartridges. Then he put the
weapon into his pocket with a grin.

“I guess that settles it,” he said. “We’ll take ’em to jail!”

“I never shot him!” Alex cried out. “I laid my gun down on a chair while
I wrestled around with the dog, getting the bag off his head, and some
one picked it up and fired! Next time I saw it, it was lying on the
floor in front of the door to the side room, and I picked it up.”

“I saw you with it in your hand, a moment after Trumbull fell,” King
said. “These men appeared in a moment, and must have seen you there,
too.”

“Indeed we did,” Flint cut in.

“But you don’t believe he killed this man?” Clay appealed to King.

“It looks bad!” was the answer. “It looks bad, boys!”

“You’re prejudiced,” Clay said. “You’ve been sneaking around after us
ever since we came on the river! You stole on board our boat, too, and
tried to rob us. I believe you did the shooting yourself.”

Clay was angry and excited. His eyes flashed and his cheeks flamed as he
accused King. The deputy made no direct reply, but stood looking at the
revolver and at the prisoners.

“Well, we may as well take the boys to jail,” Ike suggested. “We’ve got
a long climb to the top, and some distance to go after that.”

“If the people about here get wind of this cold-blooded murder,” Flint
cut in, maliciously, “there may be a necktie party, so you’d better get
them in a safe place as soon as possible.

He stared at Clay and Don as he spoke, and finally turned to the
sheriff, who was moving closer to the boys, a triumphant look in his
eyes.

“I think it might be well to take these two with the others,” he
remarked, including Clay and Don with a swing of his long arm. “If I
make it out right, this is a conspiracy-to-murder case, and these other
lads are just as guilty as the others. Bring ’em along, Ike.”

Clay and Don sprang back as the sheriff approached to do the other’s
bidding, but King interposed, preventing the advance of the other.

“Wait a minute!” he said, coolly. “Don’t move, boys,” as the two
continued to retreat, evidently resolved to gain the boat. “This is my
case, and these are my prisoners. I made the arrest, you must remember,”
he continued, turning to Ike. “You can’t take them away from me!”

“Your prisoners!” shouted the sheriff. “We’ll see about that! Who are
you? I’m the sheriff here! Keep away, or I’ll do something you won’t
like! Keep away,” as King stepped forward.

King, perfectly calm, indeed, with a cynical smile on his face, took a
long, folded document from a pocket and held it out to Ike. There was a
moment’s pause, and then the other took the paper and glanced at it.

“You see,” King went on, with provoking composure, “that I am a deputy
sheriff in this county, the same as you are. This commission gives me
the same powers that you have, if you really are a deputy! Now, these
are my prisoners, and when I require your help I’ll ask for it.”

The boys were still prisoners, but, somehow, Clay felt greatly relieved
at the change in the situation. He regarded King as his enemy, but of
two evils he considered him the least. Flint and Ike slunk back and
stood glowering at the little group.

“I arrest the four for trespass!” Ike finally roared. “I’ll take them to
jail for that, and you can’t stop me!”

“They are all my prisoners,” King insisted, “and I’m going to take them
back to the boat. If you are an officer, you may summon the coroner and
have him empanel a jury. And one of you would better remain with the
body, without disturbing it in any way, until the coroner comes.”

“Are you really going to take us back to the _Rambler_?” asked Clay, his
attitude toward King changing instantly. “You’re a squarer man than I
thought!” he went on, “and I’ll withdraw all I said against you a minute
ago! You won’t lose anything by giving Case and Alex a chance to show
that they didn’t do the shooting!”

“No officer ever loses anything by being fair,” King said. “Now,” he
went on, “I’m trusting to the honor of you boys, and I want you to do
the right thing by me. I’m going to take off the irons and let the
prisoners move about as they please, and—”

“If you do,” roared Ike, “I’ll have a man down here to watch ’em! I’ll
have the boys out for a lynching! I’ll show you that no eastern sleuth
can come here and run this county.”

“Will you remain here while this other man goes for the coroner?” asked
King, paying no attention to the threats of the angry man.

“It is my duty,” answered the other, sullenly.

King unlocked the handcuffs and told the boys to wait while he entered
the house. He was gone some minutes, and when he returned his face
showed more excitement than the boys had ever before seen there.

“Come on, boys,” he exclaimed, without noticing the others, “we’ll get
back to the _Rambler_. It has been some time since I have been aboard
the good old craft.”

“I hope they’ll get away from you!” howled Ike.

“I’ll see that they don’t get out of the country if they do!” Flint
cried out. “I’ll see that they get what’s coming to them!”

Without paying the slightest attention to the oaths and sneers of the
two, King and the boys moved off down the incline, and, after hours of
hard walking, came out on the bank where the _Rambler_ lay.

“Now,” King said, as they all stood looking at each other with
questioning eyes, “we’ve got as strange a murder case to handle as ever
Holmes undertook to straighten out!

“It looks black for you two lads, but I’m going to see that you get a
fair show!”

There was a smile on his face as he spoke!

CHAPTER XIX.—TWO GUESTS FROM CHICAGO.

“Why does it look worse for us than for the two men who were in the
house with us?” asked Clay. “They had as fair a chance to do the
shooting as we did, and they are none too good to shoot a man in the
back!”

“But Alex’s gun is the one that did the work,” King explained, still
smiling, “and he came out of the house, an instant after the man fell,
with it, still smoking, in his hand! You’ll have to account for the gun
getting away from him, and then back into his hand the next instant!”

“I can do that, all right,” Case hastened to say, motioning to Alex to
keep still. “When we went into the house we found Captain Joe tied up in
a sleeping room off the sitting room, at the front of the house. There
was a heavy bag tied over the dog’s head, to keep him still, I suppose,
and Alex laid his gun on a chair by the door of the sleeping room while
he took the bag off.”

“Was the chair in the sitting room or the bedroom?” asked King,
critically.

“It was in the sitting room, and Alex put it there because he rushed for
the dog the instant we saw him in that plight, laying his gun, which he
carried in his hand, on the first convenient thing he came to. It was
dark in the house, with the windows all nailed up, and I was carrying an
electric flashlight.”

“Where was the gun the next time you saw it, Alex?” asked King, gravely.

“It was on the floor, just outside the sleeping room door. I didn’t see
it after I laid it on the chair until the shots had been fired. When I
picked it up it was smoking. Some one grabbed it and fired, then threw
it on the floor. It was done to get us into trouble!”

There was a short, gloomy silence, and then Clay asked:

“Mr. King, where were the men when you entered the house?”

“I did not see them when I first entered,” answered the deputy, with a
quiet smile. “They were somewhere ahead of me.”

“When did you first see them?” questioned Don, in a moment.

“I was in the room back of the sitting room when the shots were fired
and I naturally rushed forward, thinking that Trumbull had been foolish
enough to do some shooting. When I passed through the rear door to the
sitting room, the two men were in a back corner of the apartment, and
Alex stood in front of the sleeping room with the smoking gun in his
hand.”

“Did you hear any noise after the firing of the shots?”

“Several. Tell me the sort of noise you refer to.”

“A noise like the sliding of a metal substance across a bare floor.”

“You have the detective instinct, son,” King replied, with a grin. “Yes,
I did hear a noise which might have been made by a gun sliding across a
bare floor! But we’ll talk of that later. What I want to know now is
what these men said to you boys this morning.”

“So you know of that, too?” asked Clay, in amazement.

Very briefly the boy then told of the morning interview, adding:

“They said they’d shoot any one who tried to enter the house.”

“But why are they guarding the house?” asked Case. “Why did they shoot
Trumbull when he entered? They must have a notion that there is
something of great value hidden there.”

“That’s the idea!” King agreed. “They think there’s a third paper
somewhere in the shack! What do you think about it, boys?”

“Say!” Alex broke in. “We found the sunburst and the big ‘X’ this
morning! If you’ll go at ten some day where we were at six, you’ll see
something! We just happened to notice the wall, when we came to the top
of a shelf, and there the things were!”

“And so you think you can find the treasure—if there is one hidden
here—without the aid of the third paper?” asked the deputy.

“I can tell you better after I see where the sun-line touches the
formation we called a sunburst at ten o’clock,” Alex answered.

“I’ll go with you to-morrow at ten o’clock,” King declared.

“I should think you’d be taking us to jail!” Alex grinned.

“You ought to be taken to jail for breaking into that house,” King
laughed, “but if you’ll go get fish enough for us five and a couple of
more fish-hungry people, I’ll let you remain at liberty a little
longer!”

“If you think I’m going to catch fish for those big stiffs, you have
another think coming!” Alex answered. “I’ll catch fish for you, but not
for the others!”

“Other people came in here with me,” King went on. “They’ll be here
directly, I think. There! That’s their knock, now!”

The “knock” was the sharp report of a pistol. King started away in the
rowboat, leaving the boys gathered on the deck of the _Rambler_, all
anxious to be moving, yet not caring to swim ashore.

Directly the officer came back around a bend in the wall of rock. In the
boat was a man Don recognized on the instant.

“That’s Myron G. Frost, the manager of the bank where I worked!” he
explained. “I guess he’s come out after me and the handbag!”

“Where do you think he came from?” asked Case. “How long has he been
prowling around here? You don’t think he’s the ghost, do you?”

All these questions were asked at random, and to no one in particular,
as King rowed the banker to the _Rambler_. Don moved back as Frost
stepped on the deck, but the banker seized the boy by the hand and gave
him a friendly little shake.

“You little runaway!” he cried. “I’ll keep track of you after this.”

“Where’s the use?” asked Don, dolefully. “I’m going to be put in jail
for murder!”

“Poor Trumbull!” said Frost. “He was a crook, but he was trying to do
the right thing when he was shot down! That was a brutal crime!”