leave a richer inheritance to mortal than I am about to leave to you. Gold—a cave paved with gold! Gold—a cave walled with seams of gold! Gold—bushels, barrels of gold nuggets, to be picked up, as you pick up pebbles from the stony bed of a river! Gods, if I could but live!" Again the blood flushed back into the white cheeks and the eyes glowed with feverish excitement.

"There! There!" and Thure laid a cool hand on the hot forehead. "Never mind the gold now. When you have rested a bit and have recovered some of your strength, Bud and I will rig up a stretcher out of the bearskin and carry you home between us; and then, when you are comfortably fixed in a soft bed, you can tell us all about this wonderful cave of gold."

No wonder Thure thought all this wild talk about the marvelous cave of gold but the delirium of a dying man and tried to quiet the sufferer; but the miner would not be quieted, and, roughly brushing the hand from his forehead, he turned his glowing eyes full on Thure's face.

"You think I am raving," he said, "that this cave of gold exists only in the disordered fancy of a dying man. Well, I will show you. Thrust your hand under my shirt, beneath my right shoulder, and pull out the small bag you will find there. Quick!" he cried impatiently, as Thure hesitated. "You forget that I am a dying man and have not a minute of time to waste."

Thus admonished, Thure hastily thrust his right hand under the miner's shirt, as directed, and pulled out a small buckskin bag, fastened by a buckskin thong about the miner's shoulder. The weight of the bag, for it was only some seven inches long by three inches wide, surprised him.

"Cut the strings and open the bag," commanded the miner.

Thure quickly did as bidden.

"Now, see what is inside of the bag."

Thure thrust his hand into the bag and drew out a long, tightly rolled piece of white parchment-like skin.

"That is the skin map. Never mind that now. Turn the bag bottom side up and shake it."

Thure caught hold of the bottom of the bag with his fingers, turned it over and gave it a vigorous shake; and then sat staring wildly at the object that had fallen, with a thud, on the bearskin by his side. He was looking at a solid nugget of gold nearly as large as, and shaped very much like his fist!

"Pick it up! Lift it!" urged the miner, his eyes shining with excitement. "It is gold, pure, virgin gold, just as God made it! I picked it up off the bottom of the cave, where there are thousands of other smaller nuggets. In the light of my torch they sparkled and shone until the floor of the cave seemed flooded with golden light. In the two hours I was there I gathered up the Five Thousand Dollars' worth of gold nuggets the robbers stole from me and that nugget, all that I dared take with me; for the way out of Crooked Arm Gulch is not a road over which a man more heavily burdened would care to venture. I had no food with me, no horses; and I must hurry back, where food, on which to live, and horses, on which to carry my supplies to the cave and the gold away from it, could be bought. I—"

"And you found this hunk of gold on the floor of that cave?" Thure who had been lifting and examining the nugget with widening eyes, could control his excitement no longer. "And you say that there are thousands of other nuggets where this came from?"

"Yes, yes! I have been telling you God's truth," and the face grew white and drawn with pain again. "But, don't interrupt me. I—I have only a few minutes left. The nugget, the gold, all is yours. I—I bequeath it to you with my dying breath. The map—the skin map—will tell you where to find it—North—northeast from Hangtown—a good five days' tramp—No miners there yet—Deep—steep canyon—Lot's Canyon—Tall white pillar of rock standing near Crooked Arm Gulch—Must look—sharp—to find gulch opening—Blocked by great—rocks—Big tree—Climb to third limb. Remember—climb to third limb—third limb—third—My God!—My God!" and both hands clutched madly at his throat.

His breath was now coming in quick heaving gasps; and only by a supreme effort of will was he able longer to command his wavering reason.

"Quick—quick," he gasped, his voice coming in a hoarse whisper. "Bend your heads close. Beware of the two men who robbed and murdered me—I—I told—them of the cave of gold; but I did—did not tell them where it is; and—and they—can—cannot find it without the skin map—They—they murdered me for—for that map; but they did not get it—It—it was not in—in my money-belt, as they thought. Guard that map—They—they would kill—kill you to get it. One is a huge red-haired man with a broken nose—The other is—is small, with pock-marked face—Beware—beware pock—pock-marked face and—and broken nose—I—God—I—"

Again he clutched violently at his throat; and then a great wondering look of awe came into his eyes, now staring straight up into the blue skies, and his form stiffened suddenly.

Thure and Bud could endure the dreadful sight no longer and turned their horrified eyes away; and, when, a couple of minutes later, they again looked on the face of the miner, he was dead, with a smile on his grim lips and a look of peace on his face, as if the coming of Death, at the very last, had been a most pleasant and joyous event.

CHAPTER III

THE SKIN MAP

No mortal can look on death unmoved. Savage or civilized, Christian or pagan, a great awe, a questioning wonder thrills the spirits of all who stand in the presence of the dread, unsolvable mystery, death. The soul asks questions that cannot be answered, that the ages have left unanswered. And, as Thure and Bud now stood, with uncovered heads, looking down on the quiet, peaceful face and the motionless, rigid form of the dead miner, the world-old awe and wondering concerning death thrilled their hearts. For a couple of minutes neither spoke, neither moved. Then Thure's eyes sought the face of Bud.

"He is dead," he said solemnly.

"He is dead," answered Bud, not moving his awed eyes from the still face.

"Dead!" and Thure bent and reverently straightened out the bent legs and arms and smoothed back the matted hair from the forehead. "Dead, yes, as dead as a stone; and yet a few minutes ago he was breathing and talking! What a queer thing life is anyhow! Well, it won't do neither him nor us any good to stand here thinking and talking about it. Now we must get the body to the house and give it as decent a burial as possible. I'll carry the body across the saddle in front of me. Come, let's hurry. I am getting anxious to have it over."

For the moment, so great had been the shock of the miner's sudden death, Thure and Bud had forgotten all about the dead man's marvelous tale of the Cave of Gold; but now, as Bud stooped to help lift the body from the bearskin, his eyes caught the yellow glow of the gold nugget, which lay on the skin by the side of its unfortunate finder, and the sight recalled the wondrous tale.

"What do you think of his story about finding that nugget in a cave where the floor is covered with gold nuggets as thickly as pebbles on the bed of a stony river? Do you suppose it is true or, just one of the queer notions that sometimes come to the dying?" and Bud looked wonderingly from the nugget to Thure's face.

"Great Moses, I forgot all about the gold!" and Thure's face flushed with excitement. "Quick, let's get the body on the grass and then we'll have another look at the nugget. That was a powerful queer story he told; but it might be true. And if it is true," and his eyes sparkled, "then we've just got to go to the mines and hunt up our dads and the others and get them to help us find that cave."

In a moment more they had lifted the body off the bearskin and had laid it down on the grass; and the gold nugget was in their hands.

"Glory! But isn't it heavy?" and Bud balanced the nugget in