one hand. "And it looks and feels and weighs like gold! It must be gold."

"It sure does look like gold," agreed Thure. "It looks and feels just like the nuggets dad sent home, only larger. Oh, if we only could find the cave where it came from! Let me see, he said that it was in the Golden Elbow of Crooked Arm Gulch, in Lot's Canyon, near a white pillar of rock and a big tree that we must climb to the third limb—a mighty queer place I call that to find a cave! I reckon he must have been lunaticy," and Thure turned a disappointed face to Bud.

"Well, he certainly found gold, and this proves it," and Bud tossed the big nugget up in the air and caught it as it came down, "to say nothing of the five thousand dollars' worth of gold nuggets that he claims his murderers stole from him. But, didn't he say something about a map, a skin map, that would tell us how to find the cave?" and his face lighted.

"Yes, yes, that was the little roll of white skin I pulled first out of the bag," and Thure's eyes searched eagerly the ground. "Here it is!" and, stooping quickly, he picked up the little roll of white parchment-like skin that he had pulled out of the little bag and dropped on the ground, and began unrolling it with fingers that trembled with excitement, while Bud crowded close to his side, his eyes on the unrolling piece of tanned skin.

The skin was some ten inches long by seven inches wide, of a somewhat stiff texture, and tanned so that it was nearly white. On the inner side an unskilled hand had rudely drawn a map; and beneath the map was written the words: