hero of the hour. The savages believed in doing everything thoroughly: if they fought, they fought to kill and when they ate, they stuffed to bursting.

Dick Oakwood, with his habit of moderate eating, would have made a poor impression but for the exploits of Dan, who upheld the honor of both by his attacks upon the food.

As Dan picked a bone, he threw it behind him, over his shoulder and instantly a child of the tribe would snatch it as a prize.

The Gorols were in high spirits. They foresaw happy days ahead, days of hunting and feasting with no more fear of war with the Taharans to disturb their sleep.

"We are all friends and brothers!" said Wabiti, rising with a gourd full of the honey drink.

"Friends and brothers," echoed Dick.

Wabiti chuckled sleepily, sat down abruptly and the next moment his head fell forward and he began snoring like a buzz saw.

Dick was not displeased. He looked forward to many happy years, studying these simple people, left over from the Old Stone Age, and watching them develop as he taught them the arts of peace.

After the Gorols had eaten all their skins could hold, they began to drop off to sleep and Dick called Raal to him.

"Now is a good time for us to explore the country undisturbed," he said. "You and I will look over the Black Boiling Spring that I saw one terrible night. And I would enter the cave of the Great Gorol, where we stole the sacred black image."

"I hear. I obey!"

Raal ordered one of the Gorols to bring a bundle of torches and told Kurt and Kurul to stay where they were and look after Dan, who was stretched out in a happy doze.

But as Dick rose to go, Dan started after him. "I wasn't sleeping," he cried. "I just closed my eyes to think! I'm going along."

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing. I'd just feel better to go with you."

"You're not afraid, are you?" laughed Dick. "The Gorols are all friendly."

"Of course not. But I was just thinking, suppose that old witch-doctor, Cimbula, happened to smell the cooking and crash the party. He might persuade those fellows to throw me into the Boiling Spring after all."

"Well, come along, if you're able to walk," answered Dick.

They followed the winding trail to the hot sulphur spring that still sent its suffocating fumes from the black pit and bubbled menacingly as the boys looked down.

"Jiminy crickets! I'll never forget how they wanted to chuck me in there," exclaimed Dan. "Walk a little faster!"

"Come along. There's the cave mouth just ahead."

The chums paused to stare at the tall posts that marked the entrance, each crowned with a polished human skull, then Raal got the torches flaring and passed them out to light their way.

Dick followed close beside Raal, with Dan at his heels, as they plunged into the darkness of the cave. The narrow walls rose straight beside them as they proceeded slowly, and soon Dick reached the place where the passage turned at right angles.

Here the walls were flat surfaces, smoothed and cut artificially. It was no longer a rugged cave but a tunnel.

"Look!" exclaimed Dan. "The walls are all covered with drawings."

Dick held up his torch to the rocky surface and saw that it was painted with pictures of hunting scenes, men pursuing boars and antelope. The drawings were done in outline and rubbed with some brownish color to make them show clearly.

"These are real Stone-Age pictures," said Dick as they went deeper and deeper into the cave. "They are like the ones that Umba is painting now in his cave, but they show animals that have died out long ago. See, here are drawings of extinct animals. There is the sabre-tooth tiger. And look, that is a mastodon with long, curved tusks."

"Jiminy, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could find one or two left over?" said Dan.

"A mastodon? Not likely! The climate has changed since the time that picture was made and those giants died out long ago," Dick replied.

"Well, anyhow, some day we will go hunting in the high mountains. Maybe we can find one or two animals that are extinct everywhere else."

"We'll certainly do that little thing," said Dick. He held his torch closer to the wall to examine a large crack in the surface. It was of rotten, crumbling stone in the fissure and as Dick pried at it with his flint knife, a handful of fragments dropped out.

Dan stooped to look at them. He rose to his feet with his eyes bright with excitement.

"Do you know what this is?" he exclaimed. "Quartz! Rotten quartz! And it's heavy with gold."

Dick stared at the glittering bits of ore and echoed: "Gold!"

"We have stumbled on the place where all that metal comes from," said Dan. "This is a mine. See how the passage goes on at a right angle. It was dug to follow the ledge of gold."

"I wonder. These people don't value gold. They use it the way we use any common metal."

"It's the only metal they know," said Dan. "And it's common here as old iron is with us."

Raal showed no interest in their find. Gold was nothing more to him than lead or tin. He picked up a yellow nugget from the floor and carelessly threw it away again.

"I don't think the tribe hollowed this tunnel for gold," said Dick. "I believe they cut it for use as a temple. And from the rock that was dumped outside they collected the gold that happened to be mixed with the crushed stone."

"What a find!" Dan repeated over and over. "Why, Dick, this would lead to a gold rush if the news ever got out. Just like the California and Yukon stampedes."

"I hope nobody lets the word get out!"

"If Jess Slythe knew about it, he'd be here with an army of ruffians," said Dan.

"And kill off all the tribesmen. It would be a tragedy."

By this time the boys had reached the square dark chamber, with the stone block on which the idol of the ape-god had once been worshipped. Here the seams of ore were richer and thicker than in the tunnel and the floor of the room was heavy with glinting particles of yellow.

"Jiminy crickets!" gasped Dan Carter. "Gold dust! Think of it, Dick, the place is carpeted with gold dust! We're rich! Millionaires!"

But Dick was not happy. He had not come there to make money but to discover an ancient tribe. The secret of the gold would mean the slaughter of those people, if the word spread.

When he left the cave he had resolved to swear Dan to secrecy, and as for the cave, he would order the natives to wall up its mouth for fear of evil magic.

Following his visit to Wabiti's tribe, Dick returned to the Taharan village, where he began teaching the natives the simple arts that they could practice.

The women were shown how the wool of wild sheep and the hair of goats could be spun into yarn, and he had primitive looms set up in caves, where cloth was woven.

Veena, the pretty little handmaiden of the old queen, was quick to learn and as she was fond of Dick and anxious to please him, she was among the first to produce a fine piece of cloth.

Veena blushed with pleasure when he praised it and looked at him shyly, then cast down her blue eyes much like one of the girls at home. With her fair skin and blond hair, Veena might have been his own sister.

The sharp-faced Queen Vanga, was given an occupation to keep her quiet. Now that she no longer ruled the tribe, Vanga was set to overseeing the women who spun and wove. She did it with relish.

"Work faster, you lazy creatures!" she cried. "Don't stop to gossip! Don't go to sleep over your work!" and if any of them talked back, she did not hesitate to box their ears. Old Vanga was still a queen.

Dan was especially useful in teaching the men of the tribe something about farming and horse-breaking. Both Dan and Dick had been in Arizona long enough to see how the cowboys did things and soon the Taharans had learned to make lariats out of their palm fibre ropes. Dick and Dan took turns in showing them how to lasso and throw the little wild horses,