"Say!" broke in Deadoak with sudden remembrance. "I met Shovelface Ryan on his way to Meteorite--the chink girl had give him ten dollars to take some letters over there pronto. Tellygrams too. Well, Shovelface give me a squint at 'em, but he wouldn't let me open 'em a-tall; he's a queer cuss, Shovelface is, in some ways! Them letters was addressed to chinks in San Francisco, and they had photygrafts inside--they'd been put in damp and had curled up; I could feel 'em----" "That proves it!" cried Piute in triumph. "That proves it, Deadoak! This here chink done located somethin' out to that place. And by whiz, he photygrafted it! Then he writ back to all his chink friends to let 'em in on the good thing." "But all this," said Deadoak thoughtfully, "ain't nothin' to me no more. I don't own no mine in Morongo Valley! I don't own nothin' except a note for five hundred----" "Well, _I_ got some money to work with," broke in Piute. "You vamose out to that there mine and look her over! The chink an' the girl brung back some pictures and some of 'em was broke, but I guess a few was saved; the girl developed 'em in that closet the chink hired for a dark room. Most likely she left 'em there. I'll have a look in there early in the mornin', and mebbe we can get a clue. "Then, you chase out to the valley an' keep your eye on things. Take some grub and a pair o' blankets, and watch what them pilgrims does, savvy? Take them glasses o' mine, and you can lay up top o' the hill all snug." "The sun lays up there, too," said Deadoak, plaintively. "It lays up snug, and it's hotter'n hell, and brings out the rattlers an'----" "You never mind," cut in Piute. "You're a-goin', that's all!" Deadoak bowed his head in bitter assent. "My, but you're plumb sot in your ways, Piute!" he returned feebly. "I'll go." CHAPTER VII STUNG! Sandy Mackintavers was desert-wise, so far as automobile travel was concerned. He did not travel without spare water-bags and lengths of rolled chicken-wire, and at Meteorite he had fitted his flivver with a running-board pump. After passing the marble cañon and negotiating the stretch of bad land where volcanic ash sifted into the air and obsidian glittered under foot, Murray steered the flivver down into the basin where all road was lost, where the loose sifting sands were blazing with the heat of an inferno, and where the car bogged down into the bottomless dust. Sandy deflated the tires, and when this would no longer serve, utilized the chicken-wire to run out of holes; by some miracle of desert sense, he managed to hold the right direction, although the rude map furnished them by Piute was useless to Murray.