It was nearly evening when they arrived at the spot dignified by the name of Morongo Valley, and the westering sun transmuted the sterile scene into one of glorious radiance and scarlet-tinged hues. All around stretched the peaks of the Dead Mountains, not clothed with the glorious forests of New Mexico, but with their naked eminences now gleaming in blue and scarlet fires of sunset, their valleys long streamers of darker purples, their bald slopes a yellow golden glory. The valley itself was a box cañon, a small one, the upper end a solid mass of greenery. There was water here--a tiny trickle, that had been brought from the hillside to vivify the upper flat, and had given its precious life to all the higher slopes, before it lost itself in the farther sands. The road, better preserved here, led them to the shack of Hassayamp. It was scarce worthy the name of shack--a rough erection of boards and scraps of tin, designed only to afford shelter from the elements. Sandy, standing beside the car and scrutinizing the hill-slopes, pointed upward. "That's the mine, I'm thinkin'--that contraption o' timbers halfway up. It seems to have caved in. We're not interested in that, however; ruby silver is what'll make us sit up! Time for that in the morning." Murray viewed the interior of the shack, and declared for sleeping in the open air. They were up and about by sunrise. Murray was cool and rather sardonic in regard to the whole affair, but Mackintavers was cheerful and blithe as any boy of a prospector on his first search for earth-gold. The sight of that glittering silver ore, that wondrous ruby silver ore whose arsenic had ruined many a man and whose silver content had made thousands rich, was like a tonic in the blood of Sandy. By evening they had gone over the ridge wherein lay the unfortunate Hassayamp, and had found no ruby silver vein. They had struck gold in promising lodes, but gold was naught before the ruby silver--if they found it. Sandy continued cheerful, and Murray was coolly complacent, doing as Mackintavers bade him but frankly without hope of success. With the following morning, they took picks and labored valiantly until shortly before noon. Then Murray descried a little group of figures breaking its way toward them--not from the direction of Two Palms, but from the north, from the desert of the Colorado. The group resolved itself into two plodding, patient burros and the nondescript outline of a desert rat. The latter greeted them as they met him at the shack. "Howdy, pilgrims! Seen your smoke this mornin', and sinct I was headin' in for town anyhow, I come this way. My land, but you're in style, ain't ye! Autobile an' all--say, is that a real autobile? I seen one oncet, las' time I was over to Eldorado--but sho! Here I be, forgettin' all decency! My name's George Beam, gents, though most folks address me as Sagebrush."