It was just nine by Frank's wrist watch when they arrived. Jerry showed them a trail that led over the range of hills to a canyon zigzagging up the great divide, it having once been the bed of a mighty torrent. By noon they were fairly over the ridge. Beyond lay a small valley, and Jerry was able to locate and point out the canyon he expected to utilize in climbing to the plateau where Gold Fork lay. The place, they understood, was now the picture of desolation, with tumble-down shanties and stores marking it as a long since abandoned mining camp, where an alluring boomlet bubble had burst, to disappoint and ruin hundreds. The ponies were somewhat winded after that stiff climb, so when the ride was continued they took their time in making the descent. "Shucks! two to one we've got to lay over in this washbowl of a valley," grumbled Lanky, "and won't get to the old camp till to-morrow night." Frank, being more disposed to take things as they came and not show undue eagerness, only laughed at his disappointed chum. "Plenty of time, your dad told you, Lanky," he remarked. "Yes, he's always telling me that Rome wasn't built in a day. But I certainly hate to waste the hours. What makes you look up at the sky so often, Frank? Expecting to have a storm break loose on our heads, are you?" "Nothing in sight to say so," replied the other. "I was watching the wheeling movements of those big birds a mile or so high. Jerry tells me they are vultures, the largest carrion birds we have in this country, known as California vultures." "Wow, so _that's_ what they are! I saw them some time ago, but took it for granted they must be only turkey buzzards skimming around on the lookout for some eats. Vultures! Are they related to the monster South American condor?" "First cousins, Zander Forbes told me, and nearly as big, though not so powerful. Why, those condors can carry off a good-sized lamb, I've read. The buzzard of the East and South belongs to the same family, as does the fish-crow of Florida, though of course they're a lot smaller." "Vultures! Well, I never expected to set eyes on such birds on this trip. When Zander was telling that story the other night about an adventure he had when trying to secure an egg for a big museum and near losing his eyes from pecks of the mother, he said this California specimen was hardly ever seen except west of the Rockies; and just now we're on the east side of the big divide." "I don't know anything about that, but he seemed a bit surprised to see them around here. I reckon they go where the feeding is best, even if it takes them across the snow-capped summits of the Rockies." Lanky kept looking up frequently after that, as though some freakish scheme had been hatched in that fertile brain of his which he meant to try out, if only an opportunity offered.