"By Jove," exclaimed Merry, "here's something else we might lay to Blunt. I don't think, though, that he'd come here and steal any of the professor's ore." "I've got my own ideas about that," said Clancy. "Some one has been here, anyhow. Did the professor do this, when he came for his household goods?" "He wouldn't know how to drill a hole, cap a fuse, and touch off a stick of giant powder. No, Clan, it wasn't Professor Borrodaile. The deeper we get into this business, the more complicated it becomes." The outcropping of ore was wonderfully rich. It was of the sort known as wire gold, and the rock was covered with a fuzzy yellow web of pure metal. What ore had been blown out by? the blast had been gathered up slick and clean. "A bagful of that stuff," said Merry, "would mean a whole lot in dollars and cents. Somebody has been 'high grading.'" "And he dropped a little of his swag as he went off with it," added Clancy, stepping off a few yards from the ledge and pointing to a bit of ore that lay on the ground. "There is some of the fellow's loot," Clancy went on. "It lies gold side up, and shimmers in the sun like a double eagle." He looked at the sample for a few moments, and then slipped it into his pocket. "Finding is keeping," he grinned. "This ought to pay you back, Chip, for the five you gave McGurvin in exchange for stuff that was actually worth about ten cents." Frank ran past Clancy for a couple of rods straight out into the valley. "It was a thundering bad leak, Clan," he called, stooping down and gathering in another ore sample. "That makes two chunks of the stuff the thief lost. He was probably in a rush to get away, and didn't notice how the ore was dribbling out." "Wait a minute, Chip," said Clancy, "and let's figure this down as fine as we can. There are prints of a horse's hoofs along the course where this ore was dropped. Ballard ought to be here to do the Sherlock Holmes racket for us. I'm not very swift at this detective business, but I'll take my oath the thief loaded his bag of loot on a horse." "You don't think, do you," said Frank dryly, "that he'd carry a bag weighing two or three hundred pounds over his shoulder? Of course, he had a pack animal. It wasn't a horse, though, but a burro." "How did you guess it was a burro?" "Small hoofmarks." "Oh, scissors! Of course, of course! This claim of the professor's is too valuable to be left unguarded. He ought to begin working it, or else sell it to some one who'll see that it's taken care of. Let's take our gold ore and make tracks for the chuck sack. I fell hungry, somehow."