"Good! Now there only remains to collect our things. I'll see to the pick. I left mine out, to-day, after _that_. See to your arms and ammunition, and get a store of coffee. It's paid for, remember. Fill your pockets with cold grub, for they _may_ make a search for us, though I hardly think it. Time's too precious for that. Go, now, and keep close guard over your tongues. 'Twould take but a trifle to direct suspicion when we are found gone, and then good-by to our fortune." "Trust us--we'll be wise as the dove, and so forth," muttered Tyrrel. The three plotters glided away and soon rejoined the camp. Scarcely had they disappeared from view, when a dark figure cautiously raised itself above the level of the prairie-grass, where it had been concealed in a hollow, and peered curiously after them, a low, disagreeable chuckle breaking from the black-bearded lips. "Ho! ho! ho! Nate Upshur, you're in luck, my boy! Fust you see the nugget Wythe drops, then you hear Duplin whisper to him an' Tyrrel, and now, best of all, you hear the whole story! Thar's luck in odd numbers--and yet I'm goin' to have a finger in the pie, too." Then he, too, proceeded stealthily toward the camp, by a circuitous route, entering unobserved. That night, the sick-camp was the scene of strange acts. And among them was one of terror--of cold-blooded, merciless crime. As the bright moon sailed from behind a dense cloud, a dark figure silently crept into the shadow cast by a small white tent. From within, as the shadow paused, came the sound of calm, steady breathing. Then the door-flap was raised--the black shadow cautiously glided into the tent, like a venomous serpent in human form. The flap falls behind the serpent, and all is still. Then--a horrible sound breaks the stillness of the night--a faint, gasping, half-stifled groan of death-agony. Then the shadow reappears, bearing in one hand a blood-stained knife, in the other a small parcel that chinks metallic-like as it falls from its hand. Then all is still. CHAPTER II. THE TELL-TALE PIPE. Long before the first beams of breaking day illumined the eastern horizon, the shrill voice of the little, wrinkled, half-apish-looking guide, Paul Chicot, roused the sleeping camp, bidding all prepare for a long, hard day's travel. Eagerly the emigrants flew around, for once more the golden phantom seemed beckoning them on. And yet, despite their anxiety, that day was to carry them no nearer the golden land. A blow fell that for the moment drove away all such thoughts. "Whar's Dutchy?" suddenly queried Paul Chicot, running his beadlike eyes rapidly around the little group. As customary, the emigrants were regularly divided into "messes." One of these messes was formed by the guide, Chicot, Nate Upshur, an Irishman called Tim Dooley, and "Dutchy," as the fourth member was familiarly known.