“Oh, the letters'll tell! Read the letters and give her half of it. I'll sign a paper if you'll write it.” So a will was made, and the dying man made a mark before witness, in lieu of the signature he had lost the power to make, and the next day he died. The miners generally believed the stranger's story of this cache to be a figment of his disordered imagination, and Tom himself might have yielded to this theory had not the physician assured him that there was a fair chance of its truth. So Tom preserved the will, the quartz and the key, hoping that chance might sometime disclose the treasure trove if there were any; and a few days later he and young Cooper started a second time on their prospecting tour. This time they took a burro with them, and so were able to carry a small tent and outfit for a fortnight's trip. By active marching they reached the lake that night, finding it slow work to get their unwilling donkey up the steep rocks at the fall, by a circuitous trail and aided by some actual lifting of the little beast. They researched the hut, but found nothing new. The dog, now fat and strong, and a devoted friend, accompanied them and betrayed most excitedly his recognition of the bivouac. Next morning they made their way up to the head of the lake, where the breadth of the gulch and the appearance of things confirmed Tom's previous surmise that this was originally the main channel of drainage. If this were true they ought to get evidence of drift gold; and several days were spent in panning the gravels (nowhere, however, of great extent), with most encouraging results. A few miles above the lake they found the gulch forked into two ravines divided by a rocky spur. They chose the right-hand one and lost three days in fruitless exploration of its bed and walls. Shep (the dog was a collie and they had rechristened him) did not display anything like the joy he had shown in the advance up the main stream, and when they finally returned to the forks they could not but notice his renewed spirits. The dog was again all eagerness, and intensely delighted when on the following morning they started up the left-hand gulch. “It looks as though his master had come down that way, doesn't it?” said Tom. “Maybe he could guide us right back to where he came from; but he'll have to wait a while, for I like the look of that crag up there,” directing his companion's attention to the crest of the wall on the left, “and I want to examine it. You'd better stay here and try to get a blacktail. Bacon three times a day is getting monotonous.” “Don't you think you'd better take the Winchester?” said Cooper. (They had brought but one rifle.) “You might hit up against a grizzly or a mountain lion. I heard one of 'em screeching last night.” “No; I can't lug a gun. I've got my six shooter, and I'll risk it. Come on, Shep! It's noon now, and we won't get back to supper if we don't hurry.”