"Better as it is," Thure declared. "Now, we've had our warning and nobody hurt; but, if you had discovered the fellow behind the log, they'd have got you, sure, and, probably, me, too. Both were doubtless on hand; and would have shot you before you could have done anything, if you had discovered one of them. Now, I reckon, if they had found the camp unguarded, they were intending to have a try for the map then and there--and they would have got it! Well, what do you think about doing as they ask, and leaving the map under the stone? It seems from what that stone says--" "What!" and Bud turned in astonishment to Thure. "Give up that map to a couple of the biggest cowards and cut-throats in California? I'd sooner give them every drop of blood in my body. I--" "Well, you need not get so rambunctuous over it," laughed Thure. "But," and his face sobered, "I reckon that that there is no idle threat," and he pointed to the flat stone, which now lay on the ground at his feet; "and I fancy the sooner we get to our dads the better it will be for us. Not that I'd be afraid of those two skunks," he added hastily, "if they'd come out in the open, where one could see them; but I do not care for any more creeping upon a fellow in the dark, when he's asleep," and he glanced shudderingly toward the log. "But, there is no use of talking any more about it. Let's get busy. We must make Sacramento City to-night sure." In a very short time breakfast was eaten, the horses saddled and bridled and packed, and the two boys ready to mount and to start on their way again. "Now, for our answer to that there message," and Thure picked up the flat stone and dropped it into the camp-fire. "I reckon that will tell them what we think of their threat; and that we're too old to be scart like little school boys," and he sprang on the back of his horse. "Now for Sacramento City!" and the two boys, with watchful eyes glancing all around them, resumed their lonely journey toward the new city on the Sacramento. CHAPTER VII CAUGHT IN THE FLOOD