At the top he hesitated, in some doubt as to whether he should return to the house or follow the path on up the canyon. He yielded to the unknown trail, which was singularly well-traveled for a trail that apparently led directly away from any logical destination. He had not gone far when he came upon the flat, level space of a dump. Close beside him the black mouth of a tunnel opened into the cliff rising a sheer hundred feet above his head. He stopped, astonished at this unexpected ending of the trail. The solid face of granite gave no indication whatever of carrying mineral of any kind. There was no logical reason, therefore, for all this evidence of development work. The ethics of his profession forbade his prowling underground without being invited. He would as soon open an unlocked door and go spying through a man’s house and personal belongings. From the size of the dump he judged that the workings extended for some distance underground, and from the look of the rock that had come from the tunnel he knew that any hope of reaching mineral was likely to remain long unfulfilled. Instinctively he picked up a piece of rock here and there, looked at it and threw it aside. If they were driving in to a contact, he thought, the Cramers must have sharp eyes indeed for surface indications. Knowing mineral formations at a glance was a part of his trade, and he had seen absolutely nothing that would lead him to the point of advising any man to lift a shovelful of muck. He turned back. The afterglow was purpling across the river, and he did not want to be too long away from Johnny Buffalo. He reached a turn in the trail where a jutting crag thrust out and overhung the river,--and there he stopped short. Perched on the point of the crag like the vulture his grandfather had named him, Old Jess Cramer leaned and looked down upon the hurrying waters, a full six hundred feet below him. The distance between them was mostly a matter of altitude, for Old Jess had climbed considerably to reach that particular point. Staring up at him, Rawley was struck with a certain weird resemblance to that predatory bird. There was something sinister about him as he sat there; something rapacious and purposeful. It was as if he meant to seize the river and wrest from it something which his greed desired. While he looked, Old Jess stretched out his arm and shook his fist at the roaring stream. Rawley turned away. Something within him revolted at the sight, though even to himself he could not have explained why. As his gaze dropped from Old Jess to the trail, there was Peter standing looking from one to the other. Peter’s face was stern, his eyes cold with disapproval. It seemed to Rawley that he was purposely blocking the trail. “I see you’ve done quite a lot of development work back there,” Rawley remarked to cover a vague embarrassment. “Yes. Quite a lot. Did you go in?”