Rawley smiled at what seemed to him a needless question. “Certainly not. I never go underground unless I’m hired to do so.” He thought he saw relief in his Uncle Peter’s eyes. “Well, I never saw any particular fun in it, myself. It’s all work, to me.” He turned and seemed to be awaiting Rawley’s pleasure. “If you want a view,” Peter hazarded drily, “you ought to go down to where the river swings east, below the basin where we live. You can look straight up the canyon here for a long way. Cliffs are too jagged here to get much of a view; there’s a bulge in the canyon that interferes.” “It’s better down at the landing in front of the house than it is here,” Rawley agreed carelessly. “I see now why Nevada always heads straight for that big, flat rock.” He caught a swift, questioning side glance from Uncle Peter and knew beyond all doubt that the big launch, the hewn-rock stairway and the tunnel in the cliff were things which he was not supposed to know about. But the reason for the secrecy he could not guess. CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE VULTURE SCREAMS A high-keyed snarl brought the two sharply facing the crag. Bearing down upon them with his fists flailing the air in a kind of impotent fury came old Jess Cramer, like a vulture fighting for his feast. Rawley had seen the old man at a short distance, but he had never before stood face to face with him. He would cheerfully have missed the meeting now. Old Jess craned his long neck toward him, his bleak, blue-gray eyes venomous. But it was Peter to whom he spoke--screamed, rather. “Told ye it’d come to this, didn’t I? You _would_ take ’em in and pet ’em up, and treat ’em better’n you do your own kin! Think so much of ’em you had to go and show ’em what we’re doing and why! Reckon when we touch ’er off and git the damned river penned back, you’ll beg ’em on your knees to go down and claw out gold till they wear their fingers to the bone! “What have I slaved for and worked for and hoarded for, all these years? To let you give away the gold when we git it? Is this the kind uh thing I raised ye for? Take in the first stranger that comes snoopin’ around the place, and bring him sight-seein’ up here to our dam! You--!” Rawley had thought the miners he sometimes worked among could curse, but he stood agape before the blistering vituperations of this gray-bearded old man. He looked at Peter, wondering how any man with the King blood could have endured his fancied father’s vile tongue all these years. Peter stood with a face of iron, his eyes terribly blue and hard, and listened impersonally to the frenzied outburst. “That’s enough, now. Shut up and listen to me!” It was like snapping a whip in the face of a roaring lion. Old Jess had stopped merely to gasp fresh air into his lungs so that he could go on. He glared at Peter, weakened and cringed. The fire that had flared in his eyes died as suddenly. He looked toward the river, looked at Rawley and his glance slid away from the two of them.