The trail led across the wash and turned west toward where the walls commenced to take on the dignity of a canyon. Bunches of sage and greasewood began to dot the sand, and beyond showed the thickets of mesquite. Some prospector was packing water from the creek up the canyon and down into that amphitheater. Suddenly Adam thought of Dismukes. He examined the next hobnailed boot track he descried in the dust with minute care. The foot that had made it did not belong to Dismukes. Adam hurried on. He came upon a spot where the man he was trailing--surely an Indian--had fallen in the sand. A dark splotch, sticky and wet, had never been made by spilled water. Adam recognized blood when he touched it, but if he had not known it by the feel, he surely would have by the smell. Probably at that instant Adam became fully himself again. He was on the track of events, he sensed some human being in trouble; and the encroaching spell of Death Valley lost its power. The trail led into the mesquites, to a wet glade rank with sedge and dank with the damp odor of soapy water. A few more hurried strides brought Adam upon the body of an Indian, lying face down at the edge of the trickling little stream. His black matted hair was bloody. A ragged, torn, and stained shirt bore further evidence of violence. Adam turned him over, seeing at a glance that he had been terribly beaten about the head with a blunt instrument. He was gasping. Swiftly Adam scooped up water in his hat. He had heard that kind of a gasp before. Lifting the Indian’s head, Adam poured water into the open mouth. Then he bathed the blood-stained face. The Indian was of the tribe that had packed supplies for the Vireys. He was apparently fatally hurt. It was evident that he wanted to speak. And from the incoherent mixture of language which these Indians used in conversation with white men Adam gathered significant details of gold, of robbers, of something being driven round and round, grinding stone like maize. “_Arrastra!_” queried Adam. The Indian nodded and made a weak motion of his hand toward the trail that led to the yellow wilderness of clay, and then further gestures, which, with a few more gutturally whispered words, gave Adam the impression that a man of huge bulk, wide of shoulder, was working the old Spanish treadmill--_arrastra_--grinding for gold. Then the Indian uttered, with a last flash of spirit, the warning he could not speak, and, falling back, he gasped and faded into unconsciousness. Adam stood up, thinking hard, muttering aloud some of his thoughts. “_Arrastra!_... That was the way of Dismukes--to grind for gold.... He’s here--somewhere--down in that yellow hole.... Robbers have jumped his claim--probably are holding him--torturing him to tell of hidden gold ... and they beat this poor Indian to death.”