Old McGee chuckled over his pipe.  It was clear that, ancient and feeble as he was, he still believed with all the fanaticism and optimism of a prospector that he would be the one to find the three buttes of gold.

“It stands ter reason thar’s gold out thar,” declared old man McGee, waving his pipe about argumentatively.  “Ther good Lord never made nuthin’ thet wasn’t of some use, even ther fleas on a houn’ dawg, for they keep him frum thinkin’ uv his troubles.  Very well, then, the desert is good fer nuthin’ else but mineral wealth, and Providence made it so plagued hard ter git at so that everyone couldn’t git rich at oncet.”

The boys had to laugh at this bit of philosophy, but as they went to bed they could not help thinking of the toll of lives the great barren stretches of the Colorado desert has exacted from gold-seekers.  In Jack’s dreams he seemed to be traversing vast solitudes of sand and desolation dotted with bleaching bones, and he woke with a start to find that it was daybreak and that Tom was shaking him out of his sleep.

Below, old man McGee was ready with his team and had already got on his wagon some of the crates from the freight shed.  They made a hasty breakfast and then started out.  There was hardly anybody about and they congratulated Zeb on his strategy in conducting affairs with such secrecy.

But as they passed into the outskirts of the town, where the Mexicans and Indians lived, Dick Donovan uttered a sudden exclamation.

“Hopping horn-toads!” he gasped.

“What’s up?” asked Jack, who sat beside him.

“Oh, nothing,” said Dick, “the wagon gave an extra hard jolt, that was all, and I thought my head was coming off.”

But the cause of Dick’s exclamation had been this:  From behind a squalid hut he caught sight of three shadowy figures, dimly seen in the half light, apparently watching the wagon and its occupants.

They quickly withdrew as they saw Dick looking at them, but not before the young reporter had received a startling impression that one of them at least was familiar to him.  The wagon drove out over the desert and rumbled along till it came to a deep arroyo, or gulch, in which stood a deserted, bleaching hut.

“This is the place,” said Zeb.

“Sure, you can stay thar fer a year an’ a day an’ nuthin’ but tarant’las an’ rattlers ull ever bother ye,” said old McGee cheerfully.

The cases they had brought were quickly unloaded and lowered into the arroyo which led down to where they could see the turgid flood of the Colorado flowing between low banks.  For at this spot the river is a very different stream from what it is above and below, where it makes its way to the Gulf of California between unscalable walls of cliffs and is a succession of cruel rapids and unpassable falls.

When old McGee drove back for the second and last load, for the Wondership was constructed so as to “take-down” very compactly, Dick elected to go with him.  When they arrived at the freight depot the young reporter took the first opportunity to wire his paper in Boston.