He threw out an object that rang against the stone. It was a belt
buckle. He threw out old shrunken, withered boots. He came upon
other things, and then he ceased to dig.
The grave of desert prospectors! Gale had seen more than one.
Ladd had told him many a story of such gruesome finds. It was grim,
hard fact.
Then the keen-eyed Yaqui reached up to a little projecting shelf
of rock and took from it a small object. He showed no curiosity
and gave the thing to Gale.
How strangely Gale felt when he received into his hands a flat
oblong box! Was it only the influence of the Yaqui, or was there
a nameless and unseen presence beside that grave? Gale could not
be sure. But he knew he had gone back to the old desert mood. He
knew something hung in the balance. No accident, no luck, no
debt-paying Indian could account wholly for that moment. Gale
knew he held in his hands more than gold.
The box was a tin one, and not all rusty. Gale pried open the
reluctant lid. A faint old musty odor penetrated his nostrils.
Inside the box lay a packet wrapped in what once might have been
oilskin. He took it out and removed this covering. A folded paper
remained in his hands.
It was growing yellow with age. But he descried a dim tracery of
words. A crabbed scrawl, written in blood, hard to read! He held
it more to the light, and slowly he deciphered its content.
"We, Robert Burton and Jonas Warren, give half of this gold claim
to the man who finds it and half to Nell Burton, daughter and
granddaughter.
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