Gary had prospected pretty thoroughly the whole canyon, following the theory that some one—he felt that it was probably Steve Carson—had carried that rich, gold-bearing rock down to the cabin. Waddell had left neither chemicals nor appliances by which he could test any of the mineralized rock he found; but Gary was looking for one particular kind, the porphyry that carried free gold.
Greater than the loneliness, stronger than his dread of the canyon and the cabin, was his desire to find more of that gold-bearing rock. It would not take much of it to make Pat’s investment in Johnnywater more than profitable. He even climbed to the top of the butte—a heart-breaking effort accomplished at the risk of his neck on the sheer wall of the rim rock. There was no means of knowing just where that po
