We sat long in George Downes’ room at the inn talking over the disappearance of Judge Bailey B. Austin. Now that he had decided to make known to us his reasons for being in Death Valley, he was eager to impart any knowledge he had which might be of avail in the search for the vanished man. He was not only willing but desirous of joining forces with us in solving the mystery of his cousin’s disappearance.
“Of course,” he said judicially, “it gets back to this: if the body of the man found in the desert, and which disappeared while it was being transported through the monument, could only be found—granting that it is in such condition that it could be identified—I could tell very readily whether or not it is that of my cousin. The whole thing could be very easily cleared up. The mystery, I
