Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/150

136, though the Cockney had done all he could to help him.

"It's all one to me," he said. "It's up to you fellows to take care of me. I'm quite precious, if you're goin' to find that gold. You and Larkin wouldn't come through with your information, Stone. Now I'm the one to get hurt and I'll tell you right now, if I croak, what I know goes with me. So it's up to you to see me through."

He grinned as if in some twisted appreciation of a hidden jest. To Stone, noticing the crimson puffiness of the swollen forearm, the sardonic humour seemed to smack of delirium. And he resented Healy's suggestion that they would take better care of him because he represented to them the first of the three keys they held to unlock the treasure-chest of the Mogollones.

Stone Men Cañon narrowed swiftly to the apex of its V, the stream disappearing where it issued from the base of a basaltic formation that seamed the limestone and strutted it, explaining why the creek waters were not impregnated with lime but were sweet, or, as Harvey called it, aqua buena.

"And this is the last we're likely to git of it for a while," he said. "Drink all ye kin an' fill the canteens. I don't see thet pool with the petrified men in it, but I figger it's somewhar along them terraces. Trail goes up thet way. We ain't got no time to spare huntin' it up. Got to git as fur as we kin while the grub lasts. Thar's some hike ahead of us."

Half way up the cliff showed a series of terraces