Suddenly he uttered an exclamation and, bending quickly down, picked up a large flat stone that was lying between the log, near which Thure had slept, and the camp-fire.
"I—I don't remember of seeing this stone here last night," and he turned it over curiously; and then uttered another exclamation that brought Thure to his side on the jump.
The stone was flat, some three inches thick, nearly round, and, possibly, a foot in diameter. One side was nearly white and smooth; and the astonished eyes of the boys read, rudely written on this side, evidently with a piece of charred coal, these ominous words:
LEVE THE MAP TO THE MINERS CAVE UNDER THIS STON NEAR YOUR CAMP FIRE WHEN YOU BRAKE CAMP IN THE MORNING AND NEVER TELL NOBODY WHAT THE MINER TOLD YOU ABOUT THE CAVE—OR WELL GIT YOU THE SAME AS WE GOT THE MINER—LIFE IS WURTH MOREN GOLD AND YOULL NEVER LIVE TO GIT THE GOLD.
Under these words were the red prints of two thumbs—one the mark of a huge thumb and the other the mark of a much smaller thumb—as if their owners had covered their thumbs with blood and then pressed them against the stone, in lieu of signatures.
For a full two minutes the two boys stood staring at these words, their faces whitening and their eyes widening.
"How—how did this get here?" Thure was the first to speak.
For answer Bud leaped to the log, by the side of which Thure had slept, and, bending over it, looked closely at the ground on the other side.
"Right from behind this log!" he exclaimed, after a moment's scrutiny of the ground. "The fellow that threw that stone crept up behind this log and then got up on his knees and tossed the rock to where we found it. You can still see the prints of his knees and toes in the ground. I thought I heard a sound like the fall of something heavy during my watch; but I was half asleep when I heard it," and Bud's face flushed a little; "and when I couldn't see anything suspicious or find anything suspicious or hear any more suspicious sounds, I concluded I had only fancied I had heard the sound. But that is sure no fancy," and his eyes glared at the stone, which Thure still held.
"And I was sound asleep right on the other side of that log at that very moment!" and Thure's weather-bronzed face whitened a little. "No more logs for bedfellows for me!"