The Golden Canyon

by G. A. Henty

"That is so," Dave agreed.

"Have you any idea how far it is from the three peaks to the river?"

"Yes, I have heard it is about fifty miles north of the Gila."

"Well, that would make this spot marked from fifteen to twenty miles from them. The length of the map would be about two hundred miles, and as the peaks are about a quarter of the distance from the right-hand side, this map begins about a hundred and fifty miles to the west of the peaks. I should think it would be at some well-known place that the maker of this map began; some place that he knew he could find again without difficulty."

"That is so; you will see the line begins at a stream running north and south. There is a mark here each side of the path-line. Of course they might mean anything; they might mean trees or rocks. Then look here; there are two more dots out here, and if you were to draw a line straight through them, it would come to the other dots. One must be three or four miles off, and the other twelve or fifteen. The farthest one may be a peak, and the one nearer some conspicuous tree or rock in a line with it."

"Yes, that is what we make it out to be," Boston Joe said. "We have the choice of either going up the Gila valley and mounting this side stream till we come upon something that agrees with these four marks, or of keeping along from the west by a valley about the right distance from the Gila."

"I should not think we can trust much to distances," Dick said; "this man was merely sketching out a plan to help him on his way up again, should he ever make up a party to return to the mine, and, though probably these bendings and turnings of the road are to be depended upon, the map itself cannot be done to any scale. Here the peaks are made twice as far from the left side as they are from the river, but they may be really four times as far, or they may be only the same distance; there is no saying at all; as he has drawn it, the point where the road begins is a good deal more to the south than the peaks are. If the scale is correct, it is not more than thirty miles at most north of the Gila that the path begins. You see about halfway between this point and the river are five or six little marks like a V upside down. I see there are other marks like these at different places on the map. I should say they were meant for Indian villages."

"That is so, no doubt," Dave agreed. "Here is another thing beside them; what do you make that out to be, Dick?"

"It looks to me like a tiny bird; it is very small and very badly done, but I am pretty sure that that is what is meant. What in the world can he have put a bird there for? Let us look at the other villages." He examined them carefully. "Two of them have got figures. This one looks like a cat, and this is a snake—at least, I should think so."

"I have got it," Dave exclaimed. "Those are the names of the chiefs. I know the names of a good many of their chiefs, and there's Rattlesnake and the Mountain Lion among them."