“I don’t see how you can remember the way,” Joe told him, when he had pointed out one of three branches, each of which was almost parallel to the others.
The old man laughed.
“I can’t afford to forget,” he said. “All that treasure is something that is worth too much to be forgetting where it is. If it should happen, though, that I should get turned around, I have a rough sketch map of this region that I made at the very start.”
On the other side of the valley was a steep slope that was entirely devoid of vegetation. Look about as the youths did, they could see no path. They were beginning to wonder when Dr. Rander broke the silence.
“From here there is no trail,” he explained. “We’ll have to cut our way through the hard places and climb over large rocks. It won’t be easy, but we will be rewarded.”
“No trail, huh?” thought Bob. “Here’s where the fun begins.”
It was far from fun, in the usual sense of the word. The three labored over short, steep elevations, rocky precipices, narrow ridges, pulling the sure-footed mules behind them. At last, when they finally reached a high ledge, they sat down to get their breath.
“Whew!” gasped Joe, wiping the perspiration from his brow. “I don’t want much of that. Wonder how old Dr. Rander stands up under such a strain?”
“Hardened to it, I suppose,” was Bob’s reply. “Since he left college he’s been nothing else but an explorer.”