"Mac, are you sure you can go to the valley of gold without DeBar?"
For a long half minute MacDonald looked at him, and then his voice rumbled in a low, exultant laugh in his beard.
"Johnny," he said, with a strange quiver in his voice, "I can go to it now straighter an' quicker than DeBar! I know why I never found it. DeBar helped me that much. The trail is mapped right out in my brain now, Johnny. Five years ago I was within ten miles of the cavern—an' didn't know it!"
"And we can get there ahead of them?"
"We could—if it wasn't for Joanne. We're makin' twenty miles a day. We could make thirty."
"If we could beat them to it!" exclaimed Aldous, clenching his hands. "If we only could, Donald—the rest would be easy!"
MacDonald laid a heavy hand on his knee.
"You remember what you told me, Johnny, that you'd play the game fair, and give 'em a first chance? You ain't figgerin' on that now, be you?"
"No, I'm with you now, Donald. It's——"
"Shoot on sight!"