We made our way carefully, but saw nothing but the blank wall of red sandstone.
"What was that?" I asked twenty minutes after we had left Tom and Juarez. We stopped and listened intently. There was the faint sound of a distant report.
"They have found it," exclaimed Jim.
We took the back trail and we made good time too. In a short while we saw the two of them way down the wall of the canyon. They waved their hands to us.
"We have got it," yelled Tom when we came within hearing.
"What, the treasure?" cried Jim.
"No, the side canyon," replied Tom.
"My! how narrow," exclaimed Jim, as he got a first view of it.
"It looks just as if someone had taken an axe and split the wall right down," I remarked.
That expresses it. It was only a few feet across, extending the whole height of the cliff. In most places the light was shut out as in a cave, in other places there was just a narrow piece of blue ribbon for the sky and a little white sunshine spilt along one upper edge.