In the midst of the soil thus obtained a tree was growing which now had shot up at least twenty feet above the top of the great rock.

“What do you suppose that is?” inquired George lightly.  “Is the tree trying to keep those rocks apart or are the rocks trying to keep the tree in between them?”

No one replied to the query of the Go Ahead Boy, for all were keenly aroused, now that they had found the third object which Simon Moultrie had indicated on his map.

So eager were all the members of the party that in spite of their recent exertions and the loads they were carrying they all began to run.  In a brief time they arrived at the destination they were seeking and as they swung their packs from their shoulders Grant hastily drew again from his pocket the map which he had made in his attempt to recall the one which Simon Moultrie had drawn in the diary that the Go Ahead Boys had found.

CHAPTER XXIII

ON THE RIM

The little assembly crowded closely about Grant and looked with eager interest at the drawings he had made.

“What does it mean?” inquired Fred, “when it says you have to go a half-mile northeast?”

“I’m not sure that it says that,” replied Grant.  “There’s simply a mark here, 1/2 m.  N.E.”

“Well, any lubber knows that that means a half-mile northeast.”

“Not being a ‘lubber,’” retorted Grant, “of course I’m not sure.  I’m not very much impressed by a ‘lubber’s’ knowledge anyway.”

The Go Ahead Boys laughed at the retort, but their interest in their immediate problem was too keen to permit other matters to enter their thoughts.

“Now how do we know that those letters don’t refer to the stake itself?” asked George.

“A brilliant remark,” said Grant scornfully.  “All you have to do is to locate the claim that Simon Moultrie staked and then prove that it is a half-mile northeast, a quarter-mile southeast, and a quarter of a mile north northeast from some place that you don’t care anything about.”

“That’s not it,” said Zeke, shaking his head as he spoke.  “It’s the claim itself.  My opinion is that you go a half-mile northeast from Split Rock.  Then turn and go one-quarter of a mile southeast and then a quarter of a mile north northeast.”

Both the Navajos were present, standing on the border of the assembly and their shining eyes betrayed their keen interest in the discussion.

“If I recollect aright,” said John, “in that diary of Simon Moultrie’s he wrote that he was in the middle of Thorn’s Gulch when he struck the vein just right.”

“That’s so,” spoke up Grant quickly, “I do remember that.”

“Yea!” continued John, elated by the response which had greeted his words, “and that isn’t all.  He says he followed it up and found the place he was looking for.  Didn’t he say too that he had already had an assay made and that it was great?”