that blast has buried it beneath a mountain. Milo was to take it out. I cannot believe it can have been taken away ere that powder blew it to fragments. It was still in the powder store.”

“Yes, I know,” said Pearse quietly. “It was that which precipitated the fight between us three that killed poor Tomlin.”

“Well, if thou still art hungry for treasure, my friends, there is my store buried where thou knowest, and I shrewdly fear but few of my people are left. But I am slipping. Stand aside, that I may close my eyes on the place I called home.”

Dolores ceased speaking and lay, scarcely stirred by her faint respiration, gazing over the schooner’s stern at the sinking sun. The golden disk was turning to red and