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Death Valley?"

   Jack choked and said, "Sure, Boats, There used to be a lake in Death Valley. I heard the fishing was fine."

   "You know about the lake," Thomason pointed his blue chin at Jack. "Your geology would tell you about the lake. It was a long time ago... The ancient people who built the city in the caverns under the mountain lived on in their treasure houses long after the lake in the valley dried up. How long, we don't know. But the people we found in the caverns have been dead for thousands of years.  Why! those mummies alone are worth a million dollars!"

   "I had nothing more to do with them."

Jack got up and found his plug of tobacco. He threw away his cigarette and savagely bit off an enormous chew. He sat down and crossed his legs and glowered at White as he worked his chew into his jaw.

   Bill's voice was meek as he asked', "An this place is in Death Valley?"

   "Right in the Panamint Mountains!" said Thomason.  "My partner found it by accident.

   He was prospecting down on the lower edge of the range near Wingate Pass. He was working in the bottom of an old abandoned shaft when the bottom of the shaft fell out and landed him in a tunnel. We've explored the tunnel since. It's a natural tunnel like a big cave. It's over twenty miles long. It leads all through a great underground city; through the treasure vaults, the royal palace, and the council chambers; and it connects to a series of beautiful galleries with stone arches in the east slope of the Panamint Mountains. Those arches are like great big windows in the side of the mountain and they look down on Death Valley. They're high above the valley now.

   But we believe that those entrances in the mountain side were used by the ancient people that built the city. They used to land their boats there."