Could not the mad hunter do as Wholdaia had done?
Was it possible that the bad-dog man who shot golden bullets and who screamed like a lynx was the man who had lived there many, many years ago, and whom the boys called John Ball?
Those were the thoughts that Wabi had set working in his brain.

The young Indian had not suggested this to Rod.

He had spoken of it to Mukoki only because he knew the old pathfinder might help him to solve the riddle, and so he had started Mukoki upon the trail.
The next morning, while the others were finishing their breakfast, Mukoki equipped himself for a journey.
"Go down chasm," he explained to Rod "Fin' where get out to plain.
Shoot meat." That day the gold hunters were more systematic in their work, beginning close to the fall, one on each side of the stream, and panning their way slowly down the chasm.

By noon they had covered two hundred yards, and their only reward was a tiny bit of gold, worth no more than a dollar, which Rod had found in his pan.

By the time darkness again compelled them to stop they had prospected a quarter of a mile down stream without discovering other signs of John Ball's treasure.