"He, poor fellow, conscious of guilt, and being himself a dealer in charms and incantations, was more than anybody in a proper frame of mind to put faith in my magic, and when he saw, as he supposed, that his straw, in spite of his precautions, had grown the promised inch, he collapsed at once; and thinking, very likely, that it was the compass itself that had betrayed him, he handed it back to me very willingly, glad to be rid of so pernicious a little imp."
"And was that the end of the matter?" I asked.
"Yes, that was the end of it. Being all ready to go, I went, leaving behind me a reputation which was to be of great service to me on many a subsequent occasion; a reputation due, I am sorry to say, very much more to the clap-trap trick played upon the poor medicine-man than upon my really meritorious service in dealing with the smallpox epidemic. My fame gradually extended among all the mountain tribes, and since then I have been free to go anywhere with the assurance not only of safety but of welcome from any of the Indians, Apache, Ute or Navajo—a condition of affairs which, as you will readily understand has been of infinite service to me during my twenty years of wandering.
"Ah!" casting a glance out of the window as he rose from the table. "Here comes Dick, and somebody with him; a stranger to me—your uncle, I presume."
Running to the door, I saw Dick striding down toward the cabin, while behind him on a stout pony rode Uncle Tom. Just as I stepped out, the pair approached one of the drifts of snow which ridged the valley, and into this Dick plunged at once. Though it was up to his waist, he pretty soon forced his way through, when it was Uncle Tom's turn.
Evidently it was not the first time the pony had tackled a snow-drift, for he showed no disposition to shirk the task, but wading in up to his knees, he did the rest of the passage in a series of short leaps, very like buck-jumping; a mode of progression extremely discomforting to his plump, short-legged rider.
"Oh! Ah!" gasped Uncle Tom at each jump. "Heavens! What a country! Dick, you imp of darkness, I thought you said it was an easy trail."
At this I could not help laughing, when Uncle Tom, who had not perceived me before, transferred his attention to me.
"You young scamp, Frank!" cried he, shaking his fist at me as I ran forward to meet him. "This is a nice way to treat your respected uncle—first scare him half to death and then laugh at him. Lucky for me there's only one of you: if you had been born twins I should have been worn to a rag long ago. How are you, old fellow?" he went on, reaching down to shake hands with me. "Any the worse for your adventure?"
"Not a bit," I replied. "Sound as a bell, thank you."
"Thank Dick, you mean. I'll tell you what, Frank," he continued, leaning down and whispering; Dick having walked on toward the house: "that's an uncommonly fine young fellow, in my opinion. His coming down in the storm last night to tell me that you were all safe was a thing that few boys of his age would have done and fewer still would have thought of doing. Ah! This is the professor, I suppose. Why, I've seen him before!"
So saying, Uncle Tom jumped to the ground, and hastening forward, held out his hand, exclaiming:
"How are you, Herr Bergen? I'm glad to meet you again. We are old acquaintances, though I had forgotten your name, if I ever heard it."
"I believe you are right, Mr. Allen," responded the professor. "Your face seems familiar, though I am ashamed to say I cannot recall when or where we met."
"I can remind you," said Uncle Tom. "It was at Fort Garland, six or seven years ago. I was on my way to investigate an alleged gold discovery in the Taos mountains, when you rode into the fort to ask the cavalry vet to give you something to dress the wounds of a burro which had been clawed by a mountain-lion. I got into conversation with you, and learning that you also wanted some cartridges for a little Ballard rifle, I gave you a box of fifty. Do you remember?"
"I remember very well," replied the professor. "The cartridges were for Dick: he learned to shoot with a Ballard. Well, this is a great pleasure to meet an old acquaintance like this. Come in out of the cold. Romero will take your pony."
Soon we were all seated before the fire, Uncle Tom puffing away his aches and pains with the smoke of the inevitable cigar, when the professor, turning to him, asked:
"And how long do you intend to stay in camp, Mr. Allen? Will this snow drive you out?"
"Not at all," replied Uncle Tom. "I expect to be here a couple of weeks, in spite of the snow. The drifts will settle in a day or two, and the miners will break trails to their claims, and then I shall be able to get about—there won't be any difficulty. Though if it were going to be as hard work as it was coming up here this morning I might as well go home again at once—it took us an hour to make the one mile from town."
"You came to inspect the mines, I understand. Do you confine yourself to silver mines, or do you deal in mines of all sorts?"
"Silver and gold," replied Uncle Tom. "Though, as it happens, I am on the lookout this time for a copper mine as well. Before I left St. Louis I notified a Boston firm, with whom I have frequent dealings, of my intention to come here, and received from them in reply a telegram, saying, 'Find us a good copper mine. Price no object.' There was no explanation, and I am rather puzzled to understand why they should suddenly branch out into 'coppers' in this way."
"I expect the explanation is simple enough," remarked the professor.
"What is it, then?" asked Uncle Tom.
"To any one watching the progress of science," replied the professor, puffing away at his big porcelain pipe, "even to me, here on the ragged edge of civilization, it is obvious that a new era is close at hand; a new force rapidly coming to the front."
"Electricity?" asked Uncle Tom.
"Yes, electricity. The science is still in the egg, as you may say, but to those who have ears to hear, the shell is beginning to crack. I am convinced that before long we shall be lighting our streets with electricity and using it in a thousand ways as a mechanical power. The consequence will be an immense increase in the demand for copper; and that, I have no doubt, is why you have been asked to look out for a copper mine: they want to be ready when the time comes. What is this, Dick?"
At the first mention of the words, "copper mine," the thoughts of Dick and myself had, of course, instantly reverted to the King Philip mine, and I was on the point of introducing the subject, when Dick, catching my eye, signed to me to keep quiet. Rising from his chair, he stepped softly to the rack where the rifles hung and took down the Mexican's arrow, which he had put there the evening before. It happened that we had not mentioned the episode of the wolves and the Mexican when describing to the professor our struggle homeward through the snow-storm, and consequently, when my companion laid the arrow on the table close to his elbow, it was only natural that the old gentleman should exclaim, "What is this, Dick?"
Very briefly, Dick related how he had come by it, merely stating that we had seen a Mexican shoot a wolf; that the Mexican had run away when we hailed him; and that we had gone and picked up his arrow. I wondered rather why he did not call attention to the copper arrow-head; but Dick knew what he was about, as I very soon saw: he intended to let the professor discover it for himself, which a man of his habits of close observation was certain to do. In fact, the old gentleman had no sooner taken the arrow into his hands than he exclaimed:
"Why, this arrow-head is made of copper! A Mexican, you say? Then he probably came from Hermanos. You remember, Dick, how all the people down there—— Why, Mr. Allen, here's the very thing! You want a copper mine? Well, here is a copper mine all ready to your hand! All you have to do is——"
"To find it," interjected Dick, laughing.
"That is true," the professor assented, laughing himself. "I had forgotten that little particular for the moment, Dick. I'm afraid it is not quite so ready to your hand as I was leading you to suppose, Mr. Allen; but that it is there, somewhere in the Dos Hermanos mountains, I feel sure."
Thereupon the professor proceeded to tell the story that Dick had already told me, giving some further details of the information he had derived from the Spanish gentleman, Don Blake.
"It appears to have been a mine of some consequence," said the professor. "The records covered a period of fifteen years, and during the last five years of the time the shipments were constant and large. It is fairly sure, I think, that the product was native copper——"
"Sure to be," interrupted Uncle Tom. "It would never have paid to ship any waste product so far. In fact, I am surprised that they should ship even native copper such a long distance."
"Yes; but as they did so, I think the inference is that the metal was plentiful and easy to mine."
"That is a reasonable assumption," said Uncle Tom, thoughtfully nodding his head. "What beats me, though," he went on, "is that the memory of the spot should have been so totally lost. Considering that the mine was producing for fifteen years, there must be many traces of the work done, such as the waste dump, the old road or trail, and so forth: you can't run a mine for that length of time and leave no marks. It is a wonder to me that the place has never been rediscovered."
"I don't think there is anything surprising in that," replied the professor. "The villagers of Hermanos, agricultural people, seldom go five miles from home; it is only old Galvez' vaqueros, his cow-men, who would be likely to come across the traces of mining, and if they did, those peons are such incurious, unenterprising people they would pay no attention. Besides which, I gathered that even the cow-men never went up into the Dos Hermanos mountains: it is not a good cattle country—rough granite and limestone, little water and scant pasturage. Consequently, the cattle range southward toward the Santa Claras, instead of westward to the Dos Hermanos, and the Twin Peaks, therefore, remain in their solitary glory, untouched by the foot of man; and probably they have so remained ever since the King Philip mine was abandoned, a hundred and fifty years ago."
For a full minute Uncle Tom remained silent, thoughtfully blowing out long spirals of cigar smoke, but presently he roused up again and said:
"There is one thing more I should like to ask you, Professor, and that is, why you conclude that the King Philip mine is in the Dos Hermanos mountains?"
"For this reason," replied our friend: "In the first place, many of the reports were dated from the Casa del Rey. Of course, it is likely enough that there are other Casas del Rey in other parts of the country, but besides the frequent mention of the King's House, there was also mention of Indian fights at different places: 'at the crossing of the Perdita,' for instance, and 'near the spring by Picture Buttes'; then there was the record of a snow-blockade on the Mosca Pass, in the Santa Claras; another of a terrible dust-storm on the Little Cactus Desert, 'with the loss of one man and three mules'; and so forth. Now, a line running through these and other places mentioned would bring you into the Mescalero valley at its southern end, and there is no doubt in my mind that the Casa del Rey named in the reports is the King's House down there at Hermanos."
"It does seem so, doesn't it?" responded Uncle Tom. "Look here, professor," he went on, suddenly jumping out of his chair and casting his cigar stump into the fire, "I must make an attempt to find that copper mine. It does, as you say, seem all ready to my hand. But how to do it, is the question. I can't go myself—can't spare the time—so the only way, I suppose, is to hire some prospector, if I can."
"I don't think you can get one," said the professor, shaking his head; "at least, not here in Mosby. They are all too intent on hunting for silver, and I doubt if you could persuade one of them to waste a season in searching for a metal so commonplace as copper, the value of which is rather prospective than immediate. I doubt very much if you could get one to go."
"I suppose not," replied Uncle Tom. "And you can hardly blame them, either, when you consider that by the expenditure of the same amount of labor a man may come across a rich vein of silver, every ounce of which he knows to be worth a dollar and twenty cents."
"Just so," the professor assented.
"What am I to do, then?" asked Uncle Tom. "Give it up? Seems a pity, doesn't it, when, more than likely, the old workings are lying there plain to view, only waiting for some one with his eyes open to pass that way. Still, if I can't get a man——"
"Take a boy," suggested Dick, cutting in unexpectedly.
Uncle Tom whirled round on his heels and stared at him; the professor removed his long pipe from his mouth and stared at him too; while Dick himself sat bolt upright in his chair, a broad and genial grin overspreading his countenance.
For some seconds they all maintained these attitudes in silence, when Uncle Tom suddenly broke into a hearty laugh.
"You young scamp!" cried he, shaking his forefinger at Dick. "I believe that's what you've been aiming at all the time."
"That's just what we have, Mr. Allen," replied my companion. "Frank and I were talking about it yesterday, saying what fun it would be to go and hunt for the old mine; though we never expected to get the chance. But when you began to talk about copper mines, we cocked our ears, of course, thinking that here, perhaps, was a chance after all—and—and if you can't get a man, Mr. Allen, why not send a boy? Would you let me go, Professor?"
Our two elders looked at each other, and very anxiously we looked at our two elders. Not a word did either of them say, until the professor, rising from his chair and knocking out the ashes of his pipe upon the hearthstone, remarked quietly:
"Go out and chop some wood, boys. I want to talk to Mr. Allen."
Regarding this order as a hopeful sign, out we went, and for a long half-hour we feverishly hacked at the heap of poles outside, making a rather indifferent job of it, I suspect, until a tapping at the window attracted our attention and we saw Uncle Tom beckoning us to come in.
How anxiously we scanned their countenances this time, any one will guess. Both men were standing with their backs to the fire, Uncle Tom smoking a fresh cigar and the professor puffing away again at his pipe, both of them looking so solemn that I thought to myself, "It's no go," and my spirits fell accordingly; but looking again at Uncle Tom I detected a twitching at the corner of his mouth which sent them up again with a bound.
"Well, Uncle Tom!" I cried. "What's it to be?"
"It is a serious matter," replied my guardian, with all the solemnity of a judge passing sentence. "The professor and I have discussed it very earnestly, and we have decided—that you shall go!"
The delight with which this announcement was received by us two boys may be imagined, for though we had hoped for such a decision we had not dared to expect it. I, for my part, had feared that the matter of my interrupted education alone would form an insurmountable barrier; and indeed it was that subject which had proved the chief obstacle, as Uncle Tom presently informed me. All the other objections were minor ones and we discreetly refrained from asking for their recapitulation lest, in going over them again, something not thought of before should crop up to interfere. We were quite content to accept the decision without knowing how it had been arrived at.
As to my interrupted schooling, though, that was a serious matter, as Uncle Tom, in spite of his original ideas about education, clearly understood.
"The main question with me, you see, Frank," said he, "was whether you would benefit or otherwise by missing so much schooling, and though I believe pretty strongly in the value of learning by practice and experience, I should have felt obliged to decide against this expedition if the professor had not come to the rescue. It is to him you owe our decision to let you boys go."
I looked gratefully at Herr Bergen, who serenely waved the stem of his pipe in our direction, though whether to intimate that the obligation was nothing to speak of, or as a sign to Uncle Tom to go on, I could not decide.
"I find," continued the latter, "that the winter is Dick's school-time; and the professor has offered to take you in, Frank, and let you share in Dick's work, undertaking to bring you on in your mathematics in particular—which is your weak spot, you know. In the spring, when the snow clears off, you are to start for the Dos Hermanos and make a thorough search for this old copper mine; and as you will be doing it on my account, I shall bear all expenses. There, that is all, except—well, it is not necessary to mention that—but I was going to say that I rely on you, old fellow, to make the most of your opportunity and in your own person to prove the correctness of my theory that a boy may sometimes learn more out of school than in it."
"I believe you may count on me, Uncle Tom," said I. "I'll do my level best. And I'm tremendously obliged to you, Herr Bergen——"
"Not at all," interrupted the professor, "not at all. The fact is, I am very glad to have a companion for Dick; and as to the schooling, the obligation is not all on one side by any means, for to me it is one of the greatest pleasures possible to teach a boy who really desires to learn. I anticipate a most pleasant winter."
Thus was this odd arrangement made by which I, who by right should have been attending a public school in St. Louis, became the private pupil of an eminent German professor, pursuing my studies in a little log cabin tucked away in a snow-encumbered valley of the Rocky Mountains—about as queer a piece of topsyturviness, to my notion, as ever happened to a boy, and one very unlikely to happen to any other boy, unless he chanced to be endowed with an Uncle Tom cut out on the same pattern as mine.
"There's one thing, Frank," said my guardian, as we made our way down to camp later in the day, "there's one thing I didn't mention in Dick's presence, and that is that the professor laid great stress on the pleasure and advantage it would be to Dick to have a companion of his own age for once, and it was that which turned the balance with me—after the educational question had been got out of the way. For I owe Dick a good turn if I can do him one without hurting anybody else; I told him I wouldn't forget his service in coming down through the storm yesterday, and I haven't forgotten. I'm uncommonly glad to think that in consenting to your taking part in this expedition—which I believe will be a great thing for you, mentally as well as bodily—we shall be doing a service to Dick and to the old professor at the same time."
"Well, Uncle Tom," said I, "you may be sure I am glad enough to stay, and I hope it will not only prove a good thing for Dick and me, but for you as well."
"I hope so, too. And it will, if you can locate that old copper mine, and if it should prove to be anywhere near as good as it sounds."
As things turned out, I was destined to begin my winter's schooling somewhat earlier than we had expected, for, five days after the storm, Uncle Tom received from his Boston employers a telegram, forwarded by mail from the end of the line, saying, "Come here at once. Important," when, without demur, he forthwith packed up his things and away he went; while I, taking leave of our kind host, the assayer, moved up to Herr Bergen's house.
I need not go into the details of our daily life on Mosby Creek; it is enough to say that the winter was one of the pleasantest I had ever spent. Time flew by, as was only natural, for there was not an idle moment for either of us. Herr Bergen proved to be a most able instructor, not only in the matter of scholarship but in general training as well. He had served in the German army in his younger days, and the habits of orderliness, precision and promptness remained with him. We boys were made to toe the mark, and no mistake; there was a time for work and a time for play, and whether for duty or pleasure, we had to be on hand to the minute.
I do not wish to imply that the professor was harsh, or anything of the sort; very far from it: he was most considerate of our shortcomings, which were doubtless plentiful enough, and with infinite patience would go over the ground again and again whenever Dick or I got ourselves tangled up; a condition of things which happened on the average about once a day to each of us. Then, every marked advance we made in any of our studies was so obviously gratifying to the kindly old gentleman that that fact alone was enough to spur a fellow on to doing his extra-best. As a consequence, I, for my part, made very notable progress, and it was with great pleasure, as you may suppose, that I was able later on to write to Uncle Tom my conviction that I had gained rather than lost by my winter's work.
One thing, at least, which I should not have acquired in school, I gained by my association with the professor's household: I learned to speak Spanish. Herr Bergen made a great point of it that I should do so, as it would be pretty sure to come in useful during the ensuing summer. He and Dick—and Romero, of course—all spoke it very well, so that my opportunity for picking it up was excellent, and I made rapid progress; my knowledge of Latin, which, though very far from profound, was up to the average of a schoolboy of my age, being an immense help.
All this time we did not lack exercise—the professor was just as particular about that as he was about our work—and Dick and I had many a jolly outing on our snow-shoes, the management of which was another thing I learned. I should not omit to mention also that I spent a good deal of time and a liberal number of cartridges practising with a rifle, thereby becoming a very fair shot; though, of course, I could not compete with Dick, who, having learned as a mere child, seemed, almost, to shoot straight by nature.
The weather on the average was splendid that winter, and there were but few days when we could not get out. Four or five times, perhaps, during the months I spent in the valley a snow-storm came raging down on us, shutting us up for a day or two, after which the jovial sun would turn up smiling again just as though nothing had happened.
It was toward the end of April that Dick and I began to get ready to leave. The increasing power of the sun had cleared off all the snow below eleven thousand feet, the green grass was beginning to show in many places, and it was fair to suppose that by the time we reached the Dos Hermanos we should find pasturage enough for our animals—two ponies and a mule.
Dick already had his own pony, while the mule, a tough little beast by name Uncle Fritz, was provided by the professor, both animals having passed the winter on a ranch about a couple of thousand feet lower down. Before he left, Uncle Tom had suggested hiring them for the season, but the professor would not consent to his paying anything, saying that the animals might just as well be put to some use as to waste their time doing nothing all summer. Consequently, about the only expense to which my guardian was put, besides furnishing provisions and tools for the expedition, was the purchase of a pony and a rifle for me. This was a very moderate outlay, and I was glad to think that Uncle Tom would get off so cheaply, if our search should turn out a failure; and no one was more ready to recognize that possibility—probability, I should rather say, perhaps—than Uncle Tom himself, to whom the many stories in general circulation of lost Spanish mines of fabulous richness were familiar, and who knew very well how little foundation there was for most of them. The present case, though, was different from the generality, in that there existed documentary evidence that there had been such a mine; a fact which altered the conditions entirely. For it is safe to say that without such documentary evidence Uncle Tom would never have consented to our undertaking such an enterprise, and Dick and I, in consequence, would never have run into the series of adventures which were destined to befall us before we were many weeks older.
It was on the first day of May that we at last took leave of our good friend, Herr Bergen, and rode off down the valley, passing on our way through the town of Mosby, where our appearance on horseback, driving our pack-mule before us, excited among the citizens much speculation as to our destination; a matter concerning which we had said not a word to anybody. That it was a prospecting expedition any one could see, for the pick and shovel could not very well be concealed, but where we were bound for nobody knew, Uncle Tom having cautioned us that if we let a word escape about an old Spanish mine we should have a hundred men at our heels in no time; the very idea of such a thing having an irresistible fascination for some people, especially for the inexperienced newcomer.
"PASSING ON OUR WAY THROUGH THE TOWN OF MOSBY."
Our reason for taking our way through town rather than crossing the Mosby Ridge, back of the professor's house, and going down the Mescalero valley, was that the latter course, cut up by many deep cañons, would be much the more difficult of the two; for by following down the eastern side of the ridge, as we proposed to do, we should presently come to a point where that barrier, which up near Mescalero began as a mountain range, became first a line of round-topped hills, and then, about forty miles below town, came to an end altogether in a little conical eminence known as The Foolscap. We could therefore pass round its southern end without difficulty, when we should find ourselves in the Mescalero valley at its wide part, and by heading southwestward should arrive in about another twenty miles in the neighborhood of the village of Hermanos—a route somewhat longer, but very much easier for the animals, than the other one.
About five miles below town we abandoned the road, which there turned off to the left to join the main stage-road, and continuing our southward course up and down hill over the spurs of the Mosby Ridge we made camp early in the afternoon; for our animals being as yet in rather poor condition, we thought it advisable to give them an easy day for the first one.
Selecting a sheltered nook among the pine trees, we unpacked the mule and unsaddled the ponies, and then, while Dick cooked our supper, I busied myself cutting pine boughs for our beds and chopping fire-wood. Soon after sunset we rolled ourselves in our blankets, and in spite of the novelty of the situation—for I had never before gone to bed with no roof overhead nearer than the sky—I slept soundly until Dick's voice aroused me, crying, "Roll out, old chap! Roll out! The sun will catch you in bed in a minute," when I sprang up, fresh as a daisy and hungry as a shark, as one always seems to do after sleeping out under the stars in the keen, pine-scented air of the mountains.
Continuing our journey, we presently rounded the end of the Mosby Ridge, and turning to the right saw before us the twin peaks of the Dos Hermanos, standing there, as it seemed to me, like two faithful sentinels guarding the secret of the King Philip mine.
"Now, Frank," said my companion, as we sat at supper on the little hill with which the Ridge terminated, "we have a tough day of it before us to-morrow. The valley down at this end, you see, is just a sage-brush plain; there are no cañons down here like there are at the upper end; and there is no water either, unfortunately—this side of the mountains, I mean. The streams which come down from Mescalero and the Ridge take a westerly turn and go off through a deep gorge to the north of the peaks—you can see the black shadow of it from here."
"What do the people at Hermanos do for water, then?" I asked.
"There is a little stream which comes down from the saddle between the Dos Hermanos peaks and runs eastward through the village. But it sinks into the soil soon afterward, for the country down that way becomes very sandy; it is the beginning of the Little Cactus Desert, across which the pack-trains and the soldier escort used to travel, you remember, headed for the Mosca Pass—that low place in the Santa Claras that you see down there, due south from here."
"I see. So the nearest water is the stream running through the village. Do you propose, then, to make for Hermanos?"
"No, I don't," replied Dick. "We want to avoid the village, if possible: it is no use exciting the curiosity of old Galvez, if he happens to be there. What I propose is that we make straight from here to the north side of the peaks, leaving the village three or four miles on our left; find a good camping-place, and make it a base for our preliminary operations."
"That's all right," I assented. "But how much of a day's ride will it be to the north side of the peaks? Further than to Hermanos, I suppose, and that is over twenty miles."
"Yes," replied Dick, "twenty-five miles certainly and perhaps thirty—a long stretch without water. But we can do it all right. I propose that we get off by four in the morning, which ought to bring us to the foothills of the Dos Hermanos by two or three o'clock in the afternoon."
"That's a good idea," I responded. "And if, by bad luck, we should find that we can't make it, we can always turn off and head for the village if we have to."
"Yes. So let us get to bed early. It will be a hard day at best, and we may as well get all the sleep we can."
As my companion had predicted, the morrow did turn out to be a tough day, and it began early, too. It was about half-past three in the morning that I was awakened by the crackling of the fire, and sitting up in my blankets, I saw Dick squatted on his heels, frying bacon over some of the hot embers.
"Time to turn out, Frank," said he. "Breakfast will be ready in two minutes; feeling pretty hungry this morning?"
By way of reply, I opened my mouth with a yawn so prodigious that Dick laughingly continued:
"Hungry as all that, eh? Well, old man, if the size of your mouth is an indication of the size of your appetite, I'll slice up another half-pound of bacon!"
At this I laughed too, and jumping up, I ran to the creek, where I soused my head and face in the cold water, which wakened me up effectually.
By four o'clock we were under way, steering by compass; for, though the stars were shining and the waning moon, then near its setting, furnished some light, there was not enough to enable us to distinguish objects at any distance. Our progress at first was pretty slow, for horses and mules do not like traveling by night, but presently there came a change, the sky behind us took on a rosy hue, and pretty soon there appeared on the western horizon two glowing points, like a pair of triangular red lamps hung up in the sky for our guidance—the summits of the Dos Hermanos caught by the rising sun.
It was an inspiring sight! The very animals, seeming to feel its influence, brisked up at once and stepped out gaily, while Dick and I, who had been "mouching" along in silence, straightened up in our saddles and fell to talking.
"I've been thinking, Dick," said I, "about what our first move should be after we have found a good camping-place. My idea is that we should ride down to the neighborhood of Hermanos and see if there is any sign of an old trail leading from the village to the mountains."
"That's a good idea," Dick responded. "It is pretty certain that the copper was brought down from the mine on the backs of burros, and the supplies carried up in the same way, and if that was kept up for several years there must have been a well-defined trail worn in this soft soil, which may be visible yet."
"On the other hand," was my comment, "as the travel ceased so long ago, isn't it probable that the trail will have been blown full of sand and covered up?"
"That is likely enough—in many places, at least," replied my companion, "though it is very possible, I think, that there may be some traces left, for it is surprising how long such marks on the ground continue to show. At any rate, we'll try it. Here's the sun; it's going to be pretty hot, I expect."
Slowly we plodded along, hour after hour, until presently we had come opposite the village, the mud-colored buildings of which, though not more than three miles away, were barely distinguishable against the gray-tinted plain upon which they stood. The green fields and gardens surrounding the houses we could not see, they being below the general level, but that they were there, and that the Mexicans were at that moment engaged in irrigating them, we felt very sure. A light wind was blowing from the south, and Dick declared that he could "smell the wet"; but though I sniffed and sniffed, I could not conscientiously say that I could detect it myself.
Our animals, however, very evidently smelt it, for they evinced a decided inclination to bear to the left, and we had a good deal of difficulty in keeping their heads straight—the slightest inattention on our part, and they were off the line in a moment. As is so often the case, they had not cared to drink in the cool of the morning before we started, and consequently, what with the heat of the sun and the alkali dust they kicked up, they had become eager for water and would have made a straight shoot for Hermanos if we had let them.
But we were nearing the mountains, an hour or two more and we should reach water, probably, so, though it was painful to deny the poor beasts, we kept right on, until about four in the afternoon—for it had taken us longer than we had anticipated—when all three of them suddenly lifted their heads, pricked their ears and wanted to run forward. They smelt water ahead of them.
Pressing on at an increased pace, we were presently brought to a halt by coming upon the brink of a cliff, at the base of which was a large pool of clear water. The pool lay in a little grass-covered valley about half a mile long, encompassed on all sides by the precipitous wall of rock. We could not see that there was any way of getting down.
In order to get a better view, Dick and I dismounted and walked to the edge, when the first thing we saw was a little bunch of half-a-dozen scrawny Mexican cattle down near the pool.
"Then there is a way down," cried Dick. "Whoop!" he yelled, clapping his mouth with his hand.
The cattle looked up, and seeing two horseless human beings on the sky-line above them, away they went up the valley, vanished for an instant among the fallen rocks at the foot of the cliff, and in another moment appeared again on our level, going off southward with their tails in the air, wild as deer.
"Come on!" cried Dick, jumping upon his horse. "Where they came up we can get down."
Riding forward, we presently found the cow-trail, when, dismounting once more, for it was too steep to ride without risk of breaking one's neck, we led our horses down. Within another half-hour Dick and I, comfortably seated in the shade of the rock, were enjoying a much-needed dinner, while the three animals, their waist-lines enormously distended with the gallons of water they had swallowed, were eagerly snapping up the young green grass with which the valley was covered—all the troubles of the day completely forgotten.
As we wished to give the animals a good rest, we decided to stay where we were for the remainder of that day and on the morrow move to the foot of the mountain and look out for a good camping-place from which to make our preliminary explorations.
The spot where we were then encamped would not serve, for we were yet at least three miles from the lowest spurs of the twin mountains. The stream beside which we were seated issued from the northernmost of the two peaks, and after running out into the plain for some distance made a great bend and went back almost to the point of departure, when, turning to the northward, it poured its waters into the deep cañon cut by the streams which came down from Mescalero and the Ridge. It was just at the bend that we had struck it.
"What we want, Frank," said my companion, "is a good place in the foothills, and when we have found one, I propose that we take our ponies, skirt along the base of the mountains from north to south, and see if we can't cut across that old trail we were talking about this morning. It is extremely important that we should do so; it might save us weeks of useless searching."
"Yes," I assented, "it would be a great help, of course; though all we can hope to find is some mark in the soil which will point us generally in one direction or another."
"Yes; and that's just it. If we can find any indication of the direction the trains used to take when they started from the King's House, it will lighten our task tremendously. Look here," taking a pointed stick and drawing a rough plat of the country in the sand. "Here are the two peaks, lying north and south of each other; here, between them, the creek comes down which runs two or three miles out on to the plain to the village here. Now, when the trains used to start out from the Casa del Rey they took to the right of that stream or they took to the left of it, one or the other, and if we can do no more than find out which it was it will be a great help."
"Of course," I responded. "I see that. It would show us whether it was the north mountain or the south mountain that we had to explore."
"That's it, exactly. And if you stop for a moment to consider, you will see that that would be a pretty big item all by itself. The two mountains cover a space about fifteen miles long by, perhaps, ten miles wide—a hundred and fifty square miles—a pretty big piece of country, old man, for you and me to scramble over; but if we can find a trail which will show us which of the two mountains is the right one, that hundred and fifty miles will be chopped in half at one blow—and if that isn't a pretty big item all by itself, I should like to know what is."
With that, Dick, who was sitting cross-legged on the ground, stuck his stick point downward into the middle of his map, planted his hands on either knee, and with a defiant jerk of his head, challenged me to deny his conclusion.
I could not help laughing at his emphatic manner, but I could not help, either, admitting that his point was a good one.
"It certainly would make an immense difference," said I, "and it will pay us to find that old trail if it takes us a week to do it. So, let us dig out first thing to-morrow, Dick, and find a good camping-place as a base."
Accordingly we broke camp again early next morning, and following along the rim of the cañon we presently drew near the foothills. As we approached the mountain we were able to distinguish with more clearness the details of its form, and the more clearly we could distinguish them the more were we impressed with the difficulty and the magnitude of the task we had undertaken. It was not going to be the simple, straightforward matter I had at first imagined.
Seen from a distance the north peak looked smooth and symmetrical, but when you came close to it you found that it was broken up into cliffs and cañons, some of them of great height and depth. On its northern face, a thousand feet or so below the summit, our attention was drawn to a great semicircular precipice which looked very like the upper half of an old volcanic crater, the lower half, presumably, having broken away and fallen down the mountain.
"A pretty tough piece of country, Frank," said my companion, "and a pretty large stretch of it, too, for us to tramp over; for, by the look of it from here, our horses won't be much use to us—at least, when we get up above the lower spurs. Let us try this gully to the left: there's probably water up there; I see the tops of two or three cottonwoods."
Turning in that direction, therefore, we presently came upon a diminutive stream which ran down and fell into the cañon, and passing between two high rocks, which looked as though they had been split apart with a wedge to let the water out, we found ourselves in a little park-like valley, flanked on either side by high ridges.
"This ought to do, Dick," said I, "at any rate for the present; plenty of grass, plenty of wood and plenty of water. Just the place."
"Yes, this is all right; couldn't be better. Let's unsaddle at once, make our camp, and after dinner we'll ride down in the direction of Hermanos and do a little prospecting."
Having chosen a good spot, we arranged a comfortable camp, and after a hasty dinner we started out; first picketing Uncle Fritz to keep him from coming trailing after us.
Immediately to the south of our camping-place, forming one of the boundaries of the little ravine, in fact, there stretched down from the mountain a great, bare rib of granite, almost devoid of vegetation, which projected a long way out into the valley, and as it lay square across our course we decided, instead of going round the end of it, to ride up to the top in order to get a good lookout over the country we proposed to examine. From the summit of this ridge, at a point about four hundred feet above the plain, we were able to get a very good view of all the wide stretch of comparatively level ground below us, including the village of Hermanos and the green irrigated fields around it, which from this elevation were distinctly visible. Except for this tiny oasis, the whole plain, bounded on the east by the Mosby Ridge, and on the south by the Santa Clara mountains, appeared to be one uniform, level stretch of sage-brush desert—dull, gray and uninviting.
"What a pity," remarked Dick, "that there is no water here. If only one could get water upon it, this sage-brush plain could be turned into a wheat-field big enough to supply the whole State with bread, besides furnishing labor and subsistence for a good-sized population of farmers."
"It would be fine, wouldn't it?" I assented. "And I don't see why it has never been done: there must be many streams coming down from these mountains."
"Yes, no doubt; but the difficulty is that all the streams of any consequence have cut cañons for themselves and are too far below the general level to be of any use. To get water out upon the surface of this valley one would have to go high up on the mountain, find some good-sized stream, head it off—building a dam for the purpose, perhaps—and then conduct the water down here by a ditch several miles long possibly. Far too big an undertaking, you see, for these penniless, unenterprising Mexicans."
"I see. It would take a great deal of work and a great deal of money, probably, but it would be a fine thing to do, all the same."
"Yes, it would; and some day it will be done. It won't be so very many years before all the 'easy water' in the State will have been appropriated, and then people will begin to look out for a supply in the more out-of-the-way places, building reservoirs to catch the rainfall which now runs to waste after every thunder-storm, and carrying the water long distances to sell it to the ranchman. The professor says that some day the business of catching and distributing irrigation water will be the most important industry in the State, and that a good ever-flowing stream will be more valuable than any silver mine."
"I can understand that," I replied. "The best mine will some day come to an end, for when the silver is once dug out it is gone—you can't plant more; whereas, a good stream of water applied on the soil will go on producing forever and ever."
"That's it, exactly. And some day that is what will happen here. This fine stretch of level land, which now grows only grass enough to support about three cows and a burro, won't always lie idle. Some enterprising fellow will come along, climb up into this mountain, catch one of those streams which now go running off through the cañons, turn it down here, and a couple of years later this worthless desert will be converted into farms and orchards."
"A fine undertaking, too!" I exclaimed. "I should like to have a try at it myself."
"So should I. But our object in life just now is 'copper,' so come on, old chap, and let us ride down to the point of this ridge. What is that black speck down there toward the village? Man on horseback? Ah! He has disappeared again. Well, come on now, Frank. Let's get started."
Getting down upon the plain again, we turned southward, skirting the base of the mountain, winding our way through the sage-brush, which was large and very thick, when, after riding barely a quarter of a mile in that direction, Dick suddenly pulled up.
"Frank!" he exclaimed. "Look here! Doesn't it seem to you that there is a depression in the soil going off to the right and the left? Look away a hundred yards and you will see what I mean. It seems to lead straight up into the mountain one way, and straight out upon the plain the other way."
At first I could not detect anything of the sort, but on Dick's pointing it out more particularly it did appear to me that there was a depression going off in both directions.
"Let us turn to the left, Dick," said I, "and follow it—if we can—out into the valley and see what becomes of it."
"All right," responded my companion. "Let's do so."
The mark on the ground was by no means easy to follow, it was so overgrown with sage-brush, and in many places altogether obliterated by drifting sand, but, though we frequently lost it, by looking far ahead we always caught the line again. Presently we found that it went curving off to the right in the direction of Hermanos, and our hopes rose.
"Dick!" I cried. "This is no accidental mark in the soil! It is a trail, as sure as you live!"
"It does begin to look like it," replied my more cautious friend. "I believe it—— Hallo! Who's this coming?"
As he spoke, I saw about half a mile away a horseman coming toward us at an easy lope from the direction of the village. He was riding a handsome gray horse, very superior to the little bronchos we ourselves bestrode.
"He rides well," said I. "I wonder how he got so close to us on this flat country without our seeing him."
"The country is probably not quite so flat as it looks," replied my companion. "I expect the man has been keeping in the hollows so that he might slip up on us unobserved. It is probably old Galvez coming to find out what we are doing prowling around his domain. He must be the horseman I saw just now, and I've no doubt he saw us, too, cocked up on that bare ridge—for all these Mexicans have eyes like hawks."
Meanwhile the rider continued to approach, and as he came nearer we observed, rather to our relief, that it could not be the padron, for the stranger was a well-dressed young Mexican, only three or four years older than ourselves, a handsome, intelligent-looking young fellow, too, with a trim little black moustache and bright black eyes—evidently one of a class superior to the ordinary cow-man or farm-hand.
Watching him closely as he came up, wondering what sort of a reception we should get from him, it appeared to me that he, too, looked both surprised and relieved when he perceived that instead of the two rough and sturdy prospectors he had probably expected to meet, it was only a couple of boys, younger than himself, with whom he had to deal.
And it is likely that he did feel relieved, for at that time the white men—or, at least, very many of them—dwelling on what was then the outer edge of civilization, were apt to look down upon all Mexicans as people of an inferior race, frequently treating them in consequence in a rough, overbearing manner by no means calculated to promote friendly feeling.
The young Mexican doubtless "sized us up" favorably; at any rate, no sooner had he come near enough to see what we were like than he rode straight up to us, and addressing us politely in Spanish, said:
"Good-day, sirs. Are you going down to Hermanos? I shall be glad to ride with you if you are."
It happened that I was the one to whom he addressed this salutation, Dick being a little further back. Now, though I had acquired enough of the language to understand and speak it fairly well, the Spanish I had learned was good Castilian, whereas the young Mexican spoke a kind of patois, such as is commonly used among all the natives of these outlying settlements. The unexpected difference of pronunciation, though slight, caused me to hesitate an instant in making reply—I have no doubt, too, my face looked rather blank—whereupon the young fellow instantly jumped to the conclusion that we did not speak Spanish at all, and he therefore repeated his remark in English.
It was without any thought of misleading him that I replied, very naturally, in the tongue which came easiest to me, and as the stranger spoke English quite as well as I did, it was very natural again that the conversation should be continued in that tongue. Thus it happened that we accidentally deceived him—or, rather, he deceived himself—into the belief that we did not understand any language but our own, and as no opportunity cropped up during our talk for setting him right, he continued in this mistaken idea; a fact which, a little later, caused us considerable satisfaction—not on our own account, but on his.
Replying to his question therefore in English, I said:
"No, we were not bound for Hermanos in particular. We have come down here to do a little prospecting, and were just riding around a bit to take a look at the country. Do you live here?"
"No," he replied, "I live in Santa Fé. My name is Antonio Martinez. I am on a visit here to my uncle, Señor Galvez, the padron of Hermanos. He is my mother's brother, and as she had not seen him for many years, and as he has always declined to come to us, she sent me here to make his acquaintance. For myself, I had never even seen him until I arrived here two weeks ago, and——"
He checked himself suddenly, looking a little confused; I had an idea that what he was going to say was that he did not much care if he never saw him again.
"And are you expecting to stay here?" asked Dick.
"No, I go back in a day or two. Where do you, yourselves hail from, if I may ask? From Mosby?"
"Yes, from Mosby," replied Dick. "We came down, as my friend said, to do some prospecting up in one or other of these two peaks—we don't know which one yet. How is the country up there? Pretty accessible? You've been up, I suppose."
"No, I haven't," replied the young Mexican. "You think that rather strange, don't you? And naturally enough. Here have I been for two weeks hanging around this village with absolutely nothing to do; I should have been glad enough to make an expedition up into the mountains—in fact, I had a very particular reason for wishing to do so—but when I suggested the idea to the padron, explaining to him why I was so anxious to go, he not only refused emphatically for himself, but declined to let me go either."
"Why, that seems queer!" cried Dick.
"It does, doesn't it? And his reason for refusing will appear to you queerer still—he's afraid!"
"Afraid!" we both exclaimed. "Afraid of what?"
"Afraid of The Badger," replied the young fellow, breaking into a laugh as he noted the mystified look which came over both our faces.
"What do you mean?" I asked. "Why should he—or anybody—be afraid of a badger?"
"I said The Badger," replied our friend. "You have never heard of him, evidently—El Tejon, The Badger."
We both shook our heads.
"What is he?" I asked. "A man?"
"Yes—or a wild beast. It is hard to say which. He is a Mexican who once lived in the village here, I believe. For some reason which I cannot understand—for my uncle won't talk about it, though I have asked him several times—for some reason The Badger conceived a violent hatred for the padron; whether he went crazy or not, I don't know, but anyhow he committed a murderous assault upon him, hurting him badly—knocked out all his front teeth with a stone, for one thing—and then escaped into the mountains. That was twelve years ago, and as far as any one knows he is there yet, if he is still alive."
"And wasn't any attempt ever made to capture him?" asked Dick.
"Once," replied Antonio. "According to the padron's story, he went out with six of his cow-men to try to run The Badger to earth; but the attempt was a failure, as was only to be expected, for the cow-men were very unwilling to go. They trembled at the very name of El Tejon, who was a man of immense strength and a great hunter, and they feared that instead of catching him, he would catch one of them. And the event showed that they had reason. They had been out several days, had ridden all over the lower part of the north mountain without seeing a sign of their man, and were coming back, single file, down a narrow gully, when the padron's horse suddenly, and seemingly without cause, fell down, stone dead. The rider, of course, fell too, and striking his head against a stone he lay for a moment stunned. No one could think what had happened to the horse, until presently one of the men noticed blood upon the rocks, and turning the animal over they were all scared out of their wits by seeing the head of an arrow sticking out between his ribs."
"An arrow!" we both cried.
"Yes, an arrow," continued the narrator, not noticing the glance Dick and I exchanged. "They knew well enough where it came from, for The Badger had always hunted with a bow and arrow, with which he was extraordinarily expert. The instant the cow-men saw what had happened they stuck spurs into their horses and away they all went, helter-skelter, leaving their leader lying on the ground."
"That was a pretty shabby desertion," said I. "How did the padron escape?"
"That is one of the things I can't understand," replied Antonio. "Why the man, having him so entirely in his power, didn't kill him at once is a puzzle to me. As it was, when the padron recovered his senses, he found El Tejon calmly seated on the carcase of the horse, waiting for him to wake up. He quite expected, he says, to be murdered forthwith, but instead, the man merely held up the arrow, which he had drawn out of the horse's body, and said: 'For you—next time'; and with that he arose and walked off. The padron is no coward, but he knows when to let well enough alone: he has never been up on the mountain since."
"That's a curious story," said Dick. "What sort of a looking man is this El Tejon?"
"I've never seen him myself, of course," replied our friend, "but the padron describes him as a very remarkable man to look at: less than five feet high, with an immense body, very short legs and very long arms."
Dick and I exchanged glances again.
"Whether the man is yet alive," continued the young fellow, "nobody knows. It is nearly twelve years ago that this happened, and since then he has never been seen nor heard of. The chances are, I expect, that he has been long dead."
"On that point," remarked Dick, "we can give you a little information. He is not dead—at least he wasn't last fall."
"What do you mean?" cried Antonio. "How do you know? I thought you said you had never heard of him."
"We hadn't," replied Dick, "until you mentioned his name, but from your description we have no doubt we saw him some months ago up here at the head of the valley."
With this by way of preface, my companion related to our new acquaintance the particulars of our "interview" with the "little giant," as he called him.
"It must be the same man," said Antonio. "I wonder what he was doing so far away from his own mountain. You say he shot the wolf with a copper-headed arrow? That's something I should like to investigate, if only the padron were not so dead set against my going up into the mountain. Where does he get his copper? In fact——" He paused to consider, and then went on: "Yes; I don't see why I shouldn't tell you—my uncle won't go himself, and he won't let me go, so I may as well tell you. The truth is that the reason why I was so anxious to make an excursion up there was just that—to find out where El Tejon gets his copper. And not only he, but the villagers down here. Every house in Hermanos has its copper bowl and dipper. They are hammered out of lumps of native copper; some of them must weigh five or six pounds. Where did they come from? Lumps of copper of that size were not washed down the streams—they were dug up. But by whom, and where?"
I felt a great inclination to tell him. He had been so friendly and communicative that I began to feel rather uncomfortable at the thought that we were drawing all this information from him under what might be regarded as false pretences.
I was pretty sure that Dick would be feeling much the same—for among boys, as I have many a time noticed, there is nothing more catching than open-heartedness—and I was right; for, glancing at him to see what he thought, I caught his eye, when he immediately raised his eyebrows a trifle, as much as to say, "Shall I tell him?"
"Yes," said I, aloud. "I think so. Though we must remember, Dick, that it isn't altogether our secret."
Dick nodded, and turning to the young Mexican, who was gazing at us open-eyed, wondering what we were talking about, he said:
"Senor Antonio, my friend and I agree that it isn't quite fair to you to let you go on telling us these things without our telling you something in return. As Frank says, it is not altogether our own secret, but at the same time we don't think it is quite a square deal to get all these particulars from you and to keep you in the dark about ourselves. I can tell you this much, anyhow: that our object in coming down here was to find out where those same lumps of copper did come from."
"Why, how did you know anything about them?" cried Antonio, opening his eyes wider still.
"I passed through Hermanos about eighteen months ago," replied Dick, "in company with a German naturalist, Herr Bergen, when we noticed the great number of copper bowls and things, and the sight of them reminded the professor of a story he had heard of an old copper mine, abandoned more than a hundred years ago, supposed to be somewhere down in this country. The story the professor told us is the story which we think we have no business to repeat, but I can tell you this much, at least, that it seemed to indicate the Dos Hermanos as the site of the old mine; and so we got leave to come down here to see if we couldn't trail it up."
"Is that so? What fun you will have. I wish I could go with you. But that, I know, is out of the question: the padron would not consent, and I could not go against his will. But if I can help you I shall be very glad. Does the story you refer to indicate which of the two peaks is the right one?"
"No, it doesn't," replied Dick. "We suppose that the copper used to be brought down to the Casa on pack-burros, and we thought there might be the remains of a trail down here in the valley. That is what we were doing when you rode up:—looking for the trail; and we thought perhaps we had found it when we discovered this indentation in the soil that we have been following."
"And I believe you have!" cried Antonio. "That's just what you have! It goes on straight southward from here, very plain, to within half a mile of the Casa and then seems to die out for some reason. But, that it is the old trail I feel certain. Your copper mine is up there on the north peak as sure as——"
He stopped short, his enthusiasm suddenly died out, and pulling a long face, he gazed at us rather blankly.
"Well?" asked Dick.
"I was forgetting. There's something else up there on the north peak."
"What's that?"
"The Badger!"
"That's so!" cried Dick. "I'd forgotten him, too. Do you suppose he would interfere with us?"
"That's more than I can say. From what the padron has told me, I imagine it is only to him that El Tejon objects, and perhaps also to me as one of the family; but I'm not sure about that. Look here! I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll just ride home and ask him what he thinks. You stay here. I'll be back in half an hour."
"You are very kind," said my partner. "But why should we trouble you to come back here? We'll ride down with you."
To our surprise the young fellow flushed and looked embarrassed, but recovering in a moment, he said:
"Come on, then. But before we go, let me tell you something. The reason I hesitated was that I feared you might not receive a very hearty welcome from the padron. The truth of the matter is—to put it plainly, once for all—he hates strangers, and above all he hates the Americans. I am sorry it should be so, but so it is. The feeling is not uncommon among the older Mexicans: those who went through the war of '46; and if you stop to think of it, it isn't altogether unreasonable. According to the padron's view of the matter, his native country was invaded without cause or justice; he, himself, fought against the invader; his own brother and many of his friends were killed; and finally, he saw the land where he was born torn away from its old moorings and attached to the country of the enemy."
This defence of his fellow-countryman, which the young Mexican delivered with much earnestness and feeling, was a revelation to me. Hitherto I had only considered the war with Mexico from our side, glorying in our success and admiring—very rightly—the bravery of our soldiers. That the Mexicans, themselves, might have a point of view of their own had never occurred to me, until this young fellow thus held up their side of the picture for me to see.
"That's a matter I never thought of before," said I; "but when you do stop to think of it, it is not surprising that the older generation of Mexicans should have no liking for us."
"No," Dick chimed in; "and I don't think you can blame them, either."
"I'm glad you see it that way," said Antonio. "It makes things all comfortable for me. So, now, let us get along. And if the padron doesn't seem best pleased to see you, you will know why."
Following along the line of the supposed trail, which continued in general to be pretty plain, we presently passed alongside of a high bank of earth to which our guide called our attention.
"Just ride up here a minute," said he. "Now, do you see how this earth-bank forms a perfect square, measuring about two hundred yards each way? What do you make of that?"
"It was evidently built up," said I; "it can't be a natural formation. But what the earth was piled up for, I can't see."
"I think I can," remarked Dick. "If I'm not mistaken, this is the site of an old pueblo."
"Just what I think," responded Antonio. "An old pueblo which probably stood here before ever the Spaniards came to the country, and has been melted down to this shapeless bank by the rains of centuries. This valley must have supported a good-sized population once—very much larger than at present."
"It looks like it," Dick assented. "I wonder where they got their water from—for I suppose they lived mostly by agriculture, as the Pueblos do still. Hasn't the padron ever tried to find the old source of supply?"
The young Mexican shook his head. "No," said he. "The source of supply, wherever it was, was up in the mountains somewhere, and in spite of the fact that if he could find it, it would increase the value of the grant a thousand times, he daren't go to look for it."
"My! What a chance there is here"—Dick began, when he suddenly checked himself. "Here's some one coming," said he. "Is this the padron?"