for an enemy, and one will know that any moment, night or day, one may
hear the war yell of the Indians. We are going into the heart of
Arizona, to places where not half-a-dozen white men, even counting
Mexicans as white men, have ever set foot; at least, where not
half-a-dozen have ever come back alive from, though maybe there are
hundreds who have tried."

"Then I suppose you are going to look for some very rich mine, Dave?"

"That is so; I will tell you how it came about, and queerly enough, it
wur pretty well the same way as your friend and me came together. My
mates and me were coming down from the hills when we heard a shot fired
in a wood ahead of us. It wasn't none of our business, but we went on at
a trot, thinking as how some white men had been attacked by greasers."

"What are greasers?" Tom asked.

Dave laughed.

"A greaser is just a Mexican. Why they call them so I don't know; but
that has been their name always as long as I came in the country. Well,
we ran down and came sudden upon two greasers who were kneeling by a man
lying in the road, and seemed to be searching his pockets. We let fly
with our Colts; one of them was knocked over, and the other bolted. Then
we went to look at the man in the road; he wur a greaser too. He had
been shot dead. 'I wonder what they shot him for?' says I. 'Maybe it is
a private quarrel; maybe he had struck it rich, and has got a lot of
gold in his belt. We may as well look; it is no use leaving it for that
skunk that bolted to come back for.' He had got about twenty ounces in
his belt, and we shifted it into our bag, and were just going on when