of bacon, a frying pan, saucepan, baking pot, and a good supply of tea
and sugar; four large water-skins, five small ones, completed their
purchases, with the exception of shovels, picks, and pails for washing
the gravel.

"Going up among the hills again, Dave?" remarked the store-keeper, with
whom the miners had often dealt before.

"Yes, we are going to try a new direction this time, and don't want to
have to come back directly we have struck anything. We have got enough
grub here for three or four months, reckoning as we shall occasionally
get hold of bear or deer meat."

"Well, you had better keep clear of the Indian country, Dave. They made
a raid down South, I hear, last month, and burnt half a dozen Mexican
villages, and they would make short work with you if they came across
you anywhere near their country. However, I suppose you aint going to be
fool enough to go that way, especially as I see you have got two green
hands with you."

"They are old enough to be useful," Dave said. "We can put them to cook
and look after the horses, if they can't do anything else. They are
Britishers, and one of them stood by me pluckily in a mess I got into in
San Diego; so as they had left their ship and were out of a berth, I
thought I would bring them with me, as they had a fancy for seeing a
little of mining life, before they shipped back again."

Two days after their arrival at Santa Fé they started.

"We will strike due south as if intending to enter Mexico; one never