rode up.

"We have been making a prospecting tour among the hills."

"Have you found anything?"

"Yes; we have found a first-rate place, but the Apaches drove us off
from it when we had been at work only four days, and we have had hard
work to save our scalps. I have no objection to give you the
indications, for I will not go back again among them ramping Apaches not
to find solid gold. There is the map as I steered by. Them three points
are the Three Sisters, and that tree bears on the mouth of a narrow
canyon. There is gold there, you bet, and likewise the skeletons of about
thirty Mexicans who got killed there three or four years ago. Now, let
us have some grub; we finished our last ounce of flour yesterday, and
have been short for the last fortnight."

"You have had to leave everything behind, I see," the miner said,
looking at the eight horses.

"Yes; we had to make a clean bolt for it. However, in the four days we
were there we got about seventy pounds of gold, and we have stuck to
that. Now you know as much about it as we do. There is gold enough to
make you all rich, but you will have to fight, and fight hard, to get
there and come away again."

The horses were unsaddled and picketed, Dave and Joe taking care
themselves to unload the three packed ponies, and that the flat bags,
over which blankets had been stuffed, should not be noticed. They
stopped there for two days to rest the horses, and then proceeded on