"Suits me fine to go with you," Bud declared. "I'm next thing
to broke, but I've got a lot of muscle I can cash in on the deal.
And I know the open. And I can rock a gold-pan and not spill out
all the colors, if there is any--and whatever else I know is
liable to come in handy, and what I don't know I can learn."

"That's fair enough. Fair enough," Markham agreed. "I'll allow
you wages on the Thompson job' till you've earned enough to
balance up with the outfit. After that it'll be fifty-fifty.
How'll that be, Bud?"

"Fair enough--fair enough," Bud retorted with faint mimicry.
"If I was all up in the air a few days ago, I seem to have lit on
my feet, and that's good enough for me right now. We'll let 'er
ride that way."

And the twinkle, as he talked, was back in his eyes, and the
smiley quirk was at the corner of his lips.



CHAPTER SEVEN. INTO THE DESERT

If you want to know what mad adventure Bud found himself
launched upon, just read a few extracts from the diary which Cash
Markham, being a methodical sort of person, kept faithfully from
day to day, until he cut his thumb on a can of tomatoes which he
had been cutting open with his knife. Alter that Bud kept the
diary for him, jotting down the main happenings of the day. When
Cash's thumb healed so that he could hold a pencil with some