give you your first chance to examine our problems there."

As they entered the shaft house it was discovered that the elevator
cage was at the foot of the shaft. While they waited for the
cage to come up, keen Dr. Tisco whispered to Tom:

"Senor Reade, night and day you must be unceasingly on your guard
against Gato. In these mountains a hundred men will follow his
beck and call."

"If they are all like him, then Gato should turn bandit," laughed
young Reade.

"It is not unlikely that he will do so," sighed Tisco, with a
slight shrug of his shoulders. "In Mexico, when a defeated man
seeks blood revenge it is no uncommon thing for him to turn bandit
until he has accomplished his hope of a terrible revenge. Then,
afterwards, if the bandit has annoyed the government enough, and
has repeatedly escaped capture, the bandit makes his peace with
the authorities and receives his pardon."

The cage arriving at this moment, the four men entered, and started
downward. Three hundred and sixty feet from the earth's surface
Don Luis led them from the car into a tunnel.

"I will now show you," promised Don Luis, "something of the problem
that confronts the engineers of this mine."

"Keep your eyes open, and your wits about you, Harry," whispered
Tom Reade. "I may be wholly wrong, yet, somehow, I can't quite