"Oh, I'll make you a map," said Pete. "Cobre--that's Mexican for
copper--is where we'll make our headquarters. You give me some paper and
I'll make you a map mighty quick."

Pete made a sketchy but fairly accurate map of Southern Arizona, with the
main lines of railroad and the branches.

"Here's Silverbell, at the end of this little spur of railroad. Now give
me that other sheet of paper and I'll show you where the mine is, and the
country round Cobre."

Wetting his pencil, working with slow and painstaking effort, making
slight erasures and corrections with loving care, poor, trustful,
unsuspecting Pete mapped out, with true creative joy, a district that
never was on land or sea, accompanying each stroke of his handiwork
with verbal comments, explaining each original mountain chain or newly
invented valley with a wealth of descriptive detail that would have
amazed Münchausen.

Mitchell laughed in his heart to see how readily the simple-minded
mountaineer became his dupe and tool, and watched, with a covert sneer,
as Pete joyously contrived his own downfall and undoing.

"I have many questions to ask about your mine--I believe I had almost
said our mine." The lawyer smiled cordially. "To begin with, how about
water and fuel?"

"Lots of it. A cedar brake, checker-boarded all along the mountain.
There's where it gets the name, Ajedrez Mountain--Chess Mountain;
kind of laid out in squares that way. Good enough for mine timbers, too.