"Fair enough, kid! It would work, too. That ain't all, either. If I
talked less you'd talk more; and, talking more, you'd study out for
yourself a lot of the things I tell you now, gettin' credit from you for
much wisdom, just because I hold the floor. Go to it, boy! Tell us how
the affairs of We, Us & Company size up to you at this juncture."

"Here goes," said Stan. "First, we don't want to let on that we've got
anything at all on our minds--much less a rich mine. After a reasonable
time we should make some casual mention of discontent that we've sent off
rock to an assayer and not heard from it. Not to say a word would make
our conspirators more suspicious; a careless mention of it might make
them think our find wasn't such-a-much, after all. Say! I suppose it
wouldn't do to pick up a collection of samples from the best mines round
Cobre--and inquire round who to write to for some more, from Jerome
and Cananea, maybe; and then, after talking them up a while, we could
send one of these samples off to be assayed, just for curiosity--what?"

"Bear looking into," said Pete; "though I think they'd size it up as an
attempt to throw 'em off the trail. Maybe we can smooth that idea out so
we can do something with it. Proceed."

"Then we'll have to play up to that location you filed by hiking to the
Gavilan and going through the motions of doing assessment work on that
dinky little claim."

Feeling his way, Stan watched the older man's eyes. Pete nodded approval.

"But, Pete, aren't we taking a big chance that some one will find our
claim? It isn't recorded, and our notice will run out unless we do some