where's their hosses. The army is nothing but an importer of
stolen stock, and knows it, and can't help it.

Well, as I says, I'm between Camp Apache and the Mexican line, so
that every raiding party goes right on past me. The point is
that I'm a thousand feet or so above the valley, and the
renegades is in such a devil of a hurry about that time that they
never stop to climb up and collect me. Often I've watched them
trailing down the valley in a cloud of dust. Then, in a day or
two, a squad of soldiers would come up, and camp at my spring for
a while. They used to send soldiers to guard every water hole in
the country so the renegades couldn't get water. After a while,
from not being bothered none, I got thinking I wasn't worth while
with them.

Me and Johnny Hooper were pecking away at the old Virginia mine
then. We'd got down about sixty feet, all timbered, and was
thinking of cross-cutting. One day Johnny went to town, and that
same day I got in a hurry and left my gun at camp.

I worked all the morning down at the bottom of the shaft, and
when I see by the sun it was getting along towards noon, I put in
three good shots, tamped 'em down, lit the fusees, and started to
climb out.

It ain't noways pleasant to light a fuse in a shaft, and then
have to climb out a fifty-foot ladder, with it burning behind
you. I never did get used to it. You keep thinking, "Now
suppose there's a flaw in that fuse, or something, and she goes
off in six seconds instead of two minutes? where'll you be