thinking of making a start, Jerry?"

"The sooner the better. I have been four months here already and have
not struck a vein, that is, not one really worth working, and the sooner
I make a fresh start the better. To-day is Wednesday. There will be
plenty of time to get all the things to-day and to-morrow, and we will
start at daylight on Friday. You may as well come with me, Tom, and
learn something about the prices of things. There are some Indians
camped three miles away. We will walk over there first and pick up a
couple of ponies. I know they have got a troop of them, that is what
they come here to sell. They only arrived yesterday, so we shall have
the pick of them."

Before starting there was a short conversation between Jerry and the
landlord, and then the former put on his broad-brimmed hat.

"Have you seen any red-skins yet?"

"I saw a few at some of the stations the train stopped at between this
and Omaha."

"Those fellows are mostly Indians who have been turned out of their
tribes for theft or drunkenness, and they hang about the stations to
sell moccasins and other things their squaws make, to fresh arrivals.

"The fellows you are going to see are Navahoes, though not good
specimens of the tribe, or they would not be down here to sell ponies.
Still, they are a very different sort from those you have seen."

An hour's walking took them to a valley, in which the Indians were