“You don’t tell me!”

“That’s what I tell you, and I tell you the truth.”

“Then you are just the man I want.”

“I said I was; I am more than an engineer, I am a mineralogist and a geologist.”

“Hold on, don’t overcome a fellow out here in the mountains; if you are a civil engineer that is enough for me.  Hang your mineralogy and geology; what I want is a man who can estimate.  No doubt about the ledge I’ve struck; the question is, how much will it cost to mine it; how much is there of it?  You see I’ve had some experience here in the mountains, and sometimes we strike what is called a pocket; we might find gold for a few feet one way and another, and then strike dead rock and no gold.  I ain’t a mineralogist or geologist or a civil engineer, and I am afraid my find won’t amount to much, but it is worth investigation, and as you are able to estimate we will make a start.  To-morrow I will take you to my ledge and then we will know whether we are millionaires or tramps—­eh? mountain tramps—­but I am grateful for this food and coffee, and now if you’ll give me a little tobacco I’ll be the most contented man in the mountains, whether my mine turns out a hit or a misthrow.”

So tobacco was produced; Brooks himself was an inveterate smoker, and since being in the mountains Desmond had taken to the weed, and there was promise that some day he might become an inveterate.

The three men had a jolly time, but in a quiet way.  Creedon was a good story teller; he had had many weird experiences in the mountains.  He had acted as guide to a great many parties, he had engaged in about fifty fights with Indians during his residence in the great West, and had met a great many very notable characters.

When the men concluded to lie down to sleep for the night they extinguished their fire, and each man found a crevice into which he crept, and only those who have slept in the open air in a pure climate can tell of the exhilarating effects that follow a slumber under the conditions described.

Desmond was the first to awake, and he peeped forth from his crevice and glanced down toward the point where the fire had been, when he beheld a sight that caused his blood to run cold.  Five fierce-looking savages were grouped around the spot where the campfire had been, and he had a chance to study a scene he had never before witnessed.  He beheld five savages in full war paint; they were dressed in a most grotesque manner, part of their attire being fragments of United States uniforms, showing that the red men had been in a skirmish, and possibly had come out victorious, and had had an opportunity to strip the bodies of the dead.

A great deal has been written about the shrewdness of redmen.  They are shrewd when their qualities are once fully aroused and they are on the scent, but they are given to assumptions, the same as white men.  Of course Creedon was practically to be credited when he said that the Indians assumed there had been a camp there and that the campers had departed, but had they made as close observations as when on a trail they would have made discoveries that would have suggested the near presence of the late campers.