“They decides to quit trapping and go ter gold huntin’, and makes their way up the Gila River and then cuts off inter ther desert.  Frum Yuma they goes southeast and kep’ on fer four days across the desert.  At ther end of the fourth day they ‘lows that ther water ain’ a-goin’ ter hold out a turrible lot longer, and they decides to look fer a water-hole in a canyon at ther end uv which stands three lone buttes sticking up, like sentinels against ther sky.

“Wa’al, they hunts ther canyon through but nary a drop of water.  In time they reaches ther buttes.  They climbs to ther top ter see what might lay beyond, but they see nuthin’ but ther same God-forgotten country.

“But Peg-leg, who fer all he was minus a limb, could travel with any of ’em, he finds at the top of the southernmost butte a lot of chunks of black rock lying round promiscous, an’ some of them has specks an’ chunks of yaller as bright as Zeb’s beard on ’em.  Peg-leg he opines ther yaller is nuthin’ but copper, or maybe fool’s gold.

“That night they camps, feelin’ considerable blue, fer ther’s mighty little water left an’ they’ve come too far ter go back.  But in ther distance thar’s a big mountain and they make up their minds they’ll find water thar or bust and wither on the desert.

“Ther next evening, more dead than alive, they reaches the mountain and finds a little spring.  It was ther finest thing they’d seen fer a long time, and in honor of Peg-leg, who suggested going to ther mountain, they calls it Smith Mountain, and that’s its name to this day.  In time they worked round to San Bernardino and then Smith he hunts up a mineral sharp who tells him that what he had found was gold.

“Wa’al, Smith was a curious feller, frum all accounts, and it was not till ’49 when ther big gold rush came that he thought much more about those three buttes with the gold lying round loose as dirt on ’em.  Then he got ther gold fever.  He went to ’Frisco and gets up an expedition to find them three buttes.

“They got down inter ther desert country all right and locates Smith Mountain.  But the dern Indians they had with ’em as guides cleaned out the camp one fine night, and they had a hard time getting back to civilization alive.  Well, that’s where Peg-leg Smith goes out of the story.”

“Wasn’t he ever heard of again?” asked Jack.

“No, siree, not hide nor hair on him.  Nobody never knows what became of him arter they got back to San Bernardino.  Some says that he went back alone lookin’ fer the three buttes and was lost in the desert and that his bones is out thar some’eres to-day, an’ others says that he got so plum disgusted he went back home to St. Louis.  But nobody rightly knows.

“The next heard of ther three buttes was many years later when an Indian, who worked on Governor Downey’s ranch, not far from Smith Mountain, developed a habit of goin’ away fer a few days and then comin’ back with bits of black rock chock full of gold which he traded fer firewater and such.  He didn’t seem ter care if he got full value or not.