“’Your nugget’s been seen, and sawed, and smeltered.  Got that?  As part of the skulduggery they been slippin’ to young Stan, your package has been opened,’ says Petey, leerin’ at me.  ’Great Scott!  Then they know we got just about the richest mine in Arizona!’ I says, with my teeth chatterin’ so that I stammers.  ‘Gosh, no!  Else the coyotes would be pickin’ your bones,’ says Pete.  ’They know you’ve got some rich ore, but they figure it to be some narrow, pinchin’, piddlin’ little vein somewheres.  How can they guess you found a solid mountain of the stuff?’

“‘Sufferin’ cats!’ says I.  ’Then is every play I make—­henceforth and forever, amen—­to be gaumed up by a mess of hirelin’ bandogs?  Persecutin’ Stan was all very well—­but if they take to molesting me any, it’s going to make my blood fairly boil!  Is some one going to draw down wages for makin’ me mizzable all the rest of my whole life?’ ‘No such luck,’ says Petey.  ’Your little ore package was taken from the mail as part of the system of pesterin’ Stanley—­but, once the big boss-devil glued his bug-eyes on that freeworkin’ copper stuff, he throwed up his employer and his per diem, and is now operating roundabout on his own.  They take it you might have papers about you showing where your claim is—­location papers, likely.  That’s all!  These ducks, here, want to go through you.  Nobody wants to kill you—­not now.  Not yet—­any more than usual.  But, if you ask me,’ said Petey, ’if they ever come to know as much about that copper claim as you know, they’ll do you up.  Yes, sir!  From ambush, likely.  So long as they are dependin’ on you to lead them to it, you’re safe from that much, maybe.  After they find out where it is—­cuidado!’

“’But who took that package out of the mail, Petey?  It might have been any one of several or more—­old Zurich, here at Cobre; or the postmaster at Silverbell; or the postal clerks on the railroad; or the post-office people at El Paso.’

“‘You’re an old pig-headed fool,’ says Pete to me; ’and you lie like a thief.  You know who it was, same as I do—­old C. Mayer Zurich, grand champion lightweight collar-and-elbow grafter and liar, cowman, grubstaker, general storekeeper, postmaster, and all-round crook, right here in Cobre—­right here where young Stanley’s been gettin’ ’em dealt from the bottom for three years.  Them other post-office fellows never had no truck with Stanley—­never so much as heard of him.  Zurich’s here.  He had the disposition, the motive, the opportunity, and the habit.  Besides, he sold you a shoddy coat once.  Forgotten that?’”

Pete paused to glower over that coat; and young Mitchell, big-eyed and gasping, seized the chance to put in a word: 

“You’re an ingenious old nightmare, pardner—­you almost make it convincing.  But Great Scott, man!  Can’t you see that your fine, plausible theory is all built on surmise and wild conjecture?  You haven’t got a leg to stand on—­not one single fact!”