“I can tell you how to not mispronounce half as many words as you do now,” said Stan.

“How’s that?” said Pete, greatly interested.

“Only talk half so much.”

“Fair enough, kid!  It would work, too.  That ain’t all, either.  If I talked less you’d talk more; and, talking more, you’d study out for yourself a lot of the things I tell you now, gettin’ credit from you for much wisdom, just because I hold the floor.  Go to it, boy!  Tell us how the affairs of We, Us & Company size up to you at this juncture.”

“Here goes,” said Stan.  “First, we don’t want to let on that we’ve got anything at all on our minds—­much less a rich mine.  After a reasonable time we should make some casual mention of discontent that we’ve sent off rock to an assayer and not heard from it.  Not to say a word would make our conspirators more suspicious; a careless mention of it might make them think our find wasn’t such-a-much, after all.  Say!  I suppose it wouldn’t do to pick up a collection of samples from the best mines round Cobre—­and inquire round who to write to for some more, from Jerome and Cananea, maybe; and then, after talking them up a while, we could send one of these samples off to be assayed, just for curiosity—­what?”

“Bear looking into,” said Pete; “though I think they’d size it up as an attempt to throw ’em off the trail.  Maybe we can smooth that idea out so we can do something with it.  Proceed.”

“Then we’ll have to play up to that location you filed by hiking to the Gavilan and going through the motions of doing assessment work on that dinky little claim.”

Feeling his way, Stan watched the older man’s eyes.  Pete nodded approval.

“But, Pete, aren’t we taking a big chance that some one will find our claim?  It isn’t recorded, and our notice will run out unless we do some assessment work pretty quick.  Suppose some one should stumble onto it?”

“Well, we’ve got to take the chance,” said Pete.  “And the chance of some one stumbling on our find by blind luck, like we did, isn’t a drop in the bucket to the chance that we’ll be followed if we try to slip away while these fellows are worked up with the fever.  Seventy-five thousand round dollars to one canceled stamp that some one has his eye glued on us through a telescope right this very now!  I wouldn’t bet the postage stamp on it, at that odds.  No, sir!  Right now things shape up hotter than the seven low places in hell.

“If we go to the mine now—­or soon—­we’ll never get back.  After we show them the place—­adios el mundo!”

“Surely in vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird,” Mitchell quoted soberly.  “So you think that after a while, when their enthusiasm dies down, we can give them the slip?”

“Sure!  It’s our only chance.”

“Couldn’t we make a get-away at night?”

“It is what they are hoping for.  They’d follow our tracks.  No, sir!  We do nothing.  We notice nothing, we suspect nothing, and we have nothing to hide.”