“Suits me.”

“You’re my foreman, then.  Hire your teams the first thing.  Make your own terms.  I’ll tell you this much—­it’s a big thing.  A mine—­a he-mine; copper.  That’s partly why Stan is in jail.  And if it comes off, you won’t need to worry about the kid’s schooling.  I aim to give you, extra, five per cent of my share—­and, for men like you and me, five per cent of this lay is exactly the same as all of it.  It’s that big.

“I’m askin’ you to obey orders in the dark.  If you don’t know any details you won’t be mad, and you won’t know who to be mad at; so you won’t jump in to save the day if I fail to come through with my end of it on schedule, and get yourself killed off.  That ain’t all, either.  Your face always gives you away; if you knew all the very shrewd people I’m buckin’, you’d give ’em the marble eye, and they’d watch you.  Not knowin’ ’em, you’ll treat ’em all alike, and you won’t act suspicious.

“Listen now:  You drift out quiet and go down on the Gila, somewhere between Mohawk Siding and Walton.  Know that country?  Yes?  That’s good.  Leave your teams there and you go down to Yuma on the train.  I’ll get a bit of money for you in Tucson, and it’ll be waitin’ for you in Old Man Brownell’s store, in Yuma.  You get a minin’ outfit, complete, and a good layout of grub, enough to last six or seven men till it’s all gone, and some beddin’, two or three thirty-thirty rifles, any large quantity of cartridges, and ’most anything else you see.

“Here’s the particular part:  Buy two more wagons, three-and-a-half-inch axles; about twenty barrels; two pack-saddles and kegs for same, for packing water from some tanks when your water wagons don’t do the trick.  Ship all this plunder up to Mohawk.

“Here’s the idea:  I’m goin’ back East for capital, and I’m comin’ back soon.  Me and my friends—­not a big bunch, but every man-jack of ’em to be a regular person—­are goin’ to start from Tucson, or Douglas, and hug the Mexican border west across the desert, ridin’ light and fast; you’re to go south with water; and Cobre is to be none the wiser.  Here, I’ll make you a map.”

He traced the map in the sand.

“Here’s the railroad, and Mohawk; here’s your camp on the Gila.  Just as soon as you get back, load up one of your new wagons with water and go south.  There’s no road, but there’s two ranges that makes a lane, twenty miles wide, leadin’ to the southeast:  Lomas Negras, the black mountain due south of Mohawk, and Cabeza Prieta, a brown-colored range, farther west.  Keep right down the middle, but miss all the sand you can; you’ll be layin’ out a road you’ll have to travel a heap.  Only, of course, you can straighten it out and better it after you learn the country.  It might be a pious idea for you to ship up a mowing machine and a hayrake from Yuma, like you was fixin’ to cut wild hay.  It’s a good plan always to leave something to satisfy curiosity.  Or, play you was aimin’ to dry-farm.  You shape up your rig to suit yourself—­but play up to it.”