“Now, to come back to this mine:  No one knows where it is.  It’s pretty safe till I go after it; and I’m pretty safe till I go after it.  Once we get to it, it’s going to be a case of armed pickets and Who goes there?—­night and day, till we get legal title.  And it’s going to take slews of money and men and horses to get water and supplies to those miners and warriors.  Listen:  One or the other of two things—­two—­is going to happen.  Count ’em off on your fingers.  Either no one will find that mine before me and my friends meet up with you and your water, or else some one will find it before then.  If no one finds it first, we’ve lost nothing.  That’s plain.  But if my Cobre friends—­the push that railroaded Stan to jail—­if they should find that place while I’m back in New York, and little Jackson Carr working on it—­Good-bye, Jackson Carr!  They’d kill you without a word.  That’s another thing I’m going back to New York for besides getting money.  There’s something behind Stanley’s jail trip besides the copper proposition; and that something is back in New York.  I’m going to see what about it.

“Just one thing more:  If we don’t come, and you have to strike out for the tanks in Cabeza Mountain, you’ll notice a mess of low, little, insignificant, roan-colored, squatty hills spraddled along to the south of you.  You shun them hills, bearing off to your right.  There’s where our mine is.  And some one might be watching you or following your tracks.  That’s all.  Now I’m going to sleep.  Wake me about an hour by sun.”

* * * * *

Mr. Peter Johnson sat in the office of the Tucson Jail and smiled kindly upon Mr. Stanley Mitchell.

“Well, you got here at last,” said Stan.  “Gee, but I’m glad to see you!  What kept you so long?”

“Stanley, I am surprised at you.  I am so.  You keep on like this and you’re going to have people down on you.  Too bad!  But I suppose boys will be boys,” said Pete tolerantly.

“I knew you’d spring something like this,” said Stan.  “Take your time.”

“I’m afraid it’s you that will take time, my boy.  Can’t you dig up any evidence to help you?”

“I don’t see how.  I went to sleep and didn’t hear a thing; didn’t wake up till they arrested me.”

“Oh!  You’re claiming that you didn’t do the robbin’ at all?  I see-e!  Standing on your previous record and insistin’ you’re the victim of foul play?  Sympathy dodge?...  Hum!  You stick to that, my boy,” said Pete benevolently.  “Maybe that’s as good a show as any.  Get a good lawyer.  If you could hire some real fine old gentleman and a nice little old gray-haired lady to be your parents and weep at the jury, it might help a heap....  If you’d only had sense enough to have hid that money where it couldn’t have been found, or where it wouldn’t have been a give-away on you, at least!  I suppose you was scared.  But it sorter reflects back on me, since you’ve been running with me lately.  Folks will think I should have taught you better.  What made you do it, Stanley?”