“Oh, I’ll make you a map,” said Pete.  “Cobre—­that’s Mexican for copper—­is where we’ll make our headquarters.  You give me some paper and I’ll make you a map mighty quick.”

Pete made a sketchy but fairly accurate map of Southern Arizona, with the main lines of railroad and the branches.

“Here’s Silverbell, at the end of this little spur of railroad.  Now give me that other sheet of paper and I’ll show you where the mine is, and the country round Cobre.”

Wetting his pencil, working with slow and painstaking effort, making slight erasures and corrections with loving care, poor, trustful, unsuspecting Pete mapped out, with true creative joy, a district that never was on land or sea, accompanying each stroke of his handiwork with verbal comments, explaining each original mountain chain or newly invented valley with a wealth of descriptive detail that would have amazed Muenchausen.

Mitchell laughed in his heart to see how readily the simple-minded mountaineer became his dupe and tool, and watched, with a covert sneer, as Pete joyously contrived his own downfall and undoing.

“I have many questions to ask about your mine—­I believe I had almost said our mine.”  The lawyer smiled cordially.  “To begin with, how about water and fuel?”

“Lots of it.  A cedar brake, checker-boarded all along the mountain.  There’s where it gets the name, Ajedrez Mountain—­Chess Mountain; kind of laid out in squares that way.  Good enough for mine timbers, too.  Big spring—­big enough so you might almost call it a creek—­right close by.  It’s almost too good to be true—­couldn’t be handier if I’d dreamed it!  But,” he added with regretful conscientiousness, “the water’s pretty hard, I’m sorry to say.  Most generally is, around copper that way.  And it’ll have to be pumped uphill to the mine.  Too bad the spring couldn’t have been above the mine, so it could have been piped down.”

Prompted by more questions he plunged into a glowing description of Ajedrez Mountain; the marvelous scope of country to be seen from the summit; the beauty of its steep and precipitous canons; the Indian pottery; the mysterious deposit of oyster shells, high on the mountain-side, proving conclusively that Ajedrez Mountain had risen from the depths of some prehistoric sea; ending with a vivid description of the obstacles to be surmounted by each of the alternate projects for the wagon road up to the mine, with estimates of comparative cost.

At length it drew on to the hour for Mitchell’s dinner and Pete’s supper, and they parted with many expressions of elation and good-will.

From his window in the Algonquin, Pete Johnson watched Mitchell picking his way across to the Iroquois House, and smiled grimly.