He thinks I am doing a dive for Mexico.  But I’m not.  I am watching him.  I think he means to make a dash for the mine to-night, and I’m going to follow him till I get the direction.  Of course he may go south into Mexico.  If he does he’ll have too big a start to be caught.  But if he goes west, you can head him off and cut sign on him.  Slim is at Silverbell, waiting with a car to bring you a wire from me, which I’ll send only if Johnson goes west, or thereabouts.  If I send the message at all, it should follow close on this letter.  Slim drives his car like a drunk Indian.  Be ready.  Johnson is too much for me.  Maybe you can handle him.

D.

“I would suggest Patagonia,” said Zurich kindly.  “No; get yourself sent up to the pen for life—­that’ll be best.  He wouldn’t look for you there.”

* * * * *

Zurich found but three of his confederacy available—­Jim Scarboro and Bill Dorsey, the Jim and Bill of the horse camp and the shooting match—­and Eric Anderson; but these were his best.  They made a pack; they saddled horses; they filled canteens—­and rifles.

Slim’s car came to Cobre at half-past nine.  The message from Dewing ran thus: 

For Fishhook Mountain.  Benavides, S., J., and another.  Ten words.

* * * * *

Five minutes later the four confederates thundered south through the night.  At daylight they made a change of horses at a far-lying Mexican rancheria, Zurich’s check paying the shot; they bought two five-gallon kegs and lashed them to the pack, to be filled when needed.  At nine in the morning they came to Fishhook Mountain.

Fishhook Mountain is midmost in the great desert; Quijotoa Valley, desolate and dim, lies to the east of it, gullied, dust-deviled, and forlorn.

The name gives the mountain’s shape—­two fishhooks bound together back to back, one prong to the east, the other to the west, the barbs pointing to the north.  Sweetwater Spring is on the barb of the eastern hook; three miles west, on the main shank, an all but impassable trail climbed to Hardscrabble Tanks.

At the foot of this trail, Zurich and his party halted.  Far out on the eastern plain they saw, through Zurich’s spyglass, a slow procession, heading directly for them.

“We’ve beat ’em to it!” said Eric.

“That country out there is washed out something terrible, for all it looks so flat,” said Jim Scarboro sympathetically.  “They’ve got to ride slow.  Gee, I bet it’s hot out there!”

“One thing sure,” said Eric:  “there’s no such mine as that on Fishhook.  I’ve prospected every foot of it.”

“They’ll noon at Sweetwater,” said Zurich.  “You boys go on up to Hardscrabble.  Take my horse.  I’ll go over to Sweetwater and hide out in the rocks to see what I can find out.  There’s a stony place where I can get across without leaving any trail.

“Unsaddle and water.  Leave the pack here, you’d better, and my saddle.  They are not coming here—­nothing to come for.  You can sleep, turn about, one watching the horses, and come on down when you see me coming back.”