It was at the next stop, reached about an hour later, that the Rover boys caught their first sight of Indians. There was a reservation not a great distance away, and a number of the redmen, along with their squaws, had come down to the station to sell trinkets and to obtain tips for allowing their photographs to be taken.
“That’s one way of getting into the pictures,” remarked Jack. “That old Indian yonder said I could take his photograph shaking hands with you other fellows for fifty cents apiece. What do you know about that!”
“The old Indians don’t change much,” answered Tom Rover. “They are out for any money they can get. Just the same, that old Indian may have a son at college or on one of the big baseball teams.”
“I knew one of the Indian ball players,” said Fred proudly. “His name was Big Knee, but they called him Joe Smith. He was a twirler for a middle West team.”
It lacked but an hour to sunset when they arrived at Maporah. The boys had expected to see quite a town, and were somewhat disappointed when they saw only a dingy little station, a store and post-office combined, and half a dozen tumbled-down dwellings.
“Hardly anybody lives around here,” explained Tom Rover. “It used to be quite a center when the gold mines behind the town were in operation. But as soon as they failed to pay, the town practically went broke. But it’s the nearest station to Gold Hill Falls.”
Several days before Tom Rover had sent a telegraph to Lew Billings, asking that individual to be on hand at the station with saddle horses or some conveyance to take the whole party over to Sunset Trail. He was therefore much disappointed when on alighting from the train with the boys he saw nothing of the man from the mine.
“I don’t understand this,” he said, after a look around. “He certainly should have received my message.”
There was only a handful of men around the little station, and no one but the Rovers had left the train. While Tom Rover was deliberating on what to do next a strange man, a miner wearing a flannel shirt, broad-brimmed hat, and with his trousers tucked in his boots, strode up hesitatingly.
“Are you Mr. Rover?” he asked in rather a low voice.