Your little friend,
Jeff Bransford.
P. S. Excuse haste.
He made a plain trail of high-heeled boot-tracks to the spring, where he drank deep; thence beyond, through the sandy soil, to the nearest rocky ridge. Then, careful that every step fell on a bare rock, he came circuitously back to the corral, climbed the fence, made his way to the tied burro, improvised a bridle of cunning half-hitches, slipped from the fence to the burro’s back—a burro, by the way, is a donkey—named the burro anew as Balaam, and went back down the cañon at the best pace of which the belabored and astonished Balaam was capable. As Jeff had hoped, the two other burros—or the other two burros, to be precise—followed sociably, braying remonstrance.
Without the mouth of the cañon Jeff rode up the steep trail to the mine, also to the great disgust of his mount; but he must not walk—it would leave boot-tracks. For the same reason, after freeing Balaam, his first action was to pull off the telltale boots and replace them with the smallest pair of hobnailed miner’s shoes in the tent. With these he carefully obliterated the few boot-tracks at the tent door.
The water-kegs were full; Jeff swore his joyful gratitude and turned his eye to the plain. The pursuing dust was still far away—seven miles, he estimated, or possibly eight. The three burros nibbled on the bushes below the dump; plainly intending to stay round camp with an eye for possible tips. Jeff gave his whole-hearted attention to the mise-en-scène.
Never did stage manager toil so hard, so faithfully, so effectively as this one—or with so great a need. He took stock of the available stage properties, beginning with a careful inventory of the grub-chest. To betray ignorance of its possibilities or deficiencies would be fatal. Following a narrow trail round a little shoulder of hill, he found the powder magazine. Taking three sticks of dynamite, with fuse and caps, he searched the tent for the candle-box, lit a candle and went into the tunnel with a brisk trot. “If this was a case of fight, now, I’d have some pretty fair weapons here for close quarters,” said Jeff; “but the way I’m fixed I can’t. No fighting goes—unless Lake comes.”
In the tunnel his luck held good. He found a number of good-sized chunks of rock stacked along the wall near the breast—evidently reserved for the ore pile at a more convenient season. Beneath three of the largest of these rocks he carefully adjusted the three sticks of giant powder, properly capped and fused, lit the fuses and retreated to the safety of the dump. Three muffled detonations followed at short intervals. Having thus announced the presence of mining operations, he built a fire on the kitchen side of the dump to further advertise a mind conscious of its own rectitude. The pleasant shadow of the hills was cool about him; the flame rose clear and bright in the windless air, to be seen from far away.
He looked at the location papers in the monument by the ore stack; simultaneously, by way of economizing time, emptying a can of salmon. This was partly for the added verisimilitude of the empty tin, partly because he was ravenously hungry. You may guess how he emptied the tin.
The mine had changed owners since Jeff’s knowledge of it. It was no longer Gwin’s sole property. The notice bore the signatures of J. Gwin, C. W. Sanders and Walter Fleck. Jeff grinned and his eye brightened. He knew Fleck only slightly; but Fleck’s reputation among the cowmen was good—that is to say, as you would see it, very bad.
Pappy Sanders, postmaster and storekeeper of Escondido, was an old and sorely tried friend of Jeff’s. If Pappy had grub-staked the outfit——A far-away plan began to shape vaguely in his fertile brain. He took the little turquoise horse from his pocket and laid it in the till of the violated trunk. Were you told about the violated trunk? Never mind—he had done any amount of other things of which you have not been told; for it was his task, in the brief time allotted to him, to master all the innumerable details needful for an intelligent reading of his part. He must make no blunders.