“Of course,” said Haney, “our friend ’ere ’asn’t got much grub and if you and me continue to live off ’im it won’t last long. ’E knows a way to get through these mountains and go down to El Paso, but of course ’e can’t be expected to pilot you down there for nothin’. Now, if you made it worth ’is w’ile, I dare say ’e’d be willin’ to stop ’is prospecting long enough to get you safe into the town. Eh, pard?”
“Yes, I can,” Jim replied, “if the tenderfoot wants to make it enough worth while. I ain’t stuck on the trip and I don’t want to fool any more time away around here. You two have got to decide what you’re a-going to do mighty quick. I want to get to prospectin’, and if I have to tote you-all down to El Paso you’ll have to pay big for the favor.”
Wellesly did not reply and Haney, who was looking critically at a big boulder on the top of the canyon wall, burst into the conversation with an exclamation:
“My stars! Do you see that ’uge boulder up there, just above the narrow place in the canyon? ’Ow easy it would be, now, wouldn’t it, for two men to get up there and pry it loose. It would crash down there and fill up that whole blamed trail, wouldn’t it, Mr. Wellesly?”
“Yes, and effectually wall up anybody who might have had the bad luck to be left in here,” Wellesly dryly replied. “But speaking of the dangers of crossing the desert,” he went on, “I remember a story told me once in Denver by a prospector who had been down in this country. It was about a lost mine, the Winters mine. Did you ever hear of it?”
“Yes,” said Jim, “I have. I’ve heard about it many a time. It’s in these mountains somewhere.”
“It was so rich,” Wellesly went on, “that Dick Winters knocked the quartz to pieces with a hammer and selected the chunks that were filled with gold. He said the rock was seamed and spotted with yellow and he brought out in his pocket a dozen bits as big as walnuts that were almost solid gold.”
The two men were listening with interested faces. Jim nodded. “Yes, that’s just what I’ve heard about it. But there are so darn many of them lost mines and so many lies told about ’em that you never can believe anything of the sort.”
“What became of this chap and ’is mine?” asked Haney.