“What of her?” said the Doctor.
“How could we take her into the wilds?”
“It would be safer to take her into the deserts and mountains, than to leave her here,” said the Doctor bitterly. “I should at least always have her under my eye.”
He went out and told his men, who were hanging about the old ranche although there was no work for them to do.
One minute they were looking dull and gloomy, the next they were waving their hats and blankets in the air, and the result of it all was that in less than a month Dr Lascelles had well stored a waggon with the wreck of his fortune, purchased a small tent for his daughter’s use, and, all well-armed, the little party had started off into the wilds of New Mexico, bound for the mountain region, where the Doctor hoped to make some discovery of mineral treasure sufficient to recompense him for all his risk, as well as for the losses of the past.
They were, then, six days out when there was what had seemed to be a sort of mutiny among his men—a trouble that he was in the act of quelling when we made his acquaintance in the last chapter—though, as we have seen, it proved to be no mutiny at all, but merely a remonstrance on the part of the rough, honest fellows who had decided to share his fortunes, against running into what they esteemed to be unnecessary risks.
Joses and his three fellows were about as brigandish and wild-looking a set of half savages as a traveller could light upon in a day’s journey even in these uncivilised parts. In fact, no stranger would have been ready to trust his life or property in their keeping, if he could have gone farther. If he had, though, he would most probably have fared worse; for it is not always your pleasantest outside that proves to hide the best within.
These few lines, then, will place the reader au courant, as the French say, with the reason of the discussion at the beginning of the last chapter, and show him as well why it was that Dr Lascelles, Bart Woodlaw, and Maud Lascelles were out there in the desert with such rough companions. This being then the case, we will at once proceed to deal with their adventurous career.