“It’s the first time I ever took the easy way out, and left the fight alone to a chum,––but I’ll do it, Bub, because you could not make a quick get-away with me tagging along. Things look murkier in this territory every minute. You’ll either have the time of your life, or a headstone early in the game. Billie and I will put it up though we won’t know where you’re planted. I don’t like it, but the minutes and water for the trail are both precious. Come out quick as you can. So long!”
Pardner, refreshed by cooling drink and an hour’s standing in wet mud of the well drainage, stepped off briskly toward the north, while Rhodes lifted Tula to the back of the pack mule, and Miguel unheeding all plans or changes, drooped with closed eyes on the back of the little burro. The manager of the reorganized gold-search syndicate strode along in the blinding glare of the high sun, herding them ahead of him, and as Pike turned for a last look backward at a bend of the trail, the words of the old darkey chant came to him on the desert air:
| Oh, there was a frog lived in the spring! |
CHAPTER X
A MEXICAN EAGLET
The silver wheel of the moon was rolling into the west when the Indian girl urged the mule forward, and caught the bridle of the burro.
“What is it, Tula?” asked Rhodes, “we are doing well on the trail to Mesa Blanca; why stop here?”
“Look,” she said. “See you anything? Know you this place in the road?”