CHAPTER XLI—Beneath the Precipice
WILLOUGHBY had found his friends Munson and Jack Rover at Buck Ashley’s old store, eagerly awaiting his coming, with a fine supper sizzling on the cook stove, prepared in Jack’s finest professional cowboy style.
“We’ve got to feed you up a bit, I reckon,” grinned Jack, as he slipped the Gargantuan slab of beef-steak from the griller on to the big hot dish waiting for its reception.
“And some potatoes, too,” he went on, “not forgetting the fried onions that beat all your newfangled sauces to a frazzle.”
Dick was nothing loth to fall to. He had been too excited to do more than taste the midday meal that Pierre Luzon had prepared for him in the cavern. It had been a long hard day, and now he was hungry as a wolf. In ordinary circumstances he had no objection to fried onions, but, with delicate regard for possible contingencies, he left to the others a monopoly over this item in the bill-of-fare.
There were so many things to talk about that it was a difficult matter to know where to begin. But at the close of the meal Jack Rover solved the question by sweeping the supper things from the table, and emptying thereon the contents of one of the bags of gold.
“Good old Guadalupe!” exclaimed the delighted cowboy, as he patted the nuggets with a loving hand. “I always told you that the ancient squaw had a real gold mine. I guess we’ll be able to stake out our claims tomorrow, eh, Dick, my boy?”
“I’m afraid not,” smiled Willoughby. “The fact is that, although I helped to wash out that gold, I have not the faintest idea where the riffle is up among the hills.”