runs four hundred dollars to the ton, and the ledge is eight inches wide between the walls. Nice ore, eh? And she lays between shale and porphyry."
His eyes sparkled as he carefully replaced the specimen, and then he looked up at Bud.
"I'll let you in on that," he said, "half and half – or I'll pay two hundred dollars a month and a bonus. You alone. Now how about it?"
For a moment Hooker looked at him as if to read his thoughts, then he shook his head and exhaled his smoke regretfully.
"Nope," he said. "Me and Phil are pardners. We work together."
"I'll give you three hundred!" cried Kruger, half rising in his chair.
"Nope," grunted Bud, "we're pardners."
"Huh!" snorted the mining man, and flung away in disgust. But as he neared the door a new thought struck him and he came as quickly back.
"You can do what you please about your pardner," he said. "I'm talking to you. Now – will you think about it?"
"Sure!" returned Hooker.
"Well, then," snapped Kruger, "meet me at the Waldorf in an hour!"
III
On the untrammeled frontier, where most men are willing to pass for what they are without keeping up any "front," much of the private business, as well as the general devilment, is transacted in the back rooms of saloons. The Waldorf was nicely furnished in this regard.
After a drink at the bar, in which De Lancey and Hooker joined, Henry Kruger led the way casually to the rear, and in a few moments they were safely closeted.
"Now," began Kruger, as he took a seat by the table and faced them with snapping eyes, "the first thing I want to make plain to you gentlemen is, if I make any deal to-day it's to be with Mr. Hooker. If you boys are pardners you can talk it over together, but I deal with one man, and that's Hooker.
"All right?" he inquired, glancing at De Lancey, and that young man nodded indulgently.
"Very well, then," resumed Kruger, "now to get down to business. This mine that I'm talking about is located down here in Sonora within three hours' ride of a big American camp. It isn't any old Spanish mine, or lost padre layout; it's a well-defined ledge running three or four hundred dollars to the ton – and I know right where it is, too.
"What I want to do is to establish the title to it now, while this revolution is going on, and make a bonanza out of it afterward. Of course, if you boys don't want to go back into Mexico, that settles it; but if you do go, and I let you in on the deal, you've got to see it through or I'll lose the whole thing. So make up your minds, and if you say you'll go, I want you to stick to it!"
"We'll go, all right," spoke up De Lancey, "if it's rich enough."
"How about you?" inquired Kruger, turning impatiently on Bud. "Will you go?"
"Yes, I'll go," answered Bud sullenly. "But I ain't stuck on the job," he added. "Jest about get it opened up when a bunch of rebels will jump in and take everything we've got."
"Well, you get a title to it and pay your taxes and you can come out then," conceded Henry Kruger.
"No," grumbled Hooker, "if I go I'll stay with it." He glanced at his pardner at this, but he, for one, did not seem to be worried.
"I'll try anything – once!" he observed with a sprightly air, and Bud grinned sardonically at the well-worn phrase.
"Well," said Kruger, gazing inquiringly from one to the other, "is it a go? Will you shake hands on it?"
"What's the proposition?" broke in De Lancey eagerly.
"The deal is between me and Hooker," corrected Kruger. "I'll give him three hundred a month, or an equal share in the mine, expenses to be shared between us."
"Make it equal shares," said Hooker, holding out his hand, "and I'll give half of mine to Phil."
"All right, my boy!" cried the old man, suddenly clapping him on the shoulder, "I'll go you – and you'll never regret it," he added significantly. Then, throwing off the air of guarded secrecy which had characterized his actions so far, he sat down and began to talk.
"Boys," he said, "I'm feeling lucky to-day or I'd never have closed this deal. I'm letting you in on one of the biggest things that's ever been found in Sonora. Just to show you how good it is, here's my smelter receipts for eight hundred pounds of picked ore – one thousand and twenty-two dollars! That's the first and last ore that's ever been shipped from the old Eagle Tail. I dug it out myself, and sacked it and shipped it; and then some of them crooked Mexican officials tried to beat me out of my title and I blowed up the whole works with dynamite!
"Yes, sir, clean as a whistle! I had my powder stored away in the drift, and the minute I found out I was euchred I laid a fuse to it and brought the whole mountain down. That was ten years ago, and old Aragon and the agente mineral have had the land located ever since.
"I bet they've spent five thousand pesos trying to find that lead, but being nothing but a bunch of ignorant Mexicans, of course they never found nothing. Then Francisco Madero comes in and fires the agente mineral off his job and old Aragon lets the land revert for taxes. I've got a Mexican that keeps me posted, and ever since he sent me word that the title had lapsed I've been crazy to relocate that claim.
"Well, now, that don't look so bad, does it?" he asked, beaming paternally at Bud. "There ain't a man in town that wouldn't have jumped at the chance, if I was where I could talk about it, but that's just what I couldn't do. I had to find some stranger that wouldn't sense what mine I was talking about and then git him to go in on it blind.
"Now here's the way I'm fixed, boys," he explained, brushing out his unkempt beard and smiling craftily. "When I dynamited the Eagle Tail it was mine by rights, but Cipriano Aragon – he's the big Mexican down at old Fortuna – and Morales, the mineral agent, had buncoed me out of the title.
"So, according to law, I blowed up their mine, and if I ever showed up down there I reckon they'd throw me into jail. And if at any time they find out that you're working for me, why, we're ditched – that's all! They'll put you out of business. So, after we've made our agreement and I've told you what to do, I don't want to hear a word out of you – I don't want you to come near me, nor even write me a letter – just go ahead the best you can until you win out or go broke.
"It ain't a hard proposition," he continued, "if you keep your mouth shut, but if they tumble, it'll be a fight to a finish. I'm not saying this for you, Hooker, because I know you're safe; I'm saying it for your pardner here. You talk too much, Mr. De Lancey," he chided, eying him with sudden severity. "I'm afraid of ye!"
"All right," broke in Hooker good-naturedly, "I reckon we understand. Now go ahead and tell us where this mine is and who there is down there to look out for."
"The man to look out for," answered Kruger with venom, "is Cipriano Aragon. He's the man that bilked me out of the mine once, and he'll do it again if he can. When I went down there – it was ten years and more ago – I wasn't onto those Spanish ways of his, and he was so dog-goned polite and friendly I thought I could trust him anywhere.
"He owns a big ranch and mescal still, runs cattle, works a few placers, sends out pack-trains, and has every Mexican and Indian in the country in debt to him through his store, so if he happens to want any rough work done there's always somebody to do it.
