"Going up among the hills again, Dave?" remarked the store-keeper, with whom the miners had often dealt before.
"Yes, we are going to try a new direction this time, and don't want to have to come back directly we have struck anything. We have got enough grub here for three or four months, reckoning as we shall occasionally get hold of bear or deer meat."
"Well, you had better keep clear of the Indian country, Dave. They made a raid down South, I hear, last month, and burnt half a dozen Mexican villages, and they would make short work with you if they came across you anywhere near their country. However, I suppose you aint going to be fool enough to go that way, especially as I see you have got two green hands with you."
"They are old enough to be useful," Dave said. "We can put them to cook and look after the horses, if they can't do anything else. They are Britishers, and one of them stood by me pluckily in a mess I got into in San Diego; so as they had left their ship and were out of a berth, I thought I would bring them with me, as they had a fancy for seeing a little of mining life, before they shipped back again."
Two days after their arrival at Santa Fe they started.
"We will strike due south as if intending to enter Mexico; one never knows who is watching one," Dave said the evening before. "There are always some pretty hard men about these border townsminers who are down on their luck; men who have had to run from the northern diggings, and such like. We may say what we like, but they will make a guess that we have located something rich, and are going back to work it quietly and keep it to ourselves, and like enough some of them will take it in their heads to follow us. Anyhow, we will travel south for a day or two, and then turn off sharp to the west. It aint as I should grudge anyone else a share in the mine, but the more there are the more chance of the Injuns finding us. Besides, some of these chaps are so reckless that like as not they would light a big fire if they wanted to cook a loaf of bread. We three have been up that way before, although not so far as we are going now, and we know what we have got to expect, and that, if we are going to bring our scalps out again, we have got to sleep with our eyes open."
Another fortnight's traveling and they had passed the last settlements, had left Fort Mason behind them, and had entered the country that the Apaches and kindred tribes claimed as their own.
The two lads had enjoyed the journey immensely. They had traveled about fifteen miles a day, their pace being regulated by that of the pack animals. During the heat of the day they had all halted in the shade of some clump of tree or bush. Here the horses had picked up their sustenance, grass and leaves, while the men slept. At night they had camped, when they could find such a spot, on the banks of a stream. Then a big fire would be lighted, a dough of flour, water, and soda would be mixed, and placed in the baking pot. This was put among the red embers, which were drawn over the lid so as to bake it from above as well as below. Then, if they had no other meat, rashers of bacon would be grilled over the fire, and eaten with the hot bread. Generally, however, they had been able to purchase a kid or some fowls at one or other of the little villages through which they passed.
They always carried with them two of the large skins filled with water, in case none should be met with at their halting places; this sufficed for tea and for a good drink at night, and before starting in the morning for the horses. The villages, however, had become fewer and fewer, and at the last through which they had passed they had bought one of the little bullocks of the country, cut the flesh into strips, and hung it in the sun to dry, halting three days for the purpose.
Chapter VI.The Map Again
"Now," Dave said, as they finished their meal on the evening after leaving Fort Mason, "we have got to consider which course we had better take. First we will have another look at the map."
This was taken out from a wash-leather case, in which it had been sewn, Dave carrying it under his shirt by a string that went round his neck. It was the first time that the boys had seen it. As Dave opened it they examined it with much curiosity. It was divided in two; the upper one appeared to be a general map of the country, the lower one a plan of the immediate locality of the spot.
"It looks very confusing," Dick said, as he examined it.
"You see the chap as made it did not do it for other people, but so that he could find his way back by it. This line that runs along the bottom of the other map I take to be the Gila, which is a big river which runs right through the Indian country, and falls into the Rio Grande. I have gone up it from that side two or three hundred miles. We were a strong party, but we had to fight our way back again, and lost pretty near half our number. You see by the map it lies on the north side of the Gila. But as the Gila is eight or nine hundred miles long, that don't help us a great deal, and the map wouldn't be any good to us if it was not for this mark here up near the top. You see all these things are meant for mountains, but as one mountain on a map is just like another, we should be downright done if it was not for this mark. Do you see there are three little jags here close together? Now I take it those three jags are meant for a mountain the Indians call the Three Sisters, which is a mountain with three peaks close together. I never saw it myself, but I have spoken with miners who have seen it from the north. Now, here you see, to the south of the Three Sisters, is a cross, and I take it that's the mine. You see there is a black line waving about among the mountains that stops at that point. I guess that is the line they traveled by."
"But there is nothing to tell us what scale the map is on, Dave," Tom said; "it may mean five hundred miles from end to end, it may mean fifty. If it is five hundred it must be seventy or eighty miles from those peaks to the cross, if it is fifty it is only seven or eight."
"That is so," Dave agreed.
"Have you any idea how far it is from the three peaks to the river?"
"Yes, I have heard it is about fifty miles north of the Gila."