ee thirty-thirty rifles, any large quantity
of cartridges, and 'most anything else you see.

"Here's the particular part: Buy two more wagons, three-and-a-half-inch
axles; about twenty barrels; two pack-saddles and kegs for same, for
packing water from some tanks when your water wagons don't do the trick.
Ship all this plunder up to Mohawk.

"Here's the idea: I'm goin' back East for capital, and I'm comin' back
soon. Me and my friends--not a big bunch, but every man-jack of 'em to be
a regular person--are goin' to start from Tucson, or Douglas, and hug the
Mexican border west across the desert, ridin' light and fast; you're to
go south with water; and Cobre is to be none the wiser. Here, I'll make
you a map."

He traced the map in the sand.

"Here's the railroad, and Mohawk; here's your camp on the Gila. Just as
soon as you get back, load up one of your new wagons with water and go
south. There's no road, but there's two ranges that makes a lane, twenty
miles wide, leadin' to the southeast: Lomas Negras, the black mountain
due south of Mohawk, and Cabeza Prieta, a brown-colored range, farther
west. Keep right down the middle, but miss all the sand you can; you'll
be layin' out a road you'll have to travel a heap. Only, of course, you
can straighten it out and better it after you learn the country. It might
be a pious idea for you to ship up a mowing machine and a hayrake from
Yuma, like you was fixin' to cut wild hay. It's a good plan always to
leave something to satisfy curiosity. Or, play you was aimin' to
dry-farm. You shape up your rig to suit yourself--but play up to it."

"I'll hay it," said Carr.

"All right--hay it, by all means. Take your first load of water out about
twenty-five miles and leave it--using as little as you can to camp on.
You'll have to have three full sets of chains and whiffletrees for your
six-horse team, of course. You can't bother with dragging a buckboard
along behind to take 'em back with. Go back to the railroad, take a
second load of water, camp the first night out at your first wagon, and
leave the second load of water farther south, twenty-five miles or so.

"Then go back to the Gila and pack the rest of your plunder in this wagon
of yours, all ready to start the minute you get a telegram from me. Wire
back to me so I'll know when to start. You will have water for your
horses at twenty-five miles and fifty, and enough left to use when you go
back for your next trip. After that