opper mine. That's my best chance to find
out how to keep you from goin' to the pen, isn't it? And if you don't
tell Vesper that you're in jail--but Vesper finds it out, anyhow--that
gives me a chance to see who it is that lives in Vesper and keeps in
touch with Cobre. And I'll tell you something else: When I come back I'll
bail you out of jail and we'll start from here."

"For the mine, you mean?"

"Sure! Start right from the jail door at midnight and ride west. Zurich &
Company won't be expecting that--seein' as how I left you in the lurch,
this-a-way."

"But my cousin will never be able to stand that ride. It's a hundred and
sixty miles--more too."

"Your cousin can join us later--or whoever ever comes along with
development money. There'll be about four or five of us--picked men. I'm
goin' this afternoon to see an old friend--Joe Benavides--and have him
make all arrangements and be all ready to start whenever we get back,
without any delay. I won't take the sheriff, because we might have
negotiations to transact that would be highly indecorous in a sheriff.
But he's to share my share, because he put up a lot more money for the
mine to-day. I sent it on to Yuma, where an old friend of mine and the
sheriff's is to buy a six-horse load of supplies and carry 'em down to
join us, startin' when I telegraph him.

"Got it all worked out. You do as I tell you and you'll wear diamonds on
your stripes. Give me a note for that girl of yours, too."

CHAPTER VIII

The hills send down a buttress to the north; against it the Susquehanna
flows swift and straight for a little space, vainly chafing. Just where
the high ridge breaks sharp and steep to the river's edge there is a
grassy level, lulled by the sound of pleasant waters; there sleep the
dead of Abingdon.

Here is a fair and noble prospect, which in Italy or in California had
been world-famed; a beauty generous and gracious--valley, upland and
hill and curving river. The hills are checkered to squares, cleared
fields and green-black woods; inevitably the mind goes out to those who
wrought here when the forest was unbroken, and so comes back to read on
the headstones the names of the quiet dead: Hill, Barton, Clark, Green,
Camp, Hunt, Catlin, Giles, Sherwood, Tracy, Jewett, Lane, Gibson, Holmes,
Yates, Hopkins, Goodenow, Griswold, Steele. Something stirs at your
hair-roots--these are the names of the English. A few sturdy Dutch
names--Boyce, Steenburg, Van Le