"

Pete paused to glower over that coat; and young Mitchell, big-eyed and
gasping, seized the chance to put in a word:

"You're an ingenious old nightmare, pardner--you almost make it
convincing. But Great Scott, man! Can't you see that your fine, plausible
theory is all built on surmise and wild conjecture? You haven't got a leg
to stand on--not one single fact!"

"Whilst I was first a-constructing this ingenious theory your objection
might have carried force; for I didn't have a fact to stand on, as you
observe. I conjectured round pretty spry, too. Reckon it took me all of
half a second--while them two warriors was giving me the evil eye. I'll
tell you how it was." He related the story of the shooting match and the
lost bet. "And to this unprovoked design against an inoffensive stranger
I fitted the only possible meaning and shape that would make a lick of
sense, dovetailin' in with the real honest-to-goodness facts I already
knew."

"But don't you see, old thing, you're still up in the air? Your theory
doesn't touch ground anywhere."

"Stanley--my poor deluded boy!--when I got to the railroad I wired that
assayer right off. Our samples never reached El Paso. So I wrote out my
fake location and filed it. See what followed that filing--over yonder? I
come this way on purpose, expecting to see those fires, Stanley. If they
hadn't been there we'd have gone on to our mine. Now we'll go anywhere
else."

"Well, I'll just be teetotally damned!" Stanley remarked with great
fervor.

"Trickling into your thick skull, is it? Son, get a piece of charcoal.
Now you make black marks on that white rock as I tell you, to hold
down my statements so they don't flutter away with the wind. Ready?
Number One: Our copper samples didn't reach the assayer--make a long
black mark ... Therefore--make a short black mark ... Number Two:
Either Old Pete's crazy theory is correct in every particular--a long
black mark ... Or--now a short black mark ... Number Three: The assayer
has thrown us down--a long black mark ... Number Four: Which would
be just as bad--make a long black mark."

CHAPTER IV

Stanley Mitchell looked hard at the long black mark; he looked out along
the south to the low line of the Gavilan Hills; he looked at the red arc
of sun peering suddenly over the Comobabi Range.

"Well--and so forth!" he said. "Here is a burn from the branding! And
what are we going to do now?"

"Wash the dishes. You do it."

"You