the insurrection of the Indians, and
the priests who found it never lived to get out. Why, Bub, that is
nearly two hundred years ago! Stop and think of the noble Castilians
going over Sonora with a fine tooth comb for that trail ever since and
then think of the nerve of us!"

"Well, I'm nearer to it anyway than the Dutchman who trekked in from
the south last year with copies of the old mission reports as guide,
for the Yaquis killed him, and took his records, while they hide my
horse for me."

"Huh! yes, and warn you to ride him north!"

"Correct;--but Pike, it was a warning, not a threat! Oh, I'm coming
back all right, all right! That gold by the hidden stream sure has got
me roped and hog tied for keeps."

Pike growled good-natured disdain of his confidence, and suggested
that the stream, which was probably only a measly mud hole, could have
dropped to purgatory in an earthquake tremor since those first old
mission days, or filled up with quicksand.

"Right you are, Cap. That's a first-rate idea," agreed Kit the
irrepressible. "Next trip we'll start looking for streams that were
and are not; we're in the bed of one now for that matter!"

"Somewhere ahead we should come into the trail south from Carracita,"
observed Pike, "but I reckon you'd just as soon camp with Pard out of
sight of the trail."

There was silence for a bit as they plodded on up the wide dry bed of
the river, and then Kit turned, glancing at the old man keenly.

"I didn't fool you much when I called that gang 'vaqueros,' did I?"
he observed. "Well, they didn't look good to me, and I decided I'd
have to fight for my horse if we crossed trails, and--it wastes a lot
of time, fighting does."

"No, you didn't fool me. You'd be seven kinds of an idiot to walk in
this gully of purgatory when you could ride safely on the mesa above,
so I guessed you had a hunch it was the friendly and acquisitive
patriots."

"Pike, they were between us and the Palomitas rancherias of Mesa
Blanca or I'd have made a try to get through and warn the Indians
there. Those men had no camp women with them, so they were not a
detachment of the irregular cavalry,--that's what puzzles me. And
their horses were fresh. It's some new devilment."

"There's nothing new in Sonora, son. Things happen over and over the
same."

The shadows lengthened, and the blue range to the east had sharp,
black edges against the saffron sky, and the men plodding along over
sand and between