true--isn't true,"
finished Billie rather lamely.

"Look here, honey child," observed Pike, "you'll turn man hater if you
keep on working your imagination. Luz tells me you are cranky against
Kit, and that the ranches are tied up in business knots tighter than I
had any notion of, so you had better unload the worst you can think
of on me; that's what I'm here for. What difference do the Perez
favorites make to our young lives? Neither Dolores nor Jocasta will
help play the cards in our fortunes."

Wherein Captain Pike was not of the prophets. The wells of Sonora are
not so many but that he who pitches his tent near one has a view and
greetings of all drifting things of the desert, and the shadowed star
of Dona Jocasta of the south was leading her into the Soledad
wilderness forsaken of all white men but one.

CHAPTER XII

COVERING THE TRAIL

Each minute of the long days, Rhodes worked steadily and gaily,
picking out the high grade ore from the old Indian mine, and every
possible night he and the burro and Tula made a trip out to the foot
of the range, where they buried their treasure against the happy day
when they could go out of the silent desert content for the time with
what gold they could carry in secret to the border.

For two days he had watched the Soledad ranch house rather closely
through the field glass, for there was more activity there than
before; men in groups rode in who were not herding. He wondered if it
meant a military occupation, in which case he would need to be doubly
cautious when emerging from the hidden trail.

The girl worked as he worked. Twice he had made new sandals for her,
and also for himself in order to save his boots so that they might at
least be wearable when he got among people. All plans had been thought
out and discussed until no words would be needed between them when
they separated. She was to appear alone at Palomitas with a tale of
escape from the slavers, and he was carefully crushing and mashing
enough color to partly fill a buckskin bag to show as the usual fruits
of a prospect trip from which he was returning to Mesa Blanca after
exhausting grub stake and shoe leather.

The things of the world had stood still for him during that hidden
time of feverish work. He scarcely dared try to estimate the value of
the ore he had dug as honey from a hollow tree, but it was rich--rich!
There were nuggets of pure gold, assorted as to their various sizes,
while he m