and stretch out his tiny
hands, and in his incoherent baby way, began to babble.

"Horsie, horsie, widie!" he cried, in the most beseeching, irresistible
manner, just as he must have been accustomed to ask the men of the camp
for a ride whenever they appeared with a horse. In an instant the
Colonel was on the ground and had the little fellow in his arms. As no
clew to the child's parents or relatives was ever found, the Colonel
adopted him, giving him his own name.

Dick received an excellent schooling up to his sixteenth year and
probably would have entered West Point had not his benefactor suddenly
died. Strange to say, the life of a soldier with which he had become
familiar during the years spent at the different posts assigned to the
Colonel, did not appeal to him. The restraint and routine of the life
appeared irksome, and a year later the then great undeveloped West
numbered him among her sons.

Indeed, as subsequent events proved, it was fortunate that he had
renounced the life of a soldier. The success which later attended his
efforts in the search for wealth far overshadowed that which he probably
would have attained in the army, especially as his heart was not in the
life.

Dick was a born miner and prospector, and passed successively through
New Mexico, Arizona and California in his search for the precious
metals, finally drifting into old Mexico where he met with his first
important success.

It seemed as though he were directed by an invisible power. For weeks
and months at a time he would idle--read and smoke and ride or travel.
Then suddenly the spirit would move him, and without saying a word to
any one, he would quietly slip away into the mountains by himself in
whichever direction he seemed most impelled to go. Where other men
paused and lingered in the hope of finding gold, he passed on and
discovered the metal where others least expected to find it.

Perhaps one of the chief reasons for his success lay in the fact that he
did not assert his own will by planning a systematic search for the
metal, but allowed himself to be drawn by that mysterious, attractive
affinity that existed between him and the precious metals. Dick became
aware of the existence of this strange affinity early in his career and
acted upon it. Already at the age of thirty he possessed two of the
greatest gold and silver mines in the world and began to find it
difficult to know what to do with his income.

The fact that he