rivial," says Ag.

"And do you expect to follow that dotted line until you stub your toe
over a half-ton nuggets?"

"Frivolous, frivolous," says Ag.

"Yes," I says, "yes. Trivial--frivolous--all right--but what's that
red cross?"

"Shows the location plainly," says he, shiftin' his cigar. "Where the
arms of that cross intersect, we double it, or turn nurses in the army."

Well, I stared at him. Too much thinkin' goes to a man's head
sometimes.

"You feel anything strange about you anywheres?" says I.

"Yes," says he, tapping it. "This map-- Accordin' to the scale of
miles these here arms on the cross are somethin' like fifty miles long.
Ah, what a merry, merry time we shall have, Hy, chasin' up and down
glass mountains, eatin' prickly pear, drinking rarely, and cullin' a
rattlesnake here and there to twine in our locks. It will seem like
old times, dropping a rock in your boots in the mornin' to quell the
quivering centipede and the upstanding and high-jumping tarantula."

"Say," says I, "do you think there's a mine here at all?"

"Mine!" says he, like I'd asked a most unexpected question. "Mine?
Have we lived out of eyeshot of the most remarkable mine in the United
States and Canada at any time we smoked the trail?"

"No," says I, "that's so; but, Ag, you ain't goin' to push for that red
cross out in the middle of hell's ash-heap, are you?"

"Only a little ways," says he; "it's time we left this anti-money trust
behind us, and I always like to leave dramatically, if it's only to
give the sheriff a run."

"More fast-footin' in this?"

"'Nary, but we shall meet some of our fellow-townsmen on the river
to-morrow--all men who haven't done us a bit of good--and then we'll
flap our gliders to a gladder land."

"But that ten dollars----"

"Look here. Let's _again_ settle this money question once for all. Am
I the financial expert for this party?"

"You be."

"Selah," says Ag. "And unlike the corporations in the effete East,
where a high collar marks the gentleman, we mix amusement with our
lives?"

"Sure," says I.

"Well, then," says Aggy, speaking with the frankness and affection of
one or more friends to another, "I ask you to swallow your tongue and
watch events."

"Keno," says I. "Produce your events."

So the next day we hooted it out toward the southeast, packin' grub
only, and I never says a word.

Bimeby we see a lot of people comin' a horseback, on board waggons, and
runnin'