he attempted to ask the Little Woman again what she
meant by her mysterious curiosity concerning Injun Jim. Then, when he had
his pipe going and the stove filled with pinon wood, he turned to her with
the question in his eyes.

The Little Woman laughed. "Now, if that terrible child will kindly consent
to sleep for fifteen minutes, _I'll_ tell you what I meant," she said. "It
had slipped my mind altogether, and it was only to-day, when Babe was
scratching out a snake's track--so the snake couldn't find the way back
home, she said--that I chanced to remember. Just a small thing, you know,
that may or may not mean _something_ very large and _important_--like a
gold mine, for instance."

"I don't have to go to work 'til sunup," Casey hinted broadly, "and I've
set up many a night when I wasn't havin' half as much fun as I git
listenin' to you talk."

Again the Little Woman laughed. I think she had been rambling along just
to bait Casey into something like that."

"Very well, then, I'll come to the point. Though it is such a luxury to
talk, sometimes! For a woman, that is.

"Three years ago we had two burros to pack water from your gulch, where
there were too many snakes, to this gulch where there never seemed to be
so many. We hadn't developed this spring then. One night something or
other frightened the burros and they disappeared, and I started out to
find them, leaving Babe of course with her father at the tunnel.

"I trailed those burros along the mountain for about four miles, I should
think. And by that time I was wishing I had taken a canteen with me,
though when I started out from camp I hated the thought of being burdened
with the weight of it. I thought I could find water in some of the
gulches, however, so I climbed a certain ridge and sat down to rest and
examine the canyon beneath with that old telescope Babe plays with. It has
been dropped so many times it's worthless now, but three years ago you
could see a lizard run across a rock a mile away. Don't you believe that?"
she stopped to demand sternly.

"Say! You couldn't tell me nothin' I wouldn't believe!" Casey retorted,
fussing with his pipe to hide the grin on his face.

"This is the truth, as it happens. I merely speak of the lizard to
convince you that a man's features would show very distinctly in the
telescope. And please observe, Casey Ryan, that I am very serious at the
moment. This may be important to you, remember.

"I was sitting among a h