bits I give you way back in Los Vegas? Well,
here's where I'm givin' you a chance to pay dividends on them four
bits."

Bat grinned: "You go 'head an' mak' you play. You fin' out I ain't
forgit dat four bit. She ain' mooch money--four bit ain'. But w'en
she all you got, she wan hell of a lot . . . _bien_!"

CHAPTER XVII

IN THE BAD LANDS

It was well toward noon on the following day when the four finally
succeeded in locating the grub cache of the departed horse-thief. Nearly
two years had passed since the man had described the place to Tex and a
two-year-old description of a certain small, carefully concealed cavern
in a rock-wall pitted with innumerable similar caverns is a mighty
slender peg to hang hopes upon.

"It's like searching for buried treasure!" exclaimed Alice as she pried
and prodded among the rocks with a stout stick.

"There won't be much treasure, even if we find the _cache_," smiled Tex.
"Horse thievin' had got onpopular to the extent there wasn't hardly a
livin' in it long before this specimen took it up as a profession. We'll
be lucky if we find any grub in it."

A few moments later Bat unearthed the _cache_ and, as the others crowded
about, began to draw out its contents.

"Field mice," growled Tex, as the half-breed held up an empty canvas bag
with its corner gnawed to shreds. Another gnawed bag followed, and
another.

"We don't draw no flour, nor rice, not jerky, anyhow," said the puncher,
examining the bags. "Nor bacon, either. The only chance we stand to
make a haul is on the air-tights."

"What are air-tights?" asked the girl.

"Canned stuff--tomatoes are the best for this kind of weather--keep you
from gettin' thirsty. I've be'n in this country long enough to pretty
much know its habits, but I never saw it this hot in June."

"She feel lak' dat dam' Yuma bench, but here is only de rattlesnake. We
don' got to all de tam hont de pizen boog. Dat ain' no good for git so
dam' hot--she burn' oop de range. If it ain' so mooch danger for Win to
git hang--" He paused and looked at Tex with owlish solemnity. "A'm no
lak we cross dem bad lands. Better A'm lak we gon' back t'rough de
mountaine."

"You dig out them air-tights, if there's any in there, an' quit your
croakin'!" ordered the cowboy.

And with a grin Bat thrust in his arm to the shoulder. One by one he
drew out the tins--eight in all, and laid them in a row. The labels had
disappeared and the Texan sto