d Geisler. "I aindt forgot it dot time dat no vun vouldt gif
me a chob pecos dey dink I been vun pig vool. Vot didt you do, den?
You proved yourself anudder fooll py gifing me a chob. Dink you, den,
I run from dis, my dearie-o? Oh, not by a Vestphalia ham! Here I am,
und here I shtay shtuck, py chiminy!"

The mine owner gave his faithful super a grateful look, and then
snatched up his soft hat with a brisk movement.

"Come, Geisler," he said, "let us take a look around. Possibly, in the
event of an attack, there may be one or two places that will need
strengthening."

"Ach, Himmel! vot a mans," muttered the German to himself, as he
followed his employer out. "I vork for him, und, py chiminy grickets,
I vight for him too, alretty."

The stamp mill and main buildings of the mine, including the boiler and
engine room, were surrounded by a stout fence of one-inch planking,
perhaps ten feet in height. Frequent strikes and minor outbreaks among
the Mexican miners had persuaded Mr. Merrill to follow the example of
most of his fellow American mine owners in Mexico, and be prepared for
emergencies. Facing toward the west, was a large gate in this
"stockade," as it might almost be called. Surmounting this, was the
bell, idle now, with which the miners were summoned to work. From the
gate, which was swung open as Markley and his cronies had left it in
their retreat, could be seen a huddle of small adobe houses--the homes
of the laborers--and beyond these, and deeper in the valley, lay the
red-tiled roofs and green gardens of Santa Marta, the nearest town.

Men could be seen moving about the laborers' huts--in fact, there was
an air almost of expectant bustle about the place. Shielding his eyes,
Mr. Merrill gazed down toward the little town. His keen vision had
caught the glint of a firearm of some sort between the legs of a man
seated outside one of the huts.

"These chaps must have advance information of some sort," he remarked
to Geisler. "That fellow yonder is cleaning up a rifle."

"Looks like it voss business alretty," remarked Geisler. "Himmel, I
vould gif vun dollar und ninety-eight cents, alretty, to see a troop of
regulars coming up der railroad tracks."

But the tracks lay empty and shining before them, without even a
freight car backed upon a siding to suggest the activity that, at this
time of the week, usually reigned about the mine.

"There isn't a regiment nearer than Rosario, at last report