ides to look fer a
water-hole in a canyon at ther end uv which stands three lone buttes
sticking up, like sentinels against ther sky.

"Wa'al, they hunts ther canyon through but nary a drop of water. In
time they reaches ther buttes. They climbs to ther top ter see what
might lay beyond, but they see nuthin' but ther same God-forgotten
country.

"But Peg-leg, who fer all he was minus a limb, could travel with any
of 'em, he finds at the top of the southernmost butte a lot of chunks
of black rock lying round promiscous, an' some of them has specks an'
chunks of yaller as bright as Zeb's beard on 'em. Peg-leg he opines
ther yaller is nuthin' but copper, or maybe fool's gold.

"That night they camps, feelin' considerable blue, fer ther's mighty
little water left an' they've come too far ter go back. But in ther
distance thar's a big mountain and they make up their minds they'll
find water thar or bust and wither on the desert.

"Ther next evening, more dead than alive, they reaches the mountain
and finds a little spring. It was ther finest thing they'd seen fer a
long time, and in honor of Peg-leg, who suggested going to ther
mountain, they calls it Smith Mountain, and that's its name to this
day. In time they worked round to San Bernardino and then Smith he
hunts up a mineral sharp who tells him that what he had found was
gold.

"Wa'al, Smith was a curious feller, frum all accounts, and it was not
till '49 when ther big gold rush came that he thought much more about
those three buttes with the gold lying round loose as dirt on 'em.
Then he got ther gold fever. He went to 'Frisco and gets up an
expedition to find them three buttes.

"They got down inter ther desert country all right and locates Smith
Mountain. But the dern Indians they had with 'em as guides cleaned
out the camp one fine night, and they had a hard time getting back to
civilization alive. Well, that's where Peg-leg Smith goes out of the
story."

"Wasn't he ever heard of again?" asked Jack.

"No, siree, not hide nor hair on him. Nobody never knows what became
of him arter they got back to San Bernardino. Some says that he went
back alone lookin' fer the three buttes and was lost in the desert and
that his bones is out thar some'eres to-day, an' others says that he
got so plum disgusted he went back home to St. Louis. But nobody
rightly knows.

"The next heard of ther three buttes was many years later when an
Indian, who worked on Governor Downey