mething of the kind?

He mentioned the idea to young Bartholomew Woodlaw, who jumped at the
prospect, but looked grave directly after.

"I should like it, Mr Lascelles," he said, "but there is Maude."

"What of her?" said the Doctor.

"How could we take her into the wilds?"

"It would be safer to take her into the deserts and mountains, than to
leave her here," said the Doctor bitterly. "I should at least always
have her under my eye."

He went out and told his men, who were hanging about the old ranche
although there was no work for them to do.

One minute they were looking dull and gloomy, the next they were waving
their hats and blankets in the air, and the result of it all was that in
less than a month Dr Lascelles had well stored a waggon with the wreck
of his fortune, purchased a small tent for his daughter's use, and, all
well-armed, the little party had started off into the wilds of New
Mexico, bound for the mountain region, where the Doctor hoped to make
some discovery of mineral treasure sufficient to recompense him for all
his risk, as well as for the losses of the past.

They were, then, six days out when there was what had seemed to be a
sort of mutiny among his men--a trouble that he was in the act of
quelling when we made his acquaintance in the last chapter--though, as
we have seen, it proved to be no mutiny at all, but merely a
remonstrance on the part of the rough, honest fellows who had decided to
share his fortunes, against running into what they esteemed to be
unnecessary risks.

Joses and his three fellows were about as brigandish and wild-looking a
set of half savages as a traveller could light upon in a day's journey
even in these uncivilised parts. In fact, no stranger would have been
ready to trust his life or property in their keeping, if he could have
gone farther. If he had, though, he would most probably have fared
worse; for it is not always your pleasantest outside that proves to hide
the best within.

These few lines, then, will place the reader _au courant_, as the French
say, with the reason of the discussion at the beginning of the last
chapter, and show him as well why it was that Dr Lascelles, Bart
Woodlaw, and Maud Lascelles were out there in the desert with such rough
companions. This being then the case, we will at once proceed to deal
with their adventurous career.

CHAPTER THREE.

THE FIRST APACHES.

Evening was closing in, and the ruddy, horizontal ray