E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Project Gutenberg Beginners Projects,
Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
by
Author of Stepsons Of Light, Good Men And True, West Is West, etc.
1917
The stage line swung aside in a huge half-circle, rounding the northernend of the Comobabi Range and swinging far out to skirt the foothills.Mr. Peter Johnson had never been to Silverbell: his own country lay farto the north, beyond the Gila. But he knew that Silverbell was somewhereeast of the Comobabi, not north; and confidently struck out to find ashort cut through the hills. From Silverbell a spur of railroad ran downto Redrock. Mr. Johnson's thought was to entrain himself for Tucson.
The Midnight horse reached along in a brisk, swinging walk, an optimisticwalk, good for four miles an hour. He had held that gait since threeo'clock in the morning, with an hour off for water and breakfast atSmith's Wells, the first stage station out from Cobre; it was nowhot noon by a conscientious sun—thirty-six miles. But Midnight did notcare. For hours their way had been through a trackless plain of uncroppedsalt grass, or grama, on the rising slopes: now they were in a country ofworn and freshly traveled trails: wise Midnight knew there would be waterand nooning soon. Already they had seen little bands of horses peeringdown at them from the high knolls on their right.
Midnight wondered if they were to find sweet water or alkali. Sweet,likely, since it was in the hills; Midnight was sure he hoped so. Thebest of these wells in the plains were salt and brackish. Privately,Midnight preferred the Forest Reserve. It was a pleasant, soft life inthese pinewood pastures. Even if it was pretty dull for a good cow-horseafter the Free Range, it was easier on old bones. And though Midnight wasnot insensible to the compliment Pete had paid him by picking him fromthe bunch for these long excursions to the Southland deserts, he missedthe bunch.
They had been together a long time, the bunch; Pete had brought them fromthe Block Ranch, over in New Mexico. They were getting on in years, andso was Pete. Midnight mused over his youthful days—the dust, theflashing horns, the shouting and the excitement of old round-ups.
It is a true telling that thoughts in no way unlike these buzzed in therider's head as a usual thing. But to-day he had other things to thinkof.
With Kid Mitchell, his partner, Pete had lately stumbled upon a secretof fortune—a copper hill; a warty, snubby little gray hill in aninsignificant cluster of little gray hills. But this one, and this oneonly, precariously crusted over with a thin layer of earth and windblownsand, was copper, upthrust by central fires; rich ore, crumbling, soft; ahill to be loaded, every yard of it, into cars yet unbuilt, on a railroadyet undreamed-of, save by these two lucky adventurers.
They had blundered upon their rich find by pure chance. For in thesouthwest, close upon the Mexican border, in the most lonesome cornerof the most lonesome county of thinly settled Arizona, turning back froma long and fruitless prospecting trip, they had paused for one last,half-hearted venture. One idle stroke of the pick in a windworn barepatch had turned up—this!
So Pete Johnson's thoughts we