ish purple but alive, and as
long as your forearm. This professor guy says his son had taken an
ordinary cricket and made it grow into the one he had. But the mine
was what interested me. I kept my mouth shut and my ears open, and
it's in the Matto Grosso. May be emeralds, diamonds, or gold. Boy, I'm
heading for it, right now. The old guy's going back to-morrow, get
me?"

"It's a lot of bunk," growled Durkin, who was stout and red of
countenance.

"Yeh? Well, Otto Ulrich don't put fifty thousand into bunk."

Durkin whistled. "You mean the German loosened up that much?" he
asked, and his eyes showed interest.

"Sure. He paid this Gurlone fifty thousand dollars--credit, of
course."

"Well--maybe there's something in the mine story. But boy, you were
drunk when you saw that cricket. No cricket ever grew that big. You
always see things when you get too much rum in you."

"The hell you say," cried Maget. "I saw it, I tell you!"

* * * * *

Durkin feigned elaborate politeness. "Oh, all right, Frank. Have it
your own way. You saw a cricket that big and this Gurlone feller took
a couple of pink elephants out of his pocket to pay the check. Sure, I
believe you."

But money never failed to attract the two tropical tramps. They were
looking for trouble, not work, and the idea of a raid on a rich mine
in the Matto Grosso was just what they would enjoy.

An hour later, they had cornered a small, inoffensive peon named Juan.
Juan, Maget and Durkin had discovered, had come out of the wilderness
with Professor Gurlone, the strange looking gentleman who spoke of a
fabulously wealthy mine and commanded checks for fifty thousand
dollars from a reputable banking firm. Such a man was worth watching.

The two rascals were expert at pumping the little half-breed. They
knew peons, and the first thing that happened was that Durkin had
slipped Juan several dollars and had pressed a large glass of whiskey
on the little man.

The conversation was in broken English and Spanish.

"Quien sabe?"

Durkin and Maget had this phrase flung at them often during the course
of the talk with Juan, and there were many elaborate shrugs.

There was a mine, way back in the Matto Grosso, said Juan. He thought
it might contain silver: there had been the shaft of an old mine
there. But now they were deep down in the ground, digging out reddish
brown ore, and the cavern smoked and smelled so badly a man could work
bu