k to vary the steady grind of carrying, pounding, or
washing the quartz. He had ordered her to make two belts, that each of
them might carry some of the gold hidden under their garments. She had
a nugget tied in a corner of her _manta_, and other small ones
fastened in her girdle, while in the belt next her body she carried
all he deemed safe to weight her with, probably five pounds. At any
hint of danger she would hide the belt and walk free.

His own belt would carry ten pounds without undue bulkiness. And over
three hundred pounds of high grade gold was already safely hidden near
the great rock with the symbols of sun and rain marking its weathered
surface.

"A fair hundred thousand, and the vein only scratched!" he exulted. "I
was sore over losing the job on Billie's ranch,--but gee! this looks
as if I was knocked out in the cold world to reach my good luck!"

In a blue dusk of evening they left the camp behind and started over
the trail, after Tula had carefully left fragments of food on the tomb
of Miguel, placed there for the ghosts who are drawn to a comrade.

Kit asked no questions concerning any of her tribal customs, since to
do so would emphasize the fact that they were peculiar and strange to
him, and the Indian mind, wistfully alert, would sense that
strangeness and lose its unconsciousness in the presence of an alien.
So, when she went, after meals, to offer dregs of the soup kettle or
bones of the burro, she often found a bunch of desert blossoms wilting
there in the heat, and these tributes left by Kit went far to
strengthen her confidence. It was as if Miguel was a live partner in
their activities, never forgotten by either. So they left him on
guard, and turned their faces toward the outer world of people.

Knowing more than he dare tell the girl his mind was considerably
occupied with that woman at Soledad, for military control changed over
night in many a province of Mexico in revolutionary days, and the time
at the hidden mine might have served for many changes.

Starlight and good luck was on the trail for them, and at earliest
streak of dawn they buried their treasure, divided their dried burro
meat, and with every precaution to hide the trail where they emerged
from the gray sierra, they struck the road to Mesa Blanca.

Until full day came Tula rode the burro, and slipped off at a ravine
where she could walk hidden, on the way to Palomitas.

"Buntin'," said Kit, watching her go, "we'll h