re than twelve years of age. His
features were regular, if thin, and the big black eyes seemed to be
filled with a courage beyond the ordinary. Indeed, they could not
doubt this, having seen how he had drawn that small knife on finding
himself confronted by the Rocky Mountain terror.

"Well, we were only too glad to have been of help to you, Lopez," Frank
remarked, as he advanced with outstretched hand.

The boy looked embarrassed, as though hardly knowing what to do. It
seemed to Frank that he had been staring very hard at Bob, and he
wondered why. Then again he imagined that the boy must be keeping
something back. This would account for the worried look on his small,
pinched, but good-looking face.

But undoubtedly Lopez realized that it ill became him to decline to
take the hand that had helped save his life.

"You understand that we are your friends, Lopez, don't you?" asked
Frank, as he held the small palm of the Mexican in his own strong one
for a moment, and looked with a puzzled expression into the big black
eyes that quickly fell under his gaze.

"Oh, yes, Senor, surely you have proved it more than enough," the
little fellow hastened to say; and Frank was astonished to hear what
good language he used.

"You go across mountains, eh?" asked Bob, indifferently; truth to tell
he was just then more interested in the size of the great grizzly that
had fallen before the guns of himself and his saddle chum, than the
mere fact of this stripling being entrusted with such a task as
bringing supplies to prospectors, or rustlers, as the case might prove.

A flash crossed the face of the boy, just as though he saw a sudden
opening whereby his presence here might be explained without entering
into details.

"Oh! yes, across the range. I get supplies for prospectors in camp,"
he replied, with an intake of his breath, while he watched Bob
narrowly, as if, somehow, he believed he had more to fear from that
source than from the tawny-haired prairie lad.

"That's kind of queer, seems to me," remarked Bob, slowly, turning to
again survey the boy; "for them to send so small a chap on so long a
trail. I should think it was more of a man's work, toting supplies
across these mountains, through the canyons. And with the chances of
running foul of such dangers as bears, not to speak of rustlers."

At that Lopez drew his diminutive figure up, and tried to assume a bold
look. The Spanish blood was proud, Bob could see.