ten years before. He
searched the Coeur d'Alenes for riches, and, finding none, struck out
from Idaho for Nevada. There he remained through two blazing summers
traveling afoot from the sage-brush hills in the north across the
silent deserts east of Death Valley. He wandered on to Colorado, where
he toiled in the new mining camps between prospecting trips into the
great plateaus along the western slope of the Rockies. From Colorado
he went southward into New Mexico; thence westward to Arizona. He
accompanied a troop of cavalry from Prescott down to the foot of the
Huachucas where they established a new post. During the last leg of
that journey he saw these foot-hills of the Mule Mountains in passing,
and in spite of warnings from the soldiers, he was now returning to
prospect the district.

He had spent some days at the Herrick ranch down in the valley, and
the men about the place had strongly advised him against traveling
into the hills. They cited various gruesome examples of the fate which
overtook solitary wanderers in this savage land. They might as well
have saved their breath; Schiefflin had seen some mineral stains on a
rock outcropping when he passed through the country with the cavalry
earlier in the season.

So now he came on toward the Bruncknow house, where he could make his
camp closer to the hills upon whose exploration his mind was set.

There were several men lounging about the adobe when he reached it.
Even in those days, when the most peaceful border-dweller carried his
rifle almost everywhere except to his meals and was as likely as not
to have slain one or two fellow-creatures,--days when the leading
citizens of that isolated region presented a sinister front with their
long-barreled revolvers slung beside their thighs,--the members of
the group showed up hard.

A lean and seasoned crew, dust-stained from many a wild ride,
burned by the border sun, they watched the new-comer with eyes
half-curtained, like the eyes of peering eagles, by straight lids.
They welcomed him with a few terse questions as to where he had
come from and what the troops were doing over at the new post. Of
themselves they said nothing nor offered any information of their
business in this lonely spot.

But when Schiefflin had made his camp close to the shelter of those
thick adobe walls he learned more of his hosts. There was a mine hard
by, at least it went by the name of a mine, and it was a sort of
common understanding