or might happen upon his discovery before he could
establish possession.

For his provisions were running low. He had no money. He needed a
good grubstake--and companions to help him hold down the claim against
jumpers--before he could begin development work.

He hurried back to the Bruncknow house. An attack of chills and fever,
brought on by his night among the rocks, gave him a good excuse to
leave the place. The climate, he said, did not agree with him.

While he was trying to think of one with whom to share his secret, one
whom he could trust to take his full portion of the dangers which
would attend the claim's development, he remembered his brother Al,
who was working at the Signal mine way over in Mohave County, There
was the man. So he made his way across the State of Arizona. He
stopped at times to earn money for food to carry him through and it
was December before he reached his destination.

Al Schiefflin had a friend, Dick Gird, who was an assayer. Gird saw
the specimens, tested them, and was on fire at once. He joined forces
with the brothers, helped them to procure a grubstake, and in January,
1878, the three men set forth from Williams Fork of the Colorado River
in a light wagon drawn by two mules.

Spring was well on its way when they reached Tucson and made their
camp in Bob Leatherwood's corral. The Apaches were raiding throughout
the southeastern part of the territory and the little town of adobes
was getting new reports of murders from that section every day.

They drove their mules on eastward up the long mesas leading to the
San Pedro Divide. At the Pantano stage station they saw the fresh
scars of Apache bullets on the adobe walls. The men had held the
place against a large band of Geronimo's warriors only a few days
before.

Now as they drove on they kept constant lookout and their rifles were
nearly always in their hands. Every morning they rose long before the
dawn, and two of them would climb the ridges near the camp to watch
the country as the light came over it, while the other caught up the
mules and harnessed them.

They turned southward up the San Pedro, avoiding the stage station at
the crossing of the river lest some other party of prospectors might
follow them. They made a circuit around the Mormon settlement at St.
Davids and came on to the Bruncknow house, to find two more fresh
graves of Apache victims under the adobe walls.

They made their permanent camp here, and Schi