hung from the pommel of the saddle of each girl
there was a double-barreled pistol, loaded and ready for instant use;
and it was not there for ornament. Both girls had been trained to use
the rifle and the pistol; and never, since Iola's frightful experience
with the Mexican desperado, Padilla, some three years before,[1] had
either girl been permitted to ride, even a short distance from the
house, without having one or both of these weapons with her.
Consequently, trained and armed as they were, they saw nothing to fear
in meeting the two strange horsemen, although they were alone in a
little valley and out of sight and hearing of every other human being,
so far as they knew.

[Footnote 1: For an account of this adventure, see _Fighting With
Fremont_, the preceding book of this series.]

The two horsemen came up on a slow gallop; and pulled up their horses a
dozen feet from the girls.

"We asks your pardon, ladies," said the larger of the two men--a big
red-headed man with a broken nose--as he awkwardly doffed his hat. "But,
seein' you ridin' by, an' thinkin' you might be able tew give us sum
information, we bein' strangers in this part of Californy, we made bold
tew hallo tew you," and he paused, his bold eyes staring admiringly into
the dark face of Iola.

"We will be very glad to help you, if we can," answered Iola, a bit
shortly, for she did not like the looks of the big man with the broken
nose. "What is it you would like to know?"

"Wal," answered the man, glancing toward his companion, "me an' my
pardner was tew meet a man over yonder by that big rock that sticks
itself out of th' ground, like a nose on a man's face," and he pointed
to a huge rock a mile or more away that shot up out of the level of the
valley, not unlike the nose on a man's face. "He was tew git thar 'bout
noon yisterday; an' we haven't seen hide nor ha'r of him yit; an',
gittin' powerful tired of waitin' an' thinkin' you ladies might have
seen him, we stops you tew ask."

"An' bein' a leetle afeared he might have come tew harm," the other
horseman, a small man with a pock-marked face, here broke in, "seein'
that he was a comin' from th' diggin's an' was supposed tew have
considerable gold-dust with him, we makes bold tew stop you ladies tew
ask about him, jest as my pardner says, thinkin' you might have seen
him."

"What--what did he look like?" Iola asked anxiously, the moment the man
paused; for her thoughts had gone instantly to th