ass; and on the broad trail zigzagging up to it
were burro-tracks, but no fresh tracks of men. The flaps of the white
tent on the dump were tightly closed. There was no one at the mine. Jeff
passed within the walls, through frowning gates of porphyry and gneiss,
and urged Alibi up the canyon. It was half a mile to the spring. On the
way he found three shaggy burros grazing beside the road. He drove them
into the small pen by the spring and tossed his rope on the largest one.
Then he unsaddled Alibi, tied him to the fence by the bridle rein, and
searched his pockets for an old letter. This found, he penciled a note
and tied it to the saddle. It was brief:

EN ROUTE, FOUR P.M.

Please water my horse when he cools off.

Your little friend,
JEFF BRANSFORD.

P. S. Excuse haste.

He made a plain trail of high-heeled boot-tracks to the spring, where he
drank deep; thence beyond, through the sandy soil, to the nearest rocky
ridge. Then, careful that every step fell on a bare rock, he came
circuitously back to the corral, climbed the fence, made his way to the
tied burro, improvised a bridle of cunning half-hitches, slipped from
the fence to the burro's back--a burro, by the way, is a donkey--named
the burro anew as Balaam, and went back down the canyon at the best pace
of which the belabored and astonished Balaam was capable. As Jeff had
hoped, the two other burros--or the other two burros, to be
precise--followed sociably, braying remonstrance.

Without the mouth of the canyon Jeff rode up the steep trail to the mine,
also to the great disgust of his mount; but he must not walk--it would
leave boot-tracks. For the same reason, after freeing Balaam, his first
action was to pull off the telltale boots and replace them with the
smallest pair of hobnailed miner's shoes in the tent. With these he
carefully obliterated the few boot-tracks at the tent door.

The water-kegs were full; Jeff swore his joyful gratitude and turned his
eye to the plain. The pursuing dust was still far away--seven miles, he
estimated, or possibly eight. The three burros nibbled on the bushes
below the dump; plainly intending to stay round camp with an eye for
possible tips. Jeff gave his whole-hearted attention to the
_mise-en-scene_.

Never did stage manager toil so hard, so faithfully, so effectively as
this one--or with so great a need. He took stock of the available