stage
properties, beginning with a careful inventory of the grub-chest. To
betray ignorance of its possibilities or deficiencies would be fatal.
Following a narrow trail round a little shoulder of hill, he found the
powder magazine. Taking three sticks of dynamite, with fuse and caps, he
searched the tent for the candle-box, lit a candle and went into the
tunnel with a brisk trot. "If this was a case of fight, now, I'd have
some pretty fair weapons here for close quarters," said Jeff; "but the
way I'm fixed I can't. No fighting goes--unless Lake comes."

In the tunnel his luck held good. He found a number of good-sized chunks
of rock stacked along the wall near the breast--evidently reserved for
the ore pile at a more convenient season. Beneath three of the largest
of these rocks he carefully adjusted the three sticks of giant powder,
properly capped and fused, lit the fuses and retreated to the safety of
the dump. Three muffled detonations followed at short intervals. Having
thus announced the presence of mining operations, he built a fire on the
kitchen side of the dump to further advertise a mind conscious of its
own rectitude. The pleasant shadow of the hills was cool about him; the
flame rose clear and bright in the windless air, to be seen from far
away.

He looked at the location papers in the monument by the ore stack;
simultaneously, by way of economizing time, emptying a can of salmon.
This was partly for the added verisimilitude of the empty tin, partly
because he was ravenously hungry. You may guess how he emptied the tin.

The mine had changed owners since Jeff's knowledge of it. It was no
longer Gwin's sole property. The notice bore the signatures of J. Gwin,
C. W. Sanders and Walter Fleck. Jeff grinned and his eye brightened. He
knew Fleck only slightly; but Fleck's reputation among the cowmen was
good--that is to say, as you would see it, very bad.

Pappy Sanders, postmaster and storekeeper of Escondido, was an old and
sorely tried friend of Jeff's. If Pappy had grub-staked the outfit----A
far-away plan began to shape vaguely in his fertile brain. He took the
little turquoise horse from his pocket and laid it in the till of the
violated trunk. Were you told about the violated trunk? Never mind--he
had done any amount of other things of which you have not been told; for
it was his task, in the brief time allotted to him, to master all the
innumerable details needful for an intelligent reading of his p