LITMIR.BIZ

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at it, too. It's a game you get terribly stuck on after once you take to it."

      "Mining, eh?" said the Texan with affected indifference. "Wal', that ar's a thing as I dunno nothin' at all about."

      He gave a careless laugh. "Oh, by the way," he said, turning his back on the two men and rummaging on the shelf behind him for a couple of cans of oysters which he displayed with a great show of earnestness, "that's the brand of oysters, Don Nepomuceno, that I meant to bring to your notice, first chance. I can recommend 'em; they're prime."

      "Yes," he continued, turning again to Stephens, "you was saying as how you was interested in mines; but as far as that goes, why there ain't no mines being worked in this part of the country, not as I know of." A suspicious man might have guessed that Backus's interest in the possibility of a mine in the neighbourhood of Santiago was a good deal stronger than he chose to let appear, but John Stephens was not of a suspicious nature.

      "No," he said in reply, "there aren't any now, but there have been, and there will be again, if I'm any judge." Then, reflecting that he might say too much, and checking himself he went on more cautiously. "But I don't see any opening here myself. I guess I'm about through with New Mexico for the present, and I calculate to light out for Colorado pretty soon. The railroads have got in there, and there's a boom on."

      Mr. Backus was sharp at reading other people's motives, and saw in an instant that Stephens was trying to disguise his. So much the more reason for finding out what they were.

      "What! going off to Colorado?" he exclaimed with an air of surprise. "Why, I'd understood from the folks here that you had settled down in Santiago for keeps. That's really how I come to hear of you; I heard that you was a white man living amongst them Indians, and had joined the tribe; so I supposed you was adopted by them, and had gone and got hitched up with a squaw."

      Stephens's eyes flashed.

      "Shouldn't wonder if that drawed him out a bit," reflected Mr. Backus privately to himself.

      "If anyone told you so," said the prospector stiffly, "let me tell you that you have been misinformed. No sir, squaws aren't in my line; I'm not that sort of a man. I never have proposed to go outside of my own colour, and I never will."

      Mr. Backus gave a short laugh. The word colour touched him on the raw. He was married to a Mexican, and many Americans are undiscriminating enough to class the Mexicans with coloured people. The Mexicans themselves naturally resent such a slight on their race; although a part of them have more or less Indian blood in their veins, they prefer to ignore that side of their pedigree and trace their descent solely back to the conquering cavaliers of Spain. But Mr. Backus was himself a quarter-blooded Indian. He called himself a Texan, and passed as such; though he was born in the Indian Territory and his mother had been a half-breed Cherokee.

      He changed the subject abruptly. "Fill your glass again, Don," he said, pushing the decanter towards the Mexican. "It's good whiskey, real old Bourbon. 'There isn't a headache in a hogshead of it,' as the Irishman said."

      "A thousand thanks, no, if you will excuse me," replied the Mexican, "I have sufficient. I think I must be going," he went on, for indeed he felt a little out of it, seeing that the two Americans had dropped back instinctively into talking in their own language, of which he knew but a few words. "I shall see you again, then, presently, Don Estevan, at my house," and bowing politely he departed homewards.

      "That man's darned well fixed, I can tell you," remarked the storekeeper, refilling his own glass and tossing it off as soon as the Mexican had gone. "And what's more, he's a square man, too. I don't mind saying that Nepomuceno Sanchez can just have all the credit he wants at this store. He's one of the heirs to the Sanchez grant, and that gives him the use of all the pasture land he needs for his sheep. He's a very peart business man, for a Mexican. I used to come across him over in Peña Blanca, you know. He's a relation of old man Baca's by marriage, and he's got a lot of his sheep on shares and makes a good thing of it."

      The personage irreverently referred to by the Texan as "old man Baca" was the head of the family of that name, and a man of no small position and wealth. The old families of New Mexico own immense flocks of hardy little Mexican sheep, whose numbers often run into hundreds of thousands. Their flocks are divided into bands of a few thousand and let out on shares to retainers, who return a rent in kind of the wool and the increase. The relation between these retainers and the heads of the great families is semi-feudal.

      "Yes," said Stephens, "taking sheep on shares is a good business. I've seen his son, young Andrés Sanchez, up there on that Sanchez grant with their sheep herd when I've been out on the mountains."

      "Oh, you've been up on the mountains round here?" said Backus, who saw his chance to lead the conversation once more in the direction he wanted. "Mining, I suppose?" he added, as if it were an afterthought.

      "Well, I've prospected some," returned the other. "But you've heard me say I didn't think much of the opening here."

      "Ever take any of the Indians out prospecting with you?" inquired the Texan. "They've bin here so long they'd ought to know if there's anything lying around worth looking at. Did they never tell you anything about mines?" He let these last words fall after a pause with studied carelessness.

      "No, sir," said the prospector, "I've learnt nothing from the Indians, and it's highly possible that they've nothing to tell."

      "You never thought to ask 'em, I suppose?" suggested Backus.

      "Why should I?" returned the other quietly. "May I ask, Mr. Backus, if you've any special reason for these questions?"

      The Texan hesitated; he felt sure now that his old antagonist was not at Santiago by mere chance, but had an object in view which he did not care to disclose. He quickly decided to try and gain his confidence by a show of openness.

      "Wal', yes, I have," he admitted; "I guess I've got some information that might be of value to anyone as knew how to use it."

      "What could he mean?" Stephens thought. "Was this information the knowledge of the secret mine? If so, it might be worth while to make terms with him, as the Indians seemed to be so impracticable."

      "If anyone will show me a mine," said the prospector, "I can tell him if it's worth working, and how to work it."

      "Yes," returned Backus, "and if so what terms would you expect?"

      "A half-interest," said Stephens. "If I thought it good enough I'd take a half-interest and bear my share of the expenses."

      "That's a square offer," replied the Texan. "Now look at here. Now, s'posin' I was to tell you of a mine in this neighbourhood, you'd be willing to do that with me?"

      "Are you referring to the lost mine of the Indians?" asked the prospector. It was not worth while to make any further mystery of the matter, for the Texan had obviously heard the story.

      "That's just what I am," said Backus. "I thought as how you must have heard some talk about it. Now you allow as you don't know where it is."

      "I do not," said the other.

      "Wal', I do," said Backus. "And I'll tell it to you on your own terms, and that's a half-interest for each of us. It's on the Indian grant up in the mountains."

      "Well, I knew that much," said Stephens.

      "Ah," returned the Texan, "but I can tell you more'n that. The Indians haint got no right to keep it; that grant haint been confirmed to them by act of Congress."

      "But, my dear sir," returned Stephens, with something that savoured of contempt, "you're revealing to me as your precious secret what's matter of common knowledge. If you ask anyone in the office at Santa Fé, they'll tell you that the grant to the Indians of four square leagues round the pueblo has been confirmed to them, and that they own it from grass-roots to Hades by a perfectly indefeasible title; but they'll tell you there, too, in the office, that the twenty miles square that they claim in the mountains has never been confirmed, and for that matter is overlapped by half a dozen unconfirmed Mexican grants as well. The real title to that land is in the United States Government. That's as old as a last year's bird's-nest."

      "I see you're well posted in the business," said Backus; "but maybe you don't know that the secret mine's on the Cerro

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