The Golden Canyon | Page 7

don't know what their charges are here, but I expect his
bill will be a pretty long one. You had better tell him to-day that we

have not got a great deal of cash between us, and that as I only want
building up now, he need not come again."
"Don't you trouble yourself about that," Dave growled. "You don't
suppose that when you have got yourself cut and sliced about in
helping me you are going to have any trouble about doctors? We have
got a tidy lot at present amongst us, and what is ours is yourn. We were
going to set off among the hills a day or two after the time we had that
trouble; only, of course, that stopped it all."
"Please don't stop on my account," Dick said. "I shall get on very well
now, and I was saying to Tom, as soon as I can get about we will go off
somewhere among the hills; for one might just as well be lying in an
oven as here. If you will tell us where you and your mates are working,
we might find our way there, and get a job. We are both pretty strong,
you know--that is to say, when we are well--and we have often said that
we should like to try our luck gold-mining."
"We aint agoing till you are strong enough to get about," Dave said; "so
it is no use saying any more about that. Then, if you want to do some
mining, we will put you in the way of it; but we are going on a long
expedition, which may last months, and from which, as like as not, we
shall never come back again. However, we can easy enough take you
with us for a bit and drop you at one of the mining camps, and stop
there with you till you get accustomed to it, or work for a few months
with you if you like. Time is not of much consequence to us."
"That is awfully good of you, Dave," Tom said, "but as you have lost
more than a fortnight at present, and I suppose it will be another
fortnight before Dick is strong enough to travel, it isn't fair on you; and
perhaps you might be able to introduce us to some men going up to the
hills--that is, if you think that we could not go with you on this
expedition you talk of."
"That won't be a job for young hands," Dave said. "It will be a mighty
long journey over a terrible rough country, where one's life will be
always in one's hands, where one's eyes will always be on the lookout
for an enemy, and one will know that any moment, night or day, one
may hear the war yell of the Indians. We are going into the heart of
Arizona, to places where not half-a-dozen white men, even counting
Mexicans as white men, have ever set foot; at least, where not
half-a-dozen have ever come back alive from, though maybe there are

hundreds who have tried."
"Then I suppose you are going to look for some very rich mine, Dave?"
"That is so; I will tell you how it came about, and queerly enough, it
wur pretty well the same way as your friend and me came together. My
mates and me were coming down from the hills when we heard a shot
fired in a wood ahead of us. It wasn't none of our business, but we went
on at a trot, thinking as how some white men had been attacked by
greasers."
"What are greasers?" Tom asked.
Dave laughed.
"A greaser is just a Mexican. Why they call them so I don't know; but
that has been their name always as long as I came in the country. Well,
we ran down and came sudden upon two greasers who were kneeling
by a man lying in the road, and seemed to be searching his pockets. We
let fly with our Colts; one of them was knocked over, and the other
bolted. Then we went to look at the man in the road; he wur a greaser
too. He had been shot dead. 'I wonder what they shot him for?' says I.
'Maybe it is a private quarrel; maybe he had struck it rich, and has got a
lot of gold in his belt. We may as well look; it is no use leaving it for
that skunk that bolted to come back for.' He had got about twenty
ounces in his belt, and we shifted it into our bag, and were just going
on when 'Zekel--that is one of my mates--said, 'I know this cuss, Dave;
it's the chap that lived in that village close to