At eight o’clock there was a clatter of boots upon the rocks and two men came staggering up the defile. Colonel Richford and his partner did not look to be in good repair. The colonel’s face was drawn and sun-blotched. His companion, the “Fred” of Silent Charley’s bar, was bloated and shaken with liquor. Both panted with the hard, dry, open-lipped breath of the first stage of thirst-exhaustion. The colonel, who was in the lead, checked and started upon discovering astride of a rock a pleasant visaged young man of a familiar American type, whose appearance was in nowise remarkable except as to locality. With a grunt that might have been greeting, but was more probably surprise, the newcomer passed the seated man. Captain Funcke he did not see at all. That astute hunter had dropped behind a boulder. At the brink of the _tenaja_ the colonel stopped dead. Then with an outburst of flaming language, he leaped in, burrowing among the rocks. “Dry!” he yelled, lifting a furious and appalled face to his companion. Fred stood staring from Average Jones to his three canteens. There was a murderous look on his sinister face. “Got water?” he growled. “Yes,” replied the young man. “Here, Colonel,” said Fred. “Here’s drink for us.” “For sale,” added Average Jones calmly. “People don’t _buy_ water in this country.” “You’re not people,” returned Average Jones cheerfully. “You’re a corporation; a soulless corporation. The North Pinto Gold Mining Company.” “What’s that!” cried the colonel thickly. His hand flew back to his belt. Then it dropped, limp at his side, for he was gazing into the two barrels of a shotgun, which, materializing over a rock, were pointing accurately and disconcertingly at the pit of his stomach. From behind the gun Captain Funcke’s quiet voice remarked: “I wouldn’t, Colonel. As for you,” he added, turning to the other wayfarer, who carried a rifle, “you want to remember that a shotgun has two barrels, usually both loaded.” Stepping forward, Average Jones “lifted” the financier’s weapon. Then he deprived Fred of his rifle amid a surprisingly brilliant outburst of verbal pyrotechnics. “Now we can talk business comfortably,” he observed. “I can’t talk at all pretty quick if I don’t git a moistener,” said Fred piteously. Pouring out a scant cupful of water into his hat, Average Jones handed it over. “Drink slowly,” he advised. “You’ve got about a hundred dollars’ worth there at present quotations.” Colonel Richford’s head went up with a jerk. “Hundred dollars’ worth!” he croaked, his eyes fiery with suspicion. “Are you going to hold up two men dying of thirst?” “There’s been only one man in danger of that death around here. His name is Hoff.” The redoubtable colonel gasped, and leaned back against a rock.