He went back to his saddle. Tucked in the saddle pockets was a goodly lunch, but he did not touch that. He untied his coat and took out two printed location notices, several crumply sheets of blank paper and a pencil. He filled in the blanks as the location notice of the Goblin Gold Mine--original notice and copy. On the blank paper he wrote out four more notices, two originals and two copies, for the Nine Bucks Placer Claim and the Please Hush. For the Goblin Gold he wrote himself as locator, Charles See and Howard Lull as witnesses; he reserved this for the highest and richest claim. For the next below, Charles See was locator, Forbes and Lull were witnesses; and the third was assigned to Howard Lull, with See and Forbes to bear witness. Adam paced off the three claims adjoining each other and built a stone monument at each corner, with a larger monument for the location-papers at the center of each claim; the central monument of the Goblin Gold about where he had made the last panning. And then, even as he started to slip the first location notice in its monument, he lifted up his eyes and saw, across the tangled ridges, three men riding up from the deeps of Apache Cañon. The cool judgment that had brought him safe through a thousand dangers was warped now by the fever and frenzy of gold lust; his canny instinct against disaster failed him in his need. There must be no shadow of irregularity on these claims, his hot brain reasoned; his find was too rich for chance-taking in the matter of mythical witnesses; yonder, by happy and unlooked for chance, were witnesses indeed; he must have their names to his location notices, and then he would get the copies to Hillsboro for recording at the earliest; he would mail them in Garfield post office that very afternoon. He reversed his pencil and erased the names of his fictitious witnesses; he saddled his horse and rode to intercept the three horsemen, half a mile away now, trailing slowly across the park toward MacCleod's Tanks. He waved them to stop. As he drew near he knew two of the men--Jody Weir, of Hillsboro, and Big Ed Caney, a deputy sheriff from Dona Ana County; two men he trusted not at all. Time was he would have deemed this conjunction sinister; to-day, madness was upon him. The third was a stranger. Each man had a blanket and a bulging slicker tied behind his saddle. Evidently they carried rations for several days' camping. "Hello, Adam!" "You're another--three of 'em. Got any water in those canteens? If I was to do a piece of wishin', right now, I'd mention water first off. This is sure one old scorcher of a day! She's a weather breeder. Rain before morning, sure as snakes. I see thunder-heads peeping up over the Black Range, right now." Caney handed over a canteen. "Drink hearty! You shore look like you'd been working, Adam." Adam drank deep before replying.