After following a good road some five or six miles, they commenced climbing the first of the series of hills of which mention has been made. The road here was still tolerable; but when they advanced into the immediate region of the mines they were compelled to abandon their horses, which were left at a small building, belonging to the ranch, and to proceed on foot into the mountain gorges. The scenery now became wild beyond mere picturesqueness--it was startling, desolate, grand. Traces of old mines, once worked, but now deserted, were everywhere visible. Finally they came to a new "lead," which was being successfully worked by the _peons_ of Don Miguel. There were some forty of these men at work, under an overseer. Dr. Seltzer showed his companion the recent improvements which had been made; the machinery which he himself had introduced, and a portion of which he had invented; stating that, under the system which he himself had introduced, Don Miguel was growing a rich man faster than he previously had any idea was possible. The mountain-stream, spoken of as being visible at a great distance, glittering from hight to hight, was here made to do the unromantic work of washing the ore and grinding it. The overseer was called upon by the host to give every desirable information to the traveler, and here a long visit was made. Lunch was partaken of under the cool shadow of a ledge of rock; and then Dr. Seltzer proposed, if his visitor was not already too much fatigued, to take him higher up, to a spot which he had discovered only the day before, and which he had every reason to believe contained a richer deposit of silver than any vein heretofore opened--in fact, he thought a fortune lay hidden in the wild gorge to which he referred, and he anxiously invited the scientific observation of his guest. This was just the opportunity for being alone with his man that Mr. Burton desired. It may seem strange that he proposed to confront the murderer with his guilt in this solitary manner with no witnesses to corroborate any testimony he might wring from the guilty; but the detective knew enough of human nature to know that the confronted criminal is almost always a coward, and he had no fear that this person, if guilty, accused of his false name and falser character, would refuse to do what he demanded of him. Again, his principal object, more important by far than the discovery of the actual hired assassin, was to gain from the frightened accomplice a full, explicit confession of _who had tempted him to the crime_--who was really the most guilty murderer--whose money had paid for the deed which his own dastardly hand had shrunk from. Strong in resources which never yet had failed him, Mr. Burton was anxious for the singular encounter he had devised.