"O-ho!" murmured Bud, laying a compelling hand on De Lancey and backing swiftly out of range; "so this is what you're up to--talking signs! But say, Phil," he continued, beckoning him peremptorily with a jerk of his head, "I got ten men hired and a lot of grub bought, and if you don't pick out that mining stuff we're going to lose a day. So get the lady to excuse you and come on now." "In a minute," pleaded Phil, and he went at the end of his allotted time, and perhaps it was the imp of jealousy that put strength into Hooker's arm. "Well, that's all right," said Bud, as Phil began his laughing excuses; "but you want to remember the Maine, pardner--we didn't come down here to play the bear. When there's any love-making to be done I want to be in on it. And you want to remember that promise you made me--you said you wouldn't have a thing to do with the Aragon outfit unless I was with you!" "Why, you aren't--you aren't jealous, are you, Bud?" "Yes, I'm jealous," answered Hooker harshly; "jealous as the devil! And I want you to keep that promise, see?" "Aw, Bud--" began De Lancey incredulously; but Hooker silenced him with a look. Perhaps he was really jealous, or perhaps he only said so to have his way, but Phil saw that he was in earnest, and he went quietly by his side. But love had set his brain in a whirl, and he thought no more of his promise--only of some subtler way of meeting his inamorata, some way which Bud would fail to see. XIII For sixty days and more, while the weather had been turning from cold to warm and they had been laboring feebly to clear way the great slide of loose rock that covered up the ledge, the Eagle Tail mine had remained a mystery. Whether, like the old Eagle Tail of frontier fable, it was so rich that only the eagle's head was needed to turn the chunks into twenty-dollar gold pieces; or whether, like many other frontier mines, it was nothing but a hole in the ground, was a matter still to be settled. And Bud, for one, was determined to settle it quickly. "Come on," he said, as Phil hesitated to open up the way to the lead; "we got a month, maybe less, to get to the bottom of this; and then the hills will be lousy with rebels. If the's nothing here, we want to find out about it quick and skip--and if we strike it, by grab! the' ain't enough red-flaggers in Sonora to pry me loose from it. So show these _hombres_ where to work and we'll be up against rock by the end of the week."