For a moment Hooker looked at him as if to read his thoughts, then he shook his head and exhaled his smoke regretfully. "Nope," he said. "Me and Phil are pardners. We work together." "I'll give you three hundred!" cried Kruger, half rising in his chair. "Nope," grunted Bud, "we're pardners." "Huh!" snorted the mining man, and flung away in disgust. But as he neared the door a new thought struck him and he came as quickly back. "You can do what you please about your pardner," he said. "I'm talking to _you_. Now--will you think about it?" "Sure!" returned Hooker. "Well, then," snapped Kruger, "meet me at the Waldorf in an hour!" III On the untrammeled frontier, where most men are willing to pass for what they are without keeping up any "front," much of the private business, as well as the general devilment, is transacted in the back rooms of saloons. The Waldorf was nicely furnished in this regard. After a drink at the bar, in which De Lancey and Hooker joined, Henry Kruger led the way casually to the rear, and in a few moments they were safely closeted. "Now," began Kruger, as he took a seat by the table and faced them with snapping eyes, "the first thing I want to make plain to you gentlemen is, if I make any deal to-day it's to be with Mr. Hooker. If you boys are pardners you can talk it over together, but I deal with one man, and that's Hooker. "All right?" he inquired, glancing at De Lancey, and that young man nodded indulgently. "Very well, then," resumed Kruger, "now to get down to business. This mine that I'm talking about is located down here in Sonora within three hours' ride of a big American camp. It isn't any old Spanish mine, or lost _padre_ layout; it's a well-defined ledge running three or four hundred dollars to the ton--and I know right where it is, too. "What I want to do is to establish the title to it now, while this revolution is going on, and make a bonanza out of it afterward. Of course, if you boys don't want to go back into Mexico, that settles it; but if you do go, and I let you in on the deal, you've got to see it through or I'll lose the whole thing. So make up your minds, and if you say you'll go, I want you to stick to it!" "We'll go, all right," spoke up De Lancey, "if it's rich enough." "How about you?" inquired Kruger, turning impatiently on Bud. "Will you go?" "Yes, I'll go," answered Bud sullenly. "But I ain't stuck on the job," he added. "Jest about get it opened up when a bunch of rebels will jump in and take everything we've got." "Well, you get a title to it and pay your taxes and you can come out then," conceded Henry Kruger. "No," grumbled Hooker, "if I go I'll stay with it." He glanced at his pardner at this, but he, for one, did not seem to be worried. "I'll try anything--once!" he observed with a sprightly air, and Bud grinned sardonically at the well-worn phrase. "Well," said Kruger, gazing inquiringly from one to the other, "is it a go? Will you shake hands on it?"