At the station Black Joaquin had helped lift the new pine boxes into the wagon. As he watched them start on their ride to the place of rock-covered mounds near the foothills, he said to the men gathered about: “Por Dios! Not so muchos hombres to shoot mostang now!” And his brother Domingo, who had been drinking, answered with more freedom: “’Sta ’ueno! Not so muchos hombres; more mostang por me. ’Sta ’ueno; si, ’sta muy ’ueno!” He laughed slyly. Then he went over to the saloon, followed by the other men. * * * * * The little gray burros watched the wagon for a long time, as it went rattle--rattle--rattle over the stony road. By and by it stopped. Then they began nibbling again on the scant bunch-grass and white sage. [Illustration] AT THE WILL OF THE WATERS “Blockhead! idiot! ass! ‘Tenderfoot’ isn’t adequate for such a fool as I have been!” he exclaimed bitterly. He tried not to care; even he tried to forget that the good-looking, successful mining engineer had given him a title which had made him wince: “the deckle-edged tenderfoot!” But it stung, nevertheless. Perhaps the reason that it hurt, was because of its fitness. And what hurt more, was the fact Cadwallader had taken pains that Evaleen Blaine should hear it said--Cadwallader, who seemed so well fitted to take his place in the rough Western way of battling with life, where he himself did but blunder and stumble, and earn the name of “the deckle-edged tenderfoot!” That Teamster Bill had christened him “this yer gentlemanly burro frum Bost’n,” cut far less keenly. But then, Bill wasn’t trying to move heaven and earth to get Miss Blaine. Whereas Elwyn Cadwallader was. However, on all sides opinion was the same, if differently expressed. The fact of his being a gentleman had not prevented him from becoming a fool--chiefest of fools--else he never would have trusted so implicitly in old Zeke Runkle’s misrepresentations of the group of mining claims in those foothills that lay just below the Monarch group. The Monarch was the talk of the camp for its richness. If there was a fortune in the one group (he argued to himself), then why not also in those so nearly adjoining. At any rate, it seemed to him it was his one chance to find a fortune by a short cut; so, paying for them with all he had, save a few hundreds that afterwards went for useless development work, the mines became his. The camp welcomed him into its midst, and winked, and grinned when he wasn’t looking; and (to a man) voted him “an easy thing!” His eyes not having been focused for fraud, he never doubted but that the rich samples shown him had come from the mines represented; nor ever suspected that, under his very eyes, the tests he himself made had been tampered with.