Tex was grinning now, "Search me. I had to concoct some excuse for getting 'em started--two or three excuses. An' it looks like I got to keep on concoctin' 'em to keep 'em goin'. But it don't hurt no one--lyin' like that, don't. It don't hurt the girl, because she's bound to get one of us. It don't hurt the pilgrim, because we'll see him through to the railroad. It don't hurt you, because you don't believe none of it. An' it don't hurt me, because I'm used to it--an' there you are. But that don't give you no license to set around an' snort an' gargle while I'm tellin' 'em. I got trouble enough keepin' 'em plausible an' entangled, without you keepin' me settin' on a cactus for fear you'll give it away. What you got to do is to back up my play--remember them four bits I give you way back in Los Vegas? Well, here's where I'm givin' you a chance to pay dividends on them four bits." Bat grinned: "You go 'head an' mak' you play. You fin' out I ain't forgit dat four bit. She ain' mooch money--four bit ain'. But w'en she all you got, she wan hell of a lot . . . _bien_!" CHAPTER XVII IN THE BAD LANDS It was well toward noon on the following day when the four finally succeeded in locating the grub cache of the departed horse-thief. Nearly two years had passed since the man had described the place to Tex and a two-year-old description of a certain small, carefully concealed cavern in a rock-wall pitted with innumerable similar caverns is a mighty slender peg to hang hopes upon. "It's like searching for buried treasure!" exclaimed Alice as she pried and prodded among the rocks with a stout stick. "There won't be much treasure, even if we find the _cache_," smiled Tex. "Horse thievin' had got onpopular to the extent there wasn't hardly a livin' in it long before this specimen took it up as a profession. We'll be lucky if we find any grub in it." A few moments later Bat unearthed the _cache_ and, as the others crowded about, began to draw out its contents. "Field mice," growled Tex, as the half-breed held up an empty canvas bag with its corner gnawed to shreds. Another gnawed bag followed, and another. "We don't draw no flour, nor rice, not jerky, anyhow," said the puncher, examining the bags. "Nor bacon, either. The only chance we stand to make a haul is on the air-tights." "What are air-tights?" asked the girl. "Canned stuff--tomatoes are the best for this kind of weather--keep you from gettin' thirsty. I've be'n in this country long enough to pretty much know its habits, but I never saw it this hot in June." "She feel lak' dat dam' Yuma bench, but here is only de rattlesnake. We don' got to all de tam hont de pizen boog. Dat ain' no good for git so dam' hot--she burn' oop de range. If it ain' so mooch danger for Win to git hang--" He paused and looked at Tex with owlish solemnity. "A'm no lak we cross dem bad lands. Better A'm lak we gon' back t'rough de mountaine."