The rider waved back. The dogs put out for him pell-mell, Ruler leaping and fawning up on his saddle flanks, so overjoyed was he at seeing Sid again, the Airedale jealously shoving in to get his share of the caresses. Presently Sid rode up to where Big John and Niltci were busily skinning out the cougar and butchering big sections of the delicious meat. “Hi, Sid!--what’s all this Big John’s telling me about a present?” Scotty greeted him. “Gosh knows, I was feeling pretty blue not so very long ago! Did you remember it was my birthday or anything?” he bantered. “It’s a _mine_ for you, Scotty!” announced Sid, breathlessly, his eyes alight with the joy of him who gives, “an old Spanish mine! Got the dope here on a pottery tablet that we found in a cave dwelling.” “Gorry!--a mine!--le’s see it!” cried Scotty. “A real, sure-enough mine? I’d begun to think there was no such thing left in Arizona.” “It’s at a place called Red Mesa, down near Pinacate, Scotty,” said Sid. “The dope’s all in Latin and I can’t read much of it, but we’ll hunt up a priest somewhere and get him to translate it----” Scotty’s face fell, even while Sid was speaking. “‘Down near Pinacate!’” he echoed, huge disappointment in his tones. “It _can’t_ be, Sid! Why, that’s all lava country! There’s no mesa or mineral down there.” “How about the Ajo Mines?” challenged Sid. “And there’s lots of ore north of Sonoyta, only it costs too much to work it. You know that yourself.” “By gosh, you never can tell!” exclaimed Scotty, excitedly. “It’s possible, though! There’s granite outcropping, even down at MacDougal Pass, only fifteen miles from Pinacate. We’ll try it!” “Hope it isn’t in Mexican territory--but no, ‘twenty-one miles northeast of Pinacate,’ the plaque says----” “Gee! Le’s see it!” cried Scotty eagerly. Big John grinned sardonic grins as the two youths got the plaque out of Sid’s saddlebags and held it between them, scanning it excitedly. He heard Scotty eagerly bark out the word “‘_aurum_’--gold?” and shook his head. “’Pears to me that every white man but me goes crazy over that word ‘gold’!” he growled whimsically. “Fellers will lie, steal, murder, get themselves killed with thirst or et by grizzlies--an’ all for somethin’ that they don’t want when they’ve got it!” he exclaimed. “Scotty, ef it warn’t for you bein’ a minin’ engineer I’d warn ye to leave it _alone_!” he said positively. “Exceptin’ it’s now November and the tanks is probably full down thar, I wouldn’t let you go, nohow.” But Scotty was hardly listening to him. A planning look was in his eye and his engineer mind was already envisioning not the mine itself but the practical ways to get out the metal. “Ship base in Adair Bay; burros up to the mine; carry the ore in bottoms through the Panama Canal to the East, where we can get cheap process reduction--Gee! There’s nothing to it!” he averred enthusiastically.