NE harsh, hot morning in the month of June, a solitary rider came down through the mountains toward the abandoned Bronco Mine. A tall, lean man whose beard reached to his chest, he sat with drooping shoulders and bowed back, swaying loosely to the step of his dun mule. The dust of many seasons stained his hat's limp rim. Within his deep-set eyes there glowed the steady light which marks those men who spend their days searching for hidden things.
So he came down the glaring draw between the pallid flanks of the great hills within whose folds the shadows deepened to ashes of roses. And as the mesa opened out below him, revealing long empurpled reaches where a ghostly multitude of brown dust-devils were dancing fantastic figures to the searing wind's weird tune, the men at the adobe house caught sight of him.
Bronco Bob Lee, Tinkham and Shotgun Moore were sitting in the narrow strip of shade before the adobe's door, discussing a certain deal in Mexican cattle which had kept the last-named two south of the boundary for some weeks. After the fashion of that day, when many hard-eyed citizens were paying more attention to the condition of their rifle-sights than they were to the laws of nations, their herd had grown by leaps and bounds as it traveled northward; and this swift growth had been attended by swift incidents. Old Tinkham shifted his hat, gingerly disclosing a bloodstained bandage.
“One of them soldiers creased me when they jumped us down Moctezuma way,” he was saying. “Didn't amount to nothin', but the screw worms give me hell.” His eyes roved to the mouth of the ravine and his right hand went toward the rifle beside the door. Bronco Bob Lee noticed the movement and perceived its cause.
“That's only Mogollon,” said he. His manner of pronouncing the name was Muggyown, with the stress on the last syllable, and in his voice there was good-natured tolerance.
“Who's Mogollon?” demanded Shotgun Moore.
“All that I know,” Bronco Bob told them, “is that Curt Wilcox found him over in the Animas soon after yo' boys left. The Apaches had killed his pardner, an' he was out in the middle of the big alkali flat, crazy from want of water. Curt took him in to Paradise, and he worked a month or so for Pony Deal in the corrals. Sence then he's been prowlin' round these hills. He says he's from Pinos Altos, and all he knows to talk about is gold.”
“Them prospectors,” old Tinkham drawled, “is like that. Plumb locoed, every one of 'em.”
HEY watched him riding down out of the cañon mouth, past the abandoned shaft and the dump upon whose flanks the candle cactus grew. They saw his eyes rove toward the weather-grayed windlass, from which a bit of frayed rope was still dangling in the wind. He pulled up his mule before the door and slid from the worn old saddle.
“Mornin',” he bade them.
“Howdy,” they answered. He stood regarding them in silence.
“Which of yo' boys owns this here claim?” he asked at length. The other two glanced sidelong at Bronco Bob Lee.
“I reckon,” the latter told him, “I'm holding her down jest now.”
Mogollon turned his head to look again upon the signs of former mining activity, and the three partners smoked on in noncommittal silence.
“'Pears like nobody has been workin' her lately.” There was a mingling of diffidence and eagerness in his tone which did not escape Bronco Bob.
“Last time I heard of anybody burrowin' in that there shaft,” said he, “was ten or twelve years back. A feller by the name of Hassayampa Bill come down into this country with two pardners and found seven men mining here. Him and his outfit done laid fer 'em on the dump one mo'nin' when they was coming to work; and before noon they'd managed to kill the hull bunch. Then they went on sinkin' the shaft, but ol' Cochise and his renegades happened along this way a little later on and got them. The graves is over in that patch of ocatilla, all ten of 'em.”
“And sence that time?” asked Mogollon.
“Well, nobody's ever bothered their haids about it sence I've been here,” the other answered.
Mogollon reached into his pocket and brought forth several small chunks of brownish rock. These he fondled with calloused fingers. Finally he offered them to Bronco Bob, who bestowed upon them one brief glance.
“What be they?” he inquired indifferently.
“I run acrost the outcrop this side of the ridge,” said Mogollon. His manner was that of one who believes his announcement entitled to comment. Tinkham grunted. Shotgun Moore fell to rolling a cigarette.
“Ef yo' all aint int'rested,” Mogollon went on, “mebbe yo' aint got no objections to my developin' the property.”