Instead, I wrote out a notice for that little old ledge we found over on the Gavilan a month back.

I filed that, just to see if any one was keeping cases on us--and I filed it the very last thing before I left Tucson: You see what's happened." He waved his empty coffee-cup at the campfires.

"I come right back and we rode straight to Ironspring.

But there's been people ridin' faster than us--ridin' day and night.

Son, if our copper claims had really been in the Gavilan, instead of a-hundred-and-then-some long miles in another-guess direction--then what ?" "We'd have found our claim jumped and a bunch to swear they'd been working there before the date of our notices; that they didn't find the scratch of a pick on the claim, no papers and no monument--that's what we'd have found." "Correct! Pass the meat." "But we haven't told a soul," protested Stanley.