Not to say a word would make our conspirators more suspicious; a careless mention of it might make them think our find wasn't such-a-much, after all.

Say! I suppose it wouldn't do to pick up a collection of samples from the best mines round Cobre--and inquire round who to write to for some more, from Jerome and Cananea, maybe; and then, after talking them up a while, we could send one of these samples off to be assayed, just for curiosity--what ?" "Bear looking into," said Pete; "though I think they'd size it up as an attempt to throw 'em off the trail.

Maybe we can smooth that idea out so we can do something with it.

Proceed." "Then we'll have to play up to that location you filed by hiking to the Gavilan and going through the motions of doing assessment work on that dinky little claim." Feeling his way, Stan watched the older man's eyes.

Pete nodded approval.
"But, Pete, aren't we taking a big chance that some one will find our claim?
It isn't recorded, and our notice will run out unless we do some assessment work pretty quick.