Peterson caught his goat, and then Dick, with unnecessary wariness and great waste of stratagem, 'stuck up' his own home, and secured a parcel of food carefully left for him on the table near the unlatched window by a thoughtful mother.
On Saturday the other boys turned up at the appointed time.

There were rules commanding the utmost caution in entering the mine by daylight.
Every care had to be taken to satisfy the shareholders that no stranger was in sight, and the last boy was compelled to keep a vigilant look-out while the others were descending, and then to make his way to the opening by a roundabout route, exercising a vigilance that would have puzzled an army of black-trackers.
Dick, who before leaving home had rifled his small savings bank, had provided Jacker Mack with money for supplies, and Jacker brought with him a pound of candles, some black material for masks, and half a dozen packets of Chinese crackers.

The Chinese crackers represented cartridges for the pistols of Red Hand's gang.

Dick had decided to be known as Red Hand.

The pistols were made by fashioning a piece of soft wood in the shape of a stock, and securing to this a scrap of hollow bone for a barrel.