Chapter XXIII

"Hallo!" shouted a peremptory voice. "Hallo! Hallo!"

"It's the Senor Jim," gasped Adan.

Roldan sprang to his feet. "Hallo!" he cried.

There was a heavy trampling in the chaparral, and a moment later Hill rode into view. He took off his sombrero and waved it at the boys, but did not speak until he had crossed the creek and dismounted. Then he turned and regarded them with his keen hard eyes.

"Well!" he exclaimed, "I never calkilated to see you alive agin, and that's a fact. Hed some more adventures, I presume. Look as if ye'd hed more adventures than grub."

"Indeed we have, Don Jim," said Roldan, solemnly. "Should you like to hear them?"

"Should I? Well, I guess. You and your adventures have kinder made me feel young once more."

Roldan told the painful story.

"Holy smoke!" exclaimed Hill, in conclusion, "you are tough! And two mirages in the bargain. I was lost on Mojave once, and to my mind the mirages was the wust part of the hull game."

"What do you mean?" asked Roldan. "What are mirages?"

"Mirages, Rolly, are what ought to be and ain't, what you want and can't git, and they bear a hell-fired resemblance to life. I see you don't quite understand. Well, that there beautiful city and that there beautiful lake was what we call mirage for want of better name!" And he explained to them the meaning of the phenomenon, as far as he understood it.

"We have certainly learned a good deal since we left home," said Roldan, thoughtfully.

"There's room for more. There's room for more. Now, I suppose you'd like to know how I come here. Wall, I've got a confession to make fust, and seein' as you've been so nigh to death in the last few days, p'r'aps you'll furgive me. The day after you left I went down to see the priest, as agreed. I found him--well, I don't know as I'll tell everything, not even to excuse myself. It's enough to say that he was half luny between fear and remorse. He told me--I suppose he'd got to that state where he had to tell somebody or bust--about leavin' you in the tunnel to die, and bein' willin' after to kill you with his own hands--he was that mad. But he felt terrible sorry, and said that if you told on him it would serve him right; only that would mean ruin--ruin--ruin--a terrible word, young man. And he's not a day over forty and calkilates to git out of Californy with that there gold and be a big-bug in his native land. I hesitated some time, fur I ain't no slouch at keepin' a promise; but in the end I had to tell him. Why, a man's a criminal if he don't put another man out of misery when he kin--"

"You did quite right," interrupted Roldan. "I am glad that he was punished, but I would not have any one punished for