Chapter I: Preface

In writing the adventures of the boys who followed "The Trail of the Badger" down into that part of Colorado where the fringes of two discordant civilizations overlapped each other--the strenuous Anglo-Saxon and the easygoing Mexican--the author has endeavored to show how two healthy, enterprising young fellows were able to do their little part in that great work of Desert Reclamation whose importance is now as well understood by the general public as it always has been by those whose lot has been cast to the west of meridian one hundred and five.

To some it may appear that the boys are ahead of their time, but to the author, whose introduction to "the arid region" dates back thirty years and more, remembering the conditions then prevailing, it seems no more than natural that they should recognize the unusual opportunity presented to them of making a career for themselves, and even that they should be dimly conscious of the fact that if they "could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before" they would be deserving well of the infant community of which they formed a part.

That in making this attempt they would meet with adventures--in fact, that they could hardly avoid them--the author, recalling his own experiences in that country at that time, feels well assured.

CONTENTS

I. DICK STANLEY 11

II. SHEEP AND CINNAMON 32

III. THE MESCALERO VALLEY 51

IV. RACING THE STORM 68

V. HOW DICK BROUGHT THE NEWS 87

VI. THE PROFESSOR'S STORY 102

VII. DICK'S DIPLOMACY 116

VIII. THE START 129

IX. ANTONIO MARTINEZ 147

X. THE PADRON 165

XI. THE SPANISH TRAIL 179

XII. THE BADGER 191

XIII. THE KING PHILIP MINE 203

XIV. A CHANGE OF PLAN 221

XV. DICK'S SNAP SHOT 241

XVI. THE OLD PUEBLO HEAD-GATE 259

XVII. THE BRIDGE 276

XVIII. THE BIG FLUME 294

XIX. PEDRO'S BOLD STROKE 313

XX. THE MEMORABLE TWENTY-NINTH 333

ILLUSTRATIONS

"Dick pushed his rifle-barrel through a crevice in the rocks" (_Frontispiece_) 42

"It was a splendid chance; nobody could ask for a better target" 57

"Passing on our way through the town of Mosby" 137

"Behind him, stood the squat figure of Pedro Sanchez" 213

"I could not think what he was doing it for" 286

The Trail of the Badger