That is a foolish idea. The good fortune of
careful preparation should only confirm your judgment."
This was the sort of advice Alan had to take now and then from his
friend; but it always did him good.
"Then you don't believe in good luck?" rather sheepishly suggested
Alan.
"I believe in it, yes," replied Ned, "if it comes--and I never put
it aside. But I never count on it."
Sleep seemed to have fled from Ned's eyes. Although Alan suggested
that it might be well to turn in early and be up early, Ned insisted
on seeing Major Honeywell's chart of the country they were to
explore, saying that he had another night on the journey in which he
could sleep.
The chart was really only a rough pencil sketch. The instructions
were more in detail.
"This country, now a portion of the reservation of the Navajo and
Southern Ute Indians, is a wilderness," Major Honeywell wrote.
"White men do not visit it because the Indians will not permit them.
Mining prospectors who have tried to do so have been murdered."
"Cheerful, isn't it?" interrupted Alan.
"This jumble of mountains has no connection with our two great
western mountain ranges.
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