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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d7b82bc --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,4 @@ +*.txt text eol=lf +*.htm text eol=lf +*.html text eol=lf +*.md text eol=lf diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ff6b781 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #65995 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/65995) diff --git a/old/65995-0.txt b/old/65995-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 211c2a6..0000000 --- a/old/65995-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,10244 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Mine with the Iron Door, by Harold Bell -Wright - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: The Mine with the Iron Door - -Author: Harold Bell Wright - -Release Date: August 5, 2021 [eBook #65995] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed - Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was - produced from images generously made available by The Internet - Archive/Canadian Libraries) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR *** - - - - - THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR BOOKS BY HAROLD BELL WRIGHT - - - THAT PRINTER OF UDELL’S - THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS - THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS - THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH - THEIR YESTERDAYS - THE EYES OF THE WORLD - WHEN A MAN’S A MAN - THE RE-CREATION OF BRIAN KENT - THE UNCROWNED KING - HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE - THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR - - D. APPLETON & COMPANY - New York London - -[Illustration: SHE CAUGHT HIM BY THE ARM.... “THE SHERIFF IS HERE!”] - - - - - THE MINE - WITH THE IRON DOOR - - A ROMANCE - - BY - HAROLD BELL WRIGHT - - AUTHOR OF “HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE,” “THE - SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS,” “THE WINNING - OF BARBARA WORTH,” ETC. - - - THE RYERSON PRESS - TORONTO - 1923 - - - COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY - D. APPLETON AND COMPANY - - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - TO - MY FRIENDS - IN THE OLD PUEBLO - TUCSON - - - - -CONTENTS - - -CHAPTER PAGE - - I. THE CAÑON OF GOLD 1 - - II. AT THE ORACLE STORE 7 - - III. THE PARDNERS’ GIRL 13 - - IV. SAINT JIMMY 25 - - V. THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY 34 - - VI. NIGHT 45 - - VII. THE STRANGER’S QUEST 50 - - VIII. THE NEW NEIGHBOR 58 - - IX. “GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT” 80 - - X. SUMMER 90 - - XI. THE LIZARD 103 - - XII. GHOSTS 108 - - XIII. THE AWAKENING 120 - - XIV. THE STORM 132 - - XV. MARTA’S FLIGHT 149 - - XVI. NATACHEE 156 - - XVII. THE SHERIFF’S VISIT 172 - - XVIII. AN INDIAN’S ADVICE 185 - - XIX. ON EQUAL TERMS 191 - - XX. THE ONLY CHANCE 196 - - XXI. THE WAY OF A RED MAN 208 - - XXII. THE LOST MINE 217 - - XXIII. SONORA JACK 225 - - XXIV. THE WAY OF A WHITE MAN 235 - - XXV. THE WAYS OF GOD 247 - - XXVI. TRAGEDY 256 - - XXVII. ON THE TRAIL 263 - -XXVIII. THE OUTLAWS 276 - - XXIX. THE RESCUE 291 - - XXX. PARDNERS STILL 305 - - XXXI. THE MEXICAN’S CONFESSION 312 - - XXXII. REVELATION 320 - -XXXIII. GOLD 324 - - XXXIV. MORNING 330 - - XXXV. FREEDOM 337 - - - - -THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE CAÑON OF GOLD - - And yet--those who look for it still find “color” in the Cañada del - Oro. Romance and adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold. The - treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine behind an iron - door. - - -From every street and corner in Tucson we see the mountains. From our -places of business, from our railway depots and hotels, from our -University campus and halls, and from the windows and porches of our -homes we look up to the mighty hills. - -But of all the peaks and ranges that keep their sentinel posts around -this old pueblo there are none so bold in the outlines of their granite -heights and rugged cañons, so exquisitely beautiful in their soft colors -of red and blue and purple, or so luring in the call of their remote and -hidden fastnesses, as the Santa Catalinas. - -Every morning they are there--looking down upon our little city in the -desert with a brooding, Godlike tolerance--remote yet very near. All -day long they watch with world-old patience our fretful activities, our -puny strivings and our foolish pretenses. And when evening is come and -the dusk of our desert basin deepens, their castle crags and turret -peaks signal, with the red fire of the sunset, “good-night” to us who -dwell in the gloom below. Even in the darkness we see their shadowy -might against the sky, and feel the still and solemn mystery of their -enduring strength under the desert stars. - -This is a story of some people who lived in the Catalinas. - -If you would find more exactly the scenes of this romance you must take -the new Bankhead Highway that, in its course from Tucson to Florence and -Phœnix, runs for miles in the shadow of these mountains. From the old -Mexican quarter of the city--picturesque still with the colorful life of -the West that is vanishing--you go straight north on Main Street, where -the dust of your passing is the dust of the crumbled adobe buildings and -fortifications of the ancient pueblo that had its beginning somewhere in -the forgotten centuries. Leaving the outskirts of the town your way -leads over rolling lands of greasewood and cacti, down the long grade -past the cemetery, past the Government hospital in the valley, to the -bridge that spans the Rillito. From the little river you climb quickly -up to the desert slopes that form the western base of the main range and -that lie under their wide skies unmarked by human hands since the -beginning of deserts and mountains. Beyond the famous Steam Pump Ranch, -some sixteen miles from Tucson, the road to Oracle branches off from the -Bankhead Highway and climbs higher and higher until from a wide mesa you -can see the place of my story--the mighty Cañada del Oro--the Cañon of -Gold. - -But if you know the way you may turn aside from the main road before you -come to this new Oracle branch and take instead the old road that winds -closer to the mountains and for several miles follows the bed of the -lower cañon. It was along this ancient trail that the eventful and -romantic life of this southern Arizona country, through its many ages, -moved. - -This way, centuries ago, came the Spaniards--lured by tales of a strange -people who used silver and gold as we use tin and iron, and who set -turquoise in the gates of their houses. This way came the Franciscan -Fathers to find in the Cañada del Oro gold for their mission at San -Xavier. This way, from the San Pedro and the Aravaipa, came savage -Apache to raid the peaceful farming Papagos and later to war against the -pale-face settlers in the valley of the Santa Cruz. Prehistoric races, -explorers, Indians, priests, pioneers, prospectors, cattlemen, soldiers -and adventurers of every sort from every land--all, all have come this -way--along this old road through the Cañon of Gold. - -And because there was water here, and because there was gold here, this -wild and adventurous life, through the passing centuries, made this -place a camping ground and a battle field--a place of labor and crime, -of victory and defeat; of splendid heroism, noble sacrifice, and -dreadful fear. Set amid the grandeur and the beauty of these vast -deserts, lonely skies and wild and rugged mountains, the Cañada del Oro -has been, most of all, as indeed it is to-day, a place of dreams that -never came true; of hopes that were never fulfilled; of labor that was -vain. - -Of all the stirring tales of this picturesque region of the Santa -Catalinas, of all the romantic legends and traditions that have come -down to us from its shadowy past, none is more filled with the essence -of human life and love and hopes and dreams than is the tale of the Mine -with the Iron Door. - -But this is not a story of those old Spaniards and padres and Indians -and pioneers. It is a story of to-day. - -The old, old tale of the Mine with the Iron Door is as true for us as it -ever was for those who lived and loved so many years ago. We too, in -these days, have our dreams that must remain always, merely dreams and -nothing more. We too, in these modern times, are called upon to bury in -the secret places of our modern hearts hopes that are dead. In every -life there are the ashes of fires that have burned out or, by some cold -fate, have been extinguished. For every living one of us, I believe, -there is a Cañada del Oro--a Cañon of Gold--there is a lost mine that -will never be found--there are iron doors that may never be opened. - -And yet--those who look for it still find “color” in the Cañada del -Oro. Romance and adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold. The -treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine behind an iron door. - -As the old prospector, Thad Grove, said to his pardner one time when -their last pinch of dust was gone and their most promising lead had -pinched out: “After all, it’s a dead immortal cinch that if we _had_ -a-happened to strike it rich like we was hopin’, we couldn’t never bin -as rich as we was hopin’ to be. There jest naterally _ain’t_ that much -gold, nohow.” - -“Sure,” returned Bob Hill, the other old-timer, “and ain’t you never -took notice how much richer a feller with one poor, little, old nugget -in his pan is than the hombre what only thinks he’s got a bonanza -somewheres on the insides of a mountain? An’ look at this, will you: If -everybody was to certain sure _find_ the mine he’s huntin’ there’d be so -blame _much_ gold in the world that it’d take a hundred-mule train to -pack enough to buy a mess of frijoles. It’s a good thing, _I_ say, that -somebody, er something has fixed it somehow so’s _all_ our fool dreams -_can’t_ come true.” - -“Speakin’ of love,” said Thad on another occasion, when the two were -discussing the happiness that had so strangely come to them with their -partnership daughter, “love ain’t no big deposit that a feller is allus -hopin’ to find but mostly never does. Love is jest a medium high-grade -ore that you got to dig for.” - -“Yep,” agreed Bob, “an’ when you’ve got your ore you’ve sure got to run -it through the mill an’ treat it scientific if you expect to recover -much of the values.” - - * * * * * - -The affairs of the old Pardners and their daughter Marta were matters of -great and never-failing interest to the loungers who gathered in front -of the general store and post-office in Oracle. - -Bill Janson, known as the Lizard, invariably opened and led the -discussions. The Janson family, it should be said, had drifted into the -Cañada del Oro from Arkansas. They were, in the picturesque vernacular -of the cattlemen, “nesters.” The Lizard, an only son, was one of those -rat-faced, shifty-eyed, loose-mouthed, male creatures who know -everything about everybody and spend the major part of their days -telling it. - -It was on one of those social occasions when the Lizard was entertaining -a group of idlers on the platform in front of the store that I first -heard of the two old prospectors and their partnership girl. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -AT THE ORACLE STORE - - “My Gawd! Hit’s enough t’ drive a decent man plumb loony, a-tryin’ - t’ figger hit out.” - - -“Yes, sir,” said the Lizard, “I’m a-tellin’ ye that them thar Pardners -an’ their gal--Marta her name is--are th’ beatenest outfit ye er ary -other man ever seed. Ain’t nobody kin figger ’em out, nohow. They’ve -been here nigh about five year, too. Me an’ paw an’ maw, we been here -eight year ourselves--comin’ this fall. Yes, sir, they’re sure a queer -actin’ lot.” - -The Lizard had so evidently made his introductory remarks for my benefit -that some sort of acknowledgment was unquestionably due. - -“What are they, miners?” - -“Uh-huh, they’re a-workin’ a claim--makin’ enough t’ live on, I -reckon--leastways they’re a-livin’. But that ain’t hit--hit’s that thar -gal of theirn.” He shook his head and heaved a troubled sigh. “Law, -law!” - -And no one could have failed to mark the eager viciousness of the -Lizard’s expression as the loose-mouthed creature ruminated on the -delectable gossip he was about to offer. - -“Ye see hit’s like this: Them two old-timers had this here gal with ’em -when they first come into th’ cañon down yonder. She was a kid--’long -’bout fourteen, then. An’ there ain’t nobody kin tell fer sure who she -is, ner whar she come from. They say as how old Bob an’ Thad found her -when they was a-prospectin’ onct down on th’ border somewhares--tuck her -away from some Mexican outfit er other. Mebby hit’s so an’ mebby hit -ain’t. But everybody ’lows as how she ain’t come from no good sort -nohow, ’cause if she had why wouldn’t the Pardners tell hit? An’ take -an’ look at this dad-beatin’ father arrangement--take their names fer -instance: one is Bob Hill, t’other is Thad Grove, an’ what’s the gal’s -name but Marta Hillgrove--Hill-Grove--d’ye ketch hit? An’ one week old -Bob he’ll be her pappy, an’ th’ next week old Thad he’s her paw, an’ the -gal she jist naterally ’lows they both her daddies. My Gawd! Hit’s -enough t’ drive a decent man plumb loony a-tryin’ t’ figger hit out.” - -The Lizard’s friends laughed. - -“Oh, ye kin laugh, but I’m a-tellin’ ye thar’s somethin’ wrong somewhars -an’ I ain’t th’ only one what says so neither. Won’t nobody over here in -Oracle have nothin’ t’ do with her. Will they?” He turned to the -loungers for confirmation. - -“She’s a plumb beauty, too, an’ a mighty cute little piece--reg’lar -spitfire, if ye git her started--an’ smart--say, she bosses them pore -old Pardners till they’re scared mighty nigh t’ death of her--an’ -proud--huh--she’s too all-fired proud to suit some of us.” - -The crowd grinned. - -“The Lizard, he sure ought to know,” said one. - -“How about it, Lizard?” came from another. “You been a-tryin’ t’ make up -t’ her ever since she moved into your neighborhood, ain’t you?” - -“Ye all don’t need to mind about me,” retorted the Lizard, with a -vicious leer. “My day’ll happen along yet. Ye notice I ain’t drawed what -Chuck Billings got.” - -“Chuck Billings,” he continued for the benefit of any one who might not -be well versed in Cañada del Oro history, “he was one of George -Wheeler’s punchers, an’ he tuck up with her one evenin’ when she was -a-comin’ home from Saint Jimmy’s, an’ I’ll be dad-burned if her old -prospectin’ daddies didn’t work on Chuck ’til George jist naterally had -t’ send him int’ th’ hospital at Tucson. Chuck he ain’t never showed up -in this neighborhood since neither. I heard as how George told him if he -did get well an’ dast t’ come back he’d take a try at him hisself.” - -“Good for George!” - -“Heh? What’s that?” - -“Does George Wheeler live in the Cañada del Oro, too?” - -“Naw, Wheeler he’s got a big cow ranch jist back here from Oracle a -piece. George he rides all th’ cañon country though--him an’ his -punchers. An’ us folks down in th’ cañon we go through his hoss pasture -when we come up here t’ Oracle fer anythin’. George an’ his wife they’re -’bout th’ only folks what’ll have any truck with that pardnership gal. -But shucks, George an’ his wife they’d be good t’ anybody. Take Saint -Jimmy an’ his maw now, they have her ’round of course.” - -“Saint Jimmy is your minister, I suppose?” - -“He’s what?” - -“A minister--clergyman, you know--a preacher.” - -“Oh, ye mean a parson--Shucks! Naw, Saint Jimmy he’s jist one of these -here fellers what’s everybody’s friend. He lives with his maw up on th’ -mountain ’bove Juniper Spring, ’bout three mile from Wheeler’s ranch, -jist off th’ cañon trail after ye come up into th’ hills. A little white -house hit is. You kin see hit easy from most anywheres. His real name’s -Burton. He’s a doctor, er was ’fore he got t’ be a lunger. He was -a-livin’ back East when he tuk sick. Then him an’ his maw they come t’ -this country. He’s well enough here, ’pears like; but they do say he -dassn’t never leave Arizona an’ go back t’ his doctorin’ agin like he -was. He’s a funny cuss--plays th’ flute t’ beat anythin’. You kin hear -him ’most any time of a pretty evenin’. He’ll roost up on some rock on -th’ side of th’ mountain somewhares an’ toot away ’til plumb midnight; -but he won’t never play when ye ask him, ner fer any of th’ dances we -have over here in Oracle neither. I heard George Wheeler say onct as how -Saint Jimmy war right smart of a doctor back t’ his home whar he come -from. You see, Saint Jimmy he’s been a-teachin’ this here gal of th’ -Pardners book larnin’.” - -The Lizard opened his wide mouth in a laugh which showed every yellow -tooth in his head. “I’ll say he’s a-teachin’ her. I’ve seed ’em together -up on th’ mountains an’ in th’ cañon more’n onct--book larnin’--huh! Ye -don’t need t’ take my word fer hit neither--ye kin ask anybody ’bout -what decent folks thinks of Marta Hillgrove. She----“ - -How much more the Lizard would have said on his favorite topic will -never be known for at that moment a man appeared in the open doorway of -the store. - -Not one of the group of loungers spoke, but every eye was turned on the -man who stood looking them over with such cool contempt. - -He was dressed in the ordinary garb of civilization, but his dark, -impassive countenance, with the raven-black hair and eyes, was not to be -mistaken. The man was an Indian. - -Presently, without a word, the red man stepped past the loungers and -walked away up the road. - -Silently they watched until the Indian was out of sight. - -The Lizard drew a long breath. - -“That thar’s Natachee. He’s Injun. Lives all alone somewheres in th’ -mountains, away up at th’ head of th’ Cañada del Oro. He’s one of them -thar school Injuns. Talks like a reglar book when he wants t’, but -mostly he won’t say nothin’ t’ nobody. Wears white clothes all right, -like ye see, when he has t’ come t’ town fer anythin’; but out in th’ -mountains he goes ’round jist like all th’ Injuns used to. Which goes t’ -show, I claim, that an Injun’s an Injun no matter how much ye try t’ -larn him.” - -“That’s right,” agreed one of the listeners. - -“He’s a real sociable cuss, ain’t he?” commented another with a grin. - -“Him an’ Saint Jimmy’s friendly enough,” said the Lizard, “an’ I know -th’ old Pardners claim he ain’t no harm. But I ain’t havin’ no truck -with him myself. This here’s a white man’s country, I say.” - -A chorus of “You bet!” “That’s what!” and “You’re a-shoutin’!” approved -the Lizard’s sentiments. - -Then another voice said: - -“Do you reckon this here Natachee really knows anything about that old -lost mine in the cañon, like some folks seem to think?” - -The Lizard wagged his head in solemn and portentous silence, signifying -that, however ready he might be to talk about the Pardners’ girl, the -Mine with the Iron Door was not a subject to be lightly discussed in the -presence of a stranger. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE PARDNERS’ GIRL - - “Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she - jest can’t have two fathers.” - - -The house in the Cañon of Gold where the Pardners and their girl lived -was little more than a cabin of rough, unpainted boards. But there was a -wide porch overrun with vines, and a vegetable garden with flowers. -Beyond the garden there was a rude barn or shelter, built as the Indians -build, of sahuaro poles and mud, with a small corra made of thorny -ocotillo, and the place as a whole was roughly inclosed by an old fence -of mesquite posts and barbed wire. On every side the mountains -rose--ridge and dome and peak--into the sky, and night and day, through -summer droughts and winter rains, the cañon creek murmured or sang or -roared on its way from the woodsy heart of the Catalinas to lose itself -in the sandy wastes of the desert below. The little mine where the -Pardners worked was across the creek a hundred yards or more from the -kitchen door. - -It was that time of the year when, if the rain gods of the Indians have -been kind, the deserts and mountains of Arizona riot in a blaze of -color. On the mountain sides, silvery white Apache plumes and graceful -wands of brilliant scarlet mallow were nodding amid the lilac of the -loco-weed, while, in every glade and damp depression, the gold of the -buck-bean shone in settings of brightest green. And on the cañon floor, -the pink white bloom of cañon anemone, with yellow primroses and -whispering bells, made points and patches of light in the shadow of the -rocky walls. - -It is not enough to say that the Pardners’ girl fully justified the -Lizard’s somewhat qualified admiration. There was something -more--something that neither the Lizard nor his kind could appreciate. -She was rather boyish, perhaps, as girls reared in the healthful -out-of-door atmosphere are apt to be, but it was a dainty boyishness--if -sturdy--that in no way marred the exquisite feminine qualities of her -beauty. Her hair and eyes were dark, and her cheeks richly colored with -good health and sunshine; and she looked at one with a disconcerting -combination of innocence and frankness which, together with the charm of -her sex, was certain to fix the attention of any mere male, whatever his -station in life or previous condition of servitude. In short, the -strangeness of Marta Hillgrove’s relationship to the grizzled old -Pardners, with the mystery of her real parentage, was not at all needed -to make her the talk of the country side. She was the kind of a girl -that both men and women instinctively discuss, though for quite -different reasons. - -Bob Hill put his empty coffee cup down that Saturday morning with a long -breath of satisfaction, and felt for the pipe and the sack of tobacco -in his shirt pocket. - -“Thar’s nothin’ to it, daughter,” he remarked--his faded blue eyes -twinkling and his leathery, wrinkled, old face beaming with pride and -love--“if Mother Burton learns you any more cookin’, Thad an’ me will -founder ourselves sure. I’m here to maintain that one whiff of a -breakfast like that would make one of them Egypt mummies claw himself -right out of his pyramid.” - -Thad Grove grunted a scornful, pessimistic, protesting grunt and rubbed -the top of his totally bald head with aggressive vigor. - -“She ain’t your daughter, Bob Hill--not this week. It’s my turn to be -daddy an’ you know it. You’re allus a-tryin’ to gouge me out of my -rights.” - -Marta’s laughter was as unaffected as the song of the cardinal that at -that moment was waking the cañon echoes. Patting Thad’s arm -affectionately, she said: - -“Make him play fair, daddy, make him play fair. I’ll back you up every -time he tries to cheat.” - -“By smoke!” ejaculated Bob. “I clean disremembered what day it was -to-day. But to-morrer is another week an’ she’ll be mine all right -then.” He glared at Thad triumphantly. “I tell you, Pardner, jest -a-thinkin’ of me goin’ to be daddy to a gal like her makes me all set -up. I’ve sure got a feelin’ that to-morrer is the day we’ll dig clean -through to our bonanza.” - -“Huh,” retorted Thad. “I got a feelin’ we ain’t goin’ to dig into no -bonanza to-morrer, nor nothin’ else.” - -“Why not?” demanded Bob. - -“’Cause to-morrer is Sunday, ain’t it? Holy Cats! but you’re a-gettin’ -loonier and loonier. If you keep on a-dyin’ at the top you won’t be fit -to be daddy to nobody. I’ll jest up an’ git myself app’inted guardian -for my off weeks--that’s what I’ll do.” - -“I may be a-dyin’ at the top,” returned Bob, “but, by smoke, I ain’t -coverin’ no alkali flat under my hat like you be. As for us workin’ -Sundays--I know we ain’t allowed, in general, but it’s a plumb sin if we -can’t--jest for to-morrer--with me all set like I am.” - -He looked at Marta appealingly. - -“Whatever my gal says goes,” said Thad. - -Bob continued persuasively: - -“You see, honey, I’ve got it all figgered out that when we git in about -three feet further than we’ll make to-day we’re bound to uncover our -everlastin’ fortunes. You want us all to be rich, don’t you?” - -“It’s no use,” said the girl firmly. “You both know well enough that I -will not permit you to break the Sabbath. Saint Jimmy’s mother says it -is no way for Christians to do, and that settles it. Anything that -Mother Burton says is wrong _is_ wrong. You both consider yourselves -Christians, don’t you?” - -“You’re dead right, daughter,” said Thad, with an air of gentle -complacency. “I hadn’t a mite of a notion to work on Sunday myself. I -wouldn’t go so far as to say I was much of a Christian but”--he glared -at his pardner--“it’s a cinch I’m no Zulu. As for anybody that intimates -we got a chance to uncover a fortune anywhere in that hole out there, -between the dump and China--wal, I’d hate to tell you what sort of a -Christian I think _he_ is.” - -Bob grinned cheerfully. - -“Mebby I ain’t so much of a Christian neither,” he agreed, “but if I’d -a-been that old Pharaoh what built them pyramids----“ - -The girl interrupted: - -“Now, there you go again. That’s the second time. What in the world -started you to talking about Egypt and pyramids and Pharaoh and mummies -and things like that?” - -“Oh, I jest happened to take a peek into one of them books that Saint -Jimmy got us to buy for you, that’s all,” returned the old-timer, with a -sly wink at the smiling girl. “An’ anyway, it seems like I ought to know -somethin’ about mummies by this time, after livin’ as long as I have -with that there.” He pointed a long, gnarled finger at his pardner. -“Egypt or Arizona, livin’ or dead, it’s all the same, I reckon. A -mummy’s a mummy wherever you find it.” - -Thad rubbed his bald head with deliberate care. - -“Daughter, does Mother Burton’s brand of Christianity say anything about -what a man should do to his enemies?” - -“Indeed it does,” returned the girl. “It says we must love our enemies -and forgive them.” - -“All right--all right--an’ what does it say about lovin’ an’ forgivin’ -your friends, heh?” - -“Why--nothing, I guess.” - -“Course it don’t,” cried the old prospector in shrill triumph. - -“Course it don’t. An’ do you know why? I’ll tell you why. It’s because -it’s so doggone easy to forgive an enemy compared to what it is to -forgive a friend, that’s why. The Good Book knows ’tain’t necessary to -say nothin’ about friends, ’cause it’s jest as nateral and virtuous to -hate a friend as ’tis to love an enemy--that’s what I’m a-meanin’.” - -Marta was not in the least disturbed over this exchange of courtesies by -her two fathers. Rising from the table, she laughingly remarked that if -they were not _too_ busy they might saddle her horse, as she must go to -Oracle for supplies. Whereupon the Pardners went to the barn, leaving -their girl free to clear away the breakfast things, wash the dishes, and -finish her morning housework. - -It was an unwritten law of the partnership that the particular father of -the week should stand obligated to the parental responsibilities of the -position. It was by no means the least of his duties that he must endure -the criticisms of the other upon the way he was “bringing up” his -daughter. It seems scarcely necessary to add that criticism was never -wanting and that it was never without directness and point. To -compensate for this burden of responsibility, the parent was permitted -to say “my gal” while the critic, by the rules of the game, must -invariably say “that gal of yourn.” - -While Thad the father was currying his daughter’s horse, Nugget--a -bright little pinto--Bob squatted comfortably on his heels, his back -against the wall of the barn. - -“Pardner,” he said, as one who speaks after mature deliberation, “I -ain’t meanin’ to mix none in your family affairs, but as a friend I’m -a-feelin’ constrained to remark that you ain’t doin’ right by that gal -of yourn nohow.” - -Marta’s father was making a careful examination of the pinto’s off -forefoot and seemed not to hear. - -Bob continued: - -“Anybody can see that she comes mighty nigh bein’ grown up. First thing -_you_ know somebody’ll make her understand all to once that she’s a -woman, and then----“ - -Thad dropped the pinto’s foot and glared at his pardner over the horse’s -back. - -“Then _what_?” - -“Then she’ll be wantin’ to know things. An’--it might be too late to -tell her.” - -“You mean that I ought to tell my gal what we know about her?” demanded -Marta’s father. “Is that what you’re tryin’ to say?” - -“You guessed it, Pardner,” returned the critical one cheerfully. “It’s -time that your gal knowed about herself. Bein’ her daddy, it’s up to you -to tell her.” - -The other exploded: - -“Which is exactly what I tried all last week to tell _you_, when you was -her daddy, you blamed old numskull, an’ you wouldn’t near listen to me. -A healthy father you are. When it’s _your_ daughter that ought to be -told, you can’t even whisper, but when she’s mine you can yell your fool -head off tellin’ me what _I_ ought to do. Besides, you said yourself -that we don’t actually know enough to tell her anything.” - -“But that was last week, you see,” returned Bob calmly. “You was doin’ -the talkin’ then--now _I’m_ tellin’ you.” - -When Thad, without replying, fell to rubbing Nugget’s glossy hide with -such energy that the little horse squirmed like a schoolboy undergoing -maternal inspection, Bob continued: - -“Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she jest -can’t have two fathers. It’s plumb unnateral, even for two such daddies -as she’s got. So far she ain’t give it much thought. She’s sort of -growed up with the idea an’ accepted things as young folks do--up to a -certain time, that is. My point is, that from now on her time is liable -to come any day. Right now, if she thinks of it at all she jest smiles -an’ plays the game with us, but that’s ’cause she’s mostly kid yet. You -wait ’til the woman in her is woke up--right there she’ll quit playin’ -an’ somethin’ is due to happen. You ain’t doin’ right by your daughter, -Thad, not to tell her--you sure ain’t.” - -Thad Grove faced his old pardner miserably. “I know you’re right, Bob. -Marta ought to be told what we know about her. I can see that it’ll look -mighty bad to her some day if she ain’t. But, hang darn it, it’s jest -like you said last week--we don’t know enough for me to tell her -anything. If I was to tell her what little we do know, it would look a -heap sight worse to her than it possibly can with her not bein’ told -anything, like she is now. The way I figger, if the gal don’t know -nothin’, she’s got a chance to ride over it; but if she knows the little -that we know she’ll be plumb ruined.” - -“I don’t reckon it’s near so bad as that, Pardner,” said the other -soothingly. “I’m here to tell you that there ain’t nothin’ could ruin -that gal of yourn.” - -At this, the fire of old Thad’s soul flared up anew. - -“Is that so?” he returned in a voice of withering scorn. “_Is_ that so? -Well, I’m a tellin’ _you_ that you can ruin _anybody_.” - -“Saint Jimmy, for instance?” retorted Bob with sarcasm. - -“Yes, Saint Jimmy. You can’t tell what sort of a scoundrel Saint Jimmy -would a-been if he hadn’t happened to a-turned sick. There’s many a man -in the pen, right now, jest on account of havin’ too much good health.” - -“I reckon you’re speakin’ gospel for once,” agreed Bob reluctantly. -Then, as if he had not forgotten his critical privileges, he added: “But -there’s something else you ought to tell your gal--something that the -best authorities all agree ought to be told every gal by somebody--an’ -bein’ as you’re her father, an’ she ain’t never had no real ma, why--it -would look like it was up to you.” - -“What’s that?” demanded Thad suspiciously. - -“That’s what they call love,” returned the other gently. “Growin’ up -like Marta has, with jest us two old, dried-up, desert rats, she don’t -know no more about love an’ its consequences than--than--nothin’.” - -Marta’s father dropped his brush and kicked it viciously across the -stable. Nugget danced with excitement. - -“Love! Holy Cats! What fool notion’ll take you next? You don’t need to -worry none. Some feller will happen along some day an’ tell her more -about love in a minute than you’ve ever knowed in all your life.” - -“That’s jest it,” returned the other. “Some feller is bound to tell her, -jest like you say. He’ll slip up on her quiet like, when she ain’t -suspicionin’ nothin’, an’ break it to her sudden ’fore she knows where -she’s at. That’s how them consequences happen. An’ that’s why she ought -to know beforehand, so’s she can be watchin’ out.” - -Thad was rubbing his bald head seeking, apparently, for an answer -sufficiently crushing, when a clear call came from the house. - -“Daddy--Oh, Daddy, I am ready.” - -With frantic haste, the Pardners, working together as if they had never -had a difference, saddled and bridled the pinto. Together they led the -little horse to the house. - -When the girl was in the saddle, she looked down into their upturned -faces with such an expression of girlish affection and womanly -thoughtfulness that the two old men grinned with sheepish delight and -pride. - -“You will find your dinner all ready for you,” she said, while Nugget -tossed his head, impatient to be off. “It is on the table, covered with -a cloth. I’ll be home in time for supper. _Adios._” She lifted the -bridle rein and the pinto loped away. - -The Pardners stood watching while she opened and closed the gate, cowboy -fashion, without dismounting. With a wave of her hand she rode on up the -cañon while the two old men followed her with their eyes until she -passed from sight around a turn in the cañon wall. - -Thad spoke slowly: - -“You’re plumb right, Bob. The gal has mighty nigh growed into a woman, -ain’t she? It don’t seem more’n a month or two neither, does it?” - -“It sure don’t,” returned the other softly. “An’ ain’t she a wonder, -Thad--ain’t she jest a nateral-born wonder?” - -“She’s all of that,” agreed Thad, “an’ then some. It plumb scares me -though, when I think of her findin’ out about herself an’ her all -educated up by Saint Jimmy an’ his mother like she is. Holy Cats, Bob! -What’ll we do?” - -“She’s bound to know some day,” said Bob. - -“She’s bound to, sure,” echoed Thad with a groan. “But my God a’mighty -ain’t either of us got nerve to tell her _now_. If she hadn’t been goin’ -to school to Saint Jimmy these last five years--I mean if she was like -she would a-been with jest me an’ you to bring her up, it might not -a-mattered. But now--now it’s goin’ to be plain hell for her when she -finds out.” - -Bob murmured softly: - -“Won’t even let us work on Sundays ’cause it ain’t the right way for -Christians like us to do. We’d ought to a-told long ago, that’s what we -ought to a-done.” - -“Sure, we ought to told her,” cried Thad, “jest like we’d ought to done -a lot of things we ain’t. But mournin’ over what ought to been done -ain’t payin’ us nothin’. What’re we _goin’_ to do, that’s what we got to -figger out. The gal’s got to be told.” - -“Yes,” returned Bob. “An’ she’s got to be told ’fore some sneakin’ -varmint beats us to it an’ tells her for true what me an’ you are only -suspicionin’. How’ll you ever do it?” - -“How’ll _I_ ever do it?” shrilled Thad. “Holy Cats! I can’t--How’ll you -ever do it yourself?” - -Bob answered helplessly: - -“I can’t neither--an’ by smoke, I won’t.” - -“She’s got to be told,” insisted Thad. - -“She sure has,” said Bob. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -SAINT JIMMY - - Wise Mother Burton came to wonder, sometimes, if Saint Jimmy’s - teaching was not more a matter of love than even he perhaps - realized. - - -Doctor Jimmy Burton and his mother spent their first year in Arizona at -Tucson and Oracle. But when they were satisfied that Jimmy could live if -he gave up his too strenuous professional work and remained in the -Southwest, and that if he did not follow that course he would as surely -die, they built the little white house on the mountain side at Juniper -Springs, above the Cañada del Oro. As Jimmy explained, “it was quite -necessary, under the circumstances, that they live where they could see -out.” - -It was during that first summer in Oracle that the neighbors began to -speak of his tender care of his mother, for, even in those days when he -was too ill to do more than think, his thoughts were all for her. And so -lovingly did he try to shield her from the pain of his suffering, so -cheerfully did he accustom her to the thought of the utter hopelessness -of his professional future, and so courageously, for her sake, did he -accept the pitifully small portion that life offered him, that the -people marveled at the spirit of the man. It was a question, they -sometimes said, with a touch of sincere reverence in their voices, if -Doctor Burton needed his mother as much as the doctor’s mother needed -him. But Jimmy and his mother knew that the truth of the matter was they -needed each other. - -And so in their mutual need both mother and son found compensation for -their dreams that now could never come true. In place of the -professional honors that were predicted with such confidence for her -boy, and toward which she had looked with such pride, the mother saw her -son honored by the love of the unpretentious country folk. From plans -that had failed and hopes that were buried, Jimmy himself turned to the -grandeur of the mountains and the beauty of tree and bush and flower--to -the limitless spaces of the desert and the peace of the quiet stars. The -life of the great eastern city, with its hunger for fame, its struggle -for riches, its endless tumult and its restless longings, faded farther -and farther away. The simple, more primitive, more peaceful life of -God’s great unimproved world became every day more satisfying. - -To the roaming cowboys and miners and their kind, and to the people of -the little mountain village, that tiny white house on the hill was -known. And many a man, when things were going wrong, came to spend an -hour with this friend whose understanding was so clear and whose counsel -was so true. Many a girl or woman in need of comfort, strength or -courage came to sit a while with Mrs. Burton. And sometimes a tired -rider of the range would hear in the twilight dusk the clear, sweet song -of Jimmy’s flute and, hearing, would smile and lift his wide-brimmed -hat; or perhaps a lonely prospector, camped for the night in some gulch -or wash would hear, and, hearing, would think again of things that in -his search for gold he had forgotten. And this is how Doctor James -Burton became Saint Jimmy and Saint Jimmy’s mother became Mother Burton -to them all. - -It was natural that the good doctor should become Marta Hillgrove’s -teacher, and that Mrs. Burton should mother the girl who, until her -fathers brought her to the Cañada del Oro, had never known a woman’s -guiding love. Indeed, it was Saint Jimmy and his mother and all that -their friendship meant to Marta that had kept the Pardners in that -neighborhood. Never before since the beginning of their partnership had -those wanderers stayed so long in one place. For four--nearly -five--years Marta had been studying under Saint Jimmy; a fair equivalent -of the usual college course. With this textbook education she had -received from Mother Burton the kind of training that such a woman would -have given a daughter of her own. And yet these most excellent teachers -knew no more of their pupil’s history than did those thoughtless ones -who so freely discussed the girl and looked at her askance for what they -thought her parentage might be. - -It should be said, too, that this schooling which Marta had received -from Saint Jimmy and his mother was wholly a matter of love. As Doctor -Burton explained to the Pardners, when they insisted that he should be -paid “same as a reg’lar teacher,” the work was really a blessing to him -in that his pupil contributed more to his life than he could possibly -give to hers; while Mother Burton warned the anxious fathers, gently but -firmly, that if they ever said another word about pay they would ruin -everything. - -But as the years passed and she watched the amazing development of the -girl’s mind, and saw the unfolding of her richly endowed womanhood, wise -Mother Burton came to wonder sometimes if Saint Jimmy’s teaching was not -more a matter of love than even he perhaps realized. - -On that spring morning when Marta rode to Oracle and her fathers -discussed the problem that so troubled them, Saint Jimmy sat in the yard -before the cottage door. On every side he saw the Mariposa tulips -lifting their lovely orange cups, and sweet pea blossoms swinging like -pink and white fairies above a lilac carpet of wild verbena and purple -fragrant hyptis, while against the rocks that were stained with splashes -of gray and orange and red and yellow lichens stood the purple -pentstemon. The mountain sides below were wondrous with the scarlet -glory of the ocotillo and the indescribable beauty of the chollas and -opuntias with their crowns and diadems of red and salmon and orange and -pink. The slopes and benches of the lower levels were bright with great -fields of golden brittle-bush; and beyond these, on the wide spaces of -the mesa, he could see the yuccas (our Lord’s candles) in countless -thousands, raising their stately shafts with eight-foot clusters of -creamy-white bloom. - -Mrs. Burton, leaving her housework for a moment, came to stand in the -doorway. When they had spoken of the beautiful sight that never failed -to move them--calling each other’s attention to different favorite -views--Saint Jimmy said: - -“Mother, doesn’t it all make you sort of hungry for something--something -that can’t be told in words?” he laughed in boyish embarrassment. - -His mother smiled. - -“Marta will be coming from Oracle with the mail, I suppose--this is -Saturday, you know.” - -“Yes, I know,” said Jimmy softly, and wondered if his mother guessed -what it really was that he hungered for and could not talk about even to -her. - -Mrs. Burton was turning back into the house when they heard some one -coming up the trail from the cañon. A moment later the Pardners -appeared. Saint Jimmy and his mother knew at once that the old -prospectors had come on business of greater moment than to make a mere -neighborly call. - -When they had exchanged the customary greetings and Marta’s fathers had -assured their friends that the girl was well, Thad and Bob sat looking -at each other in troubled silence. - -“Wal,” said Bob, at last, “why don’t you go ahead? She’s your gal this -week. Bein’ her daddy makes it your play, don’t it?” - -Thad, rubbing his bald head desperately, made several ineffectual -attempts to speak. At last, with a recklessness born of this inner -struggle, he addressed Mrs. Burton: - -“‘You see, ma’am, me an’ my pardner here has been takin’ notice lately -how my gal Marta is due, first thing we know, to be a growed-up woman.” - -“She is, indeed!” replied Jimmy’s mother with an encouraging smile. - -“Yes, ma’am, that’s what me an’ Bob here took notice. An’ we’ve been -figgerin’ up that mebby it was time she knowed what we know about her. -You an’ your son knows the same as everybody does, I reckon, that we -ain’t Marta’s real honest-to-God daddies.” - -“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, “but we have never, in any way, mentioned the -matter to Marta.” - -“No, ma’am,” said Thad, “an’ we ain’t neither.” - -“An’ that’s jest what’s the matter now,” put in Bob. “The gal ain’t -never been told nothin’.” - -Mrs. Burton looked at her son. - -“I am sure that you men are right,” said Saint Jimmy. “I have been -wanting to talk with you about it. You ought to tell Marta everything -you know of her and her people--how she came to you--everything.” - -The Pardners consulted each other silently. Then Thad turned to Marta’s -teacher; the old prospector’s faded blue eyes were fixed on the younger -man’s face with a steady, searching gaze that permitted no evasion, even -if Saint Jimmy had been disposed to parry the question. - -“Is there, to your thinkin’, any perticler reason why my gal ought to be -told at this perticler time?” - -Saint Jimmy smiled reassuringly. - -“No particular reason, so far as I know,” he said. “Of course you -realize that there has always been more or less talk. Sooner or later -the girl is bound to hear it. She should be fortified with the truth.” - -Again Bob and Thad looked at each other helplessly. - -“An’ if the truth ain’t jest what you might call fortifyin’--what then?” -said Thad at last. - -“Yes,” echoed Bob. “What then? What if my pardner an’ me can’t say that -all the gossips is talkin’ ain’t so?” - -Saint Jimmy did not answer. Mother Burton looked away. Old Thad rubbed -his bald head in mournful meditation. - -“Doctor Burton,” said Bob slowly, as one feeling his way amid -conversational dangers, “Thad an’ me ain’t to say blind, if we be -gittin’ old. We can still tell ‘color’ when we run across it.” He -consulted his pardner with a look and Thad nodded his head in approval. -Bob continued: “We’re almighty proud of what you been doin’ for our -gal,” he caught himself quickly. “Excuse me, Pardner--for your gal, I -mean.” - -Thad raised his hand--a gesture which signified that, in the stress of -the situation, he waived the fine point of their usual courtesy, and for -this crucial occasion acknowledged their joint fatherhood. - -Old Bob swallowed, with difficulty, something that seemed to obstruct -his usual freedom of speech. - -“An’ I reckon you understand, sir, that we ain’t noways lackin’ in -appreciation an’ gratitude to you an’ your ma for helpin’ Marta to grow -up into the young woman she is. My pardner an’ me, we sure done what we -could, an’ we’d been glad to a-done more if it had a-been possible, but -it wasn’t, not for us, an’ we’re sensible to what it all means to our -gal. If she wasn’t trained up an’ all educated like you an’ your ma has -made her, it wouldn’t much matter what her own folks was or how she -first come to us.” - -“I understand,” said Saint Jimmy gently, “and I know that the girl could -not love you men more if you were, in fact, her own fathers. I know, -too, that nothing could make her love you less. But I am convinced that -she should know all that you know about her.” - -“We would a-told her the story long ago,” said Thad, “if only we’d -a-knowed a little more than we do, or mebby, if we hadn’t knowed as -much, or if what little we do know didn’t look so almighty bad.” - -“It will look a heap worse to her now than it ever did to us,” said Bob. - -“It sure will,” agreed Thad, “an’ so, you see, we’ve been waitin’ an’ -puttin’ it off, hopin’ that we would mebby, somehow, find out something -that, as it is, is lackin’.” He appealed to Mrs. Burton: “You can see -how it is, can’t you, ma’am?” - -“I understand,” said the good woman, gently, “but I agree with my son. -Whatever it is, the story will make no difference in Marta’s love for -you, just as it has made no difference in your love for her.” - -“Yes,” said Thad, “but how about the difference it might make to--“ he -paused and looked at his pardner helplessly. “Ahem--to--I mean----“ - -Bob spoke quickly: - -“To you an’ Saint Jimmy, ma’am. What difference will it make to you -folks?” - -Thad drew a deep breath of relief and rubbed his bald head with -satisfaction. - -Mother Burton met them bravely with: - -“Nothing that you have to tell can change our feeling for Marta. I could -not love her more if she were my own daughter.” - -The two old men looked at Saint Jimmy eagerly. - -“You dead sure that nothin’ would make you change toward our gal?” -demanded Bob. - -“You plumb certain, be you, sir?” said old Thad. - -Saint Jimmy smiled reassuringly. - -“As certain as I am of death,” he answered. - -With an air of excited relief Thad faced his pardner. - -“That bein’ the case I move, Pardner, that we tell Doctor Burton here -what we know, an’ he can tell our gal or not as he sees fit, and when he -sees fit.” - -“Jest what I was about to offer myself,” returned Bob. “You go ahead.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY - - “No, sir, take it anyway you like, it jest naterally looks bad; an’ - that’s all me an’ my pardner knows about it.” - - -“It was about sixteen year ago,” Thad began at last. - -“Seventeen, the middle of next month,” said Bob. - -Thad continued: - -“Me an’ my pardner here was comin’ in to Tucson from the Santa Rosa -Mountains, which is down close to the Mexican line. We’d been out for -about three months an’ was needin’ supplies. ’Long late in the afternoon -of the second day from where we’d been workin’, we stopped at a little -ranch house about three mile this side of the line for water. We knowed -the old Mexican man an’ woman what lived there all right--’most -everybody did--everybody like us old desert rats, that is--an’ didn’t -nobody know any good of ’em either.” - -“Some claim that the old woman was Sonora Jack’s mother,” said Bob. -“Sonora Jack, you know, is half Mex, and a mighty bad citizen, too. He’s -somewheres across the line right now, hidin’ out for a killin’ he an’ -his crowd made in a holdup’ bout the same time that we’re tellin’ you -of.” - -Thad took up the story. - -“Well, sir, we’d filled our water bags an’ was standin’ talkin’ with the -old woman who’d come to watch us--the man, he was away it appeared--when -all at once a little boy come trottin’ ’round the corner of the cabin -from behind somewheres.” - -“About three or four, he was,” said Bob. - -“About that,” agreed Thad. “An’ when he seen us he jest stopped short, -kind of scared like, an’ stood there cryin’. - -“Well, sir, me an’ Bob tumbled in a holy minute that he didn’t belong -there. We knowed them old Mexicans didn’t have no kid that wasn’t growed -up long ago. An’ this little chap didn’t look like a Mexican youngster -nohow. The old woman acted kind of rattled at us lookin’ at the kid so -sharp, an’ started in tellin’ us that the muchachito was one of her -grandsons. That sounded fair enough at first, but when she turned an’ -yelled at the kid in Mex, givin’ him the devil for not stayin’ behind -the house like she’d told him to, we seed that somethin’ was wrong. He -didn’t savvy Mex no more than we do Chinee. - -“While the poor little cuss was standin’ there scared stiff an’ -cryin’--not knowin’ what the old woman wanted, Bob here went down on one -knee an’ held out his hands invitin’ like. ‘Come here, sonny,’ says he -to the kid in English, ‘come on over here an’ let’s have a look at you.’ - -“Well, sir, that youngster gave a funny little laugh, right out through -his tears, an’ come runnin’. - -“The old woman didn’t know what to do; but I was keepin’ one eye on her -so she didn’t dare try to start anything much. - -“Bob, he asked the youngster, ‘What’s your name, sonny?’ an’ the little -feller answered back, bright as a dollar: ‘My name’s Marta.’ - -“‘Marta?’ says Bob, lookin’ up at me puzzled like. ‘That’s a funny name -for a boy.’ - -“‘I ain’t no boy,’ said the kid, quick as a flash, ‘I’m a girl, I am.’” - -“An’ by smoke! she was,” ejaculated Bob. - -“Yes,” continued Thad, “an’ when the old woman seen that the little gal -was talkin’ to us--the old woman she didn’t savvy a word of anything but -Mex, but she could tell what was goin’ on--when she see it, she jest -naterally grabbed the youngster an’ yanked her into the house an’ shut -the door. - -“Me an’ Bob made camp not far away that night, an’ after supper, an’ it -had got good an’ dark, we was settin’ by the fire talkin’ things over, -when all at once we heard the sound of a wagon an’ a child -screamin’--sort of choked like. You can believe we wasn’t long gettin’ -to where the sound come from. Them Mexicans was lightin’ out with that -little gal for across the border. - -“By that time, me and my pardner was so plumb sure that there was -somethin’ wrong that we didn’t waste no more strength in foolishness. We -jest proceeded to give that hombre the third degree ’til he ups an’ -confesses that the baby was left with them by some white folks who was -on a huntin’ trip, an’ that they was only keepin’ the youngster ’til her -daddy an’ mammy come back for her. - -“You can guess how quick me an’ Bob was to believe any such yarn as -that; so we figured the safest thing to do was to take the baby -ourselves into Tucson; which we done. - -“Well, sir, by the time we struck town the little gal had made such a -hit with us both that we couldn’t near think of givin’ her up.” - -“Darndest affectionate kid that ever was,” put in Bob. “Started right -off first thing lovin’ us two old rapscallions like we’d always belonged -to her, an’ callin’ us both ‘daddy.’” - -“We sure done our best to find her real folks, though,” said Thad. “We -stayed in Tucson for more’n a month. But the authorities nor nobody -couldn’t get no hint nowhere about any kid bein’ lost, nor stole, nor -nothin’. Things was movin’ pretty fast in this country them days, an’ -the sheriff always had his hands full; so it wasn’t long ’til everybody -got busy with some fresh excitement, an’ me an’ Bob was left with the -baby on our hands. There didn’t appear to be nothin’ else we could do, -so we jest decided that Providence, or good luck, or somethin’, had -fixed it so’s us two old mavericks was blessed with a offspring whether -we was regularly entitled to one or not. Then pretty soon we moved on -over into the Graham Mountains, an’ jest naterally took her along. - -“We both was lovin’ her so by now that we was about to fight to see -which one was to be her daddy, when we compromised by agreein’ to take -turn an’ turn about--week by week. An’ that’s how we come to give her -both our names--Hillgrove. Her first name is Martha, we suppose; but -Marta was the best she could ever tell us. An’ that’s about all there is -of it up to the time we fetched her here an’ you started in teachin’ -her.” - -“You see, ma’am,” said Bob, “this here is the way me an’ Thad has got it -figgered: The baby must have been left with them Mexicans where we found -her, ’cause she ain’t Mexican nor any part Mexican herself. Wal, what -kind of white folks do you reckon would go away an’ leave a little gal -like that, with such an outfit? They couldn’t a-left her accidental -like, ’cause if they had they’d a-come back for her, an’ then they’d -been huntin’ us. With all the fuss we made about it in Tucson, somebody -would a-knowed somethin’ about her sure, if her people hadn’t wanted to -get shet of her on account of them bein’ the sort they was. An’ there -ain’t been no time since then that me an’ Thad has been hard to find. -Don’t you see, her folks couldn’t a-been decent even if her father an’ -mother was--was--I mean, even if she was borned all regular an’ -right--which don’t look no way likely. Any way you take it, they must -a-been a bad sort to throw away a baby like her.” - -“You can bet they was,” added Thad mournfully, “for it’s a dead immortal -cinch that them old Mexicans couldn’t a-come by her no other way; -’cause they never went anywhere an’ if they had stole her it sure would -a-raised enough interest in the country for somebody to a-heard about -it. No, sir, take it any way you like, it jest naterally looks bad. -An’,” the old prospector finished with an air of relief, “that’s all me -an’ my pardner knows about it.” - -Saint Jimmy did not speak. He was evidently deeply moved by the strange -story. Mrs. Burton was drying her eyes. The Pardners waited, with no -little anxiety. - -At last Bob asked timidly: - -“Be you still thinkin’, sir, as how our gal ought to be told?” - -Reluctantly, Saint Jimmy answered: - -“I am afraid that Marta must know.” - -He looked at his mother. - -“I am sure she must know,” said Mrs. Burton with quiet decision. “And -you, my son, are the one to tell her. It will come to her easier from -you, her teacher, than from any one else.” - -“Yes, ma’am,” cried Thad eagerly. “That’s the way me an’ Bob figgered -it.” - -“Will you do it, sir?” asked Bob. - -“Yes,” said Saint Jimmy, “I will tell her.” - -The Pardners sighed with relief. - -“That sure lets us out of a mighty bad hole,” said Thad. “It’ll be a -heap easier on our gal, too.” - -“It sure will,” echoed Bob. “Ain’t nobody can tell what kind of a -God-awful mess us old fools would a-made of it. We’re almighty grateful -to you, sir, for helpin’ us out.” - -“We are that,” came from Thad with pathetic earnestness. - -Bob said hurriedly: - -“An’ now that it’s all settled, Pardner, I move that me an’ you pulls -out of here before our gal happens along. I wouldn’t be ketched by her -right now for all the money we’re goin’ to have when we strike that big -vein we’re tunnelin’ for.” - -“Which ain’t so much as it might be at that,” retorted Thad. - -“You can’t never tell,” returned Bob with his usual cheery optimism, -“gold is where you find it.” - -When Bob and Thad were gone, Saint Jimmy and his mother, discussing the -matter, were forced to agree with the Pardners. It certainly did look -bad. In fact it looked so bad that Saint Jimmy was not at all happy -under the burden of the responsibility which the old prospectors had -shifted from their own shoulders to his. He foresaw that it would not be -easy to tell this young woman whom he had educated, and whose fine, -sensitive pride he knew so well, this story that he had just heard from -her two foster fathers. - -When Marta stopped at the Burtons’ on her way home from Oracle, later in -the day, neither Saint Jimmy nor his mother mentioned the Pardners’ -visit, and there seemed to be no opportunity for the girl’s teacher to -tell her the story he was so sure she should know. Some other time, he -told himself, it would be easier, perhaps. - - * * * * * - -While the Pardners’ daughter was riding home from the Burtons’ that -afternoon, and the Pardners were at work in their little mine, Natachee -the Indian stood on a point of rock, high on the mountain side--so high -that he could look beyond the Cañon of Gold and afar off, over the brown -desert that, from the foothills of the Catalinas, stretches away, weary -mile after weary mile, until, in the shadowy blue distance, it is lost -in the sky. - -To those of us who are accustomed to the present-day Indian in his white -man’s garb, doing the white man’s work on the white man’s roads and -ranches, Natachee would have aroused peculiar, not to say amusing, -interest. From the single feather in the headband which bound his long, -raven-black hair to his beaded moccasins, he was dressed in the -picturesque costume of his savage fathers. Save for a broad hunting -knife, he was armed only with the primitive bow and arrows. He was in -the best years of his manhood and his face and bearing would have graced -the hero of a Fenimore Cooper Indian tale. - -But however much he seemed out of step with the times, that lone figure, -standing sentinel-like on the rocky point, fitted his wild surroundings. -So, indeed, might one of his ancestors have stood to watch the strange -new human life when it first began to move along those trails that, -until then, had known only the sandaled and moccasined feet of -prehistoric peoples. - -An hour passed. The Indian held his place as motionless as the rock -against which he leaned, while his somber gaze ranged over those mighty -reaches of desert and mountain and sky. High over Rice Peak a golden -eagle wheeled on guard before the nest of his royal mate. But Natachee -seemed not to see. From a dead oak on Samaniego Ridge a red-tailed hawk -screamed his shrill challenge. The Indian apparently did not hear. A -company of buzzards circled above a dark object in the wash below the -Wheeler Ranch corrals. Natachee gave no heed. A ground squirrel leaped -to a near-by rock to sit bolt upright with bright eyes fixed upon the -red man, the while he sounded a chirping note of inquiry. But the -Indian’s gaze remained steadfastly fixed on that distant landscape where -he could see a cloud of dust that was raised by a swiftly moving -automobile on the Oracle road. On the Bankhead Highway there were two -similar clouds. In the purple haze beyond the point of the Tortollita -Mountains, a streamer of smoke marked the position of a Southern Pacific -Overland train that was approaching Tucson from the western coast. The -face of the red watchman on the mountain side was set stern and grim. In -his somber eyes there was a gleam of savage meaning. - -The sun was just touching the tops of the Tucson hills when the Indian -started and leaned forward with suddenly quickened interest. - -No ordinary power of human vision would have noticed that black speck in -the vast stretch of country, much less could the ordinary observer have -said exactly what it was that had attracted the Indian’s attention. But -Natachee saw that the tiny dot, moving so slowly on the old road into -the Cañada del Oro, was a man. His interest was excited to an unusual -degree because the man was walking, unaccompanied even by a pack burro. - -And now the evening wind from the desert, fragrant with the smell of -greasewood, mesquite and cat-claw, swept along the mountain side. The -Tucson hills were massed dark blue with their outlines sharply cut -against the colors of the sunset. Natachee, watching, saw that lone -figure on the trail below enter the Cañon of Gold and lose itself in the -gathering dusk. - -As the shadows thickened, the night prowlers on padded feet crept from -their dark retreats into the gloom. Owls and bats on silent wings swept -by. Old ghosts of the dead past stirred again on the old desert and -mountain ways. In the deeper dusk that now filled the cañon, voices -awoke--strange, murmuring, whispering, phantom voices that seemed to -come from an innumerable company of dreary, hopeless souls. The light -went out of the western sky. Details of plant and rock and bush were -lost. Weird and wild, like a mysterious spirit brooding over the scene, -the dark figure of the Indian on the rocky point above the Cañon of Gold -was silhouetted against the starlit sky. - -In the little white house on the mountain side, Saint Jimmy was thinking -of the strange story that the Pardners had told. - - * * * * * - -In their home beside the cañon creek, the old prospectors and their -partnership daughter were sleeping, with no dreams of the strange -leading of the tangled threads of lives to the Cañon of Gold. - -Far away to the south, in old Mexico, two men sat in a cantina. Between -them, on a table, with glasses and a bottle of mescal, lay a crudely -drawn map. As they talked together in low tones, they referred often to -the rude sketch which bore in poorly written words “La mina con la -puerta de fierro en la Cañada del Oro”--The mine with the door of iron -in the Cañon of the Gold. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -NIGHT - - Night skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they - are heavy with brooding fears. - - -The man who was following the old road up the Cañon of Gold had made his -way a mile or more from the point where he was last seen by the Indian, -when the deepening twilight warned him of the nearness of the night. It -was evident, from the pedestrian’s irresolute movements and from his -manner of nervous doubt in selecting a spot for his camp, that not only -was he a stranger in the Cañada del Oro, but as well that he was -unaccustomed to such surroundings. - -He was a young man of about twenty-two or twenty-three years--tall, but -rather slender, with a face habitually clean shaven but covered, just -now, with a stubby beard of several days’ growth. His skin, where it was -exposed, was sunburned rather than tanned that deep color so marked in -the out-of-doors men of the West. On the whole, he gave the impression, -somehow, of one but recently recovered from a serious illness; and yet -he did not appear overfatigued, though the pack which he carried was not -light and he had evidently been many hours on the road. In spite of his -rude dress and unkempt appearance due to his mode of traveling there -was, in his bearing, the unmistakable air of a man of business. But he -was that type of business man that knows something more than the daily -grind of money-making machines. His world, apparently, was not wholly a -world of factories and banks and institutions of commerce. - -Forced, at last, by the approaching darkness, to decide upon some place -to spend the night, the traveler selected a spot beside the cañon creek, -a hundred yards from the road. But even after he had lowered his heavy -pack to the ground, he stood for some minutes looking anxiously about, -as if still uncertain as to the wisdom of his selection. - -Nor was the man’s manner wholly that of inexperience. Suddenly, without -thought of his evening meal, or any preparation for his comfort until -the morning, he climbed again up the steep bank to the road, where he -gazed back along the way he had come and studied the mountain sides with -eyes of dread. The man was in an agony of fear. Not until it was too -dark to distinguish objects at any distance did he return to the place -where he had left his pack and set about the necessary work of preparing -his supper and making his bed. - -Hurriedly, as best he could in the failing light, he gathered a supply -of wood and, after several awkward failures, succeeded in kindling a -fire. From his pack he took a small frying pan, a coffeepot, a tin cup, -and a meager supply of food. With these, and with water from the creek, -he made shift to prepare an unaccustomed meal. Several times he paused, -to stand gazing into the fire as if lost in thought. Again and again he -turned his head quickly to listen. Often with a shuddering start he -whirled to search the darkness beyond the flickering shadows, as if in -fear of what the light of his fire might bring upon him. When he had -eaten his poorly prepared supper, he spread his blankets and lay down. - -There was something pitiful in the trivial and puny details of this lone -stranger’s camp in the wild Cañada del Oro. There was something sinister -in the night life that crept and crawled in the darkness about him. -There was something pathetic in the man’s lying down to sleep, -unprotected, amid such surroundings. - -The mountains are very friendly to those who know them; to those who -know them not, they are grim and dreadful--when the day is gone. Night -skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they are heavy -with brooding fears. The timid life of the wild places is good company -for those who know each voice and sound; to others every movement is a -menace, every call a voice of danger--when the sun is down. - -Cowering in his blankets the man listened for a while to the strange and -fearful things that stirred in the near-by bushes, on the rocky ledges, -and on the mountain sides above. He heard the cañon voices whispering, -murmuring, moaning. The night deepened. The boisterous song of the creek -became a sullen growl. The mountain walls seemed to close in. The stars -above the peaks and ridges were lonely and far away. The camp fire, so -tiny in the gloom, burned low. - -The sleeping man groaned and stirred uneasily as if in pain, and a fox -that had crept too close slipped away in startled flight. The man cried -out in his sleep, and a coyote that was following the scent of the camp -up the wind turned aside to slink into the thicket of mesquite. The man -awoke and springing to his feet stood as if at bay, and a buck that was -feeding not far away lifted his antlered head to listen with wary -alertness. From somewhere on the heights came the cry of a mountain -lion, and at the sound the night was suddenly as still as death. The man -shuddered and quickly threw more wood on the dying fire. Again he lay -down to cower in his blankets--to sleep restlessly--and to dream his -troubled dreams. - -In the first faint light of the morning, a dark form might have been -seen moving stealthily down the mountain above the stranger’s camp. The -buck, with a snort of fear, leaped away, crashing through the brush. The -prowling coyote fled down the cañon. On every side the wild creatures of -the night slunk into the dense covers of manzanita and buckthorn and -cat-claw. - -Silently, as the gray shadows through which he crept, Natachee the -Indian drew near the place where the white man lay. From behind a -near-by bush the Indian observed every detail of the camp. When the -form wrapped in the blanket did not stir, the Indian stole from his -sheltering screen and with soft-footed, noiseless movements, inspected -the stranger’s outfit. He even bent over the sleeping man to see his -face. The man moved--tossing an arm and muttering. Swift as a fox the -Indian slipped away; silent as a ghost he disappeared among the bushes. - -The gray of the morning sky changed to saffron and rose and flaming red. -The shadowy trees and bushes assumed definite shapes. The detail of the -rocks emerged from the gloom. The man awoke. - -He had just finished breakfast when he heard the sound of horse’s hoofs -on the road. With a startled cry he leaped to his feet. The Lizard was -riding toward him. - -Like a hunted creature the man drew back, half crouching, as if to -escape. But it was too late. Pale and trembling he stood waiting as the -horseman drew up beside the road, on the bank above the creek, and sat -looking down upon him and his camp. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -THE STRANGER’S QUEST - - “What’s yer name? Whar ye from? What’re you a-doin’ here?” - - -The Lizard’s preliminary inspection of the stranger and his camp might -or might not have been prompted by a habit of caution. When it was -finished he called a loose-mouthed “Howdy” and, without waiting for a -response to his greeting, spurred his mount, slipping and sliding with -rolling stones and a cloud of dust, down to the edge of the creek. - -Dismounting and throwing the bridle rein over his horse’s head, he -slouched forward--a vapid grin on his sallow, weasel-like face. - -“I seed yer smoke an’ ’lowed as how I’d drop along an’ take a look at -who’s here; bein’ as I war aimin’ t’ ride t’ Oracle sometime t’-day -anyhow. Not as I’ve got anythin’ perticler t’ go thar fer nuther, ’cept -t’ jist set in front of th’ store a spell an’ gas with th’ fellers. -Thar’s allus a bunch hangin’ ’round of a Sunday.” - -He looked curiously at the stranger’s outfit and, ignoring the fact that -the camper had not spoken, seated himself with the air of one taking his -welcome for granted. - -The stranger smiled. The fear that had so shaken him a few moments -before was gone, and there was relief in his voice as he bade his -visitor a quite unnecessary welcome. - -“Ye’r a-footin’ hit, be ye?” the Lizard continued with garrulous ease. -“Wal, that’s one way of goin’; but I’ll take a good hoss fer mine. A -feller’ll jist naterally wear out quick ernough no matter how keerful -he’d be. Never ’lowed I had ary call t’ take an’ plumb _walk_ myse’f t’ -death on purpose. Them’s good blankets you’ve got thar. Need ’em, too, -these nights, if ’tis spring. That thar coffeepot ain’t no ’count, -though--not fer me, that is--wouldn’t hold half what I’d take three -times a day, reg’lar.” He laughed loudly as if a good joke were hidden -somewhere in his remarks if only the other were clever enough to find -it. - -“You live in this neighborhood, do you?” the stranger asked. - -“What, me? Oh shore. My name’s Bill Janson--live down th’ cañon a piece, -jist below whar th’ road comes in. Paw an’ maw an’ me live thar -t’gether. We drifted in from Arkansaw eight year ago come this fall. -What’s yer name? Whar ye from? What’re you a-doin’ here?” - -The stranger hesitated before he answered slowly: - -“My name is--Edwards--Hugh Edwards. I came here from Tucson. I want to -prospect--look for gold, you know. I heard there were some--ah--placers, -I think you call them, in this cañon.” - -The Lizard grinned, a wide-mouthed grin of superior knowledge. “Hit’s -plumb easy t’ see y’ know all about prospectin’. Y’r some edicated, I -jedge. Ben t’ school an’ them thar college places a right smart lot, -ain’t y’ now?” - -The other replied with some sharpness: - -“I suppose it is not impossible for one to learn how to dig for gold, -even if one has learned to read and write, is it?” - -The Lizard responded heartily, but with tolerant superiority: - -“Larn--shore--ain’t nothin’ t’ pannin’ gold ’cept a lot of hard work an’ -mighty pore pay. Anybody’ll larn ye. Take the Pardners up yonder--old -Bob Hill an’ Thad Grove--they’d--“ he checked himself suddenly and -slapped a lean thigh. “By Glory! I’ll bet a pretty you’ve done come t’ -find that thar old lost Mine with th’ Iron Door, heh? Ain’t ye now?” He -leered at the stranger with shifty, close-set eyes, his long head with -its narrow sloping brow cocked sidewise with what was meant to be a very -knowing, “I-have-you-now-sir” sort of air. - -The man who had given his name as Hugh Edwards laughed. - -“Really I can’t say that I would object to finding any old mine if it -was a good one, would you?” - -The Lizard shook his head solemnly and with a voice and manner that was -nicely calculated to invite confidence, replied: - -“Thar’s been a lot of people, one time an’ another, a-huntin’ this Mine -with th’ Iron Door. Thar was one bunch that come clean from Spain; an’ -they had a map an’ everythin’. You ain’t got no map ner writin’ of any -sort, now, have you?” - -“No,” returned the stranger. “But I suppose it is true that there is -gold to be found here?” - -The Lizard was plainly disappointed but evidently deemed it unwise to -press his inquiry. - -“Oh, shore, thar’s gold here--some--fer them what likes t’ work fer hit. -They’ve allus been a-diggin’ in this here cañon an’ in these here -mountains, as ye kin see by their old prospect holes everywhar. But -nobody ain’t never made no big strikes yet. Thar’s one feller a-livin’ -in these hills what don’t dig no gold though; an’ they do say, too, as -how he knows more ’bout th’ ol’ lost mine than ary other man a-livin’. -Some says he even knows whar hits at.” The Lizard shook his head -solemnly. “You shore want t’ watch out fer _him_, too. He’s plumb -bad--that’s what I’m a-tellin’ you.” - -“Yes?” said Hugh Edwards, encouragingly. - -“Uh-huh, he ain’t no white man neither. He’s Injun--calls hisse’f -Natachee, whatever that is. He’s one of these here school Injuns gone -wild agin--lives all ’lone way in the upper part of th’ cañon somewhar, -whar hits so blamed rough a goat couldn’t get ’round; an’ togs hisse’f -up with th’ sort of things them old-time Injuns used to wear--won’t even -use a gun, jist packs a bow an’ arrers. I ain’t got no use fer an Injun -nohow. This here’s a white man’s country, I say, an’ this here Natachee -he’s the worst I ever did see. He’d plunk one of them thar arrers of -hisn inter you, er slit yer throat any old time if he dast. I can’t say -fer shore whether he knows about this Mine with th’ Iron Door er not, -but hit’s certain shore you got t’ watch him. Hit’s all right fer that -thar Saint Jimmy an’ them old Pardners t’ be friends with him if they -like hit, but I know what I know.” - -Hugh Edwards did not overlook this opportunity to learn something of the -people who lived in the Cañon of Gold; and the Lizard was more than -willing to tell all he knew, perhaps even to add something for good -measure. When at last the Lizard arose reluctantly, the stranger had -heard every current version of the history and relationship of the two -old prospectors and their partnership daughter, with copious comments on -their characters, sidelights on their personal affairs, their -intercourse with their neighbors, their business, and every possible -theory explaining them. - -“Not that thar’s anybody what really knows anythin’,”--the Lizard was -careful to make this clear--“’cept of course that old story ’bout them -a-findin’ th’ gal somewhars when she warn’t much more’n a baby; which, -as I say, ain’t no way nateral enough fer anybody t’ believe--’cause -babies like her ain’t jist found--picked up anywhar, as you may say, -without no paw ner maw ner nothin’. An’ if thar warn’t somethin’ wrong -about hit, what would them two old devils be so close-mouthed fer? Why, -sir, one time when I asked ’em about hit--jist sort of interested an’ -neighborly like--they ris up like they was a-fixin’ t’ climb all over -me. Yes, they did--ye kin see yerself hit ain’t all straight, whatever -’tis. Even a feller like you can’t help puttin’ two an’ two together if -he’s got any sense a-tall. - -“Wal,” he concluded regretfully, “I shore got t’ be gittin’ on t’ Oracle -er hit won’t be no use fer me t’ go, nohow.” He moved slowly toward his -horse. “Better come along,” he added. “This here trail t’ Oracle goes -right past the Pardners’ place, an’ Saint Jimmy’s an’ George Wheeler’s. -Best come along an’ see th’ country an’ git acquainted.” - -“Thanks,” said Edwards, “but really I can’t go to-day. I want to get -settled somewhere before I take much time for purely social matters, you -see.” - -“Huh,” grunted the Lizard, “gettin’ settled ain’t nothin’; hit’s all day -’til t’morrer ain’t hit?” Then, as if suddenly inspired with the -possibilities of having a friend at the very source of so much -interesting, if speculative, information, the Lizard added: “I’ll tell -ye what ye do, you come along with me as fer as th’ Pardners’ place. -They’ll he’p ye t’ get located. They’re all right that a-way, an’ there -ain’t nothin’ them two old-timers don’t know about th’ prospectin’ game. -An’ right up th’ cañon, not more’n a half a quarter from them, is an old -cabin you could take. Hit war built by some prospector long time ago. -George Wheeler, he told me. Seems th’ feller lived thar fer two er three -year an’ then went away an’ didn’t never come back. You might have t’ -fix th’ shack up a bit, but that wouldn’t be no work; an’ thar’s allus -some gold t’ be found up an’ down th’ creek. Th’ Pardners they’ll larn -ye how, an’ mebby _you_ kin larn somethin’ ’bout them an’ that thar gal -of theirn.” - -“Thank you,” returned Edwards, “but I really can’t go now. I am not -packed yet, you see.” - -But the Lizard was not to be deprived of the advantage of his -opportunity. “Aw, shucks--what’s th’ matter with ye? Grab yer stuff an’ -come along. Ye can’t be stand-offish with me.” - -Because there seemed to be no way of refusing the invitation, the -stranger hastily threw his things together and, with his pack on his -back, set out up the cañon in company with the Lizard. - -On the steep side of the mountain above, Natachee, creeping like a dark -shadow among the rocks and bushes, followed the two men. - - * * * * * - -Saint Jimmy, that Sunday morning, was sitting with a book by the window. -But Mother Burton, looking through the door from their tiny kitchen -where she was busy with her household work, could see that her son was -not reading. Jimmy’s book was open, but his eyes were fixed upon the far -distant horizon where the desert, with its dreamy maze of colors, -becomes a faint blue shadow against the sky. And Jimmy’s mother knew -that his thoughts were as far from the printed page as that shadowy -sky-line was distant from the window where he sat. - -Often she had seen him in those moods--sitting so still that the spirit -seemed to have gone out from its temporary dwelling place to visit for -a little those places which lie so far beyond the horizon of all fleshly -vision and earthly hopes and aspirations. Of what was he thinking, she -wondered, if indeed it could be said at such times that he was thinking -at all. What was he seeing, with that far-away look in his eyes, as of -one whose vision had been trained in the schools of suffering, of -disappointments, and failures, and disillusions, to a more than physical -strength. Was he communing with some one over there in that world beyond -the sky-line of material things? Was he merely dreaming of what might -have been? Or was he living in what might be? Wise Mother Burton, to -know that there were certain rooms in her son’s being that even her -mother love could not unlock. Wise Mother Burton, to understand, to -know, when to speak and when to be still. - -Saint Jimmy was aroused at last by the clatter of iron-shod hoofs on the -cañon trail. An instant later, Nugget, running with glorious strength -and ease, dashed into view, and Marta’s joyous self came between the man -at the window and the distant sky-line. Another moment and the girl -stood in the open doorway. - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -THE NEW NEIGHBOR - - But what a man is, _that_ is a matter of concern to every one who - is called by circumstance to associate with him. - - -With a merry greeting to Saint Jimmy, Marta ran straight to the -welcoming arms of Mother Burton. - -“Goodness me, child,” the older woman exclaimed when she had kissed her -and held her close for a moment as such mothers do, “you look as if--as -if you were going to jump right out of your skin; I do declare!” - -And Saint Jimmy, watching them, silently agreed with his mother, -thinking that he had never seen the girl quite so animated. Her vivid, -flamelike beauty seemed to fill the house with joyous warmth and light, -while her laughter, in quick response to Mrs. Burton’s words, rang with -such happy abandon, and thrilled with such tingling excitement, that her -teacher knew something unusual must have happened. - -“What is it?” cried Mother Burton, shaking the girl playfully, and -laughing with her. “What is the matter with you? What are you so excited -about? Have Thad and Bob struck it rich at last?” - -Marta shook her head. - -“No, but it is something almost as good. We have a new neighbor.” - -Mother Burton looked from Marta to her son inquiringly, as if mildly -puzzled to know why the mere arrival of a newcomer in the neighborhood, -unusual as it was, should cause such manifestations. - -Saint Jimmy, smiling, asked: - -“What is his name? Where is he from? And what is he like?” - -The girl’s face was glowing with color and her eyes were bright as she -answered: - -“His name is Hugh Edwards. He came here from Tucson. I didn’t quite -understand where he lived before he went to Tucson.” She paused and the -ghost of a troubled frown fell across her brow. “But it was somewhere,” -she finished brightly. - -“Quite likely you are right,” said Jimmy, grave as a judge on the bench. - -“Yes,” she continued, “and he has come here to stay. He is awfully -poor--poorer than any of us. Why, he hasn’t even a burro to pack his -outfit--had to pack it himself on his back, and he has been sick too, -but he doesn’t look a bit sick now.” She laughed a little laugh of -charming confusion. “He looks as if--as if--oh, as if he could do just -anything--you know what I mean.” - -“You make it very clear,” murmured Saint Jimmy. - -Mother Burton made a curious little noise in her throat. - -Marta looked from one to the other suspiciously. Then a bit defiantly -she said: - -“I don’t care, he does. And he is different from anybody that ever came -to the Cañada del Oro before--for that matter, he is different from -anybody that I have ever seen anywhere.” - -“Dear me,” murmured Mother Burton, “how interesting! But how is he -different, dear?” - -The girl answered honestly: - -“I can’t exactly tell what it is. For one thing, it is easy to see that -he is educated. But of course Jimmy is too, so it can’t be _that_. I am -sure, too, that he has lived in a big city somewhere and has known lots -of nice people, but so has Jimmy. I don’t know what it is.” - -“I judge he is not, then, one of our typical old prospectors,” said -Saint Jimmy. - -Again the girl’s joyous, unaffected laughter bubbled forth. - -“Old! He is no older than you are; I suspect not quite so old, and he -has the nicest eyes, almost as nice as you, Jimmy--only, only different, -somehow--nice in another way, I mean. And he knows absolutely nothing -about prospecting. He is so green it is funny. But he’s going to live in -the old Dalton cabin right next door to us and we’re going to teach -him.” - -“Fine,” said Saint Jimmy with proper enthusiasm, and managed somehow to -hide the queer, sinking pain that made itself felt suddenly down deep -inside of him. Saint Jimmy was skilled by long practice in hiding pain. - -“Dear me!” exclaimed Mother Burton. “This is interesting. But I must -finish my morning work,” she added, moving toward the kitchen. - -“I’ll help,” volunteered Marta quickly, and started after the older -woman. - -But Mother Burton answered: - -“No, no, I was almost finished when you came.” Then catching the girl in -her arms impulsively, and looking toward her son whose face was turned -again to the far-off horizon, she added in a hurried whisper: “Get him -out of doors, dear, he has been sitting like that all this blessed -morning--make him go for a walk.” - - * * * * * - -Marta led her teacher straight to their favorite spot on the mountain -side, some distance from the house. Here, in the shade of a gnarled and -twisted cedar that for a century or more had looked down upon the varied -life that moved through the Cañon of Gold below, they had spent many an -hour over the girl’s studies. Against the bole of the tree they had -contrived a rude shelf and pegs for hats and wraps. Mrs. Burton had -contributed an old kitchen table and two chairs that neither rain nor -sun could injure, and there was a large, flat-topped rock that served as -bookcase and desk, or for a variety of other purposes, as it might -happen. - -On this occasion, Marta converted the rock into a couch by throwing -herself full length upon it with the unconscious freedom of a schoolboy. -Saint Jimmy seated himself in a chair and, in defiance of all -schoolmaster propriety, elevated his feet to the table top. - -They talked a while, as neighbors will, of the small affairs of the -country side. But Doctor Burton could see that Marta’s thoughts were not -of the things they were saying; and so, presently, from her rocky couch, -the girl spoke again of the stranger who had come to be her nearest -neighbor. She described him now in fuller detail--his eyes, his voice, -his smile. She contrasted him with the Pardners, the Lizard, and with -other men whom she had seen. She imagined fanciful stories for his past -and invented for him various wonderful futures. And always she came back -to the curious assertion that he was like her teacher, only different. - -And Saint Jimmy, as he listened, asked an occasional encouraging -question and studied her as in his old professional days he might have -studied a patient. Never before had he seen the girl in such a mood. It -was as if something deep-buried in her inner self was striving to break -its way through to the surface of her being, as a deep-buried seed, when -its time comes, forces its way through the dark earth to the light and -sun. - -Then for some time the girl was silent. With her head pillowed on one -arm, and her eyes half closed, she lay as if she had drifted with the -currents of her wandering thoughts into the quietude of dreams--dreams -that were as intangible, yet as real, as the blue haze and purple -shadows through which she saw the distant desert and mountains. - -And Saint Jimmy, too, was still; while his face was turned away toward -the far-off horizon, as if he saw there things which he might not talk -about. - -On the pine-clad heights of Mount Lemmon there were a few scattered -patches of snow that had not yet yielded to the spring; but the air was -soft and fragrant with the perfumes of warm earth and growing plants and -opening blossoms. There was the low hum of the bees that were mining in -the fragrant cat-claw bushes for the gold they stored in their wild -treasure-houses in the cliffs. Not far away a gambrel partridge -gallantly assured his plump gray mate, who sat on the nest in the -shelter of a tall mescal plant, that there was no danger. A Sonora -pigeon, from the top of a lone sahuaro, called his soft, deep-throated -mating call. And a vermilion flycatcher sprang into the air from his -perch near-by and climbed higher and higher into the blue and then, -after holding himself aloft for a moment, puffed out his red feathers, -and, twittering in a mad love ecstasy, came drifting back like a -brilliant-colored thistle bloom, or an oversized and fiery-tinted -dandelion tuft. - -Marta’s teacher had not forgotten that the Pardners had trusted him to -tell their girl the things that they--Saint Jimmy and his mother--were -agreed she should know. And Saint Jimmy meant to tell her. But somehow -this did not seem to be the time. He stole a look at the girl lying on -the rocks. No, this was not the time. He could not tell her just now. -He would wait. Some other time, perhaps, it would be easier. - -“Jimmy,” said the girl at last, and her words came slowly as if she -spoke out of the haze of her dreams, “when you went to school--I don’t -mean when you were just a little boy, but when you were almost a -man--was it a big school?” - -Saint Jimmy did not answer at once, then, without taking his eyes from -what ever it was that he was looking at in the distance, he said: - -“Why, yes, it was a fairly large school.” - -“And were there both men and women students?” - -“Yes, there were a good many women in the University, and a few in the -medical school, where I finally finished.” - -“I expect you had lots of friends, didn’t you, Jimmy? I should think you -would--men and women friends both. And I suppose there were all kinds of -good times--parties and dances and picnics.” - -Doctor Burton turned suddenly to look at her. “What in the world are you -driving at now?” - -“Please, Jimmy,” she said wistfully, “I want to know.” - -And something made him look away again. - -“I suppose I had my share of friends,” he answered. “And there was a -reasonable amount of fun, as there always is at school, you know. But -we--most of us--worked hard, too.” - -“Yes,” she returned quickly, “and you dreamed and planned the great -things you would do in the world when your school days should be over, -and, in spite of all your friends and the good times, you could hardly -wait to begin--yes, I am sure that is the way it would be.” - -Saint Jimmy did not speak. - -“And when your school days were finished, and you were actually a doctor -in a big city, you still had lots of men and women friends, and you -found a little time, now and then, for parties and--and dinners and such -things, didn’t you, Jimmy?” - -Saint Jimmy smiled, a patient, shadowy smile as he answered: - -“My practice at first certainly left me plenty of time for other -things.” - -The girl did not notice the smile, because she was not looking at her -companion. - -“You lived in a nice house, too, with books and pictures and--and -carpets on the floors. Do you know, I think I have wanted more than -anything else in the world to live in a house with carpets on the -floors. That is, I mean, I have wanted it ever since I knew there were -such things. Do you know, Jimmy, I never saw a house with carpets until -that first day I came to see you and Mother Burton?” - -She laughed a little. - -“That was a long, long time ago, wasn’t it? And I couldn’t much more -than read then. Gee! how scared I was of you and Mother Burton.” - -“You have made wonderful progress in your studies and in every way,” -said Jimmy, proudly. - -“Yes,” she returned. “The carpets did it--the carpets and you and Mother -Burton. I don’t see how you ever managed to teach me, though. I guess -you just learned by doctoring so many sick people. It must be a -wonderful, satisfying work--helping people, I mean, like a doctor, or a -teacher, or any work like that. It’s not like just finding gold in the -ground. Even though you do have to work so hard to get the gold, it’s -not like--like working for _people_--or _with_ people. Getting gold out -of the ground seems to take you away from people. You don’t seem to be -doing anything for anybody--but only just for yourself. Prospectors and -workers like that ’most always live alone, I have noticed. I don’t think -many of them are very happy either. I have seen quite a lot of -prospectors in my time, you know, Jimmy. In fact, except for you, -prospectors and that sort are the only kind of men I have ever -known--until now.” - -Saint Jimmy was watching her closely. - -“Yes,” he said softly, as if he did not wish to disturb her mood. - -“I suspect it was pretty hard, wasn’t it, Jimmy, when you got sick -yourself and had to give up your work and all your plans and leave your -nice home and all your friends and everything and come away out here to -get well, and then to find that you never could go back but must stay -here always--poor Jimmy! It must have been mighty hard.” - -“It wasn’t exactly easy,” he said slowly, “not at first. I fought a good -deal until I learned better. After that it was not so hard--only at -times, perhaps. Even now, I rebel occasionally, but not for long.” - -Which was as near a complaint as any one had ever heard from Doctor -Jimmy Burton. - -“Jimmy,” said Marta earnestly, “I think that you are the most wonderful -man that ever was--that ever could be.” - -Saint Jimmy shrugged his shoulders, and waved a protesting hand. - -“But you are,” she insisted, “and you know how I love you, don’t you? -Not merely because you have helped me as you have, but because you are -_you_. You _do_ know, don’t you, Jimmy?” - -There was an odd note in Jimmy’s voice now--it might have been -gladness--it might have been protest--or perhaps it was both--with a -hint of pain. - -“Marta! I----“ - -He stopped as if he found himself suddenly unable to finish whatever it -was that he had started to say. It may be that this was one of the times -when Saint Jimmy was not wholly reconciled to the part that life had -assigned to him. - -Apparently Marta did not notice her teacher’s manner. Her thoughts must -have been centered elsewhere because she said, quite as if she had been -considering it all the time: - -“I feel sure that Mr. Edwards has been hurt some way, just as you have, -Jimmy. I mean that he has been to school, and had a world of nice -friends and good times, and then started his real work and all that, -and, now for some reason, has had to give up his work and home and -friends and everything, and come out here. He didn’t tell us much, but -you could sort of feel that he was that kind of a man. You _can_ feel -those things about men, can’t you, Jimmy?” - -Jimmy nodded: - -“I suppose so.” - -“I don’t know why he didn’t tell us more about himself--about before he -came to Tucson, I mean. Perhaps he will some day; but he acts as if he -didn’t like to think about it now. You know what I mean, don’t you?” - -“Yes, I know.” - -“It is rather important that one have a past, isn’t it, Jimmy?” She -smiled as she added: “Rather important that one have the right kind of a -past, I mean.” - -“To my mind it is quite important,” answered Jimmy soberly. And suddenly -he remembered again the story that the Pardners had told. - -She nodded thoughtfully. - -“You have talked to me a lot about heredity and breeding and good blood -and early environment and those things. I suspect it is your being a -doctor that makes you consider them as you do. And Mother Burton, she -has told me a lot, too, about your ancestors, away back. And so I can -see that it is your past and the things you have to remember that make -you the kind of a man you are. If you didn’t have the father and mother -that you had, and the fathers and mothers that they had, and if you -hadn’t had the schools and the friends and the home with carpets and -the work of helping people that you have had, why, you wouldn’t be you -at all, would you, Jimmy?” - -Saint Jimmy moved uneasily. He wished now, in the light of the Pardners’ -story and their conclusion as to the birth and parentage of this girl, -that he had not included some subjects in his pupil’s course of study. - -Marta continued as if, scarcely conscious of her companion’s presence, -she were thinking aloud. - -“And so if--if any one else _did_ have the same kind of things to -remember that you have, he would be the same kind of a man that you -are--not exactly, of course. He might not be a doctor, or might not be -sick, but on the whole--well--you see what I mean, don’t you, Jimmy?” - -Saint Jimmy was quite sure that he saw her meaning. In fact, Doctor -Burton was fast being convinced that he realized, more clearly than -Marta herself, the real meaning of her unusual mood. Her next words -confirmed his fast-growing suspicion that, however scientifically right -he had been in his teaching, he had not been altogether kind in -stressing certain truths. - -“It’s funny that I never really thought of it before,” she said, “but I -don’t seem to have any past at all. All I can remember is just moving -around with my two fathers, who, of course, are not my fathers at -all--at least not both of them. And, if it were not for you and Mother -Burton, we wouldn’t have stayed here any longer than we did the other -places. I think I must have been born while my real father and mother -were moving somewhere. I never cared much about it before, Jimmy, but -somehow I wish--now--that I--that I knew who I am. I wish--I wish--I had -things to remember--such as you and Mr. Edwards have--schools and -friends and good times and a home with carpets--I mean.” - -There was a suspicious brightness in the frank eyes and her lips were -trembling a little; a state of affairs very unusual to the Pardners’ -daughter. - -Saint Jimmy realized that it was going to be even harder than he had -foreseen to make known to this girl the things he had promised to tell -her. Certainly he could not tell her just now. - -His voice was gentle as he finally said: - -“I wouldn’t worry about all that, if I were you, dear. You see, it -doesn’t really matter so much whether you know or not--your people must -have been the best kind of people because you are what you are, and -after all, it is what you are right now that counts. It is your own dear -self, and not what you might have been that matters, don’t you see? Why, -you have a better education already than most girls of your age. As for -the rest--the friends and all that--those will come in time, I am sure.” - -She smiled her gratitude bravely, then: - -“Jimmy, may I ask you something more--something real personal?” - -“As personal as you like,” he answered gravely. - -“Well, among all your friends at school, and among all the people you -met and knew afterwards, was there ever--was there ever one who was -more than all the others--one girl or woman, I mean?” - -Jimmy considered, then deliberately: - -“You mean, in my school days and before I was forced to give up my -work?” - -She nodded. - -“No,” said Jimmy readily. “Once or twice I thought there might be, but I -soon found out that I was mistaken--of course I am glad now that I found -it out.” - -“But didn’t you, in all of your plans and dreams for your life and -work--didn’t you ever include some one, didn’t you ever plan for -a--for--well, for”--she finished triumphantly--“for two little boys like -the Wheelers have?” - -“I looked forward in a general way to a home and children, as I think -every man does,” he answered. - -She caught him up eagerly: - -“You really think that every man includes such things in his plans?” - -“At least,” he replied, “I fail to see how any normal, right-thinking -man can ignore such things in his life plans.” - -“I wonder if that could be it?” said Marta. - -“You wonder what?” - -“If Mr. Edwards came to the Cañada del Oro because his plans included -some one who refused to be included.” - -“Good Lord!” ejaculated Saint Jimmy under his breath. - -“No,” she continued, “I don’t believe that is it. He doesn’t act as -though that was the reason.” - -Suddenly her mood changed. She seemed to awaken to some hitherto -unrealized possibilities of her life, and to grasp with startled -fierceness a defiant truth. - -“Jimmy,” she cried, “just because I have no past is no reason why I -should not have a future, is it?” - -Before he could find an answer she went on, and her words came rushing, -tumbling, hurrying out, as if the floodgate of her emotions were -suddenly lifted and the passionate spirit of her released. - -“I can see now that I have always been like our cañon creek in summer, -just playing along any old way, taking things as they are, without even -caring whether I stopped or not, but now--now I feel like the creek is -to-day, with its springtime life, boiling and roaring and leaping--I -won’t--I won’t be like the creek though--that for all its strength and -fuss and fury just fades away at last into nothing, out there in the -desert. I want to keep on going and going and going--I don’t know where. -I don’t care where, just on, and on, and on!” - -She sprang to her feet and stood before him in all the radiant, vigorous -beauty of her young womanhood, and with reckless abandon challenged: - -“Jimmy, let’s run away. Let’s go away off somewhere beyond the farthest -line yonder that you are always looking at; and then let’s keep on -going, just you and I. Wouldn’t it be fun if we were to be married? Why -shouldn’t we? You’re not too old--I’m not too young. We could live in a -little house somewhere--a house with carpets, Jimmy--and books and -pictures, and you could make music, and I would take care of you--Oh, -such good care of you, Jimmy. I’d cook all the things you like and ought -to eat, and wash for you, and mend your things, and you could go on -teaching me, and scolding me when I forgot to use the right words, -and--and--wouldn’t it be fun, Jimmy? Of course after a while Mother -Burton would come too--and perhaps there would be a place somewhere near -for my daddies to prospect--Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, let’s go!” - -Doctor Burton laughed, and it was well for the girl that she was still -too much of a child to know how often grim tragedy wears a mask of -mirth. - - * * * * * - -When the stranger had told the Pardners and their daughter his simple -story--how he had been ill and could find no work in Tucson, and so had -come to the Cañada del Oro with the hope of finding enough gold to live -by, and Marta had ridden away to spend the Sunday with Saint Jimmy and -Mother Burton, Thad said doubtfully: - -“I don’t see as there’s much we can do. We can’t learn nobody to find -gold whar it ain’t, an’ if we knowed whar it was we certain sure would -stake out some claims for ourselves, wouldn’t we? I don’t take no stock -in there bein’ anythin’ more than a color mebby, round that old Dalton -cabin yonder.” - -“Gold is where you find it,” remarked Bob cheerfully. “You can’t never -tell when or where you’re going to strike it rich.” - -“That’s all right,” retorted Thad. “But it stands to reason that if the -feller what built that cabin hadn’t of worked out his claim, he’d be -there workin’ on it yet, wouldn’t he? He quit and vamoosed because he’d -worked it out, I’m tellin’ you.” - -Bob returned with energy: - -“And I’m maintainin’ that no claim or mine or nothin’ else was ever -worked out. Folks jest quit workin’ on ’em, that’s all. There’s many and -many a mine been abandoned when three hours more--or one more shot, -mebby, would a-opened up a bonanza. This young man may go right up there -in the creek and stick in his pick a foot from where the other feller -took out his last shovel of dirt an’ turn up a reg’lar glory-hole. Don’t -you let him give you the dumps, Mr. Edwards, he’s the worst old -pessimist you ever see. There’s enough gold in this neighborhood to buy -all the bacon an’ beans you’ll need, long as you live, if you’re willin’ -to scratch around for it; an’ you’ve got jest as good a chance as there -is to strike a real mine an’ make your everlastin’ fortune, too.” - -“If you want my honest opinion, Mr. Edwards,” said Thad solemnly, as if -his pardner had not spoken, “you’ll be a fool to spend any time here.” - -The younger man smiled: - -“But you see, Mr. Grove, I am rather forced to do something right now. -As I told you, I’m not in a position to spend much time tramping about -the country looking for what might be a better place. All my -capital--all my worldly possessions, in fact--are in that pack there. -After all, you know the old saying,” he finished laughingly, “‘It takes -a fool for luck.’” - -“That ain’t so,” growled Thad, “’cause if it was, my pardner there would -be as rich as Rockefeller and Morgan an’ the rest of them billionaires -all rolled into one.” - -Bob grinned at Edwards reassuringly. Then he said to Thad: - -“Now that you’ve got that off your mind, suppose we jest turn in an’ do -what we can for the boy here.” - -“This here’s Sunday, ain’t it?” returned Thad, doubtfully. “Didn’t my -gal tell us yesterday that we couldn’t----“ - -“Your gal,” interrupted Bob, fiercely. “Your gal--huh. I’m here to tell -you that you’d best keep within your rights, Thad Grove, even if me an’ -you be pardners. She’s my gal this week beginnin’ at sun-up this -mornin’, an’ you know it; an’ besides, there’s good scripture for us -helpin’ Mr. Edwards here to get located, even if ’tis Sunday.” - -“Scripture!” said Thad scornfully. “What scripture?” - -“It’s that there part where the Lord is linin’ ’em up about what they -did an’ what they didn’t do,” explained Bob. “Says He to one bunch, -‘When I was dead broke an’ hungry an’ thirsty an’ all but petered out, -you ornary skunks wouldn’t turn a hand to give me a lift, an’ so you -don’t need to figger that you’re goin’ to git in on the ground floor -with me now that I’ve struck pay dirt’--or words to that effect. An’ -then to the other bunch He says: ‘You’re all right, Pardners; come on in -an’ make your pile along with me, ’cause I ain’t forgot how when I was a -stranger you took me in. You grubstaked me when I was down and out, an’ -for that, all I’ve got now is yourn’--leastways, that’s the general -meanin’ of it.” - -Whereupon Thad conceded that while it would be wrong actually to work on -the day of rest, it might be safe for them to show the stranger around -and sort of talk things over. - -And all that day, while the two old prospectors were conducting him to -the cabin that, for the following months, was to be his home, while they -were showing him about the neighborhood and advising him in a general -way about his work, and as they sat at the dinner which Marta had left -prepared for them, Hugh Edwards felt that he was being weighed, -measured, analyzed. Nor did he in any way attempt to avoid or shirk the -ordeal. Fairly and squarely, with neither hesitation nor evasion, he met -those keen old eyes that for so many years had searched for the precious -metal that is hidden in the sands and rocks and gravel of desert wastes, -and lonely cañons, and those mountain places that are far remote from -the haunts of less hardy and courageous men. - -They did not ask many questions about his past, for it is not the way -of such men to pry into another’s past. By their code a man’s personal -history is his own most private affair, to be given or withheld as he -himself elects. But what a man is, _that_ is a matter of concern to -every one who is called by circumstance to associate with him. They were -not particularly interested in what this man who had given his name as -Hugh Edwards _had_ been. They were mightily interested in discerning -what sort of a man Hugh Edwards, at that moment, was. - -“Well, Pardner,” said Bob, later in the afternoon when Edwards, with -sincere expression of his gratitude, had left them to go to the cabin -which by common consent they now called his, “what do you make of him?” - -Old Thad, rubbing his bald head, answered in--for him--an unusual vein: - -“He’s a right likable chap, ain’t he, Bob? If I’d ever had a boy of my -own--that is, supposin’, first, I’d ever had a wife--I think I’d like -him to be jest about what I sense this lad is.” Then, as if alarmed at -this betrayal of what might be considered sentiment, the old prospector -suddenly stiffened, and added in his usual manner: “You can’t tell what -he is--some sort of a sneakin’ coyote, like as not, a-tryin’ to pass -hisself off as a harmless little cottontail. I’m for layin’ low an’ -watchin’ his smoke mighty careful.” - -“He’ll assay purty high-grade ore, I’m a-thinkin’,” said Bob. - -“Time enough to invest when said assay has been made,” retorted Thad. -“It looks funny to me that a man of his eddication would be a-comin’ up -here in this old cañon to waste his time tryin’ to do somethin’ that he -don’t know no more about than a baby. Hard work, too; an’ anybody can -see he ain’t never done much of that.” - -“He’s been sick,” returned Bob. - -Thad grunted: - -“Huh! If he was, it was a long time ago. Did you notice the weight of -that pack--He’s a totin’ it like it warn’t nothin’ at all.” - -“He looks kind of pale when his hat is off,” said Bob. - -To which Thad returned: - -“He’s mighty perticler about where he was an’ what he was doin’ for a -livin’ before he blew into Tucson.” - -“As for that,” returned Bob, “there’s been some things happen since me -an’ you was first pardners that we ain’t jest exactly a-wavin’ in the -wind--an’ look at us now.” - -Thad’s dry retort was inevitable: - -“Yes, jest look at us!” - -Bob chuckled. - -“_You_ ain’t so mighty much to look at, I admit.” - -“Well,” said Thad, “as long as my gal thinks I’m all right, you----“ - -“My gal--_my_ gal,” snapped Bob. “Why have you allus got to be a-tryin’ -to do me out of my rights. You know well as I do this is my week.” - -“Excuse me, Pard,” the other apologized in all seriousness. “And that -leads me to remark that your gal didn’t appear altogether indifferent -an’ uninterested in this young prospectin’ neighbor of ours. You took -notice, too, I reckon.” - -“I ain’t blind, be I?” answered Bob. “An’ why wouldn’t she take notice? -My gal ain’t no wizened-up old mummy like me an’ you. Why wouldn’t she -take notice of a fine, up-standin’ clean-eyed, straight-limbed, -fair-spoken youngster like him, heh? It’s nateral enough--an’ right -enough too, I reckon.” - -Old Thad, with sudden rage, shook his long finger at his pardner and, in -a voice that was high pitched and trembling with emotion, cried: - -“Nateral enough, you poor old, thick-headed, ossified, wreck of manhood, -you. Nateral enough! Holy Cats! It’s _too_ nateral, that’s what I’m a -meanin’, it’s _too_ nateral--whether it’s all right or all wrong--it’s -too almighty nateral--that’s what it is.” - - * * * * * - -Later, when Marta had returned to her home in the Cañon of Gold--when -the sun was down and the shadow of the approaching night was deepening -over desert and mesa and mountain--a cowboy on his way to the home ranch -stopped to listen as the music of Saint Jimmy’s flute came soft and -clear through the quiet of the evening, from that spot beneath the old -cedar tree, high on the mountain side. A wandering Mexican, camped near -Juniper Spring below, heard and crossed himself. Natachee the Indian who -was following a faint trail toward the wild upper cañon heard and -smiled. Jimmy’s mother heard, and her eyes filled with tears. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -“GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT” - - “As the ocean calls the water of the rivers, and the rivers call - the creeks and springs, so this story, of a treasure hidden in a - mine that is lost, has called many people to the Cañon of Gold.” - - -The Cañon of Gold was still in the shadow of the mountains the next -morning when the Pardners went to give their new neighbor his first -lesson in the work that was to occupy him for months to come. - -Hugh Edwards greeted them without a trace of the hesitating fear that he -had shown during the first moments of their meeting, the day before. His -eyes now met theirs fairly, with no hint of questioning dread. It was as -if the restful peace and strengthening quiet of that retreat which was -hidden so far from the overcrowded highways of life had begun already to -effect, in the troubled spirit of this stranger, a magic healing. - -“Well,” said Thad gruffly, “we’re here--where’s your pick an’ shovel an’ -pan?” - -When the younger man had produced those implements which were so new and -strange to him, Bob asked kindly if he had had a good night’s sleep, if -he found the cabin comfortable, and if he had fortified himself for the -day’s work with a proper breakfast. - -Hugh Edwards laughed, and, with his face lifted to the mountain heights -that towered above them, squared his shoulders and drew a long deep -breath. - -“I haven’t had such a sleep since I can remember. As for breakfast, -well, if I eat like this every day, I will exhaust my supplies before I -even learn to know gold when I see it. I feel as if I could move that -hill over there into the cañon.” - -Bob chuckled. - -“You’ll find you’ve got to move a lot of it, son, before you make enough -at this gold-huntin’ game to buy your grub.” - -“That’s the trouble with prospectin’ in this here Cañada del Oro -country,” said Thad. “The harder you work the more you eat, and the more -you eat the harder you got to work. Come on, let’s get a-goin’.” - -For several hours the old Pardners labored with their pupil beside the -creek, then, with hearty assurance of further help from time to time as -he made progress, they left him and went to their own little mine, some -five hundred yards down the cañon. - -The afternoon was nearly gone when Edwards, who was kneeling over the -gravel and sand in his pan at the edge of the stream, looked up. - -On a bowlder, not more than five steps from the amateur prospector, sat -an Indian. - -With an exclamation, the white man sprang to his feet. - -The Indian did not move. Dressed as he was in the wild fashion of his -fathers and with his primitive bow and arrows, he seemed more like some -sculptured bit of the past than a creature of living flesh. - -Hugh Edwards, standing as one ready to run at the crack of the starter’s -pistol, swiftly surveyed the immediate vicinity. His face was white and -he was trembling with fear. - -With grave interest the red man silently observed the perturbed -stranger. Then, as Edwards again turned his frightened eyes toward him, -the Indian raised his hand in the old-time peace sign and in a deep, -musical voice spoke the one word of the old-time greeting: - -“How.” - -Edwards broke into a short, nervous laugh. - -“How-do-you-do--By George! but you gave me a start.” - -Some small animal--a pack rat or a ground squirrel--made a rustling -sound in the bushes on the bank above, and with a low cry the frightened -man wheeled, and again started as if to escape. - -The Indian, watching, saw the meaning in every move the stranger made, -and read every expression of his face. - -With an effort Edwards controlled himself. - -“Are you alone?” he asked. “I mean”--he caught himself up quickly--“that -is--have you no horse?” - -“I am always alone,” the Indian answered calmly. Then, as if to put the -other more at ease, he continued in excellent English: “Night before -last, when the sun went down, I was up there on Samaniego Ridge,” he -pointed with singular grace. “There on that rock near the dead sahuaro, -and I saw you as you came up the old road into the cañon.” - -Hugh Edwards again betrayed himself by the eagerness of his next -question: - -“Did you see any one else?” - -“There was no one on your trail,” returned the Indian. - -At this the stranger seemed to realize suddenly that he was permitting -his fears to reveal too much, and, as one will, he sought to amend his -error with a half-laughing excuse. - -“Really, you know, I didn’t suppose there was any one following me.” He -indicated his work with a gesture. “I am not exactly used to this sort -of life, you see, and--well--I confess the loneliness, the strangeness -of my surroundings, and all, have rather got on my nerves--quite -natural, I suppose.” - -The Indian bowed assent. - -As if determined to correct any impression he might have made by his -unguarded manner, Edwards abruptly dropped the subject, and with an air -of enthusiastic delight spoke of his surroundings, finishing with the -courteous question: - -“You live in this neighborhood, do you?” - -There was a quick gleam of savage light in the dark eyes that were fixed -with bold pride upon the questioning white man, and the Indian answered -more in the manner of his people: - -“In the years that are past my fathers came to these mountains to hunt -and to make war like men. They come now with the squaws to gather -acorns, when the white man gives them permission. I live here, yes, as a -homeless dog lives in one of your cities. My name is Natachee.” - -The deep, musical voice of the red man revealed such bitter feeling that -Hugh Edwards was moved to pity. And then, as he stood there in the -silence that had fallen upon them, a strange thing happened. It was as -if the spirit of the Indian had somehow touched the inner self of the -stranger and had quickened in him a kindred savage lusting for revenge -upon some enemy who had brought upon him, too, humiliation and shame and -suffering beyond expression. The white man’s hands were clenched, his -breast heaved with labored breathing, his face was black with passion, -his eyes were dreadful with the scowling light of anger and hate. - -A faint smile came like a swift shadow over the face of the watching -Indian; then he spoke with deliberate meaning: - -“And why have you come to the Cañada del Oro? Why should a man like you -wish to live here, in the Cañon of Gold?” - -Hugh Edwards gained control of himself with an effort. - -“I came to look for gold; as you see,” he said at last. - -Again that faint smile like a quick shadow touched the face of the red -man. - -And this time the other saw it. Looking straight into the eyes of the -Indian, he said coldly: - -“And you, what do you do for a living?” - -Natachee, returning look for look, answered simply: - -“I live as my fathers lived.” - -“I have heard about you, I think,” said Edwards. - -The Indian’s deep voice was charged with scorn. - -“Yes, the Lizard called at your camp--you would hear about every one -from the Lizard.” - -“He told me that you were educated.” - -Natachee answered sadly: - -“It is true, I attended the white man’s school. What I learned there -made me return to the desert and the mountains to live as my fathers -lived; and to die as my people must die.” - -When the white man, seemingly, could find no words with which to reply, -the Indian spoke again. - -“If it is gold that brought you here to the Cañada del Oro, why do you -not search for the Lost Mine with the Iron Door?” - -Hugh Edwards, remembering what the Lizard had said, smiled. - -“And is there, really, such a mine?” - -“There is a story of such a mine.” - -“Do many people come to look for it?” - -Natachee answered gravely and with that dignity so characteristic of a -red man, while his words, though spoken in English, were the words of an -Indian: - -“Too many people come. As the ocean calls the water of the rivers, and -the rivers call the creeks and springs; so this story of a treasure -hidden in a mine that is lost has called many people to the Cañon of -Gold. For many years they have been coming--for many years they will -continue to come. The white people say they do not believe there ever -was such a mine and they laugh about it. They look for it just the same. -Even the Pardners, who dig for gold in their own little hole down there, -laugh, but I know that they, too, believe even as they laugh. That is -always the white man’s way--always he is searching for the thing which -he says does not exist, and at which he laughs.” - -“But what about you?” asked Hugh Edwards. “Do you believe in this lost -mine?” - -The Indian’s face was a bronze mask as he answered: - -“Of what importance is an Indian’s belief to a white man? When the winds -heed the dead leaves they toss and scatter, when the fire heeds the dry -grass in its path, then will a white man heed the words of an Indian.” - -“Oh, I wouldn’t say it was as bad as that,” returned Edwards easily, and -as he spoke he went to bend over his pan again. “Mine or no mine,” he -continued, as he examined the sand and gravel he had been washing, “I -think I have some real gold here.” - -When there was no answer he said: - -“You must know gold when you see it. Will you look at this and tell me -what you think?” - -Still there was no answer. - -With the gold pan in his hand, the white man turned to face his visitor. -The Indian had disappeared. - -In amazement, Hugh Edwards stood staring at the spot where the Indian -had been sitting but a moment before. Then, while his eyes searched the -vicinity for some movement in the brush, he listened for a sound. Not a -leaf or twig or blossom stirred--not a sound betrayed the way the red -man had gone. - -With an odd feeling that the whole incident of the Indian’s visit was as -unreal as a dream, the man had again turned his attention to the -contents of his gold pan when a gay voice came from the top of the bank. - -“Well, neighbor, have you struck it rich?” - -Looking up, he saw Marta. - -“I have struck something all right, or rather something struck me,” he -laughed, as she joined him beside the creek. Then he told her about the -Indian. - -“Yes,” she said, “that was Natachee. He always comes and goes like that. -Everybody says he is harmless. He and Saint Jimmy are quite good -friends; but he gives me the creeps.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Ugh! -I always feel as if he were wishing that he could scalp every one of -us.” - -“To tell the truth,” returned Edwards, “I feel a little that way -myself.” - -That evening as Hugh Edwards sat with the Pardners and their girl on the -porch, he asked the old prospectors about the Mine with the Iron Door. - -They laughed, as Natachee had said, but Edwards caught an odd note of -wistfulness in their merriment. Thad answered his question, with a brave -pretense of scorn: - -“There’s lost mines all over Arizona, son. Better stick to your pick and -shovel if you want to eat reg’lar. You won’t pan out so mighty much, -mebby, but what you do get will be real.” - -“But this here Mine with the Iron Door is different some ways from all -them others,” said Bob. - -And again Edwards caught that wistful note in the old-timer’s voice. - -“You mean that you believe there is such a mine?” he said. - -“Holy Cats--No!” growled Thad. “We don’t believe in nothin’ ’til we got -it where we can cash it in.” - -Bob was thoughtfully refilling his pipe. “They say it was made by the -old padres, away back, a hundred years before any of us prospectors ever -hit this country. I know one thing that you can see for yourself, -easy--there’s the ruins of a mighty old settlement or camp or somethin’ -on the side of the mountain up above the Steam Pump Ranch. They say it -was there that the Papagos, what worked the mine for the priests, lived. -The Papagos and the padres always was friendly, you know. The padres -have got a big mission, San Xavier, down in the Papago country, right -now--built somethin’ like three hundred years ago, it was. I ain’t never -been able myself to jest figger their idea in fixin’ up the mine with -that iron door. Mebby it was on account of them only workin’ it by -spells, like when they was needin’ somethin’ extra for their mission or -for their church back home in Spain, where they all come from, and so -wanted to shut it up when they was gone away. Then one time, the story -goes, along come one of these here earthquakes, and tumbled a whole -blamed mountain down on top of the works. The old priests and their -Papago miners figgered it out that the landslide was an act of God--Him -bein’ displeased with the way they was runnin’ things er somethin’, an’ -so they was scared ever even to try to dig her up again. An’ so you see, -after all these years, the trees and brush growed over the mountain -again and the old mine got to be plumb lost for certain sure.” - -“An’ so far as we’re consarned,” added the other pardner emphatically, -“it’s goin’ to stay lost. This ain’t no country for a big mine nohow. -Mineralized all right, but look at the way she’s all shot to pieces; -busted forty ways for Sunday--ain’t nothin’ reg’lar nowhere, unless you -was to go down a thousand or two feet, mebby, and that ain’t no prospect -for a poor man, I’m a-tellin’ you. Find a little placer dirt, yes, and -you might strike a good pocket once in a lifetime or so, but that ain’t -to say real minin’. Take my advice, son, and don’t let this lost mine -get to workin’ on you or you’ll go hungry.” - -“That’s all true enough, Pardner,” said Bob, “but you know how ’tis, you -can’t never tell--Gold is where you find it.” - - - - -CHAPTER X - -SUMMER - - “Daddy,” says she, “Hugh has changed a lot since he come to us, - ain’t he?” - - -The weeks of the spring passed. The gleaming snow fields vanished from -the dark pine heights of Mount Lemmon. The creek, which ran through the -Cañon of Gold with such boisterous strength that day when the stranger -came and Marta talked with Saint Jimmy under the old cedar on the -mountain side, crept lazily now, with scarce a murmur, pausing often to -rest in the shady quiet of an overhanging rock or to sleep, half hidden, -among the roots of a giant sycamore. - -The Sonora pigeon, his mission accomplished, had long since ceased to -give his mating call. The nest in the mesquite thicket had been filled -and was empty again. The partridge was leading her half-grown covey far -from the mescal plant where they were born. The vermilion flycatcher was -too busy, with his exacting parental duties, even to think of indulging -in those fantastic exhibitions which ultimately had placed the burdens -of fatherhood upon his shoulders. - -There was not a day of those passing months that the Pardners and their -girl did not in some way come in touch with their neighbor. Sometimes -Edwards would go to counsel with the two old prospectors as they worked -in their little mine. Again, they would go over to his place to advise -him, with their years of experience, in his small operations. Often he -would spend the evening with them on the porch in neighborly fashion, or -they would go to smoke with him before the door of his tiny cabin. -Occasionally, it was no more than a shout of greeting across the three -hundred or more yards that separated the two places; but always the -contact that had been established that day when the Lizard brought the -stranger to the Pardners’ door was maintained. - -Hugh Edwards might have gone from the place where he labored to the -Pardners’ mine, along the creek under the high bank, without passing -their house at all, but he never did. That is, he never both went and -returned by the creek route. Either going or coming, he would always -climb out of the deep cut made by the stream to the level of the main -floor of the cañon where the house stood--except, of course, when Marta -had gone to the store at Oracle or to see Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. - -The girl was always included, too, in those evenings on the porch or -before his cabin door. Always, on her way to the store, she stopped to -see if she could bring anything for him. And often, with the freedom of -the rude environment she had known since she could remember, and with -the frank innocence of her boyish nature, Marta would run over to give -him a lesson in the arts of the kitchen; or, perhaps, to contribute -something of her own cooking--a pie or cake or pudding--that would be -quite beyond the range of his poor culinary skill. It was indeed all -very natural--perhaps, as Thad had said that first day, it was too -darned natural. - -To the Pardners, Hugh Edwards was an object of continued speculative -interest, a subject of endless and somewhat violent arguments; and, it -must be added, a never-failing source of amusement and delight. The -genuineness and depth of this friendship for their young neighbor was -evidenced at last by their telling him the story of their partnership -daughter as they had told it to Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. It was -not long after this mark of their confidence that the old prospectors -were led into a characteristic discussion of their observations. - -Hugh had gone to them at their mine with a bit of quartz which he had -picked up in the bed of the creek. The consultation was over and the two -old prospectors were sitting in the shade of the tunnel opening watching -the younger man as he climbed up the steep bank toward the house. Old -Bob was grinning. - -“He sure thought he had found somethin’ good this time, didn’t he? The -boy’s all right, don’t never show a sign of bein’ sore when his rich -rocks turn out to be jest nothin’ but rock--jest keeps right on tryin’. -Don’t seem to care a cuss how many blanks he draws.” - -Thad chuckled: - -“If hard work will get him anything, he’s sure due to strike it rich. -Hits it up from crack of day ’til plumb dark an’ acts like he hated even -to think of sleepin’ or eatin’.” - -“It’s funny, too,” said Bob, “’cause you remember at first he didn’t -’pear to take no interest a-tall. Jest poked along in a come-day, -go-day, God-send-Sunday sort of a gait, as if all he wanted was to git -his powder back with what frijoles, bacon, and coffee he had to have. -He’s sure come alive, though. I wonder----“ - -Thad was rubbing his bald head with a slow, speculative movement. - -“Had you took notice how he allus goes up to the house when he brings -them pieces of fool rock to us? My gal, she says to me the other -evenin’----“ - -“Your gal! Your gal!” Marta’s father shouted. “This here’s my week, and -you know it blamed well, you old love pirate, you. Can’t you never be -satisfied with your share? Have you got to be allus tryin’ to euchre me -out of my rights?” - -“I apologize, Pardner, I forgot, I apologize plenty,” said Thad -hurriedly. “As I was meanin’ to say, that gal of yourn, she says to me, -‘Daddy’--last Saturday it was, so she had a right to call me -daddy--‘Daddy,’ says she, ‘Hugh has changed a lot since he come to us, -ain’t he?’” - -“Well,” returned Bob, “what if my daughter did make such a remark, -it----“ - -“She was my daughter then,” interrupted Thad sternly. - -“She’s mine right now,” retorted Bob with equal force. “What if she did -say it? I maintain it only goes to show what a smart, observin’ gal -she’s growed up to be.” - -Thad grunted disgustedly. - -“It’s almighty plain that she didn’t inherit none of her observin’ -powers from you.” - -Bob glared at him. - -“Wal, what are you seein’ that I ain’t?” he demanded. “Somethin’ that’s -wrong, I’ll bet--By smoke! Thad, if you was to happen to get into Heaven -by any hook or crook so ever, you’d set yourself first off to -suspicionin’ them there angels of high gradin’ the gold they say the -streets up there is paved with.” - -The other returned with withering contempt: - -“You’ve said it! But don’t it signify nothin’ to you when your gal--when -any gal takes notice of how a feller is lookin’ different from what he -did when she first met up with him? Ain’t it got no meanin’ for you when -she says, ‘Since he come to us’? _Come to us--to us_--can’t you see -nothin’? If I was as dumb as you be, I’d set off a stick of powder under -myself to see if I couldn’t get some sort of, what I heard Doctor Jimmy -once call, a re-action.” - -Bob laughed. - -“I figger on gettin’ all the reactions I need from you, without wastin’ -any powder. Hugh did come to us, didn’t he? Even if that measly Lizard -did fetch him far as the gate.” - -“Oh, sure,” grumbled the other with fine sarcasm. “Hugh, he didn’t come -to this here Cañada del Oro--not a-tall--he jest come to _us_.” - -Bob continued as if the other had not spoken: - -“As far as his not bein’ the same as when he come, well, he -ain’t--anybody can see that. ’Tain’t only that he’s started in to -workin’, all at once, like he jest naterally _had_ to get rich. He’s -different in a lot of ways. Take his looks, for instance--he used to be -kind of white like--you remember, and now he’s tanned as black as any of -us old desert rats. He’s sturdier and heavier like, every way. Hard work -agrees with him, ’pears like.” - -“’Tain’t only that,” said Thad. - -“Sure--his hair ain’t so short no more.” - -“There’s more than hair an’ bein’ tanned,” said Thad. - -“Yep, there is,” agreed Bob. “Do you mind how, when he first come, he -acted sort of scared like--right at the very first, I mean.” - -“That’s it,” returned Thad, “his eyes was like he was expectin’ one or -t’other, or both of us, to throw down a gun on him. An’ yet I sensed -somehow, after the first minute, that it wasn’t us he was afraid of. He -sure walks up to a man now, though, like he could jump down his throat -if he had to.” - -“I’ll bet my pile he would, too, if he was called,” chuckled Bob. “And -have you noticed how easy he laughs, an’ the way he sings and whistles -over there when he’s fussin’ ’round his shack of a mornin’ or evenin’?” - -“He sure seems contented enough,” said Thad, “an’ that’s another thing -I’ve noticed, too,” he added slowly. “The boy ain’t been out of the -cañon since he come.” - -“Ain’t no reason for him to go,” said Bob. “We take out what little gold -he pans with ourn, don’t we? An’ it’s easy for Marta to buy his supplies -for him while she’s buyin’ for us. There ain’t nobody at Oracle that -he’d be wantin’ to see.” - -“Mebby that’s it,” said Thad. - -“Mebby what’s it?” demanded Bob. - -“That there ain’t nobody at Oracle that he wants to see--or that he -don’t want to see him--whichever way you like to say it.” - -“There you go again,” said Bob. “Can’t talk more’n a minute on any -subject without hintin’ that somethin’ is wrong. The boy is all right, I -tell you.” - -“Well, Holy Cats! who said he wasn’t?” cried Thad. “I wouldn’t hold it -against him much if he never went to Oracle or nowhere else; jest stuck -in this here cañon ’til he died, hidin’ out in the brush somewhere every -time anybody strange showed up nearer than George Wheeler’s. You an’ me -has both suffered from the same sort of sickness more’n once, or I’m -a-losin’ my memory. You’re allus makin’ out that I’m thinkin’ evil when -I’m only jest tryin’ to look at things as they actually are. If I’d -intimated that the boy was a hoss-thief or a claim-jumper or somethin’ -like that, you’d have reason to climb on to me, but I’m likin’ him an’ -believin’ in him as much as ever you or anybody else ever dared to.” - -Bob grinned. - -“It’s funny how we’re all agreed on that, ain’t it? He is sure a likable -cuss. I was a-warnin’ him the other day about handlin’ his powder. ‘You -don’t want to forgit, son,’ says I, ‘that there’s enough in one of them -sticks to blow you so high that you’d think you was one of them heavenly -bodies up yonder.’ He laughed an’ says, says he, ‘That bein’ the case, -it would be mighty comfortin’ to know there was no one to dock me for -the time I was up in the air, wouldn’t it?’” - -“Huh!” grunted Thad, “that’s an old one.” - -“Sure it’s an old one,” retorted Bob, “but nobody can’t say it ain’t a -good one; and I’m here to maintain that you can tell a heap more about a -man by the jokes he laughs at than you can by the religions he claims to -believe in.” - -“Yes,” retorted Thad grimly, “I’ve allus took notice, too, that them -that’s all the time seein’ evil in whatever anybody does is dead -immortal certain to be havin’ a lot of their own doin’s that need to be -kept in the dark. As for this game of lookin’ for some sort of -insinuations in everything a body says, it’s like a lookin’ glass--what -you see is mostly yourself. That’s what I’m meanin’.” - -“Hugh is a good boy all right,” said Bob. - -“He’s all of that and then some,” said Thad. - -The truth of the matter is, Hugh Edwards had found, in the Cañada del -Oro, something more than the gold for which he worked so laboriously -through the long days, and which he had come to hoard with such miserly -care. In the Cañon of Gold, he had found more than rugged health; more -than a sanctuary from whatever it was that had driven him from the world -to which he belonged into the lonely seclusion of that wild country. -Into his loneliness had come a sweet companionship that had grown every -day more dear. In this new joy and gladness, bitterness and pain had -ceased to darken his hours with hatred and with useless and vengeful -longings. Crushed and beaten, humiliated and shamed, his every hour an -hour of dread, he had found inspiration and spirit to plan his life -anew. Out of his hopelessness, a glorious new hope had come. He had -learned again to dream; and he had gained strength to labor for his -dreams. - -But he had not told Marta what it was that he had found. He could not -tell her yet. Before he could tell her, he must have gold. And he must -have, not merely an amount that would satisfy the bare necessities of -life--he must have much more than that. He was not so foolish as to feel -that he must be in a position to offer this girl the extravagant -luxuries of life. But his need was born of a dire necessity--a necessity -as vital as the need of food. Without gold, the realization of his dream -was an impossibility. His only hope of happiness was in the possibility -of his success in finding a quantity of the yellow metal for which, -through the centuries, so many men had labored, as he was laboring now, -in the Cañon del Oro. He could not explain to Marta--he could only -dream and hope and work, as those others before him had dreamed and -hoped and worked in the Cañon of Gold. And so, with a strength that was -like the strength of Saint Jimmy, this man was resolutely hiding the -love that had re-created him. Marta must not know--not now. - -But Marta knew--knew and yet did not know. The girl, whose womanhood had -developed in the peculiarly sexless environment that had been hers since -she could remember, had formed no habit of self-analysis. She was wholly -inexperienced in those innocent but emotionally instructive friendships -which girls and young women normally have with boys and men of their own -age. Except for her fathers and Saint Jimmy, she had had no contact with -men. In her childlike ignorance she asked of herself no questions. She -gave no more thought to the meaning of her interest in Hugh Edwards than -a wild bird gives to its mating instinct. But as their friendship grew -and ripened, this girl of the desert and mountains knew that she was -happy as she had never been happy before. She felt a kinship with the -wild life about her that thrilled her with its poignant mystery. The -flowers had never before bloomed in such passionate profusion. The birds -had never voiced such melodies. The very winds were freighted with -perfumes that filled her with strange delight. The days, indeed, flew by -on wings of sunshine--the nights were haunted with shadowy promises as -vague and intangible as they were sweet. - -Natachee, as the weeks passed, seemed to develop a strange interest in -the man who was so obviously from a world that is far indeed from the -haunts of the lonely red man. Frequently the Indian called at the little -cabin to spend an hour or more. Always he appeared suddenly, at the most -unexpected moments, as if he were a spirit materialized that instant -from an invisible world, and always he disappeared in the same startling -fashion. - -Sometimes, when he was with Edwards and the Pardners, he would discuss -matters of general interest with the speech and manner of any well-bred -college man. Save for his savage costume, his dusky countenance, and a -certain touch of poetic feeling in his choice of words and figures of -speech, there would be nothing, on these occasions, to mark him as -different, in any way, from his white companions. But on other -occasions, when Natachee and Edwards were alone, the red man would, for -the moment, cast aside every mark of his training in the schools, and, -with the voice, words, and gestures peculiar to his race, express -thoughts and emotions that were purely Indian. Much of the time, -however, he would sit silently watching the white man at his work. Often -he would come and go without a word. He would sometimes appear, too, -when Marta and Edwards were together, and on these occasions, save for a -courteous greeting, he was rarely more than a silent observer. - -The Lizard had at first endeavored to cultivate the stranger’s -friendship, but, receiving no encouragement, had soon limited his -attentions to a sullen “Howdy” when he passed on his way to or from -Oracle. - -But Saint Jimmy had not yet met the man who was living next door to -Marta. Often the girl begged her teacher to go with her to call on the -new neighbor. Mother Burton frequently scolded him, gently, for his -discourtesy to the stranger. And Saint Jimmy promised many times that he -would call, but he invariably postponed the date of his visit. He would -set out on his social mission in all good faith, but invariably, when he -came within sight of the cabin so near to Marta’s home, he would stop -and, instead of going on, would spend the hours alone on the mountain -side looking out over the desert. Had Saint Jimmy been other than the -gentle spirit he was, he might have said that he heard quite enough -about Hugh Edwards from Marta without going to visit him. - -Many times, too, Saint Jimmy thought to tell Marta the story her fathers -had intrusted to him, but for some reason he always found it as -difficult to talk to his pupil about the mystery of her early childhood -as he found it hard to call on this man in whom she was so interested. - -Often he said to his mother that he would delay no longer--that he would -tell the girl the next time she came to see them; but each time he put -it off. The girl was always so radiantly happy, so overflowing with the -joy of life. Perhaps, Saint Jimmy told himself, perhaps, it might never -be necessary for her to know. - -The dry season of the summer passed--the summer rains came; and again -the desert, the foothills and mountain sides were bright with blossoms. -It was during this “Little Spring,” as the Indians call this second -blossoming time of the year, that Saint Jimmy finally called on Hugh -Edwards. - -And--it was the Lizard who brought it about. - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -THE LIZARD - - “No,” said Doctor Burton, slowly, “I have heard nothing about Mr. - Edwards. Nothing wrong, I mean.” - - -The Lizard was on his way to Oracle that day when he turned aside from -the more direct trail to take the path that led past the little white -house on the mountain side. Approaching the Burton home, he pulled his -horse down to a walk, and, as he rode slowly up the winding way, his -shifty eyes searched the vicinity on every side. It was not long before -he saw Doctor Burton, who was seated, with his back comfortably against -a rock in the shade of a Juniper tree, reading. - -As the Lizard left the trail and rode toward him, Saint Jimmy glanced up -from his book. With a look of mild interest, he watched as the horse -with its rider climbed the steep side of the mountain. - -When he had come quite near, the Lizard stopped, and slouching down in -the saddle looked at the man seated on the ground with a wide grin, -while the horse with a long breath of relief dropped his head and -settled himself sleepily, as if understanding from long experience that -his master would have no further use for him for some time to come. - -“How do you do?” said Jimmy, smiling. - -“’Bout as usual,” returned the horseman. “I’m eatin’ reg’lar. ’Lowed hit -war time I rode by to see how you was a makin’ hit these days. I see -ye’re still alive,” he laughed, in his loose-mouthed way. - -“I am doing very well,” returned Saint Jimmy, wondering what the real -object of the fellow’s call might be. - -“Yer maw’s well too, I reckon?” - -“Yes, thank you.” - -“Been over t’ Oracle lately?” - -“I was there yesterday.” - -“Uh-huh! I was up t’ the store myself day before. Hear anythin’ new, did -ye?” - -“Nothing startling,” smiled Saint Jimmy. “Your father and mother are -well, are they?” - -“’Bout as usual. Ain’t seed George Wheeler lately, have ye--er any of -his folks?” - -“George was at our house a few days ago,” returned Jimmy. “Stopped in a -few minutes on his way home from the upper ranch.” - -“Uh-huh!--George say anything, did he?” - -“No. Nothing in particular.” - -The Lizard shifted his slouching weight in the saddle. “I met up with -one of George’s punchers t’other day. Bud Gordon, hit war. He says as -how th’ lions is a-gettin’ ’bout all of George’s mule colts up ’round -his place above.” - -“So George was telling us. It’s too bad. You ranchers will be planning -another hunt soon, I suppose.” - -The Lizard shook his head solemnly, then leered at Saint Jimmy with an -evil grin. - -“Thar’s varmints in this here neighborhood what needs a-huntin’ a mighty -sight more’n lions an’ coyotes an’ sich.” - -Jimmy waited. - -“You say you ain’t heerd nothin’?” demanded the Lizard. - -“About what?” - -“’Bout that there new prospector, what’s located in th’ old cabin down -thar by th’ Pardners’ place.” - -“No,” said Doctor Burton slowly. “I have heard nothing about Mr. -Edwards--nothing wrong, I mean.” - -“Wal, if ye ain’t, hit’s ’cause ye ain’t been ’round much, er ’cause ye -ain’t listened very close. Mebby, though, folks would be kind o’ -slow-like sayin’ anythin’ t’ you--seein’s how you’d likely be more -interested ’n anybody else.” - -Saint Jimmy was not smiling now. - -“I think you are mistaken about my interest,” he said curtly. “I have no -desire to listen to you or to any one else on the subject.” - -“Oh, ye ain’t, heh?” the man on the horse returned with a sneer. “I -’lowed as how ye’d be mighty quick t’ listen, seein’ ’s how this new -feller’s cut you out with th’ gal, like he has.” - -When Saint Jimmy did not speak, the Lizard continued with virtuous -indignation: - -“Things was bad enough as they was, but now since this new feller’s -come, she’s a-carryin’ on past all reason. You kin find ’em t’gether at -his shack er down in th’ creek whar he’s a-pretendin’ t’ work, er out in -the brush somewhar ’most any time. An’ when she ain’t over t’ his place -er out with him somewhar, he’s dead certain t’ be at her house. I seed -them t’gether when I passed on my way up here. She’s too good t’ speak -to me, what’s been neighbor t’ her ever since she come into this -country, but she kin take up with this stranger quick enough.” - -Doctor Burton was on his feet. - -“That’s enough,” he said sharply. “You might as well go on your way now. -You have evidently said what you came to say.” - -“Oh, I don’t know,” returned the Lizard with insolent superiority. -“There ain’t no use in yer tryin’ t’ be so high an’ mighty with me. -She’s throwd me down fer you often enough. Now that yer gettin’ th’ same -thing, ye ought t’ be a grain more friendly, ’pears t’ me. As fer this -other feller, he’ll sure get what’s a-comin’ t’ him, an’ so will she.” - -Jimmy caught his breath. - -“What do you mean?” - -“I mean that folks ’re a-talkin’, an’ that they’ll likely do more than -talk this time. We’ve allus had our doubts about th’ gal--who wouldn’t -have--her bein’ raised by them two old mavericks like she war an’ bein’ -named fer both an’ both claimin’ t’ be her daddy--an’ nobody knowin’ a -foreign thing ’bout who her real paw an’ maw was, er even whether she -ever had any. But folks has put up with her an’ you ’cause you was -supposed to’ be a-teachin’ her an’ cause yer Saint Jimmy.” He laughed. -“Saint Jimmy--mighty pretty, heh? But this new feller that’s got her -now--Edwards, he calls hisself--he ain’t pretendin’ nothin’. Him an’ -her, they----“ - -Doctor Burton started forward, his eyes were blazing and his voice rang: - -“Shut up--if you open your foul mouth again, I’ll drag you from that -horse and choke the dirty life out of you.” - -The Lizard, amazed at the usually gentle-mannered Saint Jimmy, -straightened himself in the saddle and caught up the reins. - -“Get out!” continued the man on the ground. “Go find some filthy-minded -scandalmonger like yourself to listen to your vile rot. I’ve had -enough.” - -The Lizard snarled down at him: - -“If you warn’t a poor lunger, I’d----“ - -But as Saint Jimmy reached for him, he touched his horse with the spur, -and the animal leaped away. - -Twenty minutes later, Doctor Burton was on his way to the cabin in the -cañon. - -Marta was at home, sitting on the porch with her sewing, when her -teacher rode down into the Cañon of Gold. She saw him as he turned aside -toward the neighboring cabin, and was on the ground in time to introduce -the two men. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -GHOSTS - - “The Cañon of Gold is haunted by the ghosts of these disappointed - ones. I, Natachee, know these things because I am an Indian.” - - -Marta could not have explained, even to herself, why she was so anxious -to see Saint Jimmy and Hugh Edwards together. Certainly she made no -effort to find an explanation. - -Through the years that he had been her teacher, Saint Jimmy had come to -personify, as it were, her spiritual or intellectual ideal. - -Any why not, since it was Saint Jimmy who had helped her form her -spiritual and intellectual ideals? Their daily association, their -friendship, their love--for she did love Saint Jimmy--had all been -grounded and developed in an atmosphere of books and study that was -purely Platonic. In her teacher she had come to see embodied the -essential truths which he had taught. She had never for a moment thought -of Doctor Burton and herself as a man and a woman. He was simply Saint -Jimmy. She was his grateful pupil who loved him dearly because he was -Saint Jimmy. - -But from the very first moment of their meeting Marta was conscious that -the appeal of Hugh Edwards’ personality was an appeal that to her was -new and strange--she was conscious that he had made an impression upon -her such as no man had ever before made. For that matter, she had never -before met such a man. As she had said so many times, he made her think -of Saint Jimmy and yet he was different. And because the experience was -so foreign to anything that she had ever known, she did not understand. - -Because Hugh Edwards made her think so often of Saint Jimmy, and because -he was so different from Saint Jimmy, she was anxious to see the two men -together. Nor could the girl understand her teacher’s persistent failure -to call on their new neighbor. It was not at all like Saint Jimmy. -Nothing, perhaps, revealed quite so fully Marta’s lack of experience in -such things as her failure to understand why Saint Jimmy was so slow in -making the acquaintance of Hugh Edwards. - -And now at last her wish to see these two men together was gratified. -The girl’s radiant face revealed her excitement. Her voice was jubilant, -her laughter rang out with delicious abandon. She was tingling with -animation and lively interest. Her two friends could no more resist the -impulse to laugh with her than one could refrain from smiling at the -glee of a winsome child. - -As they shook hands she watched them, looking from one to the other with -an expression of such eager, anxious inquiry on her glowing countenance -that the men were just a little embarrassed. - -“I really should have come to see you long ago,” said Saint Jimmy. “The -right sort of neighbors are not so plentiful in the Cañada del Oro that -we can afford to neglect them. I have heard so much about you, though, -that I feel as if you were really an old-timer whom I have known for -years.” - -He looked smilingly at Marta. - -Hugh Edwards did not appear at all displeased at the suggestion that the -girl had been talking about him. - -“And I,” he returned with an equally significant glance at Marta, “have -heard so much about Doctor Burton that if there was ever a time when I -didn’t know him I have forgotten it.” - -Marta was delighted. She could not mistake the fact that the two men, as -it sometimes happens, liked each other instantly. They seemed to know -and understand each other instinctively. The truth is that the men -themselves were just a little relieved to find this to be the fact. - -Doctor Burton saw in Marta’s neighbor a man of more than ordinary -personality. That one of such character and education should choose to -live as Edwards was living, amid surroundings so foreign to the -environment in which he had so evidently been born and reared, and -should be content to occupy himself with such menial labor, was to Saint -Jimmy a puzzling thing. But Saint Jimmy was too broad in his -sympathies--too big in his understanding of life to be suspicious of -everything that puzzled him. It would, indeed, have been difficult for -any healthy-minded, clean-thinking person to be suspicious of Hugh -Edwards. - -And Hugh Edwards recognized instantly in Marta’s teacher that quality -which led all men, except such poor characterless creatures as the -Lizard, to speak in his presence with instinctive gentleness and -deference. - -When they were seated in the shade of the cabin and the two men, who -were to her so like and yet so unlike, were exchanging the usual small -talk with which all friendships, however close and enduring, commonly -begin, Marta watched and listened. - -She was right, she thought proudly; they were alike, and yet they were -different. What was it? Too frank to dissemble, too untrained in such -things to deceive, too natural and innocent to hide her interest, she -compared, contrasted, analyzed. But while she was seeking an answer to -the thing that puzzled her, there was in her mind and heart not the -faintest shadow of a suggestion that she was choosing. - -There was no occasion for choice. Indeed, she was not in reality -thinking--she was feeling. - -And the men, while more apt in hiding their emotions, were scarcely less -conscious of the situation. - -Suddenly Doctor Burton saw the girl’s face change. She was looking past -them as they sat facing her, toward the corner of the cabin. Her -expression of eager animation vanished and in its stead came a look of -almost fear. In the same instant, Jimmy was conscious that Edwards, too, -had noticed the girl’s change of countenance, and that a quick shadow -of dread and apprehension had fallen upon him. The two men turned -quickly. - -Natachee was standing at the corner of the cabin. - -For a long moment no one spoke. Then with a suggestion of a smile, as if -for some reason he was pleased with the situation, the Indian raised his -hand and uttered his customary word of greeting: - -“How.” - -They returned his salutation and he came forward to accept the chair -offered by Edwards. And though his dress, as usual, was that of a -primitive savage, his manner, at the moment, was in no way different -from the bearing of any white man with a background of educational and -social advantages. As he seated himself, he smiled again, as if finding -these three people together gave him a peculiar satisfaction. - -Doctor Burton spoke with the easy familiarity of an old friend: - -“Natachee, why on earth can’t you act more like a human being and less -like a disembodied spirit? You always come and go as silently as a -ghost.” - -“I am as God made me,” the Indian returned lightly, then he added with -mocking deference to the three white people: “Except for a few -improvements added by your civilization. It is odd, is it not,” he -continued, “how the noble red man of your so highly civilized writers -and painters and uplifters of various sorts becomes so often an ignoble -vagabond once you have subjected him to those same civilizing -influences?” - -“Certainly no one would accuse you of having acquired too much -civilization,” retorted Jimmy. - -“I hope not, I am sure,” returned the Indian quietly. Then turning to -the others, he said graciously, “You will pardon us for this little -exchange of compliments. We are not really being rude to each other, -just friendly, that is all. With me, Saint Jimmy always drops his mask -of saintliness and becomes a savage, and I cease being a savage and -become, if not a saint, at least an imitator of the white man’s virtues. -It is the privilege of our friendship.” - -“You are an old fraud,” declared Saint Jimmy. - -“You flatter me,” returned Natachee. “My white teachers would be proud -of the honor you confer. They tried so hard, you know, to educate me.” - -Edwards was amazed. He had never before heard Natachee talk in this -bantering vein. With him the Indian had always spoken gravely. He had -seldom smiled and had never laughed. The white man felt, too, that -underlying the playfulness of the Indian’s words and the seeming -pleasant humor of his mood, there was a savage interest--a cruel -certainty in the final outcome of some game in which he was taking a -grim part. He seemed to be playing as a cat plays with the victim of its -brutal and superior cunning. - -While Edwards was thinking these things and watching the red man with -an odd feeling of dread which made him recall Marta’s saying that the -Indian always gave her the creeps, Natachee addressed the girl with -grave courtesy: - -“It is really time that your teacher called upon your good neighbor, -isn’t it? I was beginning to fear that our Saint was harboring some -hidden grievance that provoked him to forget the social obligations of -his exalted position.” - -Marta made no reply save a nervous laugh of embarrassment. - -Doctor Burton flushed and said hurriedly: - -“I was just asking Mr. Edwards, Natachee, when you materialized so -unexpectedly, how he liked living in the Cañada del Oro.” - -“And I was about to reply,” said Edwards with enthusiasm, “that it is -the most beautiful, the most wonderfully satisfying place, I have ever -known.” - -The Indian smiled, and his dark eyes glanced from Marta to Saint Jimmy, -as he said: - -“Our cañon is being very good to Mr. Edwards, I think. It is giving him -health, gold enough for the necessities of life, and that peace which -passeth all understanding, with the possibility of acquiring great -wealth. It delights him with the beauty and the grandeur of nature. It -bestows upon him the blessings of a charming and delightful -companionship. And last, but not least, it affords him a sanctuary from -his enemies--if he has any. What more could any man ask of any place?” - -Hugh Edwards moved uneasily. - -The expression of Marta’s face was that of a wondering, half-frightened -child. - -Saint Jimmy looked at the Indian intently, as if he, too, had caught the -feeling of a hidden, sinister meaning beneath the red man’s courteous -manner and half-jesting words. - -“Natachee,” he said slowly, “I have often wondered--just what does the -Cañada del Oro mean to you?” - -At the Doctor’s simple question or, perhaps, at the tone of his voice, -the countenance of the Indian suddenly became as cold and impassive as a -face of iron. Sitting there before them, clothed in the wild dress of -his savage ancestors, with his dark features framed in the jet-black -hair with that single drooping feather, he seemed, all at once, to have -thrown off every vestige of his contact with the schools of -civilization. When he had been speaking in the manner of a white man, -there had been something pathetic in his appearance. Only his native -dignity had saved him from being ridiculous. But now he was the living -spirit of the untamed deserts and mountains that on every side shut in -the Cañon of Gold. His dark eyes, filled with the brooding memories of a -vanishing race, turned slowly from face to face. - -The three white people waited, with a strange feeling of uneasiness, for -him to speak. - -“You say that I, Natachee, come and go as a ghost. Well, perhaps I am a -ghost. Why not? It would not be held beyond the belief of some of your -philosophers that the spirit of one who once, long ago, dwelt amid these -scenes, should return again in this body that you call me, Natachee the -Indian. The Cañada del Oro is peopled with ghosts. Those who, in the -years that are gone, lived here in the Cañon of Gold were as the -blossoms on the mountain sides in spring. In the summer months when -there was no rain, the blossoms disappeared. Then the rains came--the -‘Little Spring’ is here--and look, the flowers are everywhere. - -“In this Cañon from the desert below to the pines above, there are holes -by the thousands where men have dug for gold. Climb the mountains and go -among the cliffs and crags and there are more and more of these holes -that were made by those who sought the yellow wealth. Walk the ridges -and make your way into the hidden ravines and gorges--everywhere you -will find them--these holes that men have dug in their search for -treasure. And every hole--every stroke of a pick--every shovel of -dirt--every pan of gravel--was a dream that did not come true; a hope -that was not fulfilled. - -“The Cañon of Gold is haunted by the ghosts of these disappointed ones. -They are the shadows that move upon the mountain sides when the sun is -down and the timid stars creep forth in the lonely sky. They are the -lights that come and go in the cañon depths when the frightened moon -tries to hide in the pines of Mount Lemmon. They are the voices that we -hear in the nighttime, whispering, murmuring, moaning. Weary spirits -that cannot rest, troubled souls that find no peace--the disappointed -ones. - -“And you who dare to dream and hope and labor here in the Cañon of Gold -to-day as those thousands who dared to dream and hope and labor here -before you--what are you but living ghosts among these restless spirits -of the dead? What are you to-day but shadows among the shades of -yesterday? - -“You, Doctor Burton, are only a memory of dreams that did not come true. -You, Mr. Edwards, are but the ghost of the man you once planned to be. -You, Miss Hillgrove, are but the living embodiment of hopes that were -never fulfilled. - -“As the shadow of an eagle passes, you came and you shall go. As the -trail of the eagle in the air so shall your dreams, your hopes and your -labor, be. - -“I, Natachee, know these things. But because I am an Indian, I dream no -dreams--I have no hopes.” He arose and for a moment stood silent before -them. Then he said: “Natachee the Indian lives among the ghosts in the -Cañon of Gold.” - -Before they could speak, he was gone; as silently as he had come he -disappeared around the corner of the cabin. - -The two men and the girl sat as if under a spell and in the heart of -each there was a strange sadness and a shadow of fear. - - * * * * * - -As Doctor Burton made his way homeward, he wished more than ever that -he had told Marta the things that the Pardners had related to him. - -Ever since that day when she had first talked to him of the stranger, -Saint Jimmy had watched carefully the girl’s growing interest in her new -neighbor. And, while Marta herself had been wholly unconscious of the -true meaning of those emotions which so disturbed her, her teacher had -understood that the womanhood of his child pupil was beginning to assert -itself. He was too wise not to know also that the time was approaching -when Marta herself would understand. - -Through all her girlhood she had been no more conscious of herself than -were the wild creatures that she knew so much better than she knew her -own humankind. She had lived and accepted life without a thought of the -part that, as a woman, she would some day be called upon to play in it. -Because of this freedom from self, she had not been deeply concerned -about the beginnings of her life. But with the arousing of those -instincts that were to her so strange would come inevitably a tremendous -quickening of her interest in herself. This new and vital interest in -herself would as surely force her to inquire with determined and fearful -persistency into her past. Who was she? Who were her parents? Under what -circumstances was she born? - -Doctor Burton knew the fine pride and the sensitive nature of his pupil -too well not to realize that, when the time did come for the girl to ask -these questions, her happiness might well depend upon the answers. - -The Lizard’s loose-mouthed gossip had brought him suddenly face to face -with a situation which was to his mind filled with real danger to -Marta’s future. His meeting with Hugh Edwards, his quick observation of -the comradeship that had developed between Marta and her neighbor, the -uneasy forebodings aroused by the Indian’s words, all combined now to -make him resolve that, at any cost to himself, he no longer would put -off telling the girl what she ought to know. If Hugh Edwards were not -the type of man he was, or if Marta were not the kind of girl she was, -it would not, perhaps, make so much difference. To-morrow Marta was -going to Oracle. She would stop at the little white house on the -mountain side on her way home. Saint Jimmy promised himself that he -would surely tell her then. - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -THE AWAKENING - - She understood now why the old prospectors had never talked to her - of her parents or told her how she happened to be their partnership - daughter. - - -Marta began that day with such buoyant happiness that even her fathers, -accustomed as they were to her habitually joyous nature, commented on -it. - -The air was tingling with the fresh and vigorous sweetness of the early -morning. From the kitchen door, as she prepared breakfast, she saw the -mountain tops, golden in the first waves of the sunshine flood that a -few hours later would fill the sky from rim to rim and cover the earth -from horizon to horizon with its dazzling beauty. From some shelf on the -cañon wall, a cañon wren loosed a flood of joyous silvery music, gracing -his song with runs and flourishes, rich and vibrant, as if the very -spirit of the hour was in his melody, and while the cañon echoed and -reëchoed to the wondrous, ringing music of the tiny minstrel and the -girl, with happy eyes and smiling lips, listened, she saw a thin column -of smoke rise from that neighboring cabin and knew that her neighbor, -too, was beginning his day. - -Like the puff of air that stirred the yellow blossom of the whispering -bells beside the creek, the thought came: Was he enjoying with her the -beauty and the sweetness of the morning? Was he sharing her happiness in -the new day? Then, as she watched, Hugh appeared in the cabin doorway -with a bucket in his hand. He was going for water to make his coffee. -She saw him pause and look toward her, and her face was radiant with -gladness as her voice rang out in merry greeting. - -All that forenoon she went about her household work with a singing -heart. When the midday meal was over, her fathers saddled Nugget and, as -soon as she had washed the dishes, she set out for Oracle to purchase -some needed supplies. - -When the girl stopped at his cabin, as she always did, to ask if she -could bring anything for him from the store, Edwards thought she had -never looked so radiantly beautiful. Glowing with the color of her -superb health and rich vitality--animated and eager with the fervor of -her joyous spirit--she was so alluring that the man was sorely tempted -to say to her those things that he had sternly forbidden himself even to -think. Lest his eyes betray the feeling he had sentenced himself to -suppress, he made pretext of giving some small attention to her horse’s -bridle, so that from the saddle she could not see his face. - -As she rode on up the trail, he stood there watching her. When she had -passed from sight around a sharp angle of the cañon wall, he went slowly -to the place where through the long days he labored in his search for -the grains of yellow metal that had come to mean so much more to him -than mere daily bread. - -Where the trail to the little white house on the hill branches off from -the main road to Oracle, Marta checked her horse. She wanted to go to -Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. She wanted them to know and share her -happiness. She wanted to tell them how grateful she was for their -love--for all that they had done to save her from the ignorant, -undisciplined and dangerously impulsive creature she would have been but -for their patient teaching. In the fullness of her heart she told -herself that without Saint Jimmy and his mother she could never have -known the joy and gladness that had come to her. Without conscious -reasoning, she realized that it was their teaching, their love, their -understanding of her needs, that had fitted her for that time of her -awakening to the glad call of those deeper emotions that now moved her -young womanhood. But above Mount Lemmon and back of Rice Peak, huge -cumulus clouds were rolling up, and the girl knew that she must continue -on the more direct way if she would finish her errand at the store and -return before the storm that might come later in the day. On her way -back, she could stop at the Burtons, for then, if the storm came, it -would not so much matter. - -Through narrow, rocky ravines and tree-shaded draws and sandy washes, up -the steep sides of mountain spurs and along the ridges, Nugget carried -her, out of the Cañon of Gold to the higher levels. And everywhere about -her as she rode, the mountain sides were bright with the blossoms of the -“Little Spring.” Sego lilies and sulphur flowers, wild buckwheat, -thistle poppies and bee plant, and, most exquisitely beautiful -of all, perhaps, the violet-tinted blue larkspur--_Espuela del -caballero_--Cavalier’s spur--the early Spaniards called it. - -In George Wheeler’s pasture, not far from the corrals with the windmill -and the water tank, she met the sturdy, red-cheeked Wheeler boys and -Turquoise, one of the ranch dogs, playing Indian. From their ambush -behind a granite rock, they shot at her with their make-believe guns, -and charged with such savage fury and fierce war whoops that Nugget -danced in quick excitement. While she was laughing with them and they -were courteously opening the big gate for her, their father shouted a -genial greeting from the barn, and Mrs. Wheeler from the front porch -called a cheery invitation for her to stop awhile. But she answered that -it looked as if it were going to rain, and that she must be home in time -for supper, and rode on her way to the little mountain village. - -In the wide space in front of the store, a group of saddle horses stood -with heads down and hanging bridle reins, waiting with sleepy patience -for their riders who were lounging on the high platform that, with steps -at either end, was built across the front of the building. As she drew -near, Marta recognized the Lizard. Then, as they watched her -approaching, she saw the Lizard say something to his companions, and -the company of idlers broke into loud laughter. The girl’s face flushed -with the uncomfortable feeling that she was the victim of the fellow’s -uncouth wit. Two of the men arose and stood a little apart from the -Lizard and his fellow loungers. - -When the girl stopped her horse, a sudden hush fell over the group, and -as she dismounted she was conscious that every eye was fixed upon her. -With burning cheeks and every nerve in her body smarting with indignant -embarrassment, the girl went quickly up the steps and into the store. As -she passed them, the two cowboys who stood apart lifted their hats. - -The girl was just inside the open doorway when the Lizard spoke again, -and again his companions roared with unclean mirth at the vulgar -jest--and this time Marta heard. She stopped as if some one had struck -her. Stunned with the shock, she stood hesitating, trembling, not -knowing what to do. For the first time in her life the girl was -frightened and ashamed. - -Two women of the village who were buying groceries regarded her coldly -for a moment, then, turning their backs, whispered together. Timidly the -girl went to the farther end of the room where, to hide her emotions -until she could gain control of herself, she pretended an interest in -the contents of a show case. - - * * * * * - -Before the laughter of the Lizard’s crowd had ceased, one of the cowboys -who had raised his hat walked up to them. With an expression of -unspeakable disgust and contempt upon his bronzed face, the rider looked -the Lizard up and down. Those who had laughed sat motionless and silent. -Slowly the man from Arkansas got to his feet. - -The cowboy spoke in a low voice, as if not wishing his words to be heard -in the store. - -“That’ll be about all from you--you stinkin’ son of a polecat. Never -mind yer gun,” he added sharply as the Lizard’s hand crept toward the -leg of his chaps. “Thar ain’t goin’ to be no trouble--not here and now. -I’m jest tellin’ you this time that such remarks are out of order a -heap, here in Arizona. They may be customary back where you come from, -but they won’t make you popular in this country--except, mebby, with -varmints of your own sort.” - -He included the Lizard’s friends in his look of cool readiness. - -Not a man moved. The cowboy carefully rolled a cigarette. Calmly he -lighted a match, and with the first deep inhalation of smoke, flipped -the burnt bit of wood at the Lizard. To the others he said: - -“I notice you hombres are thinkin’ it over. You’d best keep right on -thinkin’. As for you----“ - -He again looked the man from Arkansas up and down with slow, -contemptuous eyes. Then, without another word, he deliberately turned -his back upon the Lizard and his friends and walked leisurely to his -horse. - -As the cowboy and his companion rode away another chorus of laughter -came from the group of idlers and this time their merriment was caused, -not by anything the Lizard said, but was directed at the Lizard himself. - -“Better not let Steve Brodie catch you again,” advised one. - -“He’ll sure climb your frame if he does,” said another. - -“Steve’s a-ridin’ fer the Three C now, ain’t he?” asked another, -seemingly anxious to change the subject. - -“Uh-huh--Good man, Steve,” came from another. - -With an oath, the Lizard slouched away to his horse and, mounting, rode -off in the direction of his home. - - * * * * * - -In the store, Marta struggled desperately to regain at least a semblance -of composure. - -The two women, when they had made their purchases, were in no haste to -go, and, under the pretext of taking advantage of their meeting for a -friendly chat, furtively watched the Pardners’ girl. - -Marta, pretending to examine some dress goods displayed on a table -behind the stove, tried to hide herself. When the kindly clerk came to -wait on her she started and blushed. Trembling and confused, she could -not remember what it was that she had come to buy. - -The clerk looked at her curiously. The women whispered again and -tittered. - -At last, in desperation, the girl stammered that she did not want -anything--that she must go--that she would come in again before she -started home. With downcast eyes and burning cheeks, she fled. - -As she passed the men on the platform and walked swiftly to her horse -she kept her eyes on the ground. She was so weak that she could scarcely -raise herself to the saddle. - -But the men were not watching her now. With their faces turned away they -were, with one accord, interested in something that held their gaze in -another direction. - -Perplexed and troubled, Marta made her way slowly back toward the cañon. -When Nugget, thinking quite likely of his supper, or perhaps observing -the dark storm clouds that now hid the mountain tops, would have broken -into a swifter pace, she pulled him down to a walk. Annoyed at the -unusual restraint, the little horse fretted, tossed his head, and tugged -at the bit. But she would not let him go. The girl wanted to think. She -felt that she _must_ think. - -What was the meaning of that incident at the store? Why did those men -laugh in just that way when they first saw her? Why had they watched her -like that when she dismounted? Why had they looked at her so as she -passed them? Why did those women refuse to speak to her?--they knew her. -And what had they whispered after turning their backs upon her? She had -never before been conscious of anything like this. All her life she had -met rough men. She had not been unaccustomed to rude jests. She had -been, in the presence of men, like a young boy--unconscious of her sex. -The only close association with men she had ever known was with Saint -Jimmy and her fathers--until Edwards came. It could not be that these -people were any different to-day than on other days when she had gone to -the store. It must be that she herself was different. - -“Yes,” she told herself at last, “she _was_ different.” - -Just as she had found a deeper happiness than she had ever before known, -she had found a new consciousness--a new capacity for feeling--that had -made her blush when the men looked at her--that had made her ashamed -when she had heard the Lizard’s jest. - -And then her mind went back to consider things which she had always -accepted as a matter of course, without question or particular -thought--as she had accepted her two fathers. - -Why had she never been invited to the parties and dances at Oracle? Why -was it that, except for Mother Burton and good Mrs. Wheeler, she had no -women friends? Only men had attempted to be friendly with her, and they -had approached her only when she met them by chance, alone. She knew -them all--they all knew her. Suddenly she remembered how Saint Jimmy had -warned her once--long before Hugh Edwards had come to the Cañada del -Oro: - -“You must be always very careful in your friendships, dear. Before you -permit an acquaintance with any man to develop into anything like -intimacy, you must know about his past. And by past, I mean -parentage--family--ancestors, as well as his own personal record. For -let me tell you that no one can escape these things. We are all what the -past has made us.” - -The inevitable question came in a flash. What was her own past--her -parentage--her family? The conclusion came as quickly. She understood -now why the old prospectors had never talked to her of her own parents, -nor told her how she happened to be their partnership daughter. She -understood now the significance of her name, Hillgrove--her two fathers -had given her their names because she had no name of her own. Nothing -else could so clearly explain the attitude of the people which had been -so forcefully impressed upon her by her new consciousness. - -Just as the young woman reached this point in her reasoning, her horse -stopped of his own volition. The girl had been so engrossed with her -thoughts that she had not seen the Lizard ride from behind a thick -screen of low cedars beside the trail and check his horse directly -across the path. She was not at all frightened when she looked up and -saw him waiting there, barring her way. Indeed, she regarded the fellow -with a new interest. It was as if one factor in her sad problem had -suddenly presented itself in a very definite and tangible form. - -“Well,” she said at last, “what do _you_ want?” - -The Lizard’s wide-mouthed, leering grin was not in the least reassuring. - -“I knowed ye’d be a-comin’ along directly,” he said, “an’ ’lowed we’d -ride t’gether.” - -“But what if I do not care to ride with you?” she returned curiously. - -“Oh, that ain’t a-botherin’ me none. I ain’t noways thin-skinned,” he -returned, reining his horse aside from the trail to make room for her. -“Come along--ye might as well be sociable like. I know I can’t make much -of a-showin’ in eddication an’ fine school talk like you been used to, -but I’m jist as good as that lunger Saint Jimmy, er that there fancy -neighbor of yourn any day.” - -Something in the fellow’s face, or some quality in his tone, brought the -blood to Marta’s cheeks. - -“Thank you,” she said curtly, “but I prefer to ride alone.” - -She lifted the bridle rein and Nugget started forward. - -But the Lizard again pulled his mount across the trail and the man’s -ratlike face was twisted now, with sudden rage. - -“Oh, you do, do you? Wall, let me tell you I’ve stood all I’m a-goin’ t’ -stand on your account to-day.” - -“Why, what do you mean?” she demanded, amazed. - -“Never you mind what I mean, my lady. You jist listen to what I got t’ -say. You’ve been a-playin’ th’ high an’ mighty with me long enough. D’ -ye think I don’t know what you are? D’ ye think I don’t know all about -your carryin’ on. My Gawd a’mighty, hit’s a disgrace t’ any decent -neighborhood. A pretty one you are t’ be a-puttin’ on airs with me. Why, -you poor little fool, everybody knows what you are. Who’s yer father? -Who’s yer mother? Decent people has got decent folks, an’ you--you ain’t -got none. You ain’t even got a name of yer own--Hillgrove--two fathers. -Yer jist low-down trash an’ nobody that’s decent won’t have nothin’ t’ -do with you. You prefer t’ ride alone, do you? All right, my fine lady, -you needn’t worry none, you’re goin’ t’ ride alone all right. I wouldn’t -be seen within a mile of you.” - -With the last brutal word, he whirled his horse about and set off down -the trail as fast as the animal could run. - -The girl, with her head bowed low over the saddlehorn, sat very still. -Her trembling fingers nervously twisted a lock of Nugget’s mane. Here -was confirmation, indeed, of all the doubts and fears to which she had -been led by her own painful thoughts. Here was the answer to all her -questions. Here at last was the explanation of those emotions which were -to her so new and strange. - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -THE STORM - - “There ain’t a God almighty thing that we can do ’til th’ mornin’.” - - -The old Pardners, when their day’s work was finished, climbed slowly -down from the mouth of the tunnel to the creek and, crossing the little -stream, climbed as slowly up to the level above. As his head and -shoulders came above the top of the steep bank, Thad, who was in the -lead, stopped. - -“What’s the matter?” called Bob, who was close behind in the narrow path -with his head on a level with his pardner’s feet. “Gittin’ so old you -can’t make the grade without takin’ a rest, be you?” - -“Whar’s the little pinto hoss?” demanded Thad in an injured tone, as if -the absence of Nugget was a personal grievance. - -Bob climbed to his pardner’s side. - -“Looks like Marta ain’t back yet.” - -“She ought to be,” said Thad with an anxious eye on the threatening -clouds that now hung dark and heavy over the upper cañon. - -“Stopped at Saint Jimmy’s, I reckon,” returned Bob, who was also -studying the angry sky. “Goin’ to storm some, ain’t it?” - -“The gal sure can’t miss seein’ that,” returned the other, “an’ she -ought to know that when we do get a storm this time of the year, it’s -always a buster. I wish she was home.” - -“Mebby she’s over to Edwards’,” said Bob hopefully. - -They went on toward the house until they gained an unobstructed view of -the neighboring cabin and premises. - -“Her hoss ain’t there neither,” said Thad, and again he looked up at the -dark, rolling clouds. - -“Oh, she’ll be comin’ along in a minute or two,” offered Bob soothingly, -but his voice betrayed the anxiety his words were meant to hide. - -Marta was no novice in the mountains, and the old Pardners knew that it -was not like their girl to ignore the near approach of a storm that -would in a few moments change the murmuring cañon creek into a wild, -roaring flood that no living horse could ford or swim. The trail, on its -course from her home to the Burtons, and to Oracle, crossed and -recrossed the creek many times, and should the storm break in the upper -cañon at the right moment, it would easily be possible for the girl to -be trapped at some point between the cañon walls and the bends of the -stream, and forced to spend at least the night there. More than this, -there was a place where the trail followed for some distance up the -narrow, sandy bed of the creek itself, between sheer cliffs. The -Pardners and Marta had more than once seen a rolling, plunging, raging -wall of water come thundering down the cañon from a storm above, with a -mad force that no power on earth could check or face, and with a -swiftness that no horse could outrun. - -A few scattered drops of rain came pattering down. The Pardners without -another word hurried over to Edwards’ cabin. - -The younger man, who was coming up the path from his work, greeted them -with a cheery, “Hello, neighbors--looks like we’re going to have a -shower.” Then as he came closer and saw their faces, his own countenance -changed and the old look of fear came into his eyes. “Why, what’s the -matter--what has happened?” He glanced quickly around, as if half -expecting to see some one else near-by. - -“Marta ain’t come home,” said Thad. - -And in the same instant Bob asked: - -“Did she say anythin’ to you about bein’ specially late gettin’ back -to-day?” - -Edwards drew a long breath of relief. - -“No, she said nothing to me about her plans. But really, there is no -cause for worry, is there? She always stops at the Burtons’ with the -mail on her way back, you know. Perhaps she stayed longer than she -realized. Come on in out of the wet,” he added, as the pattering drops -of rain grew more plentiful. “She will be along presently, I am sure.” - -With a glance at the fast-approaching storm, Thad said quickly: - -“You don’t understand, son, we ain’t worried about the gal gettin’ -wet.” And then in a few words he explained the grave possibilities of -the situation. “If she stops at Saint Jimmy’s, it’ll be all right, but -if she’s a-tryin’ to make it home and gets caught in the cañon----“ - -A gust of wind and a swirling dash of rain punctuated his words. - -Old Bob started for the cañon trail. The others followed at his heels. -When they reached the narrow road a short distance away they halted for -a second. - -“There’s fresh hoss tracks,” said Bob. “Somebody’s been ridin’ this way. -’Tain’t the pinto, though.” - -“It’s the Lizard probably,” said Edwards. “I saw him pass on his way up -the cañon this forenoon.” - -Half running, they hurried on. Before they reached the first turn in the -cañon, a fierce downpour drenched them to the skin. The falling flood of -water, driven by the blast that swept down from the mountain heights and -swirled around the cliffs and angles of the cañon walls, hissed and -roared with fury. - -“There goes any chance of strikin’ her trail,” shouted Thad grimly. - -The three men bent their heads and broke into a run. - -At the beginning of that stretch of the trail which follows the bed of -the creek, Bob stopped abruptly. - -“Look here,” he said to the others, “we’ve got to use some sense an’ go -at this thing right. If we all of us go ahead like this, we’ll all be -caught on t’other side of the creek when the rise gets here. If she -ain’t already in the cañon, she might be at Saint Jimmy’s, and she might -not. There’s a chance that the gal got started home from the store late -an’ was afraid to try comin’ this way, and so left Oracle by the Tucson -highway, figurin’ to cut across the hills somewheres to the old cañon -road an’ try crossin’ the creek lower down, like we do sometimes. It’ll -be plumb dark pretty quick an’ if she ain’t at Saint Jimmy’s, there -ought to two of us cover both trails--the one by Burtons’ an’ the one -that goes direct, an’ there ought to one of us stay on this side of the -creek in case she has made it the other way ’round. You won’t be much -good nohow, son,” he continued to Edwards, “if it comes to huntin’ the -hills out, ’cause you don’t know the country like we do. Suppose you go -back down to the lower crossin’ where the old road comes into the cañon, -you know--the way you come. If she don’t show up there in another hour -or two, you’ll know she didn’t go that way. There ain’t another thing -that you can do ’til daylight.” - -“You men know best,” said Edwards and turned to go. - -Thad caught the younger man by the arm. - -“Wait.” For a second he paused, then spoke slowly: “It might not be a -bad idea while you’re down that way to drop in on the Lizard.” - -“Come on,” cried Bob. “We sure got to run for it if we beat the rise -into this cut.” - -The Pardners disappeared in the gray, swirling downpour. Edwards, with a -new fear in his heart, ran with all his strength down the cañon. But it -was not alone the thought of the coming flood that made his heart sink -with sickening dread--it was the memory of the Lizard’s face that day -when the fellow had first told him of Marta. - -By the time he reached the cabin, Hugh heard the roaring thunder of the -flood. For an instant he paused. Had the two old prospectors gained the -higher ground beyond the stretch of trail in the creek bottom in time? -He turned as if to go back, then came the thought he could not now -retrace his steps beyond the first crossing. Whether the Pardners were -safe or were caught by the flood, it was too late now for human aid to -reach them. - -Again he hurried on down the cañon. When he came to the place where he -had made his camp that first night in the Cañon of Gold, it was almost -dark, but over the spot where he had built his fire and spread his -blanket bed he could see a leaping, racing torrent that filled the -channel of the creek from bank to bank. - -For nearly three hours he waited where the old road crossed the stream. -Convinced at last that Marta had not come that way, he went on down the -cañon, to the adobe house where the Lizard lived with his parents. - -It was late now but there was a light in the window. The dogs filled the -night with their clamor as he approached and he stopped at the -dilapidated gate to shout: - -“Hello--Hello!” - -The door opened and a long lane of light cut through the darkness. The -Lizard’s voice followed the light: - -“Hello yourself--what do you want--who be you?” - -“I’m Edwards from up the cañon--call off your dogs, will you?” - -From the gate, he could see the fellow in the doorway turn to consult -with some one inside. Then the Lizard called to the dogs and shouted: - -“Come on in, neighbor. Little late fer you t’ be out, ain’t it?” he -added as Edwards approached, then: “Who you got with you?” - -“There is no one with me,” returned Edwards as he paused in the light -before the door. - -“Come in--yer welcome--come right in an’ set by the fire. Yer some wet, -I reckon.” As the Lizard spoke, he drew aside from the doorway and as -Edwards entered he saw the man place a rifle, which he had held, against -the wall. - -An old woman sat beside the open fire smoking a cob pipe. The Lizard’s -father stood with his back to the wall at the far end of the room. They -greeted the visitor with a brief, “Howdy.” The Lizard offered a -broken-backed chair. - -“Thank you,” said Edwards, “but I can’t stop to sit down. I came to ask -if you have seen Miss Hillgrove this afternoon.” - -The Lizard and his father looked at each other. The old mother answered: - -“What’s the matter, come up missin’, has she?” - -Edwards told them in a few words. - -The old woman spat in the fire and laughed. - -“She’s most likely out in the brush somewheres with some no-account -feller like herself. Sarves her right if she gits caught by the creek. -Sich triflin’ hussies ought ter git drowned, I say--allus a-tryin’ t’ -coax decent folks inter meanness. Best not waste yer time a-huntin’ sich -as her, young man.” - -Edwards spoke sharply to the Lizard, who was grinning with satisfaction. - -“Did you see Miss Hillgrove this afternoon, anywhere on the trail -between here and Oracle?” - -The father answered in a voice shrill with vicious anger. - -“Wal, an’ what ef he did--who be you to be a-comin’ here at this time o’ -the night wantin’ t’ know ef my boy has or hain’t seed nobody?” - -Hugh Edwards forced himself to speak calmly. - -“I am asking a civil question which your son should be glad to answer.” -He again faced the Lizard. “Did you see her?” - -An insolent, wide-mouthed grin was the Lizard’s only reply. - -The old woman by the fire looked over her shoulder. - -“Tell him, boy, tell him,” she croaked. “You ain’t got no call to be -skeered o’ sich as him.” - -“Shucks, maw,” said the son. “I ain’t skeered o’ nothin’. I’m jist -a-havin’ a little fun, that’s all.” - -He addressed Edwards: - -“You bet yer life I seed her ’bout a mile this side o’ Wheeler’s pasture -it was. We shore had a nice little visit too. You an’ that thar Saint -Jimmy needn’t t’ think you’re th’ only ones.” - -Before Edwards could speak, the old woman cried again: - -“Tell him, son--why don’t ye tell him what ye said?” - -The Lizard grinned. - -“I shore told her enough. I’d been a-aimin’ t’ lay her out first chanct -I got. When I got through with her, you can bet she knowed more ’bout -herself than she’d ever knowed before. She shore knows now what she is -an’ what folks is a-thinkin’ ’bout her an’ her carryin’ on with that -there lunger an’ you.” His voice rose and his rat eyes glistened with -triumph. “She wouldn’t ride with me--Oh, no!--‘prefer t’ ride alone,’ -says she. An’ I says, says I--when I’d finished a-tellin’ her what she -was an’ how she didn’t have no folks, ner name, ner nothin’--‘You -needn’t t’ worry none, there wouldn’t no decent man be seen within a -mile of you.’ An’ then I left her settin’ thar like she’d been whipped.” - -Hugh Edwards moved a step nearer. It seemed impossible to him that any -man could do a thing so vile. - -“Are you in earnest?” he asked. “Did you really say such things to Miss -Hillgrove?” - -“I shore did,” returned the Lizard proudly. “I believe in lettin’ sech -people know whar they stand. She’s been a-playin’ th’ high an’ mighty -with me long enough.” - -Then Edwards struck. With every ounce of his strength behind it, the -blow landed fair on the point of the Lizard’s chin. The loose mouth was -open at the instant, the slack jaw received the impact with no -resistance. The effect was terrific. The fellow’s head snapped back as -if his neck were broken--he fell limp and senseless halfway across the -room. - -The old woman screeched to her man: - -“Git him, Jole, git him!” - -The Lizard’s father started forward and Edwards saw a knife. - -A quick leap and Hugh caught up the rifle that the Lizard had placed -against the wall. Covering the man with the knife, the visitor said -coolly to the woman: - -“Not to-night, madam. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but he isn’t going to -get any one just now.” - -He backed to the door and opened it with his face toward them and his -weapon ready. - -“I will leave this gun at the gate,” he said. “If you are as wise as I -think you are, you will not leave this room until you are sure that I am -gone.” - -He pulled the door shut as he backed across the threshold. - -As Hugh Edwards made his way back up the cañon he reflected on what the -Lizard had said. One thing was certain, Marta had not started home by -the highway. But where was she now? At Saint Jimmy’s? Edwards doubted -that the girl would go to her friends after such an experience. Nor did -he believe that she would come directly home. He knew too well the -sensitive pride that was under all the frank boyishness of her nature. -No one was better fitted than he to appreciate the possible effects of -the Lizard’s cruelty. - -Hugh Edwards knew the dreadful power of humiliation and shame. He knew -the burning, withering torture of unexpected and unjust public exposure -and of undeserved popular condemnation. He knew the horror and despair -of innocence subjected to the unspeakable cruelty of those evil-minded -gossips whose one hope is that the venomous news they spread may be -true, so that they will not be deprived of their vicious pleasure. -Better than any one, Hugh Edwards knew why Marta had not come home after -meeting the Lizard. - -Like a hunted creature, wounded and spent, this man had come, as so many -had come before him, to the Cañada del Oro. He had come to the Cañon of -Gold to forget and to be forgotten--and he had found Marta. In the -frankness and fearlessness of her innocence, the girl had not known how -to keep her love from him. And seeing her love, hungering for that love -as a starving man hungers for food, as a soul in torment hungers for -peace, he had resolutely forbidden himself to speak the words that would -make her his. - -When he had first come to the cañon, he had hoped only to find gold -enough to secure the bare necessities of life. And when out of their -daily companionship his love had come with such distracting power, he -had been the more miserable. But when he had heard from the Pardners -their story of how they found the girl, he had seen that there was no -reason save his own ill-starred past why, if he could win freedom from -that past, he might not claim her. That freedom--the freedom from the -thing that had driven him to hide in the Cañada del Oro--the freedom to -tell her his love, could only be had in the gold for which he toiled in -the sand and gravel and rocks beside the cañon creek. - -As men, through all the years, have sought gold for love, so he had -worked in that place of broken hopes and vanished dreams. Every day when -she was with him he had sternly forced himself to wait. Every night he -had dreamed, in his lonely cabin, of the time when he should be free. -Every morning he had gone to his work at sunrise, buoyed with the hope -that before dark his pick and shovel would uncover a rich pocket of the -yellow metal. Every evening at sunset, as he climbed up the steep path -from the place of his labor, he had whispered to himself, “To-morrow.” -And now it had all come to this. With the knowledge of what the Lizard -had done, and the full realization of all that might so easily result, -the man’s control of himself was broken. He was beside himself with -anxiety. If Marta was not safe with her friends in the little white -house on the mountain side, where was she? Had the Pardners found her? -Was she wandering half insane with shame and despair through the storm -and darkness? Had she been caught in that plunging flood that was -roaring with such wild fury down the cañon? Was her beautiful body, that -had been so vivid, so radiant with life, at that moment being crushed -and torn by the grinding bowlders and jagged walls of rocks? Perhaps the -Pardners, too, had been met by that rushing wall of water before they -could escape from the trap into which he had seen them disappear. As -these thoughts crowded upon him, the man broke into a run. There must be -something--something that he could do. The sense of his utter -uselessness was maddening. - -At the gate to Marta’s home he stopped, and in the agony of his fears he -shouted her name. Again and again he called, until the loneliness of the -dark house and the sullen grinding, crashing roar of the creek drove him -on. At the first crossing above his own cabin, the stream barred his -way. Again he cried with all his might, “Marta! Marta! Thad! Bob!” But -the sound of his voice was lost, beaten down, overwhelmed by the wild -tumult of the plunging torrent. At last, weary and spent with his -efforts, and realizing dully the foolishness of such a useless waste of -his strength, he returned to Marta’s home. - -He did not stop at his own cabin. Something seemed to lead him on to -that house to which he had drifted months before, as a broken and -battered ship drifts into a safe harbor from the storm that has left it -nearly a wreck. Since the first hour of his coming, that home had been -his refuge. Every morning from his own cabin door he had looked for the -chimney smoke as a wretched castaway watches for a signal of hope and -cheer. Every night in his loneliness he had looked for the lights as one -lost in the desert looks at a guiding star. He could not bear the -thought now of those dark windows and empty rooms. - - * * * * * - -As the Pardners were climbing out of the creek bed where the trail -leaves the cañon for the higher levels they heard the thundering roar of -the coming flood. - -“Thank God, we know that won’t git her anyhow,” gasped old Thad. “That -there run jest about winded me.” - -Bob, panting heavily, managed a sickly grin. - -“Like as not we’ll find her safe an’ dry eatin’ supper at Saint Jimmy’s, -an’ ready to laugh at us for a pair of old fools gettin’ ourselves so -worked up over nothin’.” - -“Here’s hopin’,” returned the other. “But it’s bound to be a bad night -for the boy back there. Pity there won’t be no way to get word to him -’til mornin’.” - -They could not go very fast, and it was pitch dark before they reached -the little white house. But at the sight of the lighted windows they -hurried as best they could, stumbling over the loose rocks and slipping -in the mud up the narrow, zigzag trail. - -In less than ten minutes from the time Saint Jimmy opened the door in -answer to their knock they were again starting out into the night. And -this time they separated. Thad returned to the point where the path that -leads by the Burton place branches off from the main trail to make his -way from there on, while Bob continued on the path from the white house -which joins again the main trail at Wheeler’s pasture gate. - -Another hour, and the storm was past. Through the ragged clouds, the -stars peered timidly. But every ravine and draw and wash was a channel -for a roaring freshet. - -A little way from Wheeler’s corral, in the pasture, Thad met his pardner -coming back. He was riding and leading another horse saddled. - -“She didn’t start home on the highway,” said Bob. - -“They seen her at Wheeler’s, did they?” - -“Yes, George saw her himself when she was goin’, an’ when she come back. -George, he’s saddled up an’ gone on into Oracle to pass the word. He’ll -be out with a bunch of riders at sun-up.” - -Thad climbed stiffly into the saddle and for some minutes the two old -prospectors sat on their horses without speaking, while over their heads -the windtorn clouds swept past as if hurrying to some meeting place -beyond the distant hills. - -“There ain’t a God almighty thing that we can do ’til th’ mornin’,” said -Bob at last. - -Slowly and in silence they rode back to the little white house on the -mountain side, there to wait with Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton for the -coming of the day. - -The two old prospectors, who had spent the greater part of their lives -amid scenes of hardship and danger and whose years had been years of -disappointment and failure in their vain search for treasure of gold, -had given themselves without reserve to the child that chance had so -strangely placed in their keeping. Lacking the home love and the -fatherhood that spurs the millions of toiling men to their tasks, and -glorifies the burden of their labors, Bob and Thad had spent themselves -in their love for their partnership daughter. But, because these men had -been schooled in silence by the deserts and the mountains, they made no -outward show of their anxiety and fear. They did not cry out in wild -protest and vain regrets and idle conjectures. They did not walk the -floor or wring their hands. They sat motionless in stolid -silence--waiting. - -Mother Burton, in the seclusion of her own room, found relief for her -overwrought nerves in quiet tears and carried the burden of her anxious, -aching mother-heart to the God of motherhood. - -Saint Jimmy paced the floor with slow, measured steps, pausing now and -then to look from the window into the night or to stand in the open -doorway with his face lifted to the wind-swept sky, listening--listening -for a voice in the darkness. - -In Marta’s home beside the roaring creek--alone amid the dear intimate -things of her daily life--the man who had been made to live again in her -love waited--waited for the eternity of the night to lift from the Cañon -of Gold. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -MARTA’S FLIGHT - - She did not know where she was going. She did not care. What did it - matter where she went? - - -The victim of the Lizard’s unspeakable brutality was as one dazed by an -unexpected blow. Coming, as the fellow’s vicious attack did, so close -upon her own uneasy thoughts, it seemed to answer all her troubled -questions and she accepted every cruel word as the truth. - -Nugget, wondering, perhaps, why his rider remained so motionless when -the other horse and rider had gone on, essayed an inquiring step or two -forward. When his mistress gave no heed to his movement, he tossed his -head and pulled at the slack bridle rein invitingly. “What’s the -matter?” he seemed to say. “Come on--why don’t we go?” But still she -gave no sign of life. Slowly, as if still wondering and a bit doubtful, -the little horse moved on down the familiar way toward home. At the -pasture gate, the pinto, without a sign from his rider, placed himself -so that she could reach the latch. Mechanically she opened the gate and -the knowing animal helped her close it from the other side. - -But when Nugget would have taken the trail which goes past that white -house on the mountain side by which they always went home from Oracle, -Marta reined him back with a sudden start. She could not go that way -now. She remembered with a wave of hot shame how she had proposed to -Saint Jimmy that they be married and run away somewhere--and how she had -pictured their home. She understood now why he had laughed in that -queer, strained way. It would have seemed funny to any man like Doctor -Burton, with such a family name and birth and breeding, that a girl like -her--born as she was without a name, with no right to be born at all, -even--would dare to suggest such a thing. - -Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton had been good to her--yes, they would be -good to any one like that. They had pitied her and had wanted to help -her. But of course Saint Jimmy had laughed when she asked him to marry -her. She would love those dear friends always, but at the thought of -ever meeting them again she shook with terror. She felt that she would -die with shame. - -As she rode on, the girl gave no heed to the heavy storm clouds that -were massing above the upper cañon. At any other time she would have -seen and would have pushed her horse to his utmost speed in a race with -the coming flood. But now she was too occupied to think of the -approaching danger. In fact, her thoughts of Saint Jimmy and Mother -Burton were only momentary. When her horse had turned into the direct -trail to the cañon, she was fighting to keep herself from thinking of -the man who lived in the cabin so close to her home. She was telling -herself over and over that she must not think of him. And yet she did, -and her thoughts burned like coals of fire. - -Marta knew now with terrifying certainty that she loved Hugh -Edwards--not, indeed, with the love that she gave Saint Jimmy and, -which, until Edwards came, was the only kind of love she knew, but with -that other love--the love that a woman gives to the one man she chooses -above all others to be her man for all time to come, in the lives of her -children--their children. Her happiness that morning had been born of -the certainty that the man she had chosen wanted her. He had never -spoken a word of love to her but she knew. In a thousand ways he had -told her. His very efforts to keep from speaking had made her more sure -in her happiness. - -She had not understood. She had not even realized why she had wanted him -to speak. She had only felt instinctively that she belonged to him, and -that he wanted her, but that for some reason he hesitated. But now the -Lizard had explained it all. She knew now that her love for Edwards was -an evil love. She knew that her instinctive answer to him was a wicked -thing. She knew that the emotions stirred by him were vile. She -understood at last why he had not spoken the words she hungered to hear. -He would never speak. He was like Saint Jimmy. The mother of Hugh -Edwards’ sons must not be a nameless nobody--a creature of shameful -birth and evil desires--a woman upon whom decent women turn their backs -and at whom men like the Lizard laughed in scorn. - -The girl was almost in sight of Hugh’s cabin when, with sudden energy, -she sat erect and again checked her horse. Around that next turn in the -cañon wall he would be waiting. She could not go on. A barrier, -invisible but mightier than any mountain wall, had fallen across her -way. She was separated--shut out. She was unclean. She must not go near -the one she loved. - -Wheeling her horse, the girl rode away up the cañon, straight toward the -storm that was gathering in the mountains above. She did not know where -she was going. She did not care. What did it matter where she went? She -would go anywhere but there where he was waiting. - -Blindly she rode into that stretch of the trail that lies in the channel -of the creek between the sheer walls. But when, at the end of the -hall-like passage, her horse would have followed the trail out of the -cañon, she pulled him back. The pinto fretted and tried to turn once -more toward home, but she forced him to leave the trail and go on up the -creek. - -For some time the little horse labored through the sand and gravel or -picked his way, as a mountain horse will, around bowlders and over the -rocks. So that when those first few drops of rain came pattering down, -the girl was already a considerable distance up the cañon. Again Nugget -protested, and again she forced him on. - -She had reached a point beyond where the cañon turns back toward the -south when the storm broke and the rain came swirling down the mountain -in torrents. The fierce downpour, driven by the heavy gusts of wind, -forced her to bend low in the saddle. On every side the dense gray -curtain enveloped her. Her horse broke in open rebellion. Nugget knew, -if his rider had forgotten, the grave danger of their position in the -creek bed, and he proceeded to take such action as would at least insure -their immediate safety. - -There were a few preliminary bounds, then a scrambling rush with flying -gravel and rolling rocks and tearing brush, with plunging leaps and -straining heavy lifts, during which the girl rider could do little more -than cling to the saddle. When her horse finally consented again to the -control of the bit, and stood trembling, with heaving flanks, on the -steep side of the mountain, Marta had lost all sense of direction. In -the terrific downpour, she could not see a hundred yards. Wrapped in the -gray folds of that wind-blown curtain, every detail of the landscape -save the near-by bushes was obscured beyond recognition. No familiar -peak or sky-line could be seen. - -Suddenly Nugget threw up his head--his ears pointed inquiringly. The -girl, too, looked and listened. Then above the hiss of the rain on the -rocks and bushes, and the roar of the wind along the mountain slope, she -heard the thunder of the coming flood. Nearer and louder came the sound -until presently that rolling crest of the flood, freighted with -crushing, grinding bowlders, swept past and the gray depths of the cañon -below her horse’s feet were filled with the wild uproar. - -Marta knew that to go back the way she had come was impossible. She -realized dully that Nugget had saved both her life and his. It did not -much matter, but she was glad that the little horse was not down there -in the bed of the creek. They might as well go on somewhere, she -thought; perhaps Nugget could find some place where he at least would be -more comfortable. - -Giving her horse the signal to start, she dropped the bridle rein on his -neck, thus permitting him to choose his own course. With sure-footed -care, the little horse picked his way along the mountain side, always -climbing a little higher until finally they reached what the girl knew -must be the top of a ridge or spur of the main range. Following this -ridge, which led always upward but at an easy grade, the pinto moved -with greater freedom. They came at last to a low gap through which -Nugget went without a sign of hesitation, and again he was making his -way along the steep side of the mountain. - -It was nearly dark when the girl became aware that her horse was -following a faint trail. She did not know when they had come into this -trail. It was so faintly marked that it could scarcely be distinguished, -if at all. But Nugget seemed perfectly content and confident, and -because there was no reason for doing otherwise, and because she did -not care, she let the horse go the way he had chosen. - -The night came swiftly down. The gray curtain deepened to black. The -girl did not even try to guess where she was except that she knew she -must be somewhere on one of the mountain slopes that form the upper part -of Cañada del Oro--the wildest and most remote section of the Santa -Catalina range. - -She was exhausted with the stress of her emotions and numb with her -rain-soaked clothing in the cool air of the altitude to which they had -climbed. As the light failed and the black wall of the night closed in -about her, she swayed, half fainting, in her saddle. Nugget stopped and -the girl slipped to the ground, clinging to the saddle for support. -Peering into the gloom she could barely distinguish the mass of a -mountain cedar a little farther on. - -Wearily she stumbled and crept forward until she could crawl beneath the -low sodden branches. - -The girl felt herself sinking into a thick darkness that was not the -darkness of the night. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -NATACHEE - - “My gifts are only the gifts of an Indian, Miss Hillgrove; I see - with the eyes of a red man, that is all.” - - -As consciousness returned to Marta, her first sensation was that of -physical comfort. She thought that she was in her own bed at home, -awakening from a dream. Slowly she opened her eyes. Instead of her own -familiar room she saw the rough, unhewn rafters, the log walls, and the -rude furnishings of an apartment that was strange. - -Wonderingly, without moving, she looked at the unfamiliar details--at -the fireplace of uncut rocks with a generous fire blazing on the -hearth--the lighted lamp on the table--the rough board cupboard in the -far corner--the cooking utensils hanging beside the fireplace--and at -the skins of mountain lion and lynx and fox and wolf and bear that hung -upon the walls. It all seemed real enough, and yet she felt that it must -be a part of her dream. She would awaken presently she thought--how -curious--how real it was. - -She put a hand and arm out from under the covers and touched, not the -familiar blankets of her own bed, but a fur robe. The effect was as if -she had come in contact with an electric wire. In the same instant she -saw the sleeve of her jacket, and realized that she was not in her own -bed at all, but was lying fully dressed on a rude couch--that her -clothing was still wet from a storm that was not a dream storm, and that -everything else was as real. - -But where was she? Who had brought her to this strange place? Fully -awake now, the girl made a more careful survey of the room, and this -time saw hanging on a peg in the log wall near the fireplace a bow with -a sheaf of arrows, and on the floor beneath a pair of moccasins. - -“Natachee!” - -With a shudder, as if from a sudden chill, Marta threw back the fur robe -and sat up. She was not frightened. It is doubtful if Marta had ever in -her life known real fear. But there was something about the Indian that -always, as she had expressed it, “gave her the creeps.” - -Swiftly her mind reviewed the hours that had passed since she left her -home to go to Oracle. Her good-by to Edwards, her happiness as she rode -over the familiar trail, her meeting with the Wheeler children and their -parents, the incident at the store, her troubled thoughts as she started -homeward, and then, the crushing shame--the horror of the things that -the Lizard had made known to her. Of her actual movements after the -Lizard left her, she remembered almost nothing clearly. That part of her -experience remained to her still as a dream. But that one dominant -necessity which had driven her into the storm and the night; _that_ -stood clear in all its naked and hideous reality. She could not, with -the burning certainty of her shame, she could not see Saint Jimmy nor -Hugh Edwards again. - -Rising, she went to the fireplace and stood before the blaze to dry her -still damp clothing. She was calmer now. The wild uncontrolled storm of -her emotions had passed. With her physical exhaustion had come a sort of -relief from her emotional strain. She could think now. As she stood -looking down into the fire she told herself, with a degree of calmness, -that she _must_ think. She must plan--she must decide--what should she -do? - -She was standing there, with her eyes fixed on the blazing logs in the -fireplace, when she became aware that she was not alone. As clearly as -if she had seen it, she felt a presence in the room. She turned to look -over her shoulder. Natachee stood just inside the closed door of the -cabin. He had entered, opening and closing the heavy door without a -sound. - -As she whirled to face him, the Indian bowed with grave courtesy. - -“I beg your pardon, Miss Hillgrove, I did not mean to startle you but I -thought you might be sleeping.” - -There was nothing either in the Indian’s face or in his manner to alarm -her. Save for his savage dress he might have been any well-bred college -or university man. Nor did the girl in the least fear him. She only felt -that curious creepy feeling that she always experienced in his -presence. - -As if to put her more at ease, Natachee went to bring a rustic chair -from the other end of the room, saying in a matter-of-fact tone: - -“I have been out taking care of your little horse. He will be -comfortable for the night, I think.” He placed the chair before the fire -and drew back. “Won’t you be seated? You can dry your boots so much -better.” - -Marta sat down and, holding her wet feet to the blaze, looked again into -the ruddy flames. The Indian, standing at the other side of the room, -waited, motionless as a graven image, for her to speak. - -“Thank you,” she said at last. - -At her words, or rather at her air of utter hopelessness, a flash of -cruel satisfaction gleamed for an instant in the somber eyes of the red -man. - -But Marta did not see. - -“It is nothing,” said the Indian and his deep voice gave no hint of the -fire that had, for the instant, blazed in his dark impassive -countenance. “It is a pleasure to be of any service.” And then with a -smile which again the girl did not see, he added, “I was caught in the -storm myself.” - -Without raising her eyes Marta said wearily, as if it did not in the -least matter: - -“It was you who found me and brought me here?” - -“I was on my way home from the cañon below when I chanced to catch a -glimpse of you and your horse against the sky. Naturally I was curious -to know who it was that rode in these unfrequented mountains through -such a storm and at such an hour. I managed to follow you and so found -your horse. Then I found you and brought you here.” - -When the girl was silent he continued: - -“My poor little hut is not much, I know, but it is a shelter at least, -and I assure you you are as welcome as if it were the home of your -dreams.” - -At this the girl threw up her head with a start. Staring at him with -wide questioning eyes she said wonderingly: - -“The home of my dreams? What do you know of my dreams?” - -Natachee bowed his head. - -“I beg your pardon. My choice of words was unfortunate but -unintentional, I assure you. And yet,” he finished with quiet dignity, -“it would be difficult for any one to imagine a woman like you being -without a dream home.” - -With a shudder the girl turned back to the fire. - -Again that gleam of savage pleasure flashed in the eyes of the Indian. - -“But I am forgetting,” he said, “you have had nothing to eat since noon -and it is now past midnight. This is a poor sort of hospitality indeed.” - -As he spoke he went to the cupboard and began putting dishes and food on -the table. - -The girl watched him curiously--his every movement was so sure, so -complete and positive. There was no show of haste and yet every motion -was as quick as the movements of a deer. He gave the impression of -tremendous strength and energy, yet his touch was as light as the hand -of a child, and his step as noiseless as the step of that great cat, the -cougar. Indeed, as he went to and fro between the table, the cupboard -and the fireplace, Marta thought of a mountain lion. - -“And how do you know that I have had nothing to eat since noon?” she -asked presently. - -Without looking up from the venison steak he was preparing, he answered: - -“You went to Oracle early in the afternoon--you did not stop at the -Wheeler ranch on your way back--you did not go to Saint Jimmy’s--you did -not go to Hugh Edwards’--you did not go home.” - -The girl’s cheeks flushed as she persisted: - -“But how do you know? Have you some supernatural gift that enables you -to see what people are doing no matter where you are?” - -Natachee laughed. - -“My gifts are only the gifts of an Indian, Miss Hillgrove; I see with -the eyes of a red man, that is all.” - -The girl looked again into the fire. - -“I wish you did have the gift of second sight,” she said, speaking half -to herself. - -The Indian flashed a look at her that would have startled her had she -seen it. - -“Why?” - -“Because,” she answered slowly, “because then perhaps you could tell me -something that I want very much to know.” - -The Indian, who was behind her, smiled. - -“Dinner is served,” he said. - -“Really I--I don’t think I can eat a thing,” she faltered, looking up at -him. - -“I know,” he returned gravely, “but perhaps if you try--“ he placed a -chair for her and stood expectantly. - -And Marta felt herself compelled to obey his unspoken will. Perhaps -because of the strange effect of the Indian’s personality upon her, or -perhaps because she sought relief from the pain of thoughts which she -could not express, the girl encouraged the red man to talk of his life -in the mountains. And Natachee, as if courteously willing to serve her -purpose, followed her conversational leadings with no mention of her own -life in the Cañada del Oro or of her friends. Over their simple meal, of -which Marta managed to partake because she felt she must, he told her of -his hunting experiences and drew from his seemingly inexhaustible store -of desert and mountain lore many strange and interesting things. Nor was -there, in anything that he said or in his way of speaking, the slightest -hint of his Indian nature. - -As they left the table, and Marta resumed her seat before the fire, she -said: - -“But I do not understand how a man educated as you are can be satisfied -to live like--“ she hesitated. - -“Like an Indian?” he finished for her. - -“Well, yes.” - -There was a long moment of silence before he replied with a marked -change in his voice: - -“I live like an Indian because I am an Indian. Because if I would I -could not be anything else.” - -As he spoke he came to the other side of the fireplace and seated -himself on the floor and the act had for the girl the odd effect of a -deliberate renunciation of the civilization which she, in her chair, -seemed for the moment to personify. It was as if in answering her -question he had cast off the habit of his white man’s schooling; had -thrown aside mask and cloak and placed before her his true self. As he -sat there, in the picturesque garb of his savage fathers, with the ruddy -light of the fire playing on his bronze, impassive countenance and -glinting in the somber depths of his steady eyes, the young white woman -looking down upon him could detect no trace of the white man’s training. - -“And yet,” she said, “this cabin--this room--does not look like any -Indian’s home that I ever saw.” - -He answered with the native imagery of a red man: - -“The cougar that has been taught to jump through a hoop at the crack of -his trainer’s whip is still a cougar. The eagle in a white man’s cage -never acquires the spirit of a dove.” - -“But I should think that with your education you would live among your -people and teach them.” - -Gazing steadfastly into the fire he answered grimly: - -“And what would you have me teach my people?” - -“Why, teach them what you have learned--teach them how to live.” - -The Indian looked at her, and the girl saw something in his countenance -that made her feel, all at once, very weak and helpless. She was -embarrassed as if caught in some petty meanness. In her confusion she -began to stammer an apology but the red man raised his hand. - -“You, a white woman, shall hear an Indian. I, Natachee, will speak. - -“It would be easier to number the drops of water that fell in the storm -to-night than to tell the years of these mountains that look down upon -the Cañada del Oro and the desert beyond. They have seen the ages pass -as the cloud shadows that race across their foothills when the spring -winds blow. Before the beginnings of what you white people call history -they had watched many races of men rise to the fullness of their -strength and pride, and fall as the flowers of the thistle poppies fall -in the desert dust. In the time appointed the Indians came. - -“From the peaks of these mountains Natachee the Indian can see far. From -the place where the sun rises in the east, to the mountains behind which -he goes down in the west, and from the farthest range that lies like a -soft blue shadow in the north, to that line in the south where the -desert and the sky become one, this land was the homeland of my Indian -fathers. Since the God of all life placed us here it has been our home. -What has the Indian to-day? - -“Was there a place where the tall pines grew and the winter snows -lingered long into the dry season to feed the streams where the wild -creatures drink--‘I want those trees, they are mine,’ said the white -man. And he cut them down and sold them for gold, and the naked -mountains held no snows to feed the creeks; and the meadows that God -made became barren wastes--lifeless. Was there a spring of water--‘It is -mine,’ cried the white man, and he built a fence around it and made a -law to punish any thirsty creature that might dare to drink without -paying him. In this homeland of my fathers the wild life was as the -grass on the mesas. The Indian took what he needed. It was here for all. -The white man saw the antelopes in the foothills, the deer on the -mountain slopes, the bear in the cañon, the sheep among the peaks, and -he shouted: ‘They are mine--all mine.’ And every man in his white -madness, for fear some brother would destroy one more wild thing than he -himself could count among his spoils, killed and killed and killed; and -only the buzzards profited by the slaughter. But I, Natachee, an Indian, -here in this homeland of my fathers, because I dared to kill the deer -from which we had our meat this evening, am a violator of the white -man’s laws, and subject to the white man’s punishment. - -“You tell me that I should teach my people how to live? By that you mean -that I should teach them the ways of the white people? Is it the duty of -one who has been robbed of all that was his to accept the thief as his -schoolmaster and spiritual guide? Would you say that one who had been -tricked and cheated out of his birthright must adopt the principles and -customs of the trickster? Could you expect one who had been humiliated -and shamed and broken to set up the author of his degradation as his -ideal and pattern? - -“The schools of the white people taught me nothing that would cause the -white people to permit me ever to make a place for myself among them as -their equal. No education can ever, in the eyes of the white man, make a -white man of an Indian. All kinds of animals are educated for the circus -ring, and the show bench, and the vaudeville stage. If they prove clever -enough you applaud them. You reward them for amusing you. You educate -the Indian. If he be clever enough you give him a place in your social -circus so long as he amuses you. But do you permit him to become one of -you in your homes, your professions, your law-making, your -business--no--he is no more one of you than the performing bear is one -of you. Do you think that I, Natachee, do not know these things? Do you -think my people do not know that, when one of their boys is put in the -white man’s schools, he grows up to be something that is neither a white -man nor an Indian? It is because they do know, that they look upon me, -Natachee, as an outcast of the tribe. Would the outcast, without place -or people in the world, teach others the things that made him an -outcast? - -“The only thing that an Indian can teach an Indian is to die. In the day -of their strength and pride my fathers in these mountains saw the smoke -from the first camp fire made by a white man in the Cañada del Oro. It -was a signal smoke--but no Indian then could read its meaning. We know -now that it meant the time had come when the Indians, too, must go into -the shadows, even as the many races that had passed before them. But my -people shall not be unavenged--as the red man is going, the white man -too shall go. - -“The strength of the Indian was the red strength of the mountains and -deserts and forests and streams. The Indian is dying because the white -man stole his red strength and turned it into a white man’s strength, -which is yellow gold. But the white man’s yellow strength is his -weakness. In the golden flower of his greatness are the seeds of his -decay. For gold, your people destroy the forests--tear down the -mountains--dry up or poison the streams--lay waste the grass lands and -bring death to all life. For gold they would rob, degrade, enslave and -kill every race that is not of white blood. For gold they rob, degrade, -enslave and kill their own white brothers. Even the natural mating love -of their men and women they have made into a thing to buy and sell for -gold. In this lust for gold their children are begotten, and born to -live for gold, and of gold to perish. The very diseases that rot the -white man’s bones, wither his flesh, dim his eyes and turn his blood to -water are diseases which he buys with his gold. And the only heaven -that his religious teachers can conceive for his celestial happiness is -a place where he may forever wear a crown of gold, make music upon a -harp of gold, and walk upon streets of gold. It was this gold, which is -both the white man’s strength and his weakness, that brought your race -like a pestilence upon my people. By this same gold for which the Indian -peoples have been destroyed shall the Indians be revenged; for by this -gold shall the destroyers themselves, in their turn, be destroyed. - -“There is nothing left for the Indian but to die. I, Natachee, have -spoken.” - -At his closing words Marta Hillgrove caught her breath sharply. - -“Nothing left but to die? And you--have you never dreamed of--“ she -could not speak her thought. - -Again that quick light of savage pleasure flashed across the dark face -of the red man. - -“An Indian has no right to dream of love,” he answered, “for love to an -Indian means children. Why should an Indian wish to have children?” - -When the girl hid her face in her hands, he continued with cruel -purpose: - -“Is it so hard for Marta Hillgrove to understand that there might be -circumstances under which it would become a duty to deny one’s self the -happiness of loving? If it is there are two men who could, I am sure, -make it clear to her.” - -For some time the Indian sat watching the white woman as one of his -ancestors might have watched an enemy undergoing the agony of torture. -Then rising he said: - -“Come, it is time that you were taking your rest. You have nearly -reached the limit of your endurance. You will sleep there on the couch. -I shall be within call. In the morning I will take you home.” - -He threw more wood upon the fire and turned to leave the room. - -“You are very kind,” said the girl, “but I cannot go home.” - -Natachee faced her and she saw the savage triumph that for the moment -burned through the mask of stolid indifference which he habitually wore. - -“Kind?” he said with cruel insolence. “Kind! And why should I, Natachee, -an Indian, be kind to you, a white woman? Make no mistake, Miss -Hillgrove, if I do not to-night treat you as my fathers treated the -women of their enemies, it is not because I am kind. It is only because -it will afford me a more enduring and keener pleasure to return you to -your friends down there in the Cañon of Gold.” - -The girl, cowering in her chair, heard no sound when the Indian left the -room. - -When morning came and Natachee again appeared he was his usual stolid, -courteous self. But Marta knew now what fires of bitter hatred smoldered -beneath the red man’s calm exterior. He made no reference to her -statement that she could not go home, nor did the girl dare to repeat -what she had said. She felt that she was powerless to do other than -resign herself to the will of the Indian who seemed to find a cruel -satisfaction in returning her to Saint Jimmy and Hugh Edwards. - -When they had eaten breakfast, Natachee brought her horse. - -The cañon creek below was still a roaring torrent, impossible to cross, -but the red man led her by ways known only to himself around the head of -the cañon and so at last to Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. - -For the next two or three weeks Marta avoided Hugh Edwards. She saw him -frequently at a distance, and when he came to spend an evening hour on -the porch, but she did not go to his cabin alone and always managed that -her fathers were present when she talked with him in her own home. -Edwards accepted the situation understandingly, and said no word, but -worked harder than ever. Neither did she spend much time with Saint -Jimmy, though she went nearly every day to see Mother Burton. The girl -was very gentle with the two old prospectors and with tender -thoughtfulness sought to make them feel that she was their partnership -girl exactly as she had been ever since she could remember. But she -would not go to Oracle, so either Bob or Thad was forced to go to the -store whenever it was necessary for some one to bring supplies. - -Doctor Burton blamed himself bitterly for the whole affair, but the -Pardners insisted that the fault was theirs. - -“You can see yourself, sir,” said Bob, “that if we’d raised the gal up -knowin’ all the time what she had to know some day, it couldn’t never -a-struck her like this.” - -And Thad added: - -“The God almighty truth is that me an’ my pardner was jest too darned -anxious to shirk what was plain enough our duty, and so shifted the -responsibility on to you. It was a mean, low-down trick an’ no way fair -to you, an’ you jest got to see it that way. We know how you feel about -not tellin’ her ’cause we’re feelin’ that way a heap ourselves, but it -ain’t addin’ none to our comfort to have you tryin’ to shoulder the -blame what belongs to us.” - -The two old men were so miserable that Saint Jimmy’s sympathy for them -lessened somewhat his own suffering, and the three agreed that the only -thing they could do was, as Bob said, “to blame everybody in general and -nobody in perticler and make it up to the girl the best they could.” - -Then came that eventful day when Sheriff Jim Burks and two of his -deputies rode into the Cañada del Oro. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -THE SHERIFF’S VISIT - - “Come to think of it, it’s generally a healthy proposition not to - know too much about your neighbors--the ones that you like, I - mean.” - - -The Pardners were coming from their mine to the house for the midday -meal when the officers stopped at the gate. - -“Howdy, Jim?” called Bob with the cheerful grin he kept for his friends. -“Which one of us are you wantin’ now?” - -The sheriff laughed as he shook hands with the two old prospectors. - -“If you’ll give our horses a feed, I’ll let you both off this time.” - -“How about yourselves?” asked Thad. “Would you fight if we was to try to -force you to eat a bite?” - -“I’ll say we would not,” returned one of the deputies, swinging from his -saddle. - -“I’m that holler that I’d ring if anybody was to kick me,” drawled the -other. - -“I’ll have to hear what the boss says before I commit myself,” said the -sheriff. “How about it, Marta?” he called to the girl who stood in the -doorway. “Are you backing the offer of these two daddies of yours?” - -“You know I am, Mr. Burks,” she returned heartily. “You are always -welcome here. I’ll be ready for you in a few minutes.” - -While they waited Marta’s call to dinner, the men exchanged news of -general interest and talked together as old friends will. And Marta, in -the kitchen, could hear through the open window every word as clearly as -if she had been sitting with them. - -Presently the sheriff made known his mission in the Cañon of Gold. “You -haven’t got any strangers in the neighborhood, have you?” he asked -casually. - -“Nope,” said Bob. - -“Nary a stranger,” echoed Thad. - -“That is,” amended Bob, “not that we have seen or heard of. This here -Cañada del Oro is a pretty big piece of country, Jim, an’ mighty rough, -as you know, an’ Thad an’ me we stick kinda close to our diggin’.” - -“Natachee been ’round lately?” - -“Oh, he drops in once in a while, same as always,” returned Bob. “He was -here yesterday.” - -“Natachee would sure know if there was any one around,” mused the -officer. “There is nothing stirring in these mountains that Indian don’t -see. I’m looking for a convict who escaped from the Florence -penitentiary,” he continued. “The last trace we had of him he was headed -this way. He came into Tucson and managed to get a sort of an outfit -together and struck out for somewhere in this general direction.” - -At the officer’s words old Thad rubbed his bald head meditatively. Bob -bent over to pick up a bit of rock which he proceeded to examine with -minute care. The girl in the kitchen caught at the table for support -and, faint and trembling, with white face and horror-stricken eyes, -stared through the open door toward that neighboring cabin. - -Then she heard Thad say: - -“We sure ain’t seen nothin’ like a convict in these parts, Jim. When did -he make his break?” - -“Two weeks ago,” answered the sheriff. - -The color returned to the girl’s face and her trembling limbs became -steady. But as she turned again toward the stove where the meal for her -guests was cooking, she glanced through the open window and stood as if -turned to stone. - -Natachee was moving with noiseless step toward the group of men outside. - -Then she heard Bob’s laugh. - -“Talkin’ about the devil, sheriff, suppose you take a look behind you.” - -While the officers and the Pardners were exchanging greetings with the -Indian, Marta, going to the door, summoned the hungry men. They trooped -into the house and Natachee, declining the invitation to join them at -the table on the plea that he had eaten an early dinner, seated himself -just inside the open doorway to continue his part in the general -conversation. - -When the sheriff had explained his mission to the Indian, Natachee, with -his eyes fixed on Marta’s face, confirmed the Pardners’ opinion that no -stranger had recently come into the Cañon of Gold. - -“That’s good enough for me,” said the sheriff. And then to his men: -“We’ll swing over into the Tortollita country this afternoon. No use -wasting any more time here.” - -“We can just about make it over to Dale’s ranch by dark,” returned one -of the deputies. - -“We ain’t due to strike no such meal as this at Dale’s,” said the other -officer mournfully, “Dale’s batchin’.” - -And with one accord they all smilingly expressed their appreciation of -Marta’s cooking and acknowledged their gratitude for her hospitality, -while the girl happily assured them again of the welcome that always -awaited them in her home. - -For some time following this the hard-riding officers were too busy -demonstrating their approval of the dinner to engage in conversation. -Natachee waited. - -At last the Indian spoke casually: - -“You do not always succeed in finding these escaped convicts, do you, -sheriff? This is a big stretch of country to cover and it’s not so very -far to the Mexican line. I should think a man would have a fairly good -chance.” - -“They have more than a fair chance,” returned the sheriff. “But still we -get most of them. A man must have food and water, you know. If our man -knows this sort of country, we can nearly always figure out about what -he will do.” - -He put down his knife and fork and sat back in his chair with the -genial air of one who is at peace with the world. - -“It’s mostly the strangers that drift in from other parts that we never -get,” added one of the deputies. “You can’t tell what they’ll do, nohow. -Generally they lose themselves and never show up.” - -Rolling a cigarette the sheriff, in a reminiscent mood, continued: - -“That’s right. There was one that got away from San Quentin over in -California about six months ago, and we lost him clean. They traced him -as far as Phœnix and notified me to be on the lookout, because it was -reasonably sure that he was heading south, but that’s the last anybody -ever heard of him. He may show up yet--if he’s not dead. We always try -to keep them in mind, you know.” - -The Indian, watching Marta, saw the terror that came into her eyes at -the sheriff’s words. Quietly she drew away from the group and slipped -into the adjoining room where she stood just inside the half-open door -listening. - -The eyes of the Pardners were fixed upon the officer with intense -interest. - -Natachee smiled. - -“What did this man look like?” - -The sheriff answered: - -“The description sent to me says he is a man of about twenty-two or -three, tall, rather slender, gray eyes, brown hair, clean shaven, -good-looking, well educated, well appearing, likable sort of a chap. -Haven’t seen him, have you, Natachee?” - -“I might run across him somewhere, some day,” returned the Indian. - -There was a sound in the adjoining room and the sheriff, who was sitting -with his back toward the door, turned his head inquiringly. - -Old Bob spoke quickly: - -“What was he in for, Jim?” - -And Thad asked in the same breath: - -“A killin’, was it?” - -The officer gave his attention again to his hosts. - -From where he sat the Indian, through the open kitchen door, saw Marta -running toward the neighboring cabin. - -The sheriff was answering the old prospectors: - -“He was sent up for wrecking a big investment company in Los Angeles. -You remember--the papers were full of the affair at the time.” - - * * * * * - -Hugh Edwards did not know that his neighbors were entertaining visitors. -He was at work in the creek bed when the sheriff arrived and when he -went up to his cabin for his noontime lunch the Pardners and their -guests were on the far side of the house, so that he could not see them. -He had returned to his work and was energetically wielding his pick when -he heard Marta’s hurried step on the bank above. The girl came running -and sliding down the steep path. - -At sight of Marta’s face, Edwards dropped his pick and ran to her. - -“Marta dear, what is the matter? What has happened?” - -In his alarm for her he forgot himself for the moment, and would have -taken her in his arms, but her first hurried words brought him back with -a shock. - -“The sheriff--“ she cried in a voice that trembled with fear and -excitement. - -Hugh Edwards stood as if stunned by a sudden blow, staring at her dully, -unable to speak. - -“Don’t you understand?” she said sharply. “The sheriff is here--why -don’t you speak? Why don’t you say something?” She caught him by the arm -and shook him. “The sheriff is here, I tell you. He is looking for a man -who escaped from prison.” - -Hugh Edwards drew a long shuddering breath and the girl saw him, in -obedience to his first impulse, turn and start as if to run. Then, as -suddenly he checked himself, and stood looking about in fearful -indecision, not knowing which way to go. Another moment and he had -regained control of himself. - -Facing her with a steadiness which revealed the real strength of his -character he said coolly: - -“This is interesting, I’ll admit, but don’t you think perhaps you are a -little overexcited?” he smiled reassuringly. “Suppose you tell me more.” - -Calmed by his strength the girl answered: - -“Sheriff Burks and two of his men are searching for a convict who -escaped from the Florence penitentiary two weeks ago. They stopped at -our house to inquire if we had seen any strangers in the cañon recently, -and we asked them to stay for dinner of course. Natachee happened -in as he always does when any one from outside comes to the -cañon--and--and--while they were all eating and talking I slipped out -the front door and ran over here to tell you.” - -Edwards laughed. - -“A convict escaped from Florence two weeks ago. Well, he certainly is -not in the Cañada del Oro or Natachee would know.” - -The girl looked at him pleadingly. - -“I--I--am afraid Natachee does know.” She shuddered. “He--it -would be just like him to bring the sheriff and his men here. -Please--please--won’t you go? For my sake, won’t you?” - -At this Edwards looked at her searchingly. - -“Go where?” he said at last. “What do you think the Indian knows? Why -should I go anywhere?” - -“You--you do not understand,” the girl faltered. “You must hide -somewhere, quick--Please, Hugh, they may come any minute.” - -Again Edwards looked about as if, while prompted to yield to her -entreaty, he was still undecided as to the best course to pursue. - -“But surely you know that I did not escape from Florence two weeks ago,” -he said slowly. - -“I know--I know,” she cried, “but there was another.” - -“Another?” - -“Yes--a man who escaped from San Quentin six months ago. They followed -him as far as Phœnix. He was coming this way. He was twenty-two or -twenty-three years old--tall--slender--gray eyes--brown hair--well -educated--Oh, Hugh--Hugh--don’t stand there looking at me like that! You -must do something--you must go--quick--somewhere--anywhere where these -men won’t see you.” - -With a low cry of horror and despair the man leaped away, running like a -startled deer up the creek. But before he had gone a hundred feet he -stopped as suddenly as he had started and faced back toward the girl, -holding out his arms in an unmistakable gesture of love and longing. - -But Marta did not see. She had dropped to the ground, where she crouched -with her face buried in her hands. - -Still holding out his arms the man went slowly toward her. Then again he -stopped, to stand for a moment irresolute, as one fighting with all the -strength of his will against himself. And then once more he faced the -other way, and stooping low, with head down, ran as if in fear for his -life. - - * * * * * - -When Marta had recovered a little of her self-control she realized that -she must not be seen near Edwards’ cabin by the officers, who by this -time must have finished their dinner. Hurriedly she stole away down the -creek, thinking that if she was seen coming up the path that led from -the Pardners’ mine to the house no one would question as to where she -had been. - -When she had gained the top of the bank she saw her fathers just -outside the kitchen door deep in a heated argument. There was no one -else in sight. Catching her breath sharply, the girl hurried on until -she could gain an unobstructed view of the neighboring cabin. There was -no one there. With a sob of relief she almost ran the remaining distance -to the Pardners, who were by now watching her expectantly, as if -wondering what she would do or say. - -“Where are they? Have they gone?” she cried as she came up to them. - -The two men looked at each other questioningly. - -“Go ahead, you old fool, she’s your gal, ain’t she?” said Bob. “What’s -the use in your standin’ there lookin’ at me like that, I ain’t done -nothin’.” - -“Holy Cats!” ejaculated Thad. “Can’t a man even look at you without you -goin’ mad? I ain’t a-worryin’ none about what you’ve done or about what -anybody’s done, if it comes to that. It’s what you’re likely to do -that’s got me layin’ awake nights.” - -He turned to the girl and in a very different tone said: - -“Sure they’re gone. Jim figgered that if the man they wanted was in the -Cañada del Oro, Natachee would a-seen him and so, as long as the Indian -hadn’t seen nobody strange in these parts, they’ve pulled out for the -Tortollitas. Jim said to tell you good-by an’ that they’d sure enjoyed -your cookin’.” - -To the utter amazement of the two old prospectors their partnership girl -burst into a joyous ringing laugh, and throwing her arms around each -leathery wrinkled old neck in turn she kissed them and ran into the -house. - -Bob looked at Thad--Thad looked at Bob--together they looked toward the -kitchen door through which their girl had disappeared. - -“Holy Cats!” murmured Thad softly, as he rubbed his bald head. “Now what -in seven states of blessedness do you make of that?” - -“She must know,” said Bob. “She must a-heard what Jim said--she ain’t a -plumb fool if she is your gal.” He shook his head. “I give it up. Listen -to that, will you?” - -Marta, busy with her after-dinner kitchen work, was singing. - -“One thing is certain sure,” said Thad softly, “whatever trouble the boy -may have got himself into, it’s a dead immortal cinch that he ain’t in -no way different now from what he was before Jim Burks happened to eat -dinner with us, an’ that blamed Indian began askin’ fool questions about -what ain’t none of his business.” - -“That’s fair enough,” returned Bob. “We didn’t never take to Hugh for -what some judge, that we never saw or heard tell of, said he was or -wasn’t. We threw in with him for what he is. An’ if we’re such a pair of -boneheads as to be livin’ with him like we have all this time without -findin’ out more about what he really is than any judge that ever sat -on a bench--well--we ought to be sentenced ourselves, that’s what I’m -sayin’.” - -Thad rubbed his bald head. - -“At that,” he said mournfully, “it wouldn’t be the first time by -several, that we’d ought to a-been sentenced, would it? If young Edwards -was to go to pryin’ into our records--huh--I’ll bet he wouldn’t feel -proud of his neighbors no matter what he’s done hisself.” - -Old Bob grinned cheerfully. - -“You’ve said it, Pardner, by smoke!--if he was to know, the youngster -would be hittin’ it out of this Cañada del Oro so fast you wouldn’t see -Mount Lemmon for dust. Come to think of it, it’s generally a healthy -proposition not to know too much about your neighbors--the ones that you -like, I mean. What is it the good book says: ‘Where ignorance is bliss a -man’s a darned fool to poke around tryin’ to find out things?’ As for my -gal, it’s plain to be seen that she’s plumb tickled at the way it’s all -turnin’ out an’----“ - -“_Your_ gal!” shrilled Thad. “Your gal!--there you go again. Holy Cats! -Have you got to be allus tryin’ to gouge me out of my rights? Can’t you -never give me a fair break?” - -“Excuse me, Pardner, I forgot. As I was about to say, in my opinion -you’d better let that gal of yourn work her own way out of this. It’s -easy to see that she’s in too deep for us, an’ considerin’ -everything--considerin’ everything, I say--it might not turn out so bad -after all.” - -To which Thad replied: - -“However it looks an’ however it turns out, my gal knows a heap more -about it than us two old sand rats ever could. We’re bankin’ on the boy, -an’ we’re trustin’ the gal, an’ we’re mindin’ our own business, you -bet!” - -To which Bob responded fervently: - -“You bet!” - - - - -CHAPTER XVIII - -AN INDIAN’S ADVICE - - He felt that the Indian was playing some kind of a game--a game - which the red man seemed rather to enjoy but which left the white - man very much in the dark. - - -Less than a mile up the cañon creek Hugh Edwards stopped. It was -useless, he told himself, to go farther. He would wait there until -night, when, under cover of the darkness, he could return to his cabin -and secure food and the small store of gold he had accumulated. Seating -himself on a rock in the shade of a sycamore, where he could watch and -listen for any one attempting to follow his tracks, he gave himself up -to troubled thoughts. - -True, the sheriff had not come for him this time, but the officers -might, while in the neighborhood, learn of his presence in the Cañon of -Gold and return to investigate. Suppose, for instance, they should meet -and talk with the Lizard. His supply of gold would not take him far, but -he must go as far as he could; as for his dream and Marta--what a fool -he had been to think that he could ever find gold enough to---- - -A hand touched his shoulder. With a cry he leaped to his feet, and like -a wild animal caught in a trap whirled to fight. - -Natachee made the peace sign. The Indian was smiling as he had smiled -that night when Marta was in his cabin. - -The white man’s nerves were on edge. He glared at the Indian angrily. - -“What do you mean sneaking up on a man like that?” he demanded. “You’ll -get yourself killed for that trick some day.” - -Natachee laughed, and there was a touch of scorn in his voice as he -returned: - -“Not by you, Hugh Edwards.” - -“And why not by me?” demanded the other, goaded by the Indian’s tone and -by the slight emphasis which the red man placed on his name. - -“Because,” said Natachee coolly, “you are not the killing kind, and -because if you should, in a moment of wild madness, attempt such a -thing, I--“ he paused, then with an abrupt change in his tone and manner -said: “I am sorry that I startled you. It was unpardonably rude, I’ll -admit, and you have every reason for being angry. I did not stop to -think.” - -“It is nothing,” returned Edwards. “I was a fool to fly up over such a -thing. I--I’m a bit upset just now, that’s all. Forget it.” - -He resumed his seat on the rock. The Indian seated himself on the ground -near-by. - -Edwards was thinking: Marta had said that Natachee had come to the house -while the officers were there. How much of the sheriff’s talk had the -Indian heard? How much had he guessed? What was he doing here? - -Almost as if to answer the white man’s thoughts the Indian said -casually: - -“I happened in at the Pardners’ place a while ago and found Sheriff -Burks and two deputies there. I am going to Tucson to-morrow and dropped -in to see if I could do any errand for them or for Miss Hillgrove. Then -I called at your place to offer a like service but you were not at home. -I happened to see you sitting on the rock here as I came up the cañon.” - -The Indian did not explain how, before the officers were out of sight, -he had made his way with the noiseless speed of a fox to a point where -from behind rocks and bushes he had witnessed the close of the interview -between Marta and Edwards; and how, after the girl had returned to her -home, he had trailed the white man. Neither did he explain that he had -had no thought of going to Tucson when, from the mountain side, he saw -Sheriff Burks and his men ride up to the Pardners’ place. - -“Thank you,” said Edwards, “there is nothing you can do for me in -Tucson.” - -Natachee waited several moments before he spoke again, and the -uncomfortable thought flashed into Edwards’ mind that the Indian seemed -particularly pleased that he, the white man, had nothing to say. -Edwards, in an agony of suspense, wondering, fearing, perplexed, -baffled, dared not speak. - -At last the Indian said softly: - -“The sheriff and his men have gone away. They are satisfied that the -man they are looking for is not here. I assured them that there was no -stranger in the Cañada del Oro.” - -“They are gone?” said Edwards doubtfully, as if he feared the Indian -were playing him some cruel trick. - -“For this time,” Natachee said gravely. - -“You--you--think they will come again?” - -The Indian looked away and answered with odd deliberation: - -“Who can say? There is always that possibility. Any day--any hour they -may come. But if, in spite of what I told Sheriff Burks, the man wanted -by him is in the Cañada del Oro, my advice to that man would be that he -stay right where he is.” - -Hugh Edwards hesitated. He felt that the Indian was playing some kind of -a game--a game which the red man seemed rather to enjoy but which left -the white man very much in the dark. - -“You don’t think then that he--that the man could get away, out of this -part of the country, I mean?” he said at last. - -“The sheriff and his deputies will be watching every place but the -Cañada del Oro,” returned the Indian. “Because they are just now -satisfied that their man is not here, this is the one safe place for -him. And if they should by any chance return----“ - -“What,” cried Edwards eagerly, “what if the officers _should_ return?” - -Still without looking at his companion Natachee answered: - -“There are places in the Cañada del Oro where a man, if he knew these -mountains as I know them, could hide from all the sheriffs in Arizona.” - -Haltingly, but with trembling eagerness, Hugh Edwards asked the -inevitable question. - -“And would you, Natachee, help such a man under such circumstances?” - -“I might.” - -At this noncommittal answer Hugh Edwards moved uneasily. - -“Do you know,” he said at last, “I have fancied sometimes that you, -being an Indian, hated all white people bitterly.” - -Natachee made no reply. - -Edwards continued, as one feeling his way over dangerous ground: - -“And yet you seem to enjoy the company of Saint Jimmy.” - -The Indian rose to his feet and stood looking down upon the white man -and something in his face--a shadow of a cruel smile, a gleam of savage -light in his dark eyes--something--made Edwards rise and draw back a -step. - -“I do enjoy the company of Doctor Burton,” said the red man. “He is -suffering. He is dying slowly. He is in torment. I am Natachee the -Indian, why should I not enjoy the company of any white man who is like -your Saint Jimmy or who can be made to suffer in any way?” For a moment -he paused, then in a voice that made his words almost a command, he -added: “I will return from Tucson in three days. In the meantime if it -should be necessary for you to go into the upper part of this cañon, -find my hut if you can and make yourself at home. You will be very -welcome. If you should not find my place--if you should get yourself -lost, for instance, have no fear, I will find you. But if I were you I -would not leave my cabin and my friends down yonder unless it were -absolutely necessary.” - -Without waiting for a reply the Indian turned, and climbing the steep -bank of the creek with amazing ease and quickness, disappeared. - -Hugh Edwards went slowly back to his cabin. - -Marta, who was watching, saw him coming and ran joyously to meet him. - - - - -CHAPTER XIX - -ON EQUAL TERMS - - She did not know what it was that had made the man she loved a - fugitive from the law. She did not care. She was glad--glad because - now her dream of happiness with him was possible. - - -As Marta ran to meet him, Hugh Edwards could not but see that she was -elated and happy. Not since that morning before the storm had she been -in such a joyous mood. The depression, that since her meeting with the -Lizard had been so marked, was gone. She was again her own frank, -radiant self. But Edwards did not respond to the girl’s happiness. When -she would have spoken of the sheriff and the escaped convict he coldly -prevented her. Concealing every hint of emotion under a mask of formal -politeness, he repelled every advance and received her loving overtures -of sympathy and loyal comradeship in silence. - -In those months when his friendship for Marta had ripened into love it -had not been easy for Hugh Edwards to deny himself the happiness which -the girl in her love had so innocently offered. With all the strength of -his will he had fought to do the thing that he knew to be right. A -thousand times he had told himself that to speak the words that would -make her share the black shame of the fate that hung over him would be -the part of a selfish coward. He must protect her from himself. When he -had won gold enough to insure his freedom from the life of a convict, -then he would tell her everything. With gold enough he could escape to a -foreign land and Marta, when she knew his story, would go with him. But -until he could assure himself that complete and final safety from the -prison that threatened was within his reach, both for his own sake and -for hers, he would not speak of his love. - -And now suddenly the girl had learned a part of the truth. And it had -only made her love for him more evident. At the same time the incident -that had revealed to her his real purpose in coming to the Cañada del -Oro had shown him that his fancied security in the Cañon of Gold was -fancy indeed. Any day, any hour, any moment, the officers might come for -him. The Lizard, the Indian, a chance unguarded word of the Pardners, -any one of a hundred things might happen to put the men of the law upon -his track. He must not--he must not--say the word that would bring upon -the girl he loved the shame and misery that so surely awaited him if the -sheriff should find him. More than ever now he was determined to save -Marta from himself. But it was not easy. It had been hard before Marta -knew what Sheriff Burks’ visit had revealed to her--it was harder now. -If only he could find the gold. - -But nothing could dampen the girl’s spirit. She was as sure of Hugh -Edwards’ love as if he had spoken. When she had believed that her own -nameless and questionable birth was the reason for his refusal to -declare his love, she had been miserable. But now that his own disgrace -had been revealed she felt that the shame of her unknown parentage need -be no longer a barrier between them. She did not know what it was that -had made the man she loved a fugitive from the law. She did not care. -She was glad--glad--because now her dream of happiness with him was -possible. She saw now that the thing which had kept him from telling his -love was not her lack of an honorable name but the dishonor of his own. -He had been shielding her from himself. His silence had not been to save -himself from the shame that she might bring to him, but rather to save -her from the shame that was already his and which an avowal of his love -would have led her to share. - -And so she tried in every way to win through the guard he had set -against her and to restore the dear comradeship which had been -broken--first by the Lizard, and now through the visit of Sheriff Burks. -With every wile of her womanhood--with every art of her sex--with all -the frankness of her unspoiled nature--she offered herself. Secure in -the confidence of his love, she tempted him to break the silence which -he had with such fortitude imposed upon himself. And while her loving, -generous heart was wrung with pity for his suffering, she gloried in -the strength that enabled him to endure against her, and rejoiced in the -knowledge that his self-imposed torture was for love of her. - -When she tried to make him talk to her of his past, he was silent. When -she told him of her own history, he answered, bitterly, that she was -fortunate in having no parents to disgrace, no name to dishonor. When -she asserted her belief in him no matter what he was in the eyes of the -law, he smiled grimly and remarked that, while he appreciated and was -grateful for her confidence, her opinion could in no way alter the hard -facts of the case. And every day, from the first light of the morning -until it was so dark that he could no longer see, he toiled with -desperate strength for the gold that would enable him to escape and, by -insuring his freedom, make it possible for him to ask Marta to share his -future. - -He no longer saw the beauty and the grandeur of the mountains. The -flowers no longer bloomed for him. He did not hear the birds that filled -the Cañon of Gold with music. He did not now glory in the vigorous -freshness of the morning. He no longer knew the peace of the restful -nights. His every thought was of gold, gold, gold, because gold to him -meant Marta. As so many men in the Cañon of Gold had whispered in the -night, after a day of heavy fruitless toil: “To-morrow, perhaps,” this -man in the night whispered to himself: “To-morrow, perhaps.” - -Then came that night when Hugh Edwards was startled out of his dream of -the golden possibilities of to-morrow by a sound at his cabin door. - -Springing to his feet he stood trembling with fear and dread--had the -officers come? - -Again came the sound of some one knocking lightly on the door. - -With white lips he whispered to himself: - -“It’s only Thad or Bob or Marta, it’s not late yet.” - -But he knew that it was late. He had seen the light in Marta’s window go -out two hours ago. - -Again the knocking sounded. - -In desperation he threw open the door. - -It was Natachee. - - - - -CHAPTER XX - -THE ONLY CHANCE - - “The rabbit that is caught by the fox does not dictate to his - captor.” - - -Silently the white man drew back. - -The Indian stepped into the cabin and softly closed the door. - -Edwards waited for his visitor to speak, while the red man gazed at him -with a hint of that fleeting, shadowy smile of cruel pleasure and -satisfaction. - -“I returned from Tucson this afternoon,” he said at last. “I came back -to my place another way, over the mountains from the south. When the sun -was gone I came down here to you.” - -Edwards did not know what to say. He realized that Natachee’s visit, at -that hour of the night, was more than a mere social call. He felt that -for some reason he, the white man, had suddenly become of more than mere -passing interest to the Indian. Recalling the Indian’s manner at the -time of their last meeting, he waited anxiously for what was to come. He -managed to murmur a few commonplace words of welcome. - -Natachee said gravely: - -“I have something to tell you--something which I think will be of -interest.” - -Edwards nervously offered a chair. - -When they were seated, the Indian said: - -“Perhaps I should tell you that I went to Tucson in your interest.” He -smiled as he added: “In your interest--and for _my_ pleasure.” - -“I can’t see how my interests have anything to do with your pleasure,” -returned the white man, stung by the touch of mockery in the Indian’s -tone. - -“No? I suppose you can’t. But you will understand presently,” said the -other, as if he enjoyed the situation and would prolong the pleasure it -afforded him to witness the white man’s uneasy fears. - -“Suppose you explain yourself and be done with it,” said Edwards -shortly. - -“You white men are all so impatient,” murmured Natachee with taunting -deliberation. “Really, you should learn a lesson of patience from the -Indians. An Indian has need to be patient. He must wait and watch, long -and untiringly, for his few opportunities, and then when his opportunity -at last comes he must not fail through ill-advised haste to make the -most of it. The white man squanders his pleasures as he squanders his -wealth. With reckless, headlong, swinish eagerness to drink his fill at -one gulp; he spills his cup of happiness before he has really tasted it. -The Indian takes his pleasures with careful deliberation, as he compels -his enemies to bear the pain of the torture, and so he enjoys in its -fullness, to the last drop, whatever drink his gods are pleased to set -before him.” - -“For God’s sake say what you have come to say and be done with it!” -cried Edwards. - -The Indian laughed. - -“Many a white man, in the old days, has begged an Indian to end it all -quickly and have done with it. But,” he added with triumphant insolence, -“the rabbit that is caught by the fox does not dictate to his captor. I, -Natachee the Indian, in my own way will tell you, Donald Payne, what I -have come to say.” - -As the Indian spoke that name, the man, known as Hugh Edwards, sprang to -his feet with a cry. - -Natachee watched the effect of his words with cruel satisfaction. - -When the Indian’s victim had gained some control of his tortured nerves -and had dropped weakly into his chair again, the red man said with -savage irony: - -“I regret, in a way, that Miss Hillgrove is not here to listen to my -story.” - -The white man, with his head bowed in his hands, winced. - -“It would add much to my pleasure if I could watch her enjoying it with -you.” - -Hugh Edwards groaned as one in torment. - -“But all that in good time,” continued the Indian. “I must explain now -how it came about that the rabbit, Donald Payne, is under the paw of the -Indian fox. - -“When Sheriff Burks described the criminal who escaped from the -California penitentiary I saw a possible opportunity that promised me, -Natachee, no little pleasure and satisfaction--an opportunity for which -I have been waiting. Miss Hillgrove’s agitation, her going to you, and -your own action, confirmed my opinion as to where the convict who had so -far escaped the officers was to be found. But I realized that it might -be well to learn more. Thinking it unwise to appear too interested -before the sheriff, I went to Tucson--first making sure that you would -be here when I returned. In the white man’s city, clothed properly in -the white man’s costume, with careful white man’s manners, I was -permitted to search the files of the white man’s newspapers, and, thanks -to my white education, to read the shameful account of this escaped -convict’s crime. - -“I learned how Donald Payne, a promising young business man and a -graduate of the California University, had held an important position of -trust in a certain investment company. This company had been -specifically planned and organized to attract the savings of small -investors. Its appeal was to the better class of workmen, who out of -their meager earnings were ambitious to put by something for the better -education of their children--widows, with a little life insurance money -upon the income of which they must exist--school-teachers, who must save -against that dread day when they could no longer work--stenographers, -clerks, and that class of poor whose education and tastes were above -their earnings, and in whose hearts hope was kept alive by the promise -of safe and honest returns from their hard-saved pennies. Every dollar -in that institution of trust represented honest human effort and worthy -ambition and heroic selfsacrifice. - -“Oh, it was a white man’s enterprise, born of a white man’s devilish -cunning, and carried out with a white man’s remorseless cruelty to its -damnable end. When the people’s confidence had been won, and they had -been persuaded to place enough of their savings in the hands of these -spoilers to make it worth while, the company failed. The investors lost -everything. The promoters--the principals of the company--gained -everything. But Donald Payne, the brilliant young financial genius whose -manipulation brought about the wreck, went to San Quentin prison. - -“He had served eighteen months of his sentence when he escaped. His -mother, a widow, brokenhearted over the shame and dishonor, scorned and -ostracized by her neighbors and friends, humiliated by the cruel -publicity, died in less than a month after her son was pronounced -guilty. Donald Payne is without doubt the most hated, the most despised -name in this decade.” - -The man who, during the Indian’s deliberate recital, had sat cowering in -his chair, raised his haggard face. His eyes were dull with anguish, his -lips were drawn and white; but in spite of his ghastly appearance there -was a strange air of dignity in his manner as he said hoarsely: - -“And is that all you know?” - -The Indian waited a little as if to give the greatest possible -significance to his answer, then: - -“No, not quite all. I know that this escaped convict, Donald Payne, has -learned to love a woman. And I know that this woman loves this man, who -is hiding from the officers who would send him back to prison.” - -“Yes,” said the white man, hoarsely, “that is true. If it is any -satisfaction to you, I confess my love for Marta Hillgrove. I have every -reason to believe in her love for me, and--I--dare not--for her -sake--tell her of my love.” - -He rose to his feet and stood before the Indian with a dignity and -strength that won a gleam of admiration from the dark eyes of his -tormentor, and in a voice ringing with passionate earnestness cried: - -“But, listen, you damned red savage. You do not yet know all the truth. -Donald Payne was never guilty of the crime for which he was sentenced. I -was an innocent tool in the hands of the real criminal. It was a part of -his plan from the first that some one should be offered, a sacrifice, to -satisfy the public. He schemed far ahead to prove some one guilty and -thus secure himself. I was chosen for that end. I was promoted to a -position of trust with my sacrifice in view. It was all planned, -arranged, and carried out. The man who robbed the people and for whose -crime I was sent to prison is to-day living in Los Angeles in safety and -luxury with the wealth he acquired through the company which he promoted -and wrecked. - -“The people who hate me, because they believe me guilty, do not know. -The papers that branded me with shame and heralded my disgrace to every -corner of the world do not know. The jury that convicted me did not -know. The judge did not know. My mother did not know. The penitentiary -does not know. The officers who would drag me back to it all do not -know. _But I know--I know--I know!_” - -He stood madly, superbly defiant, uplifted for the moment by the -strength of his own asserted innocence. Then suddenly, as a beef animal -falls under the blow of the butcher’s killing maul, he dropped into his -chair, where he writhed in an agony greater than any physical suffering -could have wrought. - -The deep voice of the watching Indian broke the silence. - -“Good! It is even better than I could have believed. In my wildest -dreams I never hoped to see a white man suffer such unmerited torture. -In time, perhaps, you will even come to a degree of sympathy for an -Indian, and to understand, a little, his feeling toward the white race.” - -When Hugh Edwards was able to speak again he said with dreary -hopelessness: - -“They will come for me in the morning, I suppose?” - -“They? Who?” - -“The officers--have you not told them?” - -Natachee laughed. - -“I tell the officers what I know about you? I give you up for them to -take you back to the penitentiary? No--no--you do not seem to have -grasped the purpose of my efforts in your behalf. I shall keep you for -myself. I have too much pleasure in you to permit any one to take you -away from me. You shall go with me, and together we, the two outcasts, -we who are outcasts because of nothing that we have done, but only -because some one wished by our misfortune and suffering to gain riches, -we shall enjoy life together as we can.” - -The note of exaltation that was in his voice, or some hint of a sinister -purpose in his manner, aroused the white man. - -“You mean that you are going to help me to escape?” - -“From your white man’s laws, yes. From me, no--not yet--not until I am -through with you.” - -“Explain yourself,” demanded the other. “What is it that you propose? I -don’t understand.” - -“It is this,” returned the Indian. “You cannot stay here because any -day--to-morrow even--the sheriff may come for you. You cannot go from -this Cañon of Gold because you would surely be caught, unless you could -leave this country, and that you cannot do because you have no money. -You shall come with me. With me you will be safe from the law. No one -will know where you are. No one shall ever find you. I, Natachee, know -these mountains as no white man can ever know them. I will hide you.” - -There was something in the Indian’s face that made Hugh Edwards gaze at -him in wondering silence. - -The Indian continued: - -“I will show you where you can dig more gold than ever you would find -here. Who knows, perhaps you may even find the Mine with the Iron Door. -With gold enough you could make your way to safety. You could even take -the woman you love with you. And so you shall work and dream and -dream--and I, Natachee--I will help you to dream. If your dream never -comes true, if your labor is all in vain, if you never find the Mine -with the Iron Door, or if, while you are toiling for the gold you need, -the woman you love should become the wife of your friend Saint Jimmy, -why, that will not be my fault. I will help you to dream. It will be for -you to find the gold that will make your dream come true--_if you can_.” - -The Indian spoke those last three words with fiendish deliberation and -sinister meaning that was unmistakable. - -Hugh Edwards understood. - -“You are a devil.” - -“No, I am Natachee the Indian--you are a white man.” - -“You would save me from prison so that you might feast your damned -revengeful spirit on my suffering.” - -“It is a help for you to understand exactly my purpose,” returned the -Indian. - -“What if I refused to go with you?” - -“You will not refuse.” - -“Why?” - -“If you go with me you take your only possible chance for the future. -You might, you know, find the gold. If you do not go, I shall send you -back to prison.” - -“I will go.” - -“Good, but--you must understand. You will leave here with me to-night. -There will be no message--no hint to tell any one why you have gone, or -where, or that you will ever come again. As long as you are with me you -will be as one dead to all who have ever known you.” - -“But Marta--Miss Hillgrove--“ cried the other. - -Drawing himself up with the air of a conqueror, the Indian answered -coldly: - -“I, Natachee, have spoken.” - - * * * * * - -When morning came, Marta saw no smoke rising from the chimney of Hugh -Edwards’ cabin. At first she told herself, with a laugh, that Hugh was -sleeping later than usual, and went happily about her own early morning -work. But as the hours passed and there was no sign of life about the -neighboring cabin, she became uneasy. By the time breakfast was over and -the Pardners had gone to their work, the girl was fully convinced that -all was not right and went to investigate. - -Knocking at the cabin door, she called: - -“Hugh--Oh, Hugh!” - -There was no answer. - -She went hurriedly to the top of the bank above the place where he -worked. - -He was not there. - -Running back to the cabin she knocked again. - -“Hugh--Oh, Hugh! What is the matter?” - -There was no sound. - -Pushing open the door she stood on the threshold. The room was empty. - -The truth forced itself upon the girl with overwhelming weight. Hugh -Edwards was gone. He had not merely left his cabin for an hour or a day. -He had not stepped out somewhere to return again presently. He was -_gone_. Sometime during the night he had packed his things and had -disappeared with no parting word--no good-by--no promise--leaving no -message. He had vanished. - -The girl was stunned. She argued with herself dully that she must be -mistaken--that it could not be so. Hugh, her Hugh, would never do such a -cruel, cruel thing. - -From the open doorway she looked out at the familiar scene, at the cañon -walls, the mountain ridges and peaks, her home--nothing was changed. She -turned again to the empty, silent room. Hugh was gone. - -But there must be something--some word to tell her--to explain. - -Carefully, with slow, leaden movements, she searched every corner of the -bare room. She looked in the cupboard, under the bunk, in every crevice -of the walls. She even searched with a stick among the dead ashes in the -fireplace. There was nothing. - -She did not cry out. The hurt was too deep. She sat on the threshold of -the empty cabin and tried to make it all seem real. - -It was two hours later when Saint Jimmy found her sitting there. - - - - -CHAPTER XXI - -THE WAY OF A RED MAN - - “The dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all - the stars in the red man’s sky.” - - -The weeks of the “Little Spring” passed. The blossoms vanished from -mountain and foothill and mesa and desert. The air grew crisp with the -tang of frost. On the higher elevations the cold winds moaned through -the junipers and cedars--wailed among the peaks and shrieked about the -cliffs and crags. Again on Mount Lemmon the snow gleamed, white and -cold, among the somber pines. - -In the wild remote region of the upper Cañada del Oro the man, known to -his friends in the Cañon of Gold as Hugh Edwards, lived with his captor, -Natachee the Indian. - -The white man was not a prisoner of force--rather was he a captive of -circumstance. But captive and prisoner he was, none the less. He was -held by the red man’s threat to reveal his real name and identity as the -convict who had escaped from San Quentin, together with that hope so -cunningly offered by the Indian--the hope of finding the gold that would -bring him freedom and the woman he loved. - -Every day the white man toiled with pick and shovel in a hidden gulch -where the Indian had shown to him a little gold in the sand and gravel. -Every night before the fire in the Indian’s hut he brooded over his -memories, dreamed dreams of freedom and love, or sat despondent with the -meager returns of his day’s labor. And always the Indian held out to him -the possibilities of to-morrow. To-morrow he might, at one stroke of his -pick, open a golden vein of such magnitude that the realization of all -his dreams would be assured--to-morrow--to-morrow. - -His small hoard of gold increased so slowly that, unless he should -strike a rich pocket, it would be years before he could accumulate -enough to win his freedom and his happiness. But gold was his only hope. -And every day he found enough to justify the belief that all he needed -was near to his hand if only he could find it. He was held by that chain -of to-morrows. - -In the meantime, what of Marta? Would her love endure? With no -explanation of his sudden disappearance--with no word of love from -him--no promise of his return--no message to bid her hope--would she -wait for him? Was her faith in him strong enough to stand under such a -cruel test? - -Many times during the first weeks of his strange captivity he begged the -Indian for permission to send some word to the woman he loved. But the -red man invariably answered, “No,” with the cold warning that if he made -any attempt to communicate with any one he should be returned to -prison. When the white man realized that his importunities only served -to give the Indian a cruel pleasure, he ceased to plead. - -Then one evening just at dusk the red man said: - -“Come, my friend, this will not do at all. You are not nearly so -entertaining as you were. You need inspiration--come with me.” - -He led the way to a point on the mountain ridge not far above the hut. -The colors of the sunset were still bright in the western sky and behind -them the higher peaks and crags were glowing in the light, but far below -in the Cañon of Gold and over the desert beyond, the deepening dusk lay -like a shadowy sea. - -“Look!” said the Indian, pointing into the gloomy depths. “Do you see -it--down there directly under that lone bright star? Almost as if it -were a reflection of the star, only not so cold?” - -“Do you mean that light?” - -“Yes, you have good eyes for a white man,” answered the Indian. “I am -glad. I feared you might not be able to see it.” - -He paused and the other, watching the tiny red point in the darkness so -far below, waited. - -“That light is in the home of your friends, the Pardners and their -daughter.” - -The Indian’s victim muttered an exclamation. - -“In fact,” continued Natachee slowly as if to make every word effective, -“it shines through the window of Miss Hillgrove’s room.” - -The white man stood with his eyes fixed on that distant light, as one -under a spell, then suddenly he whirled about, cursing his tormentor for -bringing him there. - -The Indian smiled, as in the old days one of his savage ancestors might -have smiled in triumph, at a cry of pain successfully wrung from a -victim of the torture. Then he said with stern but melancholy dignity: - -“I, Natachee, often come here to sit on this spot from which one may -look so far over the homeland of my Indian fathers. But for Natachee -there is no light in the window of love. Where you, a white man, see the -light, the red man sees only darkness. For Natachee the Indian there is -no soft fire of a woman’s love and home and happy children. Where the -fires of the Indian’s home life and love once burned, there are now only -cold ashes and blackened embers. I shall often see you up here watching -your star that is so near. But for me, Natachee, there is no star. The -dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all the stars -in the red man’s sky.” - -In spite of his own suffering, Hugh Edwards was moved to pity. - -On another occasion the Indian told his victim of Marta’s visit to his -hut that night of the storm. He called attention to the fact that the -very chair in which Hugh was sitting was the chair in which she had sat -before the fire. The couch upon which Hugh slept was the couch upon -which she had slept. Hugh’s place at the table had been her place. - -Invariably, when he saw that the white man was nearing the limit of his -endurance, the Indian would hold before him the promise of the -future--the love and happiness that would be his when he should find the -gold--the gold that he would perhaps strike--to-morrow. - -At times the Indian would be gone for two or three days. Always he left -with no word or hint that he was going. The white man would awaken in -the morning to find himself alone in the hut, or perhaps the Indian -would disappear at a moment when Hugh’s back was turned, or again -Edwards, upon returning from his work in the evening, would find that -Natachee had left the place sometime during his absence. Invariably, -when the red man reappeared, he came in the same unexpected and -unannounced manner. The white man never knew when to look for him, nor -where. Often the captive would look up from his work to find the Indian -only a few feet away, watching him. - -At times, when Natachee returned from an absence of a day or more, he -would tell his victim of Marta--how he had seen and talked with her--how -she looked--what she was doing--painting such true and vivid pictures of -the girl that the captive’s heart would ache with longing. Then the -Indian, watching with devilish cunning the effect of his words, would -assure his victim that the girl loved him but that she believed he had -left her because he did not care for her, and that the grief of her -disappointment and loneliness was seriously affecting her health. - -“What a pity,” the Indian would say mockingly, “that you cannot find the -gold!” And then he would picture the happiness that would come to this -man and woman--how they would go together to a place of peace and -security--how, in the fullness of their love and in the joys of their -companionship, the pain and suffering would all be forgotten. “If,” he -always added, “you could only find the gold.” - -Again the red man, with fiendish skill, would tell how he had seen Saint -Jimmy and Marta together. He would talk of Saint Jimmy’s love for -her--of his tender devotion and care, and of the girl’s affection for -her teacher. He would relate how they spent hours together--how, in her -grief, Marta had sought the comforting companionship of her gentle -friend. - -“I fear,” Natachee would say, “that if you do not find the gold soon it -will be too late. What a tragedy it would be for you, for Doctor Burton, -and for the girl, if, when you are able to go to her, you should find -her the wife of your friend. But to-morrow, perhaps, you will find the -gold.” - -Every evening at sunset, when he thought that the Indian was away -somewhere in the mountains, Hugh Edwards would climb to that place on -the ridge from which he could see that tiny point of red light so far -below in the dark depth of the Cañon of Gold. And not infrequently, when -the light had at last gone out, he would return to the hut to learn that -the red man had been watching him. - -When, under the torment of the Indian’s cruel art, the victim would -rebel, Natachee talked of the prison--of the future of shame and horror -that awaited the returned convict if he should again fall into the -clutches of the law. Reminded thus that his only chance was in finding -gold the man would return to his labor with exhausting energy. - -And Hugh Edwards, with his lack of experience in such things, never once -dreamed that all the gold he dug in that hidden gulch was put there by -the crafty Indian. Night after night when the white man was sleeping, -Natachee stole from the hut to the place where his victim toiled, and -there “salted” the sand and gravel with a small quantity of the precious -metal. - -In her home in the Cañon of Gold, Marta waited, as so many women have -waited while their men toiled for the yellow treasure that meant -happiness. She could not understand. But neither could she doubt Hugh -Edwards’ love. She only knew that some day he would come again. With -Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton to help her, she would be patient. - -More than ever, in those days of her waiting, the Pardner’s girl -depended for strength and courage and guidance upon her two friends in -the little white house on the mountain side. More than ever, they were -dear to her. - -The Pardners too had faith that their neighbor would return. - -“An’ when he comes,” said old Bob, “you can bet your pile he’s comin’ -with bells on. We don’t know what it is that has took him away so -suddenlike, but whatever it is, it ain’t nothin’ that we’ll be ashamed -of when we know.” - -And Thad, with characteristic fervor, added: - -“Well, Holy Cats, there ain’t no law, leastwise in this here Cañada del -Oro, that says a man has got to advertise every time he makes a move. -You’re tootin’--the boy’ll come back, an’ he’ll come with head up an’ -steppin’ high--that’s what I’m meanin’.” - - * * * * * - -It was on one of these occasions, when the Indian was taunting his -victim with the assurance that more gold than he needed was within his -reach if only he knew where to look, that the white man turned on his -tormentor with a contemptuous laugh. - -“Do you think that I am fool enough to believe that you actually know of -any such rich deposit near here?” - -The words seemed to have a marked effect upon the Indian. Hugh saw, with -a thrill of satisfaction and not a little wonder, that he had by chance -broken through the red man’s armor of stoical composure. - -Natachee threw up his head and held himself stiffly erect with the pride -of a savage conqueror, while his eyes were gleaming with intense mental -excitement, and his voice rang with challenging force, as he said: - -“You think that I, Natachee, am lying when I say that I know where there -is gold beyond even a white man’s dream of wealth?” - -“I know you are lying,” returned Hugh coldly. “Your talk of great -wealth so near when I am finding so little is pure fiction. Because you -know that I would almost give my soul to find a reasonably rich pocket, -even, you have invented the story of this marvelously rich deposit, to -torture me. If I believed it were true, I might, under the -circumstances, feel worked up over it, but as it is you may as well save -your breath. You are not worrying me in the least.” - -“Good!” said Natachee, “the night is very dark. If the white man is not -a coward he will come with me.” - -“Go with you?” exclaimed the other. “Where?” - -“You shall never know _where_,” replied the Indian. “But you shall see -that I, Natachee, do not lie.” - -From a peg in the wall he took a short rope and from the cupboard drawer -a cloth and two candles. One of the candles he offered to Hugh with an -insolent smile. - -“If you are not afraid of the ghosts that, in the night and the -darkness, haunt the Cañon of Gold.” - -The amazed white man, snatching the candle, motioned impatiently for the -Indian to proceed. - - - - -CHAPTER XXII - -THE LOST MINE - - “The hope that brought the first white man to the Cañada del Oro is - your only hope. You shall labor--you shall find your gold--if you - can.” - - -From the door of the hut the Indian led the way into the darkness. - -There was no friendly moon. The sky was overcast with lowering clouds -that shut out the light of the stars. From the thick blackness of the -cañon far below, the sullen murmur of the creek came up like the growl -of angry voices from the depth of some black pit. The mountains seemed -to breathe like gigantic monsters in a weird, dream world. The very air -was heavy with the mystery of the night. - -They had not gone a hundred yards before the white man lost all sense of -direction. As they made their way down the steep side of the mountain he -could scarcely distinguish the form of the Indian who was within reach -of his hand. - -Presently Natachee stopped, and, lighting the candle he carried, said: - -“See, there is your pick and shovel. Are you satisfied that this is the -place where you work?” - -“Certainly, I can see that,” returned the other wonderingly. - -“Good!” returned the Indian. “Now we will go only a little way from this -place.” - -He extinguished the candlelight, and the inky darkness enveloped them -like a blanket. - -“But,” he added, “I must first make sure of your never again going as we -shall go. I will blindfold you and you will follow me by holding fast to -this rope. Are you willing?” - -There was a taunting sneer in his tone that would have goaded the white -man into any reckless adventure. - -“As you like,” he said shortly. - -When the cloth was bound securely about Hugh’s eyes, the Indian caught -him by the arms and whirled him about until he was completely -bewildered. Then he felt one end of the rope thrust into his hand. - -“Come,” said the Indian, and gave a slight pull on the rope. - -It was impossible for the white man to form any idea as to their course. -At times they climbed upward, then again they descended as rapidly. At -other times they made their way along some steep slope. Now and then the -Indian bade him go on hands and knees, or warned him to move with care -and to hold fast to the shrubs and bushes. At last Hugh Edwards knew -that they were entering a cavern by an opening barely large enough for -them to crawl through. He could not even guess the dimensions of this -underground chamber, but he imagined that it was a passage or tunnel, -for as they went on he touched a wall on his right and the Indian -cautioned him to keep his head down. - -For some distance they walked in this fashion, then Natachee stopped, -and the white man heard him strike a match. A moment later his blindfold -was removed. - -“Your candle,” said Natachee sharply, and lighted it from the one he -himself held. - -The white man gazed curiously about him. - -“Look!” cried the Indian. “Look and say if I, Natachee, lied when I told -you of the gold that is so near the place where you work--if only you -knew where to find it.” - -Natachee the Indian had not lied. Thousands upon thousands of dollars in -golden value lay within the circle of the candlelight. - -Hugh Edwards stood amazed. He could not know the full extent of the -vein, but a fortune of staggering proportions was within sight. The -farther end of the chamber was an irregular mass of rocks and earth that -had quite evidently fallen and slid from above; but the remaining walls -and ceiling were as obviously cut by human hands. - -The white man looked at his companion inquiringly. - -“An old mine?” - -The Indian, with an air of triumph, answered: - -“The Mine with the Iron Door.” - -As one half dreaming feels for something real and tangible, Hugh Edwards -said hesitatingly: - -“But why, knowing this, have you not made use of it--why do you leave -such wealth buried here?” - -“You forget that I am an Indian,” the red man answered. “If I, Natachee, -were to tell the secret of the Mine with the Iron Door, would the white -men permit me to retain this treasure or to use it for my people? When -has your race ever permitted an Indian to have anything that a white man -wanted for himself? Suppose it were possible for me to take this -treasure without revealing the secret of the mine--of what use would its -gold be to me? Could I, an Indian, use such wealth without bringing upon -myself and my people, envy, hatred and persecution from those who say -that this is a white man’s country? - -“And suppose I could use this gold? What would an Indian do with gold? -The things that the white man buys with gold mean nothing to an Indian. -We do not want the white man’s things. We do not want your factories and -railroads and ships and banks and churches. We do not want your music, -your art, your libraries and schools. An Indian does not want any of the -things that this yellow stuff means to the white man. - -“Could I, with this gold, restore to my people the homeland of their -fathers? Could I destroy your cities, your government, your laws and all -the institutions of your civilization that you have built up in this, -the land that you have taken by force and treachery from my people? -Could I, Natachee, with this gold bring back the forests you have cut -down, the streams you have dried up or poisoned, the lands you have made -desolate? Could I bring back the antelope, the deer and all the life -that the white man has destroyed?” - -Stooping, he caught up a piece of the quartz that was heavy with the -gold it carried. Holding it in the light of the candle, he said: - -“Before the white man came, this, to the Indians, was only a pretty -stone, of no more value than any other bright-colored pebble. If the red -man used it at all it was as an ornament of trivial significance--of no -real worth. But to the white man, this is everything. It is honor and -renown--it is achievement and success--it is the beginning and the end -of life--it is sacrifice and hardship--it is luxury and want--it is -bloody war with its murdered millions--it is government--it is law--it -is religion--it is love. And it was this--this bit of worthless yellow -dirt--that brought the first white man to the Indians. For gold, the -white adventurers braved the dangers of an unknown ocean and forced -their way into an unknown land. For gold, they have robbed and killed -the people whose homeland they invaded, until to-day we are as dead -grass and withered leaves in the pathway of the fire of the white man’s -greed. We are as a handful of desert dust in the whirlwind of your -civilization.” - -He threw the piece of quartz aside with a gesture of loathing, and stood -for a moment with his head lowered in sorrow. - -And once again Hugh Edwards, in spite of the cruel torture to which the -Indian had subjected him, felt a thrill of pity for his tormentor. - -But before the white man could find words to express his emotions, -Natachee suddenly lifted his head, and with the cruel light of savage -exultation blazing in his eyes, went a step toward his startled -companion. - -“Do you understand now why I have brought you here? Do you understand my -purpose in permitting you to see, with your own eyes, the gold of the -Mine with the Iron Door? - -“Your only hope of freedom, from the hell to which you have been -condemned through a white man’s trickery and by your white man’s laws, -is in gold. Only through the possession of gold can you hope to win the -woman you love and who loves you. - -“You say you would give your soul for the gold which means so much to -you. Good! I believe you. I am glad. Here is the gold--look at -it--handle it--dream of all that it would bring you. Here is freedom -from your hell--here is love--here is happiness--here is the woman you -love. It is all here, within reach of your hand, and you shall never -touch one grain of it. If you had a hundred souls to offer in exchange, -you should not touch one grain of it. Because you are a white man, and -because I am an Indian. - -“I, Natachee, have spoken.” - -The meaning of the Indian’s words burned in the white man’s brain. -Slowly he looked about that treasure chamber as if summing up in his -mind all that it might mean to him. His nerves and muscles were tense -with agony. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was -twisted in a grimace of pain. And in the agony of his torture a dreadful -purpose came. - -The watching Indian saw, and his sinewy hand loosed the knife in his -belt, as his deep voice broke the silence of the old mine. - -“No, you will not try that. You are unarmed. I would kill you before you -could strike a blow. There is no hope for you there. Your one chance is -to dig for the gold you need. You might strike it rich, you know. Who -can say--to-morrow--another stroke of your pick. The hope that brought -the first white man to the Cañada del Oro is your only hope. As so many -of your race have labored in the Cañon of Gold you shall labor--you -shall find your gold--if you can.” - -The white man bowed his head. - -Natachee went to him with the cloth to bind his eyes. - -Quietly Hugh Edwards submitted to the bandage. The Indian extinguished -the light of the candle and thrust the end of the rope into his victim’s -unresisting hand. - -“The white man is wise to take the one chance that is his,” said the -Indian. “Come. To-morrow, perhaps, you will find gold.” - -Through the remaining weeks of the winter Hugh Edwards toiled with all -his strength for the grains of yellow metal that the Indian secretly -permitted him to find. Day and night the knowledge of the Mine with the -Iron Door tortured him. Many times he was tempted to abandon all hope, -and, by surrendering himself to the officers of the law, escape at least -the torment of his strange situation. But always he was held by the one -chance--to-morrow he might find the gold that meant freedom and Marta -and love. - -And at last, one day in spring, when the mountain slopes again were -bright with blossoms--when the gold of the buckbean shone in the glades, -and whispering bells were nodding in the shadows of the cañon -walls--when the glory of the ocotillo, the flaming sword, was on the -foothills, and “our Lord’s candles” again fit the mesas with their -torches of white, Hugh Edwards looked up from his work in the gulch to -see a stranger. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIII - -SONORA JACK - - “But here is the amazing thing--Sonora Jack knows more about these - two old prospectors and their partnership daughter than even you - know.” - - -When he saw that he was discovered, the man who was watching Hugh -Edwards came leisurely forward. At the same instant Hugh thought that he -glimpsed another figure farther away on the mountain side. - -The stranger explained his presence in the neighborhood by saying that -he was hunting and had wandered farther from his camp than he had -intended. For nearly an hour he and Edwards visited in the manner of men -who meet by chance in the lonely open places. Then with a careless -_adios_ he went on his way down the cañon. - -When Hugh, at the close of his day’s work, went up to the cabin, -Natachee was not at home. But when the white man had finished his supper -the Indian appeared, coming in his usual silent, unexpected way. As he -set about preparing his own supper, Natachee said: - -“You had visitors to-day.” - -Hugh was too accustomed to the red man’s uncanny way of knowing things -to be in the least surprised at his companion’s remark. - -He answered indifferently: - -“I had a visitor.” - -“There were two in the neighborhood,” returned Natachee. “I saw their -tracks just before dark.” - -Hugh told how only one man had talked with him but that he thought he -had caught a glimpse of another. - -“That was the Lizard,” said Natachee. “I would know his tracks anywhere. -I have seen them often. His right foot turns in in a peculiar way and -his boot heels are always worn on the inside.” - -Hugh Edwards caught his breath. - -“Do you think they were----“ - -“After you?” Natachee finished for him. “I can’t say yet. It might be. -What was the man who talked with you like?” - -Hugh described the stranger. - -“Medium height, rather heavy, black hair, eyes very dark, a Mexican, or -at least part Mexican, I would say.” - -“Did he ask many questions about you?” - -“No more than any one would naturally ask.” - -“Did he show any curiosity about me?” - -“No, you were not mentioned. He said he was hunting but he seemed to be -rather interested, too, in prospecting and mining, and asked a lot of -questions about the country up here as if he had a general idea of the -lay of the land but was not exactly sure.” - -Natachee said no more until he had finished his supper. Then, going to a -corner of the cabin at the head of his bed, he pulled up a loose board -in the floor, and from the hiding place took a revolver with its holster -and belt of cartridges. - -Offering the weapon to the astounded white man, he said with a meaning -smile: - -“I brought this for you from Tucson last fall. But, considering -everything, I thought that it might be just as well for you not to have -it unless some occasion should arise. I am going to leave you for a -little while. Until I return you must keep this gun within reach of your -hand every minute--day and night.” - -Hugh took the weapon awkwardly. - -“Do you know how to use it?” asked Natachee sharply. - -The other laughed. - -“Oh, yes. I know how, but I couldn’t hit a flock of barns.” - -“You must carry it just the same,” returned the Indian. “But don’t do -any practicing. Keep your eyes open for any one who may be prowling -around and don’t let them see you if you can avoid it. This stranger may -be a hunter or a prospector--he may be an officer--he may be something -else. I shall know before I see you again.” - -Taking his bow and quiver of arrows, the Indian went out into the night. - - * * * * * - -For two days and nights Hugh Edwards was alone. Then Natachee returned. - -When the Indian had eaten, with the appetite of a man who has been long -hours without food, he said: - -“The man who talked with you is called Sonora Jack. He is a half-breed -Mexican; his real name is John Richards. - -“For several years this Sonora Jack, with a band of Mexicans and white -outlaws, operated in this section of the Southwest. They rustled cattle, -robbed trains, looted banks and stores, and held up everybody they -chanced to run across. With their headquarters somewhere south of the -line, it was not so easy for the United States authorities to capture -them, but after a particularly cold-blooded murder of a poor old couple -who were traveling by wagon through the country, the officers and the -people were so aroused that Sonora Jack, with a large reward on his -head, moved on to other less dangerous hunting grounds. It is generally -believed that he went south somewhere in Mexico.” - -“But are you sure that it was this same Sonora Jack that called on me?” - -The Indian smiled. - -“As sure as I am that you are Donald Payne.” - -Hugh Edwards flushed as he returned coldly: - -“Please don’t forget that Donald Payne is dead.” - -“That depends,” retorted Natachee dryly. - -The white man did not overlook the Indian’s meaning. For a time he did -not speak, then he asked: - -“But what has brought this outlaw here to the Cañada del Oro?” - -Natachee’s face was grave as he answered: - -“The Mine with the Iron Door.” - -Hugh Edwards uttered an exclamation. - -“You mean that he has come to look for the lost mine?” - -For several minutes the Indian did not reply, but sat as if lost in -thought, then he said, as one reaching a grave decision: - -“Listen--I will tell you exactly what I have learned. It is of very -great importance to us both. - -“This Sonora Jack, with a Mexican who I am quite sure is a member of his -old band, first appeared in the Cañada del Oro several days ago. They -came in by the Oracle trail and called on Doctor Burton and his mother, -telling them that they were prospectors. I have talked to the Burtons -and they do not dream of the real characters or mission of the two -strangers who camped at Juniper Spring. - -“Apparently Sonora Jack and his companion met the Lizard, for they moved -down the cañon and are now living with the Lizard and his people. The -Lizard seems to be helping them with his supposed knowledge of the -country. Sonora Jack has a map, crudely drawn, and evidently very old. -Under the drawing in one corner is written: - -“‘La mina con la puerta de fierro en la Cañada del Oro’--The mine with -the door of iron in the Cañon of the Gold.” - -Again Hugh Edwards uttered an exclamation of astonishment. - -“But how in the world do you know all this?” he demanded. - -The Indian explained. - -“In the Lizard’s house the table is close under one of the windows. -While Sonora Jack and his Mexican and the Lizard were looking at the map -and trying to determine the exact location of a certain gulch that was -many years ago filled by a landslide, I also looked.” - -“But those dogs,” cried the white man, “they were ready to eat me one -night when I happened to call there.” - -“You are not an Indian,” Natachee returned calmly. “Bows and arrows make -no sound. The Lizard will be short of dogs until he has an opportunity -to steal some new curs.” - -“Fine!” said Hugh. - -Natachee continued: - -“I not only saw their map, but, as it happens, there is a little place -under the sill of that particular window where the adobe wall has -crumbled away from the wood, and so I could hear what was said as -clearly as if I had been sitting at the table with them. - -“The Lizard told them all about the Indian who is commonly supposed to -know the secret of the lost mine. Some of the things he said I rather -think you would agree with. He also told them a good deal about you. He -knows you only by the name of Hugh Edwards, but I must say that some of -the things he reported were not what you might call complimentary.” - -“I imagine not,” returned Hugh. - -Again Natachee, for some time, seemed to be weighing some matter of -greater moment than the things he had related; while the white man, -seeing the Indian so absorbed in his own thoughts, waited in silence. - -“There was something else that Sonora Jack and his companion talked -about,” said Natachee, at last, “something that I cannot understand.” - -Then looking straight into the white man’s eyes he asked slowly: - -“Will you tell me all that you know about Miss Hillgrove and her two -fathers?” - -Hugh Edwards drew back and his face darkened. The Indian saw the effect -of his words and raised his hand to check the white man’s angry reply. - -“I understand your thought,” he said calmly. “But I assure you I am not -amusing myself at your expense. It is for your interest as well as for -mine that I ask.” - -Believing that the Indian was speaking sincerely, even though for some -reason of his own, and prompted by his alarm at this mention of Marta, -Hugh asked: - -“Am I to understand that Miss Hillgrove was discussed by this outlaw and -his companions?” - -“Yes,” said Natachee. “The Lizard told Sonora Jack all that he knew and -perhaps more. I am asking you so that we may know how much of the -Lizard’s story is true.” - -In a few words Hugh related how the Pardners had found Marta when the -girl was little more than a baby. - -When he had finished the Indian said: - -“I knew the story in a general way and the Lizard told it substantially -as you have. But here is the amazing thing--Sonora Jack knows more about -these two old prospectors and their partnership daughter than even you -know.” - -Hugh Edwards was speechless with astonishment. - -The Indian continued: - -“When the Lizard first mentioned Miss Hillgrove’s name, it was in -connection with you, and Sonora Jack only laughed and made a coarse -jest. But when the Lizard went on to tell of her relationship to Bob and -Thad, the outlaw was so excited that he almost shouted. He asked -question after question--her age--how long she and the Pardners had been -in the Cañada del Oro--where they came from--everything--and as the -Lizard answered, the outlaw would translate to his Mexican companion, -who was as excited as Sonora Jack himself. And when the Lizard had told -him all he could, the two talked together in Mexican a long time. I -cannot repeat all that was said but Sonora Jack cried many times: ‘It is -the same girl, Jose, the very same--Jesu Cristo! what luck--what -marvelous luck!’ - -“One thing is certain--this outlaw in some way expects to make a fortune -through the old Pardners and their girl. I do not know how. But Sonora -Jack said to the Mexican that whether they found the lost mine or not, -their coming to the Cañada del Oro was certain now to make them both -rich.” - -“Is it possible,” asked Hugh, “that Thad and Bob were one time in any -way mixed up with this Sonora Jack?” - -“I thought of that,” returned Natachee, “and the next day I watched to -see if the outlaws went to the Pardners. They did--they spent nearly two -hours talking with Miss Hillgrove and her fathers. Then they went with -Thad and Bob down to their mine, leaving the girl at the house. They -were with the Pardners over an hour.” - - * * * * * - -Hugh Edwards was greatly disturbed by what Natachee had learned. His -first fear, that the stranger who had talked with him was an officer, -was as nothing compared with his fear now for Marta. All night he -pondered over the situation with scarce an hour of sleep. When morning -came he told the Indian that he was going back to his old cabin to be -near the girl--prison or no prison. - -“But can’t you see what a foolish move that would be?” asked Natachee. -“The Pardners know who you are. If they have been, in the past, -connected with Sonora Jack, which is very possible, they will turn you -over to the sheriff in short order to protect both the outlaw and -themselves. If that should happen either through them or through any one -else, you certainly would be in no position to help Miss Hillgrove. You -do not even know yet that Miss Hillgrove is in danger. Sonora Jack will -do nothing until he has satisfied himself about the lost mine, which -brought him into this country at the risk of his life. You can depend on -that. While he is searching for the mine I may be able to learn more of -his interest in the Pardners and their girl. Be patient or you will -spoil everything.” - -And Hugh, because he felt that Natachee for the time being was his ally, -listened to his advice. The white man did not deceive himself as to the -real reason for the Indian’s interest in the situation. Nor did the red -man make any pretenses. But even at that, Hugh felt that he would be -better able ultimately to protect Marta, if for the present he fell in -with the red man’s plan to learn the exact nature of Sonora Jack’s -interest in the girl. - -All that forenoon Natachee did not leave his cabin. But after their -noonday meal he followed Hugh down into the gulch where, for a long -time, he sat on a rock watching the white man at his work. Then he went -back to the hut on the mountain side above. - -When Edwards, a little before sunset, climbed the steep way from the -place of his labor up to the cabin, the Indian was gone. - -No second glance was needed to tell the white man that the cabin had -been the scene of a terrific struggle. - - - - -CHAPTER XXIV - -THE WAY OF A WHITE MAN - - He was conscious of but one thing--a thing that was born of his - white man’s soul. - - -With a cry of dismay Hugh ran to the place where he kept hidden his -hoard of gold. His pitifully small earnings were untouched. Natachee’s -bow and quiver of arrows, without which the Indian never left the cabin, -were in their usual place. His hunting knife, which was always in his -belt, was lying on the floor. It was not difficult for Hugh to guess -what had happened. - -Sonora Jack, unable with the help of his map to find the Mine with the -Iron Door, and believing that Natachee knew the location of the treasure -had sought the Indian to force him to reveal the secret. While Natachee -was in the gulch with Edwards, Sonora Jack and his companions had -entered the cabin, and waiting there had taken the Indian by surprise -when he returned. The ground in front of the cabin was trampled by -horses, and the tracks of their iron shoes were clear, leading away down -the mountain toward the lower cañon. There was no doubt in Hugh’s mind -but that the outlaws had taken Natachee away with them. Without -hesitation he set out to follow the tracks as fast as he could in the -failing light. He was wholly without experience in such matters, but the -ground was soft from the winter rains and the three horses left a trail -that was easy enough to follow. - -When it became too dark to see, he was a mile or two from the cabin, -well down on the steep slope of what he thought must be a spur of -Samaniego Ridge. He had set out to follow the outlaws upon the impulse -of the moment. In his excitement, he had not paused to think. But now, -when he could no longer see the tracks, he was forced to stop and -consider the situation with more deliberation. - -Hugh Edwards realized that he was in every way but poorly equipped to -meet such an emergency. What, he asked himself, could he do if he should -succeed in finding the outlaws with their captive? If it had been a -question of meeting Sonora Jack alone and bare-handed, he would have no -reason to hesitate. Certainly he would not fear to face such an issue. -Hugh Edwards was far from being either a weakling or a coward. But -Sonora Jack was not alone. There were two others with him and they were -undoubtedly well armed, while their desperate characters were clearly -evidenced by their successful attack on Natachee. Hugh smiled grimly and -touched the weapon at his side as he recalled how he had said to -Natachee: - -“I could not hit a flock of barns.” - -After all, why should he concern himself with Natachee’s affairs? The -red man had never professed anything even approaching friendship for -him. For weeks the Indian had held him a prisoner and with all the -cruelty and cunning of his savage fathers had tortured him. Why not -abandon him now to his fate? Why not return to the hut, take what gold -he had accumulated and make his way out of the country? But as quickly -as these thoughts raced through his mind, Hugh Edwards dismissed -them--Marta. - -If Natachee had not told him of Sonora Jack’s interest in the old -prospectors and their partnership daughter it might, perhaps, have been -possible for him to desert the Indian now. But in spite of his hatred -for his tormentor, and in spite of the bitter, revengeful purpose which -he knew inspired the red man’s interest in his affairs and in the woman -he loved, Hugh needed Natachee’s help. Perhaps even now, at that very -moment, the Indian was finding, through Sonora Jack, a key to the -mystery of Marta Hillgrove’s birth and parentage. At any cost he, Hugh -Edwards, must find the outlaws and their captive. - -But how? He could not go to Thad and Bob for help. Natachee had made the -possible connection between the old prospectors and Sonora Jack too -clear. Even if he could have found his way in the night to Marta’s home, -he would not dare appeal to them. Saint Jimmy--George Wheeler and his -cowboys? It would be worse than useless for one of Hugh’s inexperience -to attempt to find his way such a distance through such a wild country -in the darkness of the night. He realized hopelessly that he did not -even know which way to start. - -He decided at last that the only course possible for him was to wait -with what patience he could for the morning, and then to continue -following the tracks of the horses. He had barely reached this decision -and settled down in the poor shelter of a manzanita bush to pass the -long cold hours of discomfort and anxiety, when he saw, at some distance -down the mountain from where he sat, a strange glow of light. - -It was not a camp fire. It was too soft--too diffused. It was not like -the light of that window which he had watched so many lonely hours. It -was not so steady and it was nearer--much nearer. He could see the trees -and bushes that fringed the top of a cliff. Why--that was it--the light -was from below--there was a fire at the foot of that cliff. He could not -see the fire itself because--why, of course--the cliff that was lighted -from below was the other side of a narrow gorge. He was too far away, -and the walls were too steep for him to see the bottom. - -As quickly as possible, but with every care to make his movements -noiseless, Hugh Edwards stole toward the light. In a few minutes, that -seemed hours to him, he was close to the rim of the gorge. Lying flat on -the ground, he crawled with even greater caution to the edge of the -precipice, where through the fringe of grass and bushes he looked down. - -The place was, as he had reasoned, a deep, narrow cañon with sheer walls -of rock. The cliffs on the side where he lay were fully fifty feet from -base to rim, and for about a hundred years they formed a half circle, -giving a width to the little cañon at that point of about the same -distance. At one end of this natural amphitheater, where a creek came -tumbling down over granite ledges and bowlders, a man with his arms -outstretched could almost touch both walls of the hall-like passage. The -lower end was wider, with no rocks to obstruct the entrance. Except for -the creek which ran close to the foot of the cliff opposite the -semicircular side where Hugh lay, the floor was smooth and level with a -number of mesquite trees and several giant cottonwoods. It was in the -more open center of this arena that Hugh Edwards saw a thing that made -him catch his breath with a shuddering gasp, while his heart pounded and -his hand went to the gun on his hip. - -On a large, altar-shaped rock that had been dislodged from the walls -above by some force of nature, Natachee lay bound. The Indian was on his -back with his arms and legs drawn down and tied securely to the rock, so -that, save for his head, he was held immovable, but with no rope across -his body. - -Sonora Jack stood beside the rock giving directions to his companions, -the Lizard and a Mexican, who were looking after the fire. Nearer the -entrance to the amphitheater were three saddle horses. On the opposite -side of the open space about the rock, and beyond the fire, the men had -placed their rifles against the trunk of a cottonwood. The eyes of the -man on the rim of the cañon wall had barely noted these details when -Sonora Jack turned from his companions by the fire to Natachee. - -“Well,” he said, and every word carried distinctly to the man above, -“how about it, Indio, you got something to say, yet?” - -Natachee did not speak. - -“You not want to tell, heh? All right, you’re some bravo Indio, but you -goin’ to beg me to let you talk ’fore I get through with you. I got -nothin’ ’gainst you, but you know where that Mine with the Iron Door is -an’ sure as fire is hot you’re goin’ to lead me to it. I don’t come all -the way up here from Mexico City just for nothin’. You show me the old -mine, an’ you can put in the rest of your years growin’ old nice an’ -easy. If you don’t--“ he paused significantly, then called to his two -helpers: “Put plenty mesquite on that fire, boys, we want plenty good -red coals. This Indio here needs a little warmin’ up, I think.” Bending -over his victim he said again: “Well, how ’bout it, you goin’ to come -through?” - -Save for the glittering light in the dark eyes of the red man, the -outlaw might have been talking to a stone image. - -Enraged by the silent strength of that opposing will, Sonora Jack went -closer to the Indian’s side. - -“Mebby you no sabe what I’m goin’ to do to you. Mebby you think I got -you here on this rock just for a bluff. Not much, I ain’t. If you don’t -come across an’ show me that mine, I’m goin’ to put ’bout a hatful of -them red coals right here.” With his open hand he slapped Natachee’s -naked chest. “You do what I say or I burn the red heart out of you, an’ -I ain’t hurryin’ the job neither. You ain’t the first mule-head hombre -I’ve made loosen up.” - -Hugh Edwards drew back from the edge of the cliff. For a single instant -he was sick with horror. Then the blood of his race surged through his -veins with tingling strength. In that moment it meant nothing to him -that the man bound to the rock down there was an Indian. It made no -difference that the red man, with cunning cruelty, had for weeks -ingeniously tortured him to gratify a savage thirst for revenge against -all white people. He did not, at the moment, even remember Marta and his -need of Natachee’s help. It mattered nothing that there were three of -those fiends down there and that he was alone. He was conscious of but -one thing: a thing that was born of his white man’s soul. That deed of -unspeakable brutality must not--should not--be accomplished. - -Swiftly he made his way along the rim of the cañon toward the upper end -of the semicircle. He felt as if he were acting in a dream, or as if -some spirit over which he had no control dominated him. But even as he -moved, a plan flashed before him, and he saw clearly every detail of the -only part he could play with the slightest hope of success. The narrow -passage through which the creek entered the amphitheater was hidden from -the men by the deep shadows of the trees. Their rifles were on that side -of the fire. - -A short distance above the scene of the impending tragedy he found a -place where he could descend, half sliding, half falling, to the creek, -while the noise of the stream covered any sound from that direction. A -moment more and he had let himself down over the rocks and bowlders, -around which the waters roared, and stood behind the trunk of one of the -giant cottonwoods, not a hundred feet from the outlaw and his -companions. With sheer strength of will he restrained his impulse to -rush forward and throw himself upon those fiends in human form as they -bent over their fire. - -He must wait. He must watch for the exact moment. - -It was not long. - -Sonora Jack, from the Indian’s side, called to his companions: - -“Ya chito tray la lumbre--bring the fire.” - -To Natachee, the outlaw said: - -“One more time I ask you, Indio, are you goin’ to take me to the mine?” - -There was no answer. - -The Lizard and the Mexican raked a quantity of live coals from the fire -on to a flat rock. - -Behind the tree, Hugh Edwards crouched in readiness. - -The two men who were kneeling at the fire rose and started toward the -Indian. Sonora Jack faced toward his victim. It was the moment for which -the man behind the tree was waiting. - -With all his strength, Hugh Edwards ran for the tree against which the -three rifles were standing. He reached his goal at the same instant that -the men with the coals of fire arrived at the rock. - -With a shout, Hugh began emptying his revolver in the general direction -of the outlaws. - -The Lizard, with a scream of terror, ran for the horses. The Mexican and -Sonora Jack, under the combined shock of that fusillade of shots from -the direction of their rifles, with those accompanying yells and the -Lizard’s screaming flight, leaped for the safety of their mounts. The -horses in their fright added to the confusion. - -Dropping his revolver and snatching two of the rifles, Hugh ran forward -to the Indian. By the time Sonora Jack and his companions had succeeded -in mounting their struggling horses, he had cut the ropes that bound -Natachee, and the Indian and the white man, from the shelter of the -rock, were firing into the shadowy group of plunging animals and cursing -men. - -As the outlaws disappeared in the darkness beyond the entrance to the -amphitheater, Natachee caught his rescuer by the arm: - -“Quick, we must get out of this light before Sonora Jack gets hold of -himself.” - -Swiftly he led the way up the creek. - - * * * * * - -An hour later, in the Indian’s cabin, Natachee stood before his white -companion. With an expression which Hugh Edwards had never before seen -on that dark countenance, the red man spoke in the manner of his -people. - -“Before the winter snows came, a white rabbit was caught by an Indian -fox. The snows are gone and the rabbit has become a mountain lion. Why -has the lion saved his enemy, the fox, from Sonora Jack’s fire?” - -“Why,” stammered Hugh, “I--I--really, you know, I couldn’t do anything -else. I saw the light, then I saw what those devils were going to do, -and--well--I simply couldn’t stand for it.” - -“I, Natachee the Indian, have no claim on you, a white man. I have been -your enemy. I am an enemy to all of your blood. I have tortured you in -every way I knew. I would have continued to torture you.” - -“That has nothing to do with it,” retorted Hugh coldly. “I didn’t do -what I did because I thought you were my friend.” - -The Indian smiled with grave dignity. - -“The live oak never drops its leaves like the cottonwood. The pine never -blossoms like the palo verde. A coyote in the skin of a bear would still -act like a coyote. A deer never forgets that it is not a wolf. You, Hugh -Edwards, saved me, your enemy, from the coals of fire, because you could -not forget your nature--because you could not forget that you are a -white man. I, Natachee, will not forget that I am an Indian.” - -With these words he bowed his head and, turning, went to take his bow -and quiver of arrows from beside the fireplace. - -Standing in the doorway, he spoke again: - -“I must go. Sonora Jack will not come here again to-night. If he should, -I will be near. Sleep in peace. When I return I will have something to -tell you.” - - * * * * * - -All that following day, Hugh Edwards watched for another visit from -Sonora Jack and his companions, and waited with no little anxiety for -Natachee’s return. - -But the outlaws did not come again. It was a little after noon the -second day when the Indian finally appeared. He was driving four burros -equipped with packsaddles. - -When Hugh expressed surprise at sight of the pack animals, Natachee -offered no explanation. In stolid silence the Indian prepared his -dinner. He ate as if he had not touched food for many hours. When he had -finished he said simply: - -“I must sleep. In two hours I will awaken. Then we will talk. Do not go -away from the cabin, please. Watch! If you see anything moving on the -mountain side, call me.” - -He threw himself on his couch and almost instantly was sound asleep. - -Hugh Edwards, sitting just outside the cabin door, waited. - -A gentle wind breathed through the trees of juniper and live oak and -cedar and sighed among the cliffs and crags; and from below, faint and -far away, came the murmur of the distant creek. He saw the sunlight, -warm on the green of the cottonwoods and willows in the Cañon of Gold. -He watched the cloud shadows drifting across the mountain slopes and -ridges and, looking up to the high peaks, saw the somber pines against -the blue of the sky. - -A rock wren from a bowlder near by observed him with friendly eye and -bobbed a cheerful greeting, and a painted redstart swung on a cat-claw -bush. From somewhere on the side of the gulch where he worked came the -exquisitely finished song of a grosbeak. The towering cliffs behind the -cabin echoed the hoarse croaking call of a raven and now and then there -was a flash of black and white and a bulletlike whiz, as a company of -white-throated swifts shot past. - -But no human thing moved within the range of his vision. - -As he watched, he pondered the meaning of the Indian’s manner. The red -man had often remained silent for days at a time. But now, under the -peculiar circumstances, Hugh felt that there was an unusual significance -in Natachee’s native reticence. What had the Indian been doing? Where -had he been? What had he learned? What was the meaning of those four -burros? - -The deep voice of the Indian broke in upon his thoughts. Natachee was -standing in the doorway. - - - - -CHAPTER XXV - -THE WAYS OF GOD - - “Listen carefully now and hear with your heart what I, Natachee, - shall say.” - - -The Indian spoke with that strange dignity of mingled pride and pathos -that so often moved the white man to pity: - -“Hugh Edwards, the mountain streams that are born up there among those -peaks are obedient to the will of Him from whose hand the snows fall. -From their cradles among the roots of the pines, they start for the sea -that lies many days beyond that faint blue line yonder, where the earth -and the sky become one. Nor is there any doubt but that the waters, in -the end, reach the appointed place for which they set out. But how or -when, no mortal can say, for the creeks are forced to change their -plans. The clearly marked trail upon which they first set out comes to -an end. The waters that run with such noisy strength down the mountain’s -slopes sink into the desert, and are lost forever to human eyes. - -“It is so with the plans of men. The will of Him who sets the unknown -ways by which these mountain waters shall reach the sea determines also -the unknown ways that men shall go through this life, even to that place -where the spirit’s journey ends. The trail, which at first is so -clearly marked, sinks from sight and is lost in a desert of things which -no mortal can know. - -“I, Natachee, in following the trail of my destiny, have come to such a -place. The course which lay before me as plain as the bed of a mountain -stream is changed. I can no longer go the way I had planned. I am an -Indian. You have said many times that I am a devil--good. Under certain -circumstances every man is a devil. Change the circumstances and the -devil becomes something else. Listen carefully now and hear with your -heart what I, Natachee, shall say. - -“Sonora Jack and his Mexican have left the home of the Lizard, but the -Lizard has gone with them. The three are camped in the foothills a few -miles from the home of the Pardners and their girl. They are hiding -there because they do not know how many there were in the party that -rescued me. It was well that you made so much noise. But Sonora Jack -will not hide long. When he is sure that he is not being followed by a -posse, he will move. But he will not again attempt to find the Mine with -the Iron Door. He fears to stay longer in the Cañon of Gold lest he be -prevented from carrying out some other plan. I could not learn what that -other plan is. I know only that it concerns Marta Hillgrove and the -Pardners. Whatever Sonora Jack plans, it is not good. We must go at once -that we may protect your woman.” - -Hugh Edwards spoke as one who finds it hard to believe what he has -heard: - -“You say that _we_ must go--that we must protect Marta? Do you mean that -you will help me to save her from whatever threatens through this Sonora -Jack?” - -Natachee bowed his head for a moment, then met the white man’s eyes -proudly. - -“Did I not say that the trail which I, Natachee, was following had -suddenly changed as the course of a mountain stream is lost in the -desert sands? When Sonora Jack and his companions caught me and tied me -with their ropes to that rock, I was as helpless as a dove in the coils -of a snake. Do you think that I, Natachee, would have weakened under -their torture fire? Sonora Jack would have burned the heart out of the -Indian’s breast but he never would have heard from the Indian’s lips the -secret of the Mine with the Iron Door. It is not a new thing for an -Indian to be tortured for gold. I, Natachee, would have died as so many -of my fathers have died, without a word. But you, a white man, obedient -to your strange white man’s nature, offered your own life to save the -life of Natachee the Indian, who had for months been torturing you. The -trail of hatred and revenge that lay so clear before the red man is lost -in the strange desert of the white man’s ways. I, Natachee, cannot -understand, but who am I to disobey? The life you saved belongs to you, -Hugh Edwards. I, Natachee, am yours until I pay the debt. Can the heart -of the white man understand?” - -The Indian, with an earnestness that left no doubt of his sincerity, -offered his hand. And Hugh Edwards, though he did not yet realize the -full significance of the Indian’s words, gladly accepted the proffered -friendship, saying as he grasped the Indian’s hand: - -“I am more than glad you feel that way about it, Natachee, but really, -old man, I’m afraid you overrate what I did. I can’t believe yet that -those fellows would have dared to go the limit with you. They might have -burned you pretty bad, I’ll grant, but----“ - -At the touch of the white man’s hand and the hearty comradeship of his -words, Natachee dropped his Indian manner and became the Natachee of the -white man’s schools. Smiling, he said: - -“It is evident, my friend, that you do not know Sonora Jack and his -methods. I hope for your sake that if you are ever introduced to him you -will kill him before he can identify you as the man who blocked his way, -as he thinks, to the treasure which brought him from Mexico at such a -risk. - -“But no more of this,” he added. “We have work to do. I went to see -Doctor Burton and told him everything--everything except of our visit to -the mine. Together we made a plan and he bade me assure you of Marta’s -love and tell you how glad he was for you. Then I called on the Pardners -as the Doctor and I had agreed was best. They knew no more of Sonora -Jack than every one who lives in this part of Arizona knows. I explained -to the old prospectors and their girl why you had disappeared and how -you had been hiding with me this winter. I told them of your innocence -of the crime for which you are under sentence--of your love for -Marta--of your efforts to find the gold that would enable you to leave -the country and take her with you. I leave you to imagine the girl’s -happiness. She would have come to you with me but I would not permit it. -I promised her that instead to-morrow you should go to her.” - -Hugh Edwards, in a fever of longing and anxiety, paced to and fro. - -“But why to-morrow?” he cried. “Why not now--this moment? Who can say -what may happen while we wait?” - -Natachee answered: - -“We have work to do first. Listen--you are not safe for a day, once you -show yourself again. The Lizard has talked too much as I told you he -would. Your disappearance set everybody to wondering, then to -questioning and guessing. You can only save yourself and Marta by -leaving the country before the sheriff learns that you are here and -before Sonora Jack can carry out his plan, whatever it is. Doctor Burton -will have everything arranged. To-morrow you will go.” - -“But--but”--stammered Hugh--“I have no money. There is not gold enough -to buy even my own way out of the country, much less to take Marta with -me.” - -The Indian laughed. - -“I told them you had struck the rich pocket that you have been working -so hard to find. Bob and Thad loaned me those burros there to bring down -the gold. The Pardners will cash your gold as if they had found it in -their own little mine. Doctor Burton and I planned it all. He will -advance money for your immediate needs until your own gold is in the -bank.” - -“But I tell you I have no gold.” - -“You forget,” returned the Indian calmly, “the Mine with the Iron Door.” - - * * * * * - -When it was dark, Natachee said: - -“Come, we must not lose an hour.” - -Taking one of the burros with a number of ore sacks which he had brought -from the Pardners, the Indian led the way down into the gulch where he -put Hugh’s pick on the packsaddle. Then tying the cloth over the white -man’s eyes and placing one end of the rope in his hand, he went on; -Hugh, in turn, leading the burro. When they arrived near the entrance to -the mine, they left the pack animal and went into the tunnel. - -Removing the cloth from his companion’s eyes, Natachee said: - -“You shall remain here to dig the gold. I will carry it out to the burro -and take it to the cabin. I trust you not to leave this spot until I am -ready to take you back as we came.” - -Hugh laughed. - -“You may trust me. I’ll promise not to put my head out even. I’ll be too -busy to waste any time investigating.” - -“Good!” said the Indian and the two men fell to work. - -All night long, Hugh Edwards toiled with his pick, while Natachee sorted -the ore, selecting only the richest pieces of quartz for the sacks. As -fast as the sacks were filled, he carried them from the mine and packed -them on the burro. When they had a load, the Indian led the pack animal -away, to return later for another. It was a full two hours before -daybreak when Natachee announced that they had taken out all that the -four burros could carry. With this last load he led Hugh out of the mine -and back to the cabin. Then, while the white man prepared breakfast, the -Indian went once more to the mine to destroy every evidence of their -visit and to obliterate every sign of the tracks they had made going and -returning. When he again appeared at the cabin, the gray light of the -coming day shone above the crest of the mountains. With the four burros -loaded with the precious ore, the two men set out for the Pardners’ home -in the lower cañon. - -They had reached a point on Samaniego Ridge above the house when -Natachee, who was leading the way, stopped suddenly with a low -exclamation. - -“What is the matter?” cried Hugh. - -The Indian motioned for the white man to come to his side. Silently he -pointed down at the little house on the floor of the cañon below. - -“Well, what is it--what is the matter--what do you see?” said Hugh, -gazing at the familiar scene. - -“There is no one there,” returned the Indian in a low voice, “no one -about the house--the door is closed--no one at the mine--no horse in the -corral--no smoke from the chimney. And see,” he pointed to three -buzzards that were circling about the yard in the rear of the house. -While they looked, another huge bird joined the group, and then another. - -With a cry, Hugh Edwards started forward, but Natachee caught him by the -arm. - -“Wait, you do not know who may be watching for you to come--wait.” - -Quickly the Indian led the burros into a little hollow that was fringed -with thick bushes, where he tied them securely. Then showing Hugh where -to lie in a clump of manzanita so that he could watch the vicinity of -the house below, the red man disappeared in the brush. - -For what seemed hours to him, Hugh Edwards waited with his eyes fixed on -the scene below. There was no movement--no sign of life about the little -house. The Indian had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. The -company of buzzards increased until there were eight or ten now wheeling -above the silent dwelling. - -The watching man had almost reached the limit of his patience, when to -his amazement the front door of the house was thrown open and Natachee -stepped out. - -The Indian signaled his companion to come, and Hugh plunged with -reckless haste down the steep side of the ridge. - -The old prospector, Thad Grove, was lying on his bed unconscious from a -blow that had cut a deep gash on the side of his head. Natachee had -found him on the floor in front of the door to Marta’s room. At the end -of the living room, opposite the door to the girl’s chamber, Sonora -Jack’s Mexican companion was lying on the floor severely wounded. Though -unable to move, the man was conscious and his eyes followed the Indian -with the look of a crippled animal at bay. - -The body of the other Pardner was lying in a queer twisted heap in the -yard, halfway between the kitchen door and the barn. - -Marta was gone. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVI - -THE TRAGEDY - - --signs, which were as clear to the Indian as the words on a - printed page. - - -At first, when his mind was able to grasp the terrible facts of the -tragedy, Hugh Edwards nearly lost control of himself. But Natachee -steadied him. The Indian assured him with such confidence that Marta was -in no immediate danger that he took heart again. - -“The girl is worth too much money to Sonora Jack for him to harm her,” -continued Natachee. “He has carried her away, yes, but remember we know -that he expects somehow to make a fortune through her. You may depend -upon it he will take every care to keep her safe.” - -“But how can you know?” said Hugh, wondering at the certainty of the red -man’s words. - -The Indian answered quickly: - -“Because the outlaw, even in his haste, was careful to take the girl’s -things with her.” He led his companion into the girl’s room. “Look--this -closet is nearly empty. The drawers of this dresser are all pulled out -and there is almost nothing left in them. Her toilet articles even are -not here. There are no blankets left on this bed. I tell you there is -much for you to hope for yet, my friend, if you can make yourself as -cool and self-controlled as I know you are brave.” - -When they had returned to the room where the old prospector lay, the -Indian, after bending over the unconscious man for a moment, turned -again to Hugh; slowly he said: - -“There is no night so dark but there is a little light for those whose -eyes are good. Always one can see the mountain peaks against the sky. -The Mexican there will not talk, and I have not yet looked about outside -the house, but some things are very clear. This happened last night, -because there are still a few coals among the ashes in the kitchen stove -and the clock was wound as usual. Sonora Jack will go to Mexico--he does -not dare remain in the United States where there is a reward out for -him. At the best possible time, it will take him two days to reach the -line. He will not travel with his woman prisoner by daylight. That he -expects to lay up during the day is shown by his taking every particle -of food he could find in the house. It is not likely that he got started -before midnight. With the girl’s clothing, the bedding, the provisions, -and his own things, he must have taken a pack animal. Good! I, Natachee, -will follow a trail like that as fast as a horse can run.” - -Hugh Edwards put his hand on the Indian’s arm. - -“We can get horses and men at Wheeler’s,” he said quickly. “It ought not -to take an hour to raise a posse. We can telephone the sheriff from the -ranch. Come on.” - -He started toward the door but the calm voice of the Indian checked him. - -“You forget. This is no time for you to meet the sheriff. No one but -Doctor Burton and his mother must know of this, until you are safe out -of the country.” - -“I am a fool, Natachee, I forgot. Tell me what to do.” - -For a moment the Indian again bent over the unconscious man on the bed, -then he said: - -“We cannot leave Thad like this. He must have a doctor. I am going to -bring the Burtons. While I am away, you must not leave the old man’s -side. He might regain consciousness for a moment and you must be ready -to hear anything that he can tell you. And keep your eye on that Mexican -snake out there in the other room. He is the kind that may try something -desperate to keep Thad from ever speaking again, for the old prospector -is the only one who can tell us exactly what happened here last night. -Do you understand?” - -“I do,” returned Hugh. “You can trust me.” - -A moment later the Indian was running up the cañon trail toward the -little white house on the mountain side. - -Two hours later Natachee returned with Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton, -who were riding and carrying on their horses a supply of food. - -While Doctor Burton with his mother and Hugh were doing all that could -be done for Thad and for the wounded Mexican, Natachee, with the -swiftness and certainty of a well-bred hunting dog, examined every foot -of the ground in the vicinity of the house, the barn and the corral. - -When the Indian was satisfied that he could learn nothing more, he -climbed swiftly up the steep side of the cañon to the spot where he and -Hugh had left the four burros with their heavy loads of gold. Edwards -was just coming from the house when Natachee, leading the burros, -arrived at the gate. Together the two men took the animals with their -precious burdens down into the creek bottom and across to the Pardners’ -little mine, where they hurriedly buried the sacks of gold in the dump -at the mouth of the tunnel. - -And then--not far from the house, between two wide-spreading mesquite -trees, where a pair of cardinals had their nest and mocking birds loved -to swing and sing in the moonlight, where anemone and sweet peas and -evening primroses never failed to bloom, the white man and the Indian -dug a grave. - -There was no time to secure a coffin. They dared not make any public -announcement now, nor wait for any formal ceremony. With tender hands -they wrapped the old-timer in his blankets and gently laid him in his -resting place. And who shall say that Mother Burton’s simple prayer was -not as potent before that One who judges not by pomp and ceremony, as -any ritual ordained by church or creed? And who shall say that the old -prospector himself would not have wished it to be done just that way? As -Saint Jimmy said gently: - -“After all, it is not the first time that Bob has slept on the ground.” - -While Mrs. Burton was preparing a hurried dinner, Natachee told Hugh and -Saint Jimmy the story of the tragedy, as he had read it from the tracks -about the premises--signs which were as clear to the Indian as the words -on a printed page. - -“There were three of them,” said Natachee. “They came from down the -cañon. It was after everybody in the house was sleeping, because Sonora -Jack would not start from where he was hiding in his camp until after -dark. The third man was the Lizard. They left their horses and a pack -mule at the gate. The marks of the Lizard’s feet, where he dismounted, -are very clear. Jack and the Mexican went to the corner of the house -there at the back. They crouched close to the ground against the wall so -they would not be seen easily in the dark, and waited, while the Lizard -went to the barn and frightened the pinto so that the noise would waken -the Pardners and cause one of them to come out to see what was the -matter with the horse. - -“Bob came out by the kitchen door and started for the barn. He did not -see the men who were behind the corner of the house. When the old -prospector was halfway to the barn, Jack and the Mexican ran upon him -from behind. Bob fought them but he had no chance. Perhaps he called to -Thad. I think not, however, from what happened in the house. Either Jack -or the Mexican killed him with a knife, because the Lizard would not -have had time to come from the barn. - -“Then the Lizard went to stand guard at the front of the house to -prevent Marta from escaping by that door, and to give warning in case -any one should come. His tracks are there by the porch. The two outlaws -went into the house by the kitchen door. Thad probably had also been -awakened by the noise at the barn, and while waiting for Bob to come -back must have heard Jack and the Mexican. He was trying to prevent them -from entering Marta’s room when he shot the Mexican, and Sonora Jack -struck him down. - -“The Lizard, I think, is with Jack and the girl. He seems to have turned -his own horse loose and taken the Mexican’s. Marta is riding her pinto. -They have taken the pack mule.” - -As Natachee finished, Mrs. Burton called them to dinner. - -While they were eating, the Indian asked the Doctor about Thad’s -condition. - -“I cannot say yet, as to his complete recovery,” returned Saint Jimmy, -“but I feel reasonably sure that he will pull through all right. I am -quite certain that he will regain consciousness for a time at least. But -the Mexican has no chance. He will live for several days, perhaps, but -the end is certain.” - -“Good!” said Natachee. “You and Mrs. Burton will stay here until Edwards -and I return, will you?” - -“Indeed we will,” returned Mother Burton quickly. - -“Good!” said the Indian again. “We should be back the morning of the -fourth day.” - -He looked at Doctor Burton inquiringly. - -“We will save time getting started if we take your horses. The Pardners’ -horses are out on the range somewhere--and to go to Wheeler’s for help -would mean the sheriff.” - -“They are yours. Take them, of course,” said Doctor Burton and his -mother in a breath. - -“We will take a little food for to-night and to-morrow,” continued the -Indian, “and a canteen of water. With a little grain for the horses and -the Pardners’ guns, that will be all, except”--he smiled grimly--“my bow -and arrows.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXVII - -ON THE TRAIL - - What madness to think that Natachee could ever find them in that - seemingly infinite space. - - -The trail, left by Sonora Jack, led Edwards and Natachee down the creek -and out of the cañon by the old road. But a mile or two beyond the -crossing, the outlaw had left the road for a course more to the west -through the foothills. And here, in the soft ground where there were no -other tracks, the marks of the horse’s iron-shod feet were very clear, -even to the white man. But when Edwards would have urged his mount -forward, the Indian checked him. - -“There are many miles of desert ahead of us, my friend,” said Natachee. -“I must not permit your impatience to rob us of our horses before our -journey is half finished.” - -Reluctantly Edwards restrained himself, and the Indian, riding a little -in advance, set the pace. - -They had not gone far when Natachee pulled up his horse, and springing -from his saddle, held up his hand for his companion to stop. - -“What is it?” asked Edwards. “What is the matter?” - -The Indian, who was moving here and there as he studied the ground, did -not answer until he was apparently satisfied with his examination of the -tracks. - -As he came back to his waiting horse, he said: - -“They stopped here and the men dismounted to tighten the cinches. I was -right about the Lizard. Those tracks there are his, and there are the -tracks of his horse. Sonora Jack and his horse are over there. When the -men had attended to their saddles, the Lizard went to look after the -pack mule over there, while Jack went to the horse that stood there, -which must have been the pinto. Now that we have identified the horses -with their riders, we can follow the movements of each in case they -should separate--unless, of course, they should change horses.” - -Again the Indian was in his saddle and they went on. At times they rode -at a fast walk, again their sturdy mounts put mile after mile behind -them with the easy swinging lope of the cow horse. Occasionally Natachee -reined in his mount and, bending low from the saddle, studied the trail -carefully, but he never hesitated for more than a moment or two. - -At first, after leaving the old road, the trail led them straight west, -but just before they crossed the Bankhead Highway they turned a little -to the south, so as to pass the southern end of the Tortollita range. -And here in the harder ground, and among the rocks, the trail became -more difficult. Also, as Natachee had foreseen, the outlaw had separated -his party; sending the Lizard with the pack mule one way while he with -Marta went another. The Indian, explaining to Edwards what had -happened, held to Nugget’s tracks. - -And now, as he proceeded, the outlaw had taken every precaution to throw -any possible pursuer off his trail. Choosing the hardest ground, he had -turned and twisted, doubled back and forth, riding over ledges of rock, -avoiding soft spots of ground, and taking advantage of everything in his -course that would be an obstacle in the way of any one attempting to -follow. At the same time, he had moved steadily toward the west and -south. - -Edwards, in dismay, felt that all hope of rescuing Marta was lost. To -his eyes there was no mark to show which way they had gone. But Natachee -smiled. - -Dismounting, and giving his bridle rein to his companion, the Indian -went ahead, stooping low at times and moving slowly, again running -confidently at a dog trot. Three times he caused Edwards to wait while -he drew a wide circle and picked up the trail at some point further on. -Where Hugh could see not the slightest mark to show that a living thing -had passed that way, the Indian moved forward with a certainty that was, -to the white man, almost supernatural. A tiny scratch on a rock, a -pebble brushed from its resting place, was enough to mark the way for -the Indian as clearly as if it were a paved street. It was late in the -afternoon when the trail finally drew away from the Tortollitas and -again lay clearly marked in the softer ground of the desert. And here, -presently, Natachee pointed out to Edwards that the tracks of the -Lizard’s horse and the pack mule had again merged with those of the -animals ridden by Sonora Jack and his captive. - -The sun had set when Natachee stopped his horse. There was still light -to see the trail but it would last but a few minutes longer. For some -time the Indian seemed lost in contemplation of the scene. Slowly his -eyes swept the vast reaches of desert and the mountain ranges that lay -before them. His companion waited. - -At last Natachee said: - -“Sonora Jack is going to Mexico. If he were not, he would have gone to -the north of the Tortollitas back there. But Mexico lies there to the -south and this trail is leading almost due west.” - -“What can we do?” cried Edwards. “It will be dark in twenty minutes, we -cannot follow the trail in the night.” - -“Patience,” returned the Indian, “and listen. The ways by which one may -go through these deserts and mountains are more or less fixed.” Pointing -to the southwest where the ragged sky-line of the Tucson range was sharp -against the glowing sky, he continued: - -“The outlaw would not risk going straight south on this side of those -hills because that is the thickly settled valley of the Santa Cruz with -the city of Tucson to bar his way. Do you see, through that gap in the -Tucson range, a domelike peak of another range beyond?” - -“Yes.” - -“Well, that is Baboquivari. The Baboquivari, the Coyote, the Roskruge, -and the Waterman Mountains are in a line north and south with the Pozo -Verdes at the southern end of the line extending into Mexico. On this -side of those ranges the country is rather well covered by cattle -ranches and the main road to San Fernando, Sasabe and Mexico, and there -is a custom house on the line. I do not think Sonora Jack would go that -way. - -“On the other side of that line of mountains lies the thinly settled -Papago Indian Reservation. If this trail here continues its course to -the west, it will pass north of those Waterman Mountains which are at -the northern end of that line of ranges which mark the eastern boundary -of the reservation. The Vaca Hills in the Papago country lie just -beyond. They are surrounded by barren desert. There are no ranches--no -roads. There is no place in all this country more lonely, and there is a -little water there. Sonora Jack could have reached the Vaca Hills by -daybreak this morning. If he spent this day there, he will turn south -from that point and will be making his way to-night through the Papago -Reservation to the Mexican line. I have heard that his old headquarters -were in Mexico, south of the Nariz and Santa Rosa Mountains, which are -on the border. - -“But if I am wrong, and he went south on this side of the Baboquivaris, -then he has gone through the Tucson range by the pass at Picture Rocks -and we will find his trail there. Come!” - -By midnight, they were at Picture Rocks--a narrow cut through the -Tucson Mountains where the rock walls of the pass are covered with the -strange picture writings of a prehistoric people. At places, the winding -passageway is scarcely wider than the tracks of a wagon, so that it was -not difficult for the Indian, by the light of an improvised torch, to -assure himself that Sonora Jack had not gone that way. - -With his customary exclamation, “Good!” the Indian swung into his saddle -and, leaving the Tucson Mountains behind, pushed out into the desert -with the sureness of a sailor steering toward a harbor light. And now, -through the darkness of the night, he set a pace that taxed the -endurance of the horses. The white man followed blindly. - -Before they were out of the pass, Hugh had lost all sense of direction. -In the desert, the darkness seemed to close in about them like a wall. -The shadowy form of the Indian, the ghostly shapes of the desert -vegetation, and the weird emptiness of those wide houseless spaces, gave -him a feeling of unreality. Vainly he strained his eyes to glimpse a -light. There was no light. Save for the soft thud of the horses’ feet, -the squeaking of the saddle leathers and the jingle of the bridle -chains, there was no sound. He felt that it must all be a dream from -which presently he would awake. And somewhere under those same cold -stars that looked down with such indifference, Marta, too, was -riding--riding. Where was the outlaw leading her and to what end? Where -was she at that moment? What madness to think that Natachee could ever -find them in that seemingly infinite space. - -After a time, which to Hugh seemed an age, they were again riding among -the lower hills of a small desert range. Another half hour and Natachee -stopped. Slipping to the ground and giving his bridle rein to Edwards, -he said: - -“We are at the northern end of the Waterman range. If they went to the -Vaca Hills, they came this way. We will pick up their trail at daylight. -There is water not far from here. Wait until I return.” - -As noiseless as a shadow, the Indian disappeared. - -Hugh Edwards, peering into the darkness, tried to guess which way the -Indian had gone. He listened. On every side the mysteries of the desert -night drew close. The shadowy bulk of the hills against the stars -assumed the shapes of gigantic and awful creatures of some other world. -The smell of the desert--the low sigh of a passing breath of air--the -stillness--the feel of the wide empty spaces touched him with a strange -dread. The wild, weird call of a coyote startled him. Faint and far -away, the call was answered. The lonesome cry of an owl was followed by -the soft swish of unseen wings. Suddenly, as if he had risen from the -ground, Natachee again stood at his horse’s shoulder. - -“It is all right,” said the Indian as he mounted, “there is no one at -the water hole. We will camp there until daylight.” - -After watering their horses and giving them a feed of grain, the two -men ate a cold lunch and lay down to rest until the morning. Natachee -slept, but his white companion lay with wide-open eyes waiting for the -light. - -With the first touch of gray in the sky behind the distant Catalinas, -the Indian awoke. By the time there was light enough to see, they were -in the saddle. - -They had not gone far when Natachee reined his horse toward the west and -pointing to the ground said: - -“They went here, see? And yonder are the Vaca Hills.” - -They were nearing the group of low hills that on every side is -surrounded by unbroken desert when Natachee, with a low exclamation, -suddenly stopped, and, standing in his stirrups, gazed intently ahead. - -“What is it?” asked Hugh, trying in vain to see what it was that had -attracted the red man’s attention. - -“A horse.” - -As he spoke, the Indian slipped from his saddle and motioned the white -man to dismount. - -Leading the animals behind a large greasewood bush, Natachee said to his -companion: - -“Stay here with the horses and watch.” - -Before Hugh could answer, the Indian had slipped away through the -gray-green desert vegetation. - -A half hour passed. Hugh Edwards watched until his eyes ached. From -horizon to horizon there was no sign of life. The desert was as still -as a tomb. Then he saw Natachee standing on one of the hills against -the sky. The Indian was signaling Hugh to come. - -When the white man joined his companion, the Indian did not reply to his -eager questions, and Hugh wondered at the red man’s grim and scowling -face. Silently, Natachee mounted and started his horse forward. - -Presently they rode into a low depression between the hills and Natachee -called Hugh’s attention to the water hole and the place where the outlaw -had made camp. Pointing out that the trail from this camping place led -south, the Indian said: - -“They left here as soon as it was dark last night. They are now close to -the border. Sonora Jack will not camp another day on this side of the -line but will push on this morning into Mexico. We will make much better -time to-day than they could have made last night.” - -“But that horse--what about that horse you saw?” demanded Hugh. - -For a moment, although he stopped, Natachee did not answer. Then, as if -against his will, he said curtly: - -“Ride to the top of that ridge there and you will see.” - -Wonderingly, Hugh obeyed. - -On the farther side of the ridge lay the body of the Lizard. - -Not until the following day did Hugh Edwards understand why the red -man’s face was so grim, and why he would not speak of the Lizard’s -death. - -Hour after hour the Indian and the white man followed the trail that led -southward through the Papago country. Natachee set the pace, nor did he -once stop or hesitate, for the tracks of the two horses and the pack -mule were clear in the soft ground, and the outlaw had made no attempt -to confuse possible pursuers. - -Skirting the northern end of the Comobabi range, and leaving Indian -Oasis well to the east, the trail avoided two small Indian villages that -lie at the foot of the Quijotoas and then swung more to the west. -Natachee, who for three hours had not spoken, pointed to a group of -mountains miles ahead. - -“The Santa Rosa and the Nariz Mountains on the Mexican line. Sonora Jack -is making for the headquarters of his old outlaw band.” - -As mile after mile passed in steady, relentless succession, and the -hours went by with no relief from the monotonous pound and swing of the -horses’ feet, Hugh Edwards found reason to be grateful for the past -months of heavy labor that had toughened his muscles and hardened his -body for this test of physical endurance. The sun rode in a sky that -held no relieving cloud. In the wide basin, rimmed by desert mountains -where no trees grew, there was not a shadow to rest his aching eyes. The -smell of the sweating horses and the odor of warm, wet saddle leather -was in every breath he drew. His lips were parched and cracked, his eyes -smarted, his skin was grimy with dust, his clothing damp and sticky with -perspiration. He felt that he had been riding for ages. He grimly set -his will to ride on and on and on. - -It was late in the afternoon when Natachee turned aside from the trail -and rode toward a little desert hill near-by. When Edwards, following, -asked the reason, Natachee answered: - -“We are not far from the border. Sonora Jack must have friends in this -neighborhood or he would not have come so far west before crossing into -Mexico.” - -Dismounting, the two men climbed to the top of the hill, and from that -elevation scanned the surrounding country. When Natachee was satisfied, -they returned to their horses and rode on. But now the Indian held to -the trail only at the intervals necessary to assure himself of the -general bearing of the outlaw’s course. At every opportunity he ascended -some high point from which he could survey the country into which the -trail was leading them. After two hours of this they were rewarded by -the sight of a small adobe house and corral, a mile, perhaps, from where -they stood. - -As Natachee pointed to the place he said: - -“That is not Indian. The Papago Reservation line, which follows the -international boundary for so many miles, turns north at the foot of the -Nariz Hills yonder and then after a few miles turns west again to the -Santa Rosa Mountains over there. That little ranch is not on the Indian -Reservation. It cannot be far from the border. It looks Mexican, and the -outlaw’s trail leads directly toward it.” - -At the possibility suggested by the Indian’s words, Hugh Edwards cried: - -“Do you think--are they--is Marta there?” - -Natachee shook his head. - -“No, I think the outlaw would take her into Mexico, but whoever lives -there, they are Sonora Jack’s friends or he would avoid the place.” - -Then with his eyes on his white companion’s face, the Indian said -slowly: - -“Don’t you remember the story you told me--how the old prospectors found -the little girl?” - -“Yes,” said Edwards, not at first seeing the connection. - -“Well,” continued Natachee, “have you forgotten that Thad and Bob were -coming in from the Santa Rosa Mountains, and that they found the child -at a Mexican Ranch near the border?” - -Hugh Edwards, fully aroused now, was trembling with emotion. He gazed at -the little ranch house in the distance as if fascinated. Then, without a -word, he went hurriedly down the hill to his horse. - -Natachee was beside him, and, as they mounted, the Indian spoke. - -“We must be careful, friend, it will not do to show ourselves here. If I -am not mistaken, we will pick up the trail again beyond that ranch on -the south.” - -Riding into the nearest opening between the hills of the Nariz range, -the Indian again turned westward, thus leaving the ranch well to the -north. At the western end of the range they found the outlaw’s trail -leading straight south into Mexico. - -When the sun went down, Natachee and Edwards, lying in the greasewood -and mesquite on top of a low ridge a few miles south of the -international boundary line, looked down upon the buildings and corrals -of a Mexican Ranch. - -The nearest corral was not more than a quarter of a mile distant. The -fence of a small pasture which lay between them and the corrals was less -than a hundred yards away. In this pasture, within a stone’s throw of -where the white man and the Indian lay, the pinto horse Nugget was -feeding quietly with another horse and a mule. - - - - -CHAPTER XXVIII - -THE OUTLAWS - - In reality, the ranch was a general meeting place, or station, for - cattle rustlers, smugglers, and their kind, from both sides of the - border. - - -All through these lonely months following the disappearance of Hugh -Edwards, Marta Hillgrove had lived in the firm conviction that the man -she loved would come again. She had nothing to justify her belief. She -could not understand why, if he loved her, he had left no message--no -word of hope. But her woman instinct had persistently swept aside all -the opposing facts and held her to the truth which her heart knew. She -was so sure of Hugh Edwards’ love that nothing could shake her faith in -him or cause her to doubt that he would come again to claim her. With -Saint Jimmy’s help she had endured the long days when there had been no -word from the man to whom she had given, without reserve, the wealth of -her first woman love. - -Marta never dreamed what it cost Saint Jimmy to help her. She would -never know. Many, many times Saint Jimmy had told himself that the girl -must never know how hard it was for him to help her through those weeks -of her waiting for Hugh Edwards. - -Then, at last, Natachee had come with the explanation of Hugh’s silence, -the story of the hunted man’s innocence of the crime for which he had -been imprisoned, together with the promises of the freedom and happiness -that was now, through the gold her lover had found, so near at hand for -them both. - -Every moment of that day her heart had sung: - -“To-morrow Hugh is coming. To-morrow he is coming.” The hours were -filled with rosy visions of the days, that were now so near, when she -would be with him, with no fear of another separation. Again and again -she assured herself that it was all true--that it was not another of her -dreams. Hugh _had_ found the gold that meant freedom for him, and -happiness for them both. The Pardners, when they had talked with Saint -Jimmy, were willing to do their part in carrying out the plan, as they -would have been willing to submit to any hardship to insure the -happiness of their daughter. Saint Jimmy was arranging everything. -“To-morrow, to-morrow, Hugh would come.” - -There had been a long talk with her two fathers that evening, and when -at last they had said good-night, the girl had not found it easy to -sleep. She was too excited, too thrilled with her happiness. Her mind -was too active with thoughts of what the morning would bring. She heard -the noise at the barn and wondered what mischief Nugget was in. At the -same moment she heard the Pardners stirring in their room, and knew that -they too had been disturbed by the noise that Nugget was making. The -door of her room was open and she could hear Bob muttering about the -pinto as he passed through the living room on his way out to the barn. - -The noise at the barn ceased. She waited, listening for Bob’s return. - -There was the sound of steps in the kitchen and some one entered the -living room. Thad moved in his room. She caught a whispered word outside -her door. It was not Bob. What did it mean? Sitting up in her bed, she -listened. - -Suddenly all was confusion. Thad’s voice rang out, challenging the -intruders. There was a trampling rush of feet toward her door--a tangle -of straining, writhing figures--a spurt of fire accompanied by the -deafening report of a gun--a cry of pain--a dull, sickening blow--a -moaning voice: “Hay mamacita de me vido”--a dreadful silence. - -Then another voice spoke sharply in Mexican, followed by a groaning -reply; and then a man stood beside her bed telling her that she must -prepare to go with him and assuring her that no harm should come to her -if she was obedient and made no effort to escape. Dumb with terror, the -girl started to dress and Sonora Jack went back to the wounded Mexican. -Marta heard him call to the Lizard to bring up the horses and the pack -mule, and to saddle the pinto. But when the outlaw went again to the -girl he found her kneeling beside Thad, overcome with grief. - -Lifting her to her feet, Sonora Jack said sternly: - -“Come, this is no good! The old man, he will be all right when he wake -up. You do what I say an’ make yourself ready to ride your own horse -with me, or I finish him an’ pack you on a mule.” - -He drew a knife and stooped over the old prospector. - -With a cry, Marta sprang to do his bidding. - - * * * * * - -In those first hours of her enforced ride in the night with Sonora Jack -and the Lizard, the girl was still too bewildered and frightened to -think clearly. But when the outlaw ordered the Lizard to take the pack -mule and go one way, while he with Marta went another, in order to -confuse any possible pursuers, she caught, from her captors’ words and -actions, a gleam of hope. Hugh Edwards and Natachee would arrive at her -home in the morning. They would not be long in setting out to find her. -With this hope, and the assurance from the outlaws’ manner toward her -that she was in no immediate personal danger, the girl’s courage -returned and she was able to consider her situation with some degree of -calmness. She did not know that Bob had been killed. But certainly he -had not returned after being called from the house by that noise at the -barn; nor had she heard his voice. This, together with the fact that -neither Sonora Jack nor the Lizard had mentioned the old prospector or -referred to him in any way, led her to believe that he was dead. She -could not know how seriously Thad was hurt. Try as she might, she could -find no hint of the outlaw’s purpose in taking her away. When the -Lizard would have talked to her, Sonora Jack ordered him, curtly, to -keep his mouth shut and look after the pack mule. - -Morning came and they were in the Vaca Hills. When Sonora Jack and the -Lizard had made camp, and breakfast was over, the outlaw ordered the -girl to rest and sleep because there was a long hard ride before her and -she would need all her strength. Then, telling the Lizard that he would -call him later to take his turn watching for any one following on their -trail, Sonora Jack went to the top of a hill, from which he could -overlook the country to the east. - -No sooner had his leader left the camp than the Lizard approached Marta. - -With a leering grin twisting his ratlike features, he said: - -“You’re a-ridin’ with me after all, ain’t ye?” - -The girl, making no effort to hide her disgust, did not answer. - -“Still a-feelin’ high an’ mighty, be ye? Wal, you’d best be a-gettin’ -over hit. You’re a long way from th’ Cañada del Oro right now an’ you’re -a-goin’ a heap further.” - -Marta forced herself to ask calmly: - -“Do you know where we are going?” - -The Lizard looked back at the hill toward which the outlaw had gone. - -“I know whar Sonora Jack _says_ we’re a-goin’--whether we go er not -depends on you.” - -“What do you mean?” faltered Marta. - -“What do ye reckon I’m here a-mixin’ up in this fer?” retorted the -Lizard. - -“I--I am sure I don’t know.” - -“Oh, ye don’t, don’t ye? Can’t even make a guess, heh? Wal, I’ll tell -ye, hit’s like this: Sonora Jack, he’s a-aimin’ t’ carry ye into Mexico. -He ’lows he knows whar ther’s a feller what’ll be glad t’ pay an -almighty fancy price fer a likely lookin’ gal like you an’ he’s goin’ t’ -sell ye. Onct he’s south of th’ border, he kin work it easy enough. He’s -a-takin’ good care of ye ’cause he’s got t’ deliver ye in first-class -shape. Onct yer delivered an’ th’ other feller has paid Jack’s -price--wal, I reckon you’ll be made t’ earn yer livin’ all right, an’ -pay right smart on yer owner’s investment besides.” - -The explanation of the outlaw’s purpose in abducting her was so -plausible that Marta was stricken with horror. - -After a moment the Lizard spoke again, emphasizing his words with -significant care. - -“That’s what Jack _thinks_ he’s a-goin’ t’ do. Jist like he _thinks_ I -come along t’ help him.” - -The girl caught the fellow’s suggestion with desperate eagerness. - -“But you won’t help him--you--you couldn’t do such a thing. You came to -save me.” - -Then, as she saw the expression of the Lizard’s face, her voice broke -and she faltered: - -“That is what you mean, isn’t it?” - -“What I mean depends on you. When Sonora Jack wanted me t’ come along -an’ help him git you into Mexico, I seen th’ chanct I been a long time -waitin’ fer. Hit’d be plumb easy t’ git shet of that half-breed Mex -anywhere this side of th’ line. With th’ outfit we got, you an’ me could -make hit on west t’ Yuma an’ California easy.” - -The girl was watching him as if she were under a spell. The look in his -shifty eyes, the expression of his loose mouth fascinated her. - -“But,” he added deliberately, “you’ll have t’ go as my woman.” - -With a low cry, the girl hid her face: - -“No! no!! no!!!” - -“You kin take your choice. I’ll help Sonora Jack sell ye t’ that feller -in Mexico er ye kin go with me.” - -Then the girl’s overstrained nerves gave way. Springing to her feet, she -broke into wild laughter. - -The hysterical merriment with which she received his proposal maddened -the Lizard beyond reason: - -“Hit’s funny, ain’t hit?” he snarled. “I’ve allus been funny t’ you--ye -ain’t never done nothin’ but laugh at me. But I done made up my mind a -long time ago that I’d have ye some day--an’ now--whether ye want t’ go -with me er not--“ he sprang forward and caught her in his arms. - -The girl screamed. - -A moment later the Lizard was caught by a heavy hand and whirled twenty -feet away. As he recovered his balance and snatched at the gun on his -hip, Sonora Jack said sharply: - -“Drop it!” - -The Lizard, with his eyes fixed on the outlaw’s steady weapon, raised -his empty hands. - -When Sonora Jack, with the coolness of his long experience, had disarmed -his companion, he turned to the girl. - -“I’m sorry for this, Señorita. I have said that with me you would be all -right. I don’t want you should be scared like this. Tell me, please, -what did this hombre say?” - -“It is nothing,” stammered the girl. - -“You don’t cry loud like that for nothin’,” returned the outlaw. “You -don’t get scared so for nothin’.” - -For some time the girl, by refusing to answer or by giving evasive -answers to his questions, tried to keep from telling him what the Lizard -had proposed. But Sonora Jack, with persistent and cunning questions, -with adroit suggestions and bold assertions, drew from her, little by -little, the truth. - -Then the outlaw faced the cringing Lizard. - -“So you think you play a game with Sonora Jack, heh? Don’t I tell you -how the Señorita is worth so much gold to me that she must be guarded -with great care? What am I goin’ to do now? You’re traitor to me. I no -can trust you this much while I’m gone such a little way to watch the -trail. ’Fore we get to the border there’s goin’ to be plenty chances for -you to betray me. I ain’t goin’ to be safe with you, even in Mexico. -Come--the Señorita must not again be scared. Come! You an’ me we take a -little walk over there behind that hill.” - -Grasping the Lizard’s arm, he forced the frightened creature to -accompany him. - -The terrified girl, watching, saw them disappear over the low ridge. - -Trembling, she listened. - -There was no sound. - -Presently she saw the outlaw coming back over the hill. - -Sonora Jack was alone. - -Leisurely he approached, and bowing low, said gently: - -“I’m sorry, Señorita, you got so scared. It ain’t goin’ to be so no -more.” - -All night they rode and in the gray light of the early morning came to -that small adobe ranch house near the Mexican border. - -Save for a half-starved dog that slunk from sight behind the house as -they approached, there seemed to be no life about the place. But when -Sonora Jack, riding to within a few feet of the door, shouted, “Buenos -dias, madre,” the door opened and an old Mexican appeared. He greeted -the outlaw with a cordial welcome and came forward to take the horses. -At the same moment an ancient crone hobbled from the house. - -“Hijo mio! Gracias a Dios que volviste sin novedad,” she cried. “My son! -Thanks to God you have returned without mishap.” - -“Si, madre, sin novedad--Yes, mother, without mishap.” - -“You found the Mine with the Door of Iron?” - -“No, Mother, but I found something else that will bring much gold to -me.” - -He turned toward Marta and bade the girl dismount. - -To the old man he said: - -“We must eat and go on over the line quickly. Feed and water the animals -but do not remove the saddles.” - -Then leading Marta into the house, he took her to a little room and told -her to lie down and rest until their breakfast was ready, and left her. - -When she was alone, the girl looked about with wondering interest. She -had felt, even as they were approaching the house, that there was -something strangely familiar about the place. She seemed to have been -there before or else to have seen it all in some dream. That corral--the -well--the water trough--the adobe building--the hard-beaten yard--the -pile of mesquite wood--the heap of old tin cans and rubbish. Surely, she -had seen it all before. The interior of the house, too, was familiar in -every detail. The bed upon which she was lying--the old rawhide bottom -chairs--the cracked mirror on the wall and that print of the Holy -Family. How strange it all was! She was certain that once before she had -been shut in that room, and, lying on that bed, had heard those voices -talking in Mexican on the other side of that door. - -In her wanderings with the old prospectors, Marta had picked up enough -of the Mexican language to understand a little of the conversation. She -learned that the old woman was Sonora Jack’s mother. As she listened -now, she gathered that they were discussing her. She caught the words -prospectors, Cañada del Oro, and several times she heard, little girl, -while the old woman and the man who had come in after caring for the -animals exclaimed with astonishment. In a flash, the meaning of it all -came to her. She was the little girl. This was the place from which the -Pardners had taken her. - -But try as she might, she could not bring back that childhood experience -with any degree of clearness. It was a hazy fragment--a memory. She -could not recall how she was first brought to that place, nor what her -relationship to those people had been. If only Hugh and Natachee would -come. If only they could be here now. Perhaps--perhaps, they could force -these people to tell what they knew about her. - -At breakfast, the old woman and the man treated Marta with great -deference. Again and again, they assured her in Mexican and broken -English that she must not be frightened, that she would come to no harm -if she obeyed Sonora Jack. When, with Sonora Jack, she rode away to the -south, they watched until she passed from sight. - -They had ridden two or three hours when the outlaw said: - -“Señorita, we goin’ come now to the end of our ride, for a little time. -This is Mexico. The line is ten mile back. Over them hills ahead is a -rancho. We goin’ stop there. It is not so good place as I like for you, -but it is best I can do for now. Many men are goin’ to be -there--vaqueros--all kinds--bad hombres. All the time they come an’ go. -You no want to be scared, ’cause me--I’m goin’ take good care of you. It -is best if we make like you was my wife.” - -When the girl cried out with fear and he saw the horror in her eyes he -hastened to explain: - -“Señorita, you mistake--it is only that we make believe you are my wife. -You sabe? If I take you to that place as Señorita Hillgrove, you goin’ -to be in much danger. I can fight them, yes--they know that I can fight, -but--“ he shrugged his shoulders, then: “Señora Richard would be safe, -sure. Nobody is goin’ make insult to the wife of Sonora Jack. They know -for that Sonora Jack would sure kill.” - -When Marta would not, or more literally _could_ not, agree, the outlaw -impatiently spurred his horse forward. - -“All right, Señorita, we goin’ to see. I’m goin’ to tell that you are my -wife. I promise it is only a make-believe. If you goin’ to tell it is -not so--that you are not Señora Richards--then I can’t help what comes -next.” - -In a few minutes they were at the ranch. The house was a long, -flat-topped, adobe building with several rooms opening on to a long -ramada. In reality, the ranch was a general meeting place, or station, -for cattle rustlers, smugglers and their kind from both sides of the -border. - -There were eight or ten men gathered in a group in front of the house as -the outlaw and his prisoner arrived. All of them knew Sonora Jack, and, -with two or three exceptions, greeted him cordially. When the outlaw -told them that his wife was ill from the long ride and must at once -retire, Marta made no protest. Frightened as she was at the villainous -company, worn with the nervous strain and the physical hardship of her -journey, the poor girl’s appearance made Sonora Jack’s statement that -she was ill more plausible. - -A room at the end of the building was soon made ready by a mozo who -appeared in answer to a call from one of the men. The pack mule was -relieved of his burden and the things taken inside. The room was rather -large, with two doors--one opening on to the ramada in front and one -connecting the apartment with another. Two windows supplied plenty of -fresh air, and the place was fairly well furnished as a bedroom. -Evidently it was the best apartment that the establishment afforded. - -When the mozo was gone and the door was shut, Sonora Jack whispered: - -“You done all right, Señorita. Now you goin’ be safe for sure. -Everything goin’ be fine. You make like you too sick to get out of bed. -Me, I bring what you want to eat, myself.” He smiled. “I goin’ tell them -hombres a pretty story ’bout my poor Señora who is so sick. Then I’m -goin’ play cards with them. All night we play an’ you will not be -scared. _Adios_, Señorita, don’t you be scared, rest an’ sleep.” - -Marta threw herself on the bed and, in spite of her situation, fell -into a deep sleep. When Sonora Jack brought her dinner, she awoke and, -realizing that she must keep her strength for what might come, forced -herself to eat. Then once more she slept. - -When she was again awakened, it was dark. She could not guess the time. -A strip of light shone under the door from that next room and she could -hear the men who were drinking and gambling. - -At times, their voices were raised in angry dispute or in boisterous -laughter; again, there was only the slap-slap of cards as they were -thrown on the table with the accompanying thud-thud of heavy hands, the -click of bottle necks against glasses, the scuffling sound of a boot -heel, the jingle of a spur, or the scrape of a chair on the rough floor. -Then a drunken yell of exultation would ring out, accompanied by a heavy -grumbling undertone. - -The girl, trembling with fear, listened and waited. Would Sonora Jack -keep his promise? Was the incentive, which led him to protect her from -even himself, strong enough to endure when he had become inflamed by -drink? - -Slowly the terrible hours passed. It must be nearly midnight. The voices -of the men in the next room were becoming louder, more quarrelsome and -reckless. Suddenly the frightened girl felt, rather than heard, that -front door opening. In the dim light she saw it swing slowly, inch by -inch. - -She held her breath. She wanted to scream but she dared not. The door -swung a little farther and she could see the stars through the opening. -Then a dark form slipped into the room as soundless as a shadow. -Noiselessly the door was closed. - -Cold with horror, unable to move a muscle, the girl cowered on the bed. - -The shadowy form moved toward her. It stopped--then came a low whisper. - -“Miss Hillgrove, do not be frightened, be very still. I, Natachee, have -come for you.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXIX - -THE RESCUE - - And Marta gave a low cry of delight when, far away to the - northeast, they saw the blue heights of the Santa Catalinas. - - -For a moment Marta could not speak. Then in spite of herself she gave a -low cry of joy which brought another whispered warning from the Indian. - -Moving closer, he said: - -“Hugh Edwards is waiting with the horses. We have the pinto and your -saddle but I fear you must leave everything else. Not all the men are in -there gambling and drinking. There are three in front of the house at -the farther end of the ramada. They are sitting with their backs toward -your door so I was able to get in. I dared not wait longer because, from -their talk, they are expecting some one to come any minute. Then the -party in the next room will break up and it will be too late for us to -move. We must hurry.” - -“I am ready,” whispered the girl. - -“You will be brave and do exactly what I say?” - -“Yes.” - -“Good!--Come.” - -There was a burst of angry voices in the next room. The Indian waited -until he was satisfied that the gamblers were continuing their play, -then, leading Marta to the window in the end of the building toward the -west, he slipped through, and from the outside helped the girl to -follow. - -At that moment they heard the sound of feet on the hard earth floor of -the ramada. Some one was coming toward that end of the house. With his -lips to the girl’s ear, Natachee bade her lie down. She obeyed -instantly, and the Indian, knife in hand, crept to the corner of the -building, toward which the sound was approaching, where he stood, -flattened against the wall. - -The man who was coming along the front of the house walked leisurely to -the end of the ramada and stood almost within reach of the Indian’s -hand, looking out toward the west and toward the corrals. Natachee was -as motionless as the wall against which he stood. Had the fellow gone a -step farther or turned his head to look past the corner of the building, -he would have died that same instant. Presently he turned and started -back toward his companions, calling to them in Mexican as he did so: - -“It is strange that they are so late. They should have been here an hour -ago.” - -In a flash Natachee was again at Marta’s side. Lifting her to her feet, -he whispered: - -“Follow me and do as I do.” - -A hundred feet away, a hollow in the uneven ground made a deeper shadow. -Lying prone, the Indian crawled to the little depression. The girl -followed close behind. For a moment they lay side by side in the -hollow, then the Indian rose and stooping low ran for the dark mass of a -mesquite tree some fifty yards farther on. - -Again Marta imitated his movements. - -“Good!” whispered the Indian as she crouched, breathless, beside him. -“But from here on there are too many dry sticks and things for you to -stumble over and we must go swiftly.” - -Before she realized his purpose, he had caught her up in his arms, and -keeping the tree between them and the house, was running swift and -silent as a wolf through the brush. When they were at a safe distance, -the Indian circled to the right and so gained the shelter of the corral -fence, with the corral which was north of the house between them and the -ramada where the three men were still sitting. Putting the girl down, he -whispered: - -“If you should make any noise now, they will think it is the horses, but -be careful.” - -Following the back fence of the corral, they were soon some distance -east of the house. Then, still keeping the fences between them and the -three men on the ramada, Natachee led the way toward a mesquite thicket -in a sandy wash between two low ridges where Hugh was waiting with the -horses. - -There was no time for greetings. Scarcely had they gained their saddles -when a yell came from the house, and in the light that streamed from the -open door of the room where the gamblers had been carousing, they could -see the dark forms of the men gather in answer to the alarm. Clearly -they heard the voice of Sonora Jack crying: - -“Se fue la muchacha! Los caballos! A seguir la!--The girl is gone! The -horses! To follow her!” - -When the Indian made no move to go, but sat calmly watching the lights -and listening to the voices of the outlaws as they called to one another -while saddling their horses, Edwards said impatiently: - -“Come, Natachee, we are losing valuable time here. If we go now, we will -have a good start ahead of them.” - -“No,” returned the Indian. “That is exactly what they expect us to do -and their horses are much faster and fresher than ours. They think that -we are making for the United States by the most direct route, which is -there due north between those two mountain ranges--the Santa Rosas to -the left and the Nariz to the east. They will not waste time trying to -find our trail in the darkness but will try to outride us to the line -and, by scattering, to cover the country so as to prevent us from -crossing. Be patient and you will see.” - -Very soon the Indian’s judgment was proved sound. The outlaws dashed -away as fast as their horses could run toward that gap in the mountains -through which Sonora Jack had brought Marta the day before. When the -last rider was gone and the rolling thunder of the horses’ feet had died -away in the darkness, Natachee spoke again. - -“Good; now we will go. When the day comes, we must be on the northern -side of the Nariz Mountains and a little to the east of where Edwards -and I struck the hills yesterday. As we start behind the outlaws, we -need not fear pursuit, at least until daybreak.” - -For two or three miles the Indian followed the northern course taken by -the outlaws, then, turning aside from the broad, well-traveled trail, he -led the way at a leisurely but steady pace to the northeast. Another -hour and they were well into the Nariz hills. By daylight they were on -the northern side of the range--in the United States. - -Leaving their horses, they climbed to a point from which they could look -out over the wide plains of the Papago Reservation, with its scattered -groups of hills and small mountain ranges bounded by the mighty bulwark -of the Baboquivaris and the Coyotes on the east and by the Santa Rosa -and Gunsight Mountains on the west. And Marta gave a low cry of delight -when, far away to the northeast, they saw the blue heights of the Santa -Catalinas lifting boldly into the morning sky. - -For some time the Indian scanned the country at the foot of the hills -where they stood. There was not a living creature moving within range of -his vision. With a smile, Natachee turned to his companions and pointing -to the west, said: - -“Sonora Jack and his friends are very busy looking for us over there -between these hills and the Santa Rosas yonder.” - -“Thanks to you, Natachee,” the girl answered with deep feeling. - -As if he had not heard, the Indian pointed more to the north and -continued: - -“That smoke which you see over there is from a little ranch--Mexican, I -think--toward which we trailed you and Sonora Jack yesterday. Did you -stop there?” - -Marta told them briefly of her experience--of the old Mexican woman who -was evidently Sonora Jack’s mother, and of her conviction that it was -from those people that the old prospectors had taken her when she was a -little girl. - -Hugh Edwards heard her story with many exclamations, comments and -questions. The Indian, who continued to scan the country before them -with ceaseless vigilance, listened without a word. - -When Marta had finished her story, Natachee said: - -“It is time we were moving, friends. Sonora Jack will be on our trail. -When he has made sure that we did not take the course he thought we -would take, he will ride east along the Mexico side of this range until -he picks up our trail; for he will know that we would not go into the -Santa Rosa Mountains. I think he will bring with him only one or two -men, because he will not wish to share the profit of his venture with so -many when one or two are all that he needs, now that it is no longer a -question of heading us off before we cross the border. There would be a -greater risk, too, with a large company--in the United States. He will -know that there are only three of us and will plan to follow and pick -us off at a safe distance when the opportunity offers or attack us -to-night. When he has again taken his prisoner, he can easily rid -himself of one or two helpers as he disposed of the Lizard.” - -A quarter of a mile from where they had left their horses, the low -ridge, beyond which lay the open country, was broken by a narrow, sandy -wash. One side of this natural gateway of these hills is an irregular -cliff some twenty feet in height. The Indian, leading the way straight -to this opening, passed close under the cliff and, leaving the hills -behind, set their course straight toward the distant Santa Catalinas. - -They had ridden but a short way when the Indian again halted. Pointing -to a peak in the northern end of the Baboquivaris, he said to Hugh: - -“That is Kits Peak. If you ride toward it, you will come to Indian -Oasis. There is a store there where you can water and feed your horses -and purchase something to eat for yourselves. I am going back to wait -for Sonora Jack. I will overtake you later.” - -He was turning his horse to ride away, when Edwards cried: - -“Wait a minute. Do you mean that you are going back to meet those -outlaws?” - -“Sonora Jack must be stopped,” returned the Indian. - -“All right,” agreed Hugh, “but Sonora Jack is not alone. Do you think I -am going to ride on and leave you to face those fellows single-handed?” - -“You faced three of them single-handed for me. I, Natachee, do not -forget.” - -“But that was different,” argued Edwards. “There were several things in -my favor. No--no, Natachee, it won’t do. When you meet those fellows who -are following our trail, I must be there to do my little bit with you.” - -“But Miss Hillgrove,” said the Indian. - -Marta spoke quickly. “Hugh is right, Natachee.” - -The Indian yielded. - -“Come, then, we must not delay longer, or it will be too late.” - -Swinging in a wide circle to the right, Natachee led the way swiftly -back to a point at the foot of the ridge, a short distance east of that -rocky gateway. They dismounted at a spot that was well hidden and the -Indian, directing Marta to stay with the horses and telling Edwards to -follow, ran quickly along the ridge to the top of the cliff directly -above the tracks they had made when first leaving the hills. - -When he had assured himself that there was no one in sight following -their trail, the Indian stood before his companion and Hugh knew that it -was not the Natachee of the schools that was about to speak. Drawing -himself up proudly, the red man said: - -“Hugh Edwards, listen--seven days ago this stealer of women, Sonora -Jack, and his companions, crawled like three snakes into Natachee’s hut. -Hiding, they struck, when Natachee alone crossed the threshold of his -home. In the night, they bound the Indian to a rock, and but for you -would have put live coals from their fire on his naked breast. One of -the three who did that thing is dying in the Cañon of Gold--is even now, -perhaps, dead, but I, Natachee, did not strike him. The body of another -is over there in the Vaca Hills. He did not die by the hand of the -Indian he had trapped. Sonora Jack alone is left. He is left for me. Do -you understand?” - -The white man, remembering the Indian’s face and manner when he had -found the Lizard’s body, understood. Slowly--reluctantly, he said: - -“This is your affair, Natachee, have it your own way.” - -They had not waited long when Natachee saw Sonora Jack and a Mexican -riding down through the hills. The Indian, fitting an arrow to his bow, -said to his companion: - -“When I give the word, stand up and cover Sonora Jack with your rifle.” - -With their eyes on the tracks they were following, the outlaws rode -swiftly toward the rocks where Natachee and Edwards were waiting. Sonora -Jack was a little in advance. They were just past the cliff when the -Mexican, with a cry, tumbled from his saddle. Sonora Jack pulled his -horse up sharply and whirled about to see what had happened. At the -moment he caught sight of the arrow in the body of his fallen companion, -Natachee’s voice rang out from the rock above with the familiar command: -“Put up your hands.” - -And looking up, the outlaw saw the Indian with another arrow drawn to -its head, and the white man with his menacing rifle. - -While Edwards covered the trapped outlaw, the Indian relieved their -captive of his guns and ordered him to dismount. Then Natachee motioned -for Edwards to lower his rifle and stood face to face with Sonora Jack. -From his position on the rocks, Hugh Edwards looked down upon them with -intense interest. - -At last the red man spoke. - -“The snake that crawled into Natachee’s hut to strike when the Indian -was not looking is caught. One of his brother snakes he left to die in -the home he robbed. Another, he killed with his own hand. It is not well -that even one of the three snakes that hid in Natachee’s hut should -remain alive. When Sonora Jack, with the help of his two brother snakes, -had bound Natachee to a rock, Sonora Jack was very brave. He was so -brave that he dared even to strike the helpless Indian. Now, he shall -strike the Indian again--if he can. - -“When the snake, Sonora Jack, would have put his coals of fire on the -naked breast of the Indian, he required the help of two others. If I, -Natachee, could not alone kill a snake, I would die of shame. The one -who frightened Sonora Jack and his brave friends so that they ran like -rabbits into the brush is here. But Natachee is not bound to a rock now. -Sonora Jack need not fear the one from whom he and his brothers ran in -such haste. Hugh Edwards will not point his rifle toward the snake that -I, Natachee, will kill. - -“Sonora Jack boasted that with live coals of fire he would burn the -heart out of Natachee’s breast. There is no fire here, but here is a -knife. Sonora Jack also has a knife. Let the snake, who was so brave -with his two brother snakes when they hid in Natachee’s hut and bound -the Indian to a rock, keep his heart from the knife of the Indian -now--if he can.” - -The two men were by no means unevenly matched in stature or in strength. -Both were men whose muscles had been hardened by their active lives in -the desert and the mountains. Both were skilled in the use of the knife -as a weapon. Sonora Jack fought with the desperate fury of a cornered -animal. The Indian, cool and calculating, seemed in no haste to finish -that which in his savage pride he had set himself to accomplish. So -swiftly did the duelists change positions, so closely were they locked -together as they wheeled and twisted in their struggles, that the white -man, who was trembling with tense excitement, could not have used his -rifle if he would. At his repeated failures to touch the Indian with his -knife, the outlaw lost, more and more, his self-control, until he was -fighting with reckless and ungoverned madness. Natachee, wary and -collected, smiled grimly as he saw the fear in the straining face of his -enemy. - -Then twice, in quick succession, the point of the Indian’s knife reached -the outlaw’s breast but with no effect. Edwards gasped in dismay as he -saw the baffled look which came into Natachee’s face. Again the Indian, -with all the strength of his arm, drove his weapon at the outlaw’s heart -and again Sonora Jack was unharmed. Suddenly the Indian changed his -method of attack. To Edwards, the duel seemed to become a wrestling -match. For a moment they struggled, locked in each other’s arms, their -limbs entwined, writhing and straining. Then they fell, and to Edwards’ -horror, the Indian was under the outlaw. But the next instant, while -Sonora Jack was struggling to free his knife arm for a death blow, the -Indian, hugging his antagonist close, forced his weapon between Sonora -Jack’s shoulders. - -The muscles of the outlaw relaxed--his body became limp. Natachee rolled -to one side and leaped to his feet. As if he had forgotten the solitary -witness of the combat, the Indian calmly recovered his knife and stood -looking down at the man who was already dead. - -Sick with horror of the thing he had been forced to witness, Hugh -Edwards called to the Indian: - -“Come, Natachee, for God’s sake let’s get away from here.” - -“The snake that crawled into Natachee’s hut is dead,” returned the -Indian. “The stealer of women will not again steal the woman Hugh -Edwards loves.” - -Hugh was already starting back to the place where they had left Marta. -When he noticed that the Indian was not following, he paused to call -again: - -“Aren’t you coming?” - -“Go on,” returned Natachee, “I will join you in a moment.” - -And Hugh Edwards, from where he now stood, could not see that Natachee -was examining the body of the outlaw to learn why the point of his knife -had three times been kept from Sonora Jack’s breast. - -When Hugh reached Marta, the Indian was just behind him. To the girl, -Natachee said simply: - -“You can ride home in peace now. There is no one to follow our trail. -Sonora Jack will never come for you again.” - -And Marta asked no questions. - -On the homeward journey, Natachee did not follow the course they had -come, but took a more direct route. Near Indian Oasis they stopped, -while Natachee went to the store to purchase food. When they camped for -the night, Marta would let them rest only an hour or two, insisting that -she must push on. - -In the excitement and dangers of that first night, there had been no -opportunity for Hugh Edwards to speak to Marta of his love. And now, as -the hours of their long, trying journey passed, he still did not speak. -There really was no need for him to speak--they both knew so well. The -girl was so distressed by her anxiety for Thad and by her grief over -Bob’s death and so worn by her terrible experience, that Hugh could not -bring himself to talk of the plans that meant so much to him. - -When they were safely back in the Cañon of Gold and Marta was -rested--when she had found comfort and strength in Mother Burton’s arms, -then he would tell her his love and ask her to go with him to a place of -freedom and happiness. - - - - -CHAPTER XXX - -PARDNERS STILL - - Every day he spent the greater part of his time under the mesquite - trees with Bob, and in the night, they would hear him going out “to - see,” as he said, “if his pardner was all right.” - - -In the Cañada del Oro, Doctor Burton and his mother watched beside the -old prospector and the wounded Mexican. - -The man who had been so heartlessly abandoned by his outlaw leader did -not speak; but his eyes, like the eyes of a wounded animal, followed -every movement of Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. But as the days and -nights of suffering passed, and he received nothing but the gentlest and -most attentive care from the two good Samaritans into whose hands he had -fallen, the expression of suspicion and fear which had at first marked -his every glance gave way to a look of wondering and pathetic gratitude. - -It was late in the afternoon of that first day following the tragedy, -when Thad regained consciousness. Saint Jimmy, who was at the bedside -when the sturdy old prospector looked up at him with a smile of -recognition, said cheerfully: - -“Good morning, neighbor. How are you? Had a good sleep?” - -There was the suggestion of a twinkle in those faded blue eyes as Thad -returned: - -“There ain’t no need for you to pretend none with me, Doc. I come to, -quite a spell back. Got a peek at you, though, first thing when you -weren’t lookin’ an’ I jest naterally shut my eyes again quick. I been -layin’ here, figgerin’ things out. Got ’em about figgered, I reckon.” -His leathery, wrinkled, old face twisted in a grimace of pain and his -gray lips quivered as he added: “They got my gal, didn’t they?” - -Saint Jimmy returned gravely: - -“You must be careful not to excite yourself, Thad. You have had a -dangerous injury.” - -“Holy Cats! You don’t need to think this is the first time I ever been -knocked out. My old head is tougher than you know. You don’t need to -worry about me gettin’ rattled neither. I tell you I know what happened -up to the time that half Mex devil hit me with his gun. I know they must -a-got her or she would a-been settin’ right here, certain sure--tell -me.” - -“Yes, they took her away, but Hugh Edwards and Natachee are on their -trail.” - -“What time did the boys start after them?” - -“About noon.” - -“Good enough. They won’t throw the Injun off, an’ him an’ Hugh will be -able to handle them if they ain’t too many.” - -“There are only two with Marta--Sonora Jack and the Lizard.” - -“The Lizard, you say? Is he in on this deal too?” - -“Yes.” - -“Huh, I always knowed he’d do some real meanness if he ever worked up -nerve enough. That made three of them, then?” - -“Yes.” - -“I got one of them, didn’t I?” - -“Yes, he is lying in the other room.” - -“Pretty sick, is he?” - -“He is going to die, Thad.” - -“Uh-huh, that’s what I expected him to do when I took a shot at him.” - -The old prospector looked at Doctor Burton appealingly, as if there was -another question which he longed, yet dreaded to ask. - -Saint Jimmy evaded the unspoken question by asking: - -“Have you guessed who that fellow, John Holt, really is, Thad?” - -“He certain sure ain’t no decent prospector or he wouldn’t be tryin’ to -carry away my gal like he’s doin’--that’s all I know.” - -“He is Sonora Jack the outlaw. Natachee found it out.” - -“Holy Cats! An’ I wasted a shot on a measly Mex when I might jest as -well a-picked the king himself first. But what do you figger he wants to -carry off my gal that-a-way for?” - -“I wish we knew,” said Saint Jimmy. - -“Wal, there ain’t no good tryin’ to guess. We’ll know what we know when -Natachee and Hugh comes back with her--But, say, Doc----“ - -The old prospector hesitated, and his gaze roamed about the room. - -Saint Jimmy swallowed a lump in his throat. - -“What, Thad?” - -“Where--why--“ the gnarled fingers plucked at the bedding nervously, and -the faded blue eyes at last met the eyes of the younger man with such -pathetic fear that Saint Jimmy’s eyes filled. - -“Why ain’t my Pardner Bob here? Where is he? He didn’t go with the Injun -an’ the boy?” - -“No, Thad, Bob did not go with Hugh and Natachee.” - -The old prospector put out his trembling hand as if to cling to Saint -Jimmy, and Doctor Burton caught it in both his own. - -“They--they didn’t get my pardner--Bob ain’t cashed in?” - -Saint Jimmy bowed his head. - -Then his mother came to the door and the Doctor willingly made an excuse -to leave his patient for a little. When he returned an hour later and -Mother Burton had yielded her place to him and left the room, old Thad -smiled up at him. - -“That mother of yourn is a plumb wonder, sir. I always suspicioned it on -account of what she’s done for Marta, but I know now that I hadn’t even -begun to appreciate it. I reckon I’ll be gettin’ up now.” - -“And I reckon you won’t,” retorted the Doctor, putting out a firm hand -and pushing him back on the pillow. “You’ll stay right where you are -until to-morrow morning. You have already talked too much. Here, let me -fix the bandage. There, that will do. Now take this and turn your face -to the wall--and keep quiet.” - -The old prospector obeyed. - -But the next morning he was out of the house before either Saint Jimmy -or his mother had left their beds. When Mrs. Burton went to call him for -breakfast, she found him beside the grave under the mesquite trees. - -“You see, ma’am,” he explained with childish confusion, “I got to -imaginin’ ’long in the night that my Pardner Bob must be feelin’ -all-fired lonesome an’ left-out like, with me sleepin’ in the house an’ -him out here all alone. Bob an’ me ain’t never been very far apart, you -see, for a good many years now, an’ so I felt like he’d kind of want me -’round somewheres. It’s funny, ain’t it, how an old desert rat like me -could get fussed up that-a-way! I think mebby that Bob would feel some -better too if only our gal was here. I’m plumb sure I would. But I know -she’ll be back all right. That Injun can hang to a trail like the smell -follers a skunk, an’ the boy will be here too, with both feet, when it -comes to gettin’ her away from them again. That half Mex an’ the Lizard -won’t stand a show agin Natachee an’ our Hugh. I wish they’d hurry back, -though. - -“Yes, ma’am, I’m comin’. - -“So long, Pardner, I got to get my breakfast. I’ll be back again -directly.” - -Every day he spent the greater part of his time under the mesquite trees -with Bob, and in the night they would hear him going out “to see,” as he -said, “if his pardner was all right.” - -It was there that Marta found him the morning of her return with Hugh -and Natachee. - -Later, when Mother Burton had put the tired girl to bed, old Thad roamed -contentedly about the place, petting Nugget and going often to the door -of Marta’s room to listen with a smile for any sound that would tell him -the girl was awake. And that night he did not leave the house. - -“You see, ma’am,” he explained to Mother Burton in the morning, “Bob -he’s all right now that our gal is safe home again and there ain’t -nobody ever goin’ to steal her no more. It’s a good thing the Lizard is -gone an’ that the Injun done for that Sonora Jack, ’cause if they hadn’t -a-got what was comin’ to ’em, I’d be obliged to take a try for them -myself, old as I be. I couldn’t never a-looked Bob in the face again -nohow, if I’d a-let them hombres get away with such a job as that. But -it’s all right now--it’s sure all right.” - -During the forenoon of the day following Marta’s return, the Mexican at -last spoke to Doctor Burton, who was dressing his patient’s wound. As -the man spoke in his native tongue, Saint Jimmy could not understand. -Going to the door, he called Natachee. When the Mexican had repeated -what he had said, the Indian interpreted his words for Saint Jimmy. - -“He says he thinks he is going to die and wants to know if it is so.” - -“Shall I tell him the truth, Natachee?” - -“Why not?” returned the Indian coldly. “He may have something that he -wishes to say. Perhaps it is something the friends of Miss Hillgrove -should know.” - -“Tell him, then, that there is no hope for his life. Death is certain. -It may come any time now.” - -When Natachee had repeated the Doctor’s words in the Mexican tongue and -the dying man had replied, the Indian said: - -“There is something that he wants to tell. He says that you and your -mother have been so kind that he will not die without speaking of the -girl you both love so much. I think you should call the others. It may -be in the nature of a confession and it would be well to have them.” - -He spoke again to the Mexican and the man answered: - -“Si, habla le a la muchacha y sus amigos.” - -Natachee interpreted: - -“Yes, call the girl and her friends.” - -A few minutes later Mother Burton, Thad, Hugh Edwards and Marta were -with Saint Jimmy and the Indian in the presence of the dying Mexican. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXI - -THE MEXICAN’S CONFESSION - - It was well that no one in the room, save Natachee and the Mexican, - could at that moment see Saint Jimmy’s face. - - -Slowly the eyes of the Mexican turned from face to face of the silent -group. But it was upon Saint Jimmy’s face that his gaze finally rested, -and it was to Saint Jimmy that he addressed himself. The Indian, as -coldly impersonal and impassive as a mechanical instrument, translated: - -“He says that you, Doctor Burton, are a man who lives very close to God. -When you are near him, he can feel God.” - -“God is never far from any man,” returned Saint Jimmy. - -Natachee translated the Doctor’s words, and the Mexican replied in his -mother tongue, which the Indian rendered in English. - -“He says, yes, sir, that is true, but some men keep their backs toward -God and refuse to see or listen to Him. He says he is one who has lived -with his face away from God.” - -“Tell him, then, to turn around.” - -Again the Indian translated Saint Jimmy’s words and received the -Mexican’s answer. - -“He says he sees God when he looks at you--that if you will remain with -him when he dies he can go with his face toward God.” - -“I will not leave him,” returned Saint Jimmy. “Tell him not to fear.” - -When he received this message from the Indian, the man smiled and made -the sign of the cross. Then he spoke again and Natachee translated: - -“He says to thank you, and that now he will tell you all he knows about -the girl you love.” - -It was well that no one in the room, save Natachee and the Mexican, -could at that moment see Saint Jimmy’s face. - -“Tell him that we are listening.” - -With frequent pauses to gather strength or to shape the things he would -say, the Mexican told his story. In those intervals Natachee’s deep -voice, without a trace of feeling, made the message clear to the little -company. - -“His name is Chico Alvarez. He was a member of Sonora Jack’s band of -outlaws in the years when they were active here in this part of Arizona. - -“About twenty years ago they held up a man and woman who were driving in -a covered wagon on the road from Tucson to Yuma and California. The man -and woman were killed. There was a little girl hiding in the bottom of -the wagon. They did not know the baby was there when they shot the man -and woman. - -“When Sonora Jack was searching the outfit for money and valuables, he -found papers and letters that told him about the little girl. She was -not the child of the people who were killed. They had stolen her, when -she was a little baby, from her real parents who lived in the east. - -“Sonora Jack saved all the papers and letters that told about the child, -but burned everything else in the outfit so that no one would know there -had been a child with the man and woman. He took the baby with him. He -said her parents were very rich and would pay much money to have their -little girl again. - -“The officers were close after the outlaws who were escaping to their -place across the border, and Sonora Jack left the little girl with his -mother, who was Mexican and lived with her man, not Jack’s father, on a -little ranch near the border. When Sonora Jack went back to his mother -for the child, after the sheriff and his men had given up trying to -catch him that time, he found that two prospectors had taken the little -girl away. - -“Sonora Jack dared not come again into the United States because of the -reward that was offered for him, so he could not follow the prospectors, -and the little girl was lost to him. Sonora Jack went south in Mexico -and stayed there where he was safe. - -“Last year a man showed him an old Spanish map of the Cañada del Oro and -the Mine with the Iron Door. Sonora Jack and this man, Chico, came to -find the mine. They did not find the mine but they found again the -little girl, whose people would pay so much money to have her back. -Sonora Jack planned to steal the girl. He said they would take her into -Mexico and keep her until her people paid much money. If it should be -that her people were dead, then he and Chico would make from her enough -money in another way to pay them for their trouble. That is all.” - -The Mexican closed his eyes wearily. - -Saint Jimmy spoke quickly: - -“Ask him what became of the things that told about the little girl’s -parents, and how she was stolen from them.” - -The Indian spoke to the man and received his reply. - -“He says, ‘I do not know. Sonora Jack he always keep those things for -himself.’” - -Hugh Edwards cried hoarsely: - -“But the name, Natachee, ask him the name.” - -The dying Mexican opened his eyes as the Indian, bending over him, -repeated the question. He answered: - -“Eso nunca me dijo Sonora Jack,” and with a look toward Saint Jimmy, -sank into unconsciousness. - -Natachee faced toward that little company of agitated listeners. - -“He says, ‘Sonora Jack never did tell me that.’” - -Mother Burton led Marta from the room. Old Thad, muttering to himself, -followed. - -Doctor Burton turned from the bedside, saying quietly: - -“It is all over. He is gone.” - -Natachee spoke: - -“You, Doctor Burton--and you, Hugh Edwards, wait here for me. The others -will not come again into this room for a little while. Wait, I will come -back in a moment.” - -The Indian left the room. - -Hugh Edwards and Saint Jimmy looked at each other in wondering silence. - -When Natachee returned, he held in his hand a flat package, some six -inches wide by eight inches long and about an inch in thickness. The -envelope was of leather, laced securely, and there were straps attached. -The straps had been cut. - -The Indian addressed Hugh: - -“As I fought with Sonora Jack, did you see that when I struck his breast -my knife drew no blood?” - -“Yes,” returned Edwards, “I saw it and wondered about it at the time. -But what happened immediately after made me forget. Now that you mention -it, I remember distinctly.” - -“Good! When you had gone back to Miss Hillgrove, I looked to see why my -knife had refused to touch the snake’s heart until I found the way -between his shoulders. This package was fastened to Sonora Jack’s breast -under his shirt. This strap was over his shoulder to support it. This -other strap was around his chest to hold the packet in place. Look, -there are the marks of my knife. Three times I struck--there and there -and there.” - -The two white men exclaimed with amazement at the Indian’s statement. - -“I think,” said Natachee slowly, “that you would do well to see what -this thing is, that the stealer of little girls hid so carefully under -his clothing and fastened so securely to his body.” - -Hugh Edwards drew back with an appealing look at Saint Jimmy, who took -the packet from the Indian. - -“Must this thing be opened?” said Edwards. - -“Yes, Hugh, I think so,” returned the Doctor gently. “Anything else -would hardly be fair to Marta, would it?” - -“No, I suppose not,” answered Edwards with a groan. “All right, go -ahead. You can tell me when you have finished.” - -He turned away and went to the window where he sat with his back toward -Saint Jimmy, who seated himself at the table. Natachee stood near the -door with his arms folded, as motionless as a statue. - -Undoing the lacing of the leather envelope, Saint Jimmy found a number -of newspaper clippings, so cut as to preserve the name and date line of -the paper--several letters--and a diary, with various entries under -different dates, rather poorly written but legible. - -Swiftly he scanned the printed articles. The diary and the letters he -read with more care. - -Hugh Edwards was like a man condemned already in his own mind, awaiting -the formality of the verdict. - -When Marta’s birth and the character of her parents had been under a -cloud, the man who was branded before the world a criminal had felt -that their love was right and that there was no obstacle to their -marriage. He had reasoned, indeed, that their happiness would in a -measure lighten the shadow that lay over the girl’s life, and in a -degree would atone for the injustice under which he himself had -suffered. The unjust shame and humiliation that the girl had felt so -keenly--the dishonor and shame that injustice had brought upon him, had -been to them a common bond; while the knowledge of what each had -innocently suffered and the sympathy of each for the other had deepened -and strengthened their love. - -But as he listened to the dying Mexican’s story, he saw the barrier that -was being raised to his happiness with the girl he loved. Marta’s birth -and parentage were not, after all, what the old prospectors, Saint -Jimmy, and Marta herself had believed. What, then, was left to justify -him in asking her to become the wife of a convict? If, indeed, her birth -and name were without a shadow, how could he ask her to accept his -name--dishonored as it was? And if it should be shown that her people -were living--if they were people of importance and honor, how then could -the convict who loved her ask her to share his life of dishonor? - -When the Mexican had been unable to give the name, hope had again risen -in Edwards’ heart. But when Natachee brought the packet which Sonora -Jack had treasured with such care, Hugh Edwards knew that it was only a -matter of minutes until the identity of the woman he loved would be -established, which meant that now he could never ask her to be his wife. - -Saint Jimmy finished reading the papers and carefully placed them again -in the leather envelope. To the watching Indian, he seemed undecided. He -had the air of one not quite sure of his hand. - -At last, looking up, he said slowly: - -“You are right, Natachee, this envelope completes the Mexican’s story -and establishes the identity of the girl we have always known as Marta -Hillgrove.” - - - - -CHAPTER XXXII - -REVELATION - - Natachee remembered - - -Hugh Edwards rose to his feet. - -“Well,” he said desperately, “let’s have it.” - -Saint Jimmy answered in an odd musing tone: - -“Marta, or Martha, for that is her name, was born in a little city in -southwestern Missouri--in the lead and zinc mining district. Her parents -were both held in the highest esteem in the community where their -families had lived for three generations. - -“About the time Marta was born, her father, who was a real-estate -speculator and trader on a rather small scale, purchased a tract of land -from some people who could barely make a living on it. The land was -hilly and stony and covered mostly with scrub oak, which made it almost -worthless for farming and the man and his wife were glad to get the -usual market price for such property. - -“But shortly after, this same cheap farm land was developed as a very -valuable mineral property--about the richest, in fact, in that -district.” - -Hugh Edwards interrupted: - -“Wait a minute--did you learn all this just now from the contents of -that package?” - -“No, Hugh, the fact is, I was born and grew up in that same Missouri -town. It was the home of my people, and even after I went to St. Louis, -I was in close touch with the old place. These papers here merely fill -in some of the missing details of a story that I have known for years. I -am trying to tell it to you so that you will understand everything -clearly.” - -“Go on, please.” - -“When the property they had sold proved so valuable, the people who had -been glad to receive the price they did for their supposedly worthless -farm lands were very bitter. They considered themselves swindled and, -being the sort they were, brooded over their fancied wrongs until they -formed a plan of revenge. They stole the baby, Martha. - -“The plan of the kidnappers, as it is shown here,” Saint Jimmy touched -the packet on the table, “was to hold the little girl until her father -had made a fortune from the mineral lands he had purchased from them, -and then to force him to pay a large part of that wealth back to them as -a ransom for the child. - -“The man and woman, with the baby, traveled west by wagon. They always -camped. When supplies were needed, the man would go alone to purchase -them. They rarely entered a town except to pass through, and then of -course took every precaution to hide the child. Their plan to extort -money from the father, led them to preserve carefully the evidence that -would later prove the identity of the little girl. Their fears of arrest -led them to conceal their own identity as carefully. It was more than a -year later when they reached Tucson. The rest of the story we have -heard. - -“I should add that Marta’s mother died six months after the baby was -stolen. George Clinton, after his wife’s death, sold his mining -interests and moved to California.” - -Hugh Edwards started forward. His face was ghastly. His lips trembled so -that he could scarcely form the words. “George Clinton, did you say?” - -“Yes.” - -“George Willard Clinton?” - -“Yes, do you know of him?” - -Hugh Edwards, fighting for self-control, became very still. Turning his -back on the others, he walked to the window and stood looking out. - -“Yes,” he said at last, and his voice was steady now, “yes, I know him. -He lives in Los Angeles. I had heard that he was at one time interested -in mines in Missouri. But of course I knew nothing of this story that -you have told. He is a very wealthy man.” - -“What a splendid thing for Marta,” exclaimed Saint Jimmy. - -Hugh Edwards left the window and went to stand beside the body of the -Mexican. - -“Yes, it will be very fine for her.” - -And suddenly, as he stood looking down at the dead man, Hugh Edwards -laughed. - -Saint Jimmy sprang to his feet. Such laughter was not good to hear. - -“Hugh!” - -The man whirled on him. “You win, Saint Jimmy--congratulations.” He -rushed madly from the room. - -Saint Jimmy gazed at Natachee, speechless with amazement. - -“What on earth did he mean by that!” he said at last. - -“Is it possible you do not know?” - -The other shook his head. - -Natachee said slowly: - -“When everybody believed that the woman Hugh Edwards loved was one who -had no real right to even the name she bore, then he could ask her to -become his wife. Now that the woman is the daughter of honor and wealth, -how can the convict expect her to go with him? Hugh Edwards is not -blind. He sees it is now more fitting that the woman he loves become the -wife of his friend, Saint Jimmy, upon whose name there is no shadow.” - -But Natachee, with the cunning of his Indian nature, had not given Saint -Jimmy the whole truth in his explanation of Hugh Edwards’ manner. - -Natachee remembered that the man who had promoted that investment -company, and who had used his power, as the president of the -institution, to rob the people of their savings, and who, to shield -himself, had sent Donald Payne, an innocent man, to prison, was George -Willard Clinton. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIII - -GOLD - - He saw that the need of gold is a curse--that the craving for gold - is a greater curse--that the possession of gold may be the greatest - curse of all. - - -When Hugh Edwards left Saint Jimmy and the Indian, he was beside himself -with grief and rage. He had prepared himself, in a measure, to lose -Marta. He had told himself that his love was strong enough to endure -even that test, but to give her up because she proved to be the daughter -of the man who, by making him a convict, had robbed him of the right to -keep her, was more than he could endure. - -As he rushed blindly from the house that had been to him a house of -refuge, but was now become a house of torment, Marta called to him. - -He did not stop. He must get away--away from them all. The old -prospector, Saint Jimmy, Natachee, Marta, the dead Mexican--they had all -conspired with God to sink him in a hell of conflicting love and hatred. - -When he came to himself, he was at the cabin where he had made his home -during those first months of his life in the Cañon of Gold. When he was -seeking a place to hide, as a wild creature wounded by the hunters -seeks to hide from the dogs, he had found that little cabin. He had -learned to feel safe there. But he did not feel safe there now. The -empty place was crowded with memories that would drive him to some deed -of madness. - -It was there his dream of freedom and love had been born. It was there -that the dear comradeship of the girl had led him to believe there might -still be something to hope for, to work for and to live for. He could -not stay there now. The place was no longer a place where he could hide -from his enemies; it was a trap, a snare. He must go, and go quickly. - -Without consciously willing his movements, indeed, without realizing -where he was going, he climbed out of the cañon and hurried away up the -mountain slopes and along the ridges in the direction of Natachee’s hut. -With no clearly defined trail to follow, it is doubtful if in his normal -mental state he could have found the place. He certainly would not have -made the attempt, particularly at that time of day. But some -subconscious memory must have guided him, for at sundown he found -himself in the familiar gulch where he had toiled all through the winter -for the gold that meant for him the realization of his dreams of freedom -and happiness with Marta. When night came, he was seated on that spot -from which he had so often, in the agony of those lonely months of -hiding, watched the tiny point of light in the gloom of the cañon below. - -With his eyes fixed on that red spot, which he knew was the window of -Marta’s room, Hugh Edwards brooded over the series of events that had -ended in that hour of his dead hopes and broken dreams. - -His thoughts went back even to those glad days when he was graduated -from his university, and when, with a heart of honest courage and -purpose, he had accepted a position of trust in the institution that -seemed to afford such an opportunity for service. He recalled every -proud step of his advancement from office to office, of increasing -responsibility. - -He lived again that appalling hour when he knew that he had been -promoted only that he might be betrayed. Again he suffered the agony of -his arrest--the trial, with his baffled attempts to prove his -innocence--the hideous publicity--the hatred of the people--and again he -heard the sentence that condemned him to years in prison, and to a life -of dishonor and shame. - -Once more he endured the horror of a convict’s life--and the death of -his mother. - -Then came the terrible experiences of his escape--when he was hunted as -a wild beast is hunted, with dogs and guns. - -And then--the Cañon of Gold, with its promise of peace and safety--its -blessed work and dreams and hopes--its miraculous gift of love. - -One by one, the strange events of his life in the Cañon of Gold passed -in review before him--the period when he lived in the cabin next door to -the old prospectors and their partnership daughter--his comradeship -with Marta and the sure development of their love--the story of the -girl’s questionable parentage that had made it possible for him to think -of her as his wife--then the visit of the sheriff--his enforced life of -torment with the Indian, and his fruitless toil for the gold that held -him with its promise of freedom and Marta. - -Again he lived over the coming of the outlaw, with the sudden turn of -fortune that made Natachee his ally, and gave him the gold from the Mine -with the Iron Door. - -And then, with the gold in his possession and all its promises almost -within his grasp, the tragedy and disaster that had followed. Until now, -having gained the wealth for which, inspired by love, he had toiled and -fought, he had lost the thing which gave the gold its value. The thing -for which he had wanted the gold had become impossible to him. - -The light in the Cañon of Gold went out. The hours passed, and still the -man held his place on that wild spot high up in the mountains. - -And now he saw and felt the mysteries of the night--saw the wide sea of -darkness that engulfed the vast desert below, and felt the whispering -breath of the desert air--saw the mighty peaks and shoulders of the -mountains lifting out of the dark shadows below, up and up and up into -the star-lit sky, and felt the fragrant coolness dropping from the pines -that held the snows--saw the night sky filled with countless star -worlds, and felt the brooding Presence that fixes the time of their -every movement, and marks their paths of gleaming light--saw the black -depths of the Cañon of Gold, and felt the ghostly multitude of the -disappointed ones who had toiled there, as he had toiled, for the -treasure they never found, or, finding, were cursed with its possession. - -And then, as one who in a vision glimpses the underlying truth of -things, this man, on the mountain heights above the Cañada del Oro, saw -that life itself was but a Cañon of Gold. - -As men through the ages had braved the dangers and endured the hardships -of desert and mountains to gain the yellow wealth from the Cañada del -Oro, so men braved dangers and endured hardships everywhere. Every dream -of man was a dream of gold. Every effort was an effort for gold. Every -hope was a hope for gold. For gold was life and honor and power and love -and happiness. And gold was death and dishonor and murder and hatred and -misery. - -It was gold that had led Marta’s father to purchase the rich mining -property from the ignorant owners, for a price that was little more than -nothing. The victims of George Clinton’s shrewdness had stolen his -child, in the hope that by her they might regain the gold they had lost. -It was for gold that Clinton had robbed the people who, because of their -need for gold, had trusted him with their savings. To insure himself in -the possession of gold, Clinton had sent Donald Payne to prison and -condemned him to a life of dishonor. Gold, to the escaped convict, had -meant, at first, the bare necessities of life. It had come to mean -everything for which a man desires to live. For gold, Sonora Jack had -given himself to crime. Lured by the gold of the Mine with the Iron Door -he had come to the Cañada del Oro and had been brought, finally, to his -death. It was gold that had, at last, led to the revelations that -brought the love of Hugh Edwards and Marta to naught. - -The man saw that the story of his life in the Cañon of Gold, with its -needs, its hopes, its labor, its fears, its victories and defeats, was -the story of all life, everywhere. - -He saw that the need of gold is a curse--that the craving for gold is a -greater curse--that the possession of gold may be the greatest curse of -all. - -When Hugh Edwards went down to the cabin he found Natachee the Indian -waiting for him. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXIV - -MORNING - - “The heart of a white man is a strange thing--I, Natachee, cannot - understand.” - - -And Hugh Edwards knew by the light that flashed in the Indian’s somber -eyes--by the expression of that dark countenance, and by the proud -bearing of the red man, that Natachee had put aside the teaching of the -white man’s school. There was something, too, beneath the Indian’s -stoical composure which told Hugh that he was under the strain of some -great excitement. - -Gazing at Edwards with a curious intentness, the Indian said: - -“My friend has been watching his star in the Cañon of Gold.” - -“Yes, Natachee, I have been up on the mountain.” - -Silently the Indian gave him a letter. It was from Marta. - -Hugh handled the letter, turning it over and over, as if debating with -himself what he should do with it. - -“Open it and read,” said the Indian, “then hear what I, Natachee, shall -say.” - -Edwards opened the letter and read. - -It was not a long letter, but it was filled with the strongest -assurances of understanding and sympathy that a woman’s loving heart -could pen. Saint Jimmy had told her of the completion of the story that -had been left unfinished by the Mexican, and had explained its effect on -the man she loved. But it made no difference to her, that she was proved -to be the daughter of George Clinton, except that she was glad for her -future husband’s sake that her birth was honorable--that she was not -nameless, as she had believed herself to be. For the rest, everything -must go on exactly as if she were still the old prospectors’ partnership -girl. Saint Jimmy had gone to complete the arrangements he had started -to make when Sonora Jack carried her away. There must be no change in -their plans. When they were safe out of the country, she could -communicate with her father. Hugh must come for her at once. She would -be waiting for him to-morrow morning. - -With deliberate care, Hugh Edwards folded the letter and returned it to -the envelope. - -The Indian was watching him intently. - -The man did not appear in any way surprised, elated or disturbed. One -would have said that he had been expecting the letter--had foreseen its -contents, and had already, in his mind, answered it. His manner was that -of one who, having fought and lived through the crisis of a storm, -methodically and wearily takes up again the routine duties of his -existence. - -Calmly, with a shadowy smile that would have caused Marta to think of -Saint Jimmy, he spoke. - -“What is it that you wish to say, Natachee?” - -“I, Natachee the Indian, can now pay the debt I owe Hugh Edwards.” - -“You have more than paid that debt, Natachee.” - -The red man returned haughtily: - -“Is the life of Natachee of such little value that it is paid for by the -death of that snake, Sonora Jack, and his companion who stopped the -arrow?” - -“But for you, Marta would not have escaped from Sonora Jack and the -other outlaws,” returned Edwards. - -“But for me, no one would know the woman Hugh Edwards loves, except as -the Pardners’ girl. Hugh Edwards, but for Natachee, would be free to -make her his wife.” - -Indicating the letter in his hand, Hugh answered: - -“She says here that it need make no difference. She says for me to come, -as if the Mexican had died without speaking, as if you had taken nothing -from Sonora Jack.” - -The Indian’s eyes blazed with triumph. - -“Good! That is as I, Natachee, wanted it to be. Now the way of my friend -to the great desire of his heart is clear. Listen! When you left so -hurriedly, after hearing the name of the girl’s father, Doctor Burton -wondered at your manner. I told him that now, when the girl was known to -be the daughter of a man of wealth and honorable position, you felt you -could not take her for your wife.” - -“That was true enough,” returned Edwards, wondering at the excitement -which the Indian, with all of his assumed composure, could not hide. - -“Yes, but I did not tell any one that it was the girl’s father who sent -you, my friend, to prison. No one but Hugh Edwards and Natachee knows -that. No one shall know until you, Donald Payne, are revenged for all -that this man Clinton has made you suffer. When you have trapped this -Clinton coyote--when you have made him pay for your shame--your -imprisonment--your mother’s death--when he has paid for everything your -heart holds against him--then I, Natachee, will have paid my debt to -you.” - -Hugh Edwards gazed at the Indian, bewildered, amazed, wondering. - -“What on earth do you mean, Natachee?” - -“Do you not understand? Listen.” - -“The girl, who does not know what her father did, will go with you. -Good!--Take her. Let there be a pretense of marriage. Then, when her -shame is accomplished, send her to her father. Let George Clinton, who -made Donald Payne a convict, beg that convict to give his daughter a -name for her children. The shame that he heaped upon your name--the -dishonor that he compelled you to suffer--you will give back to him -through his daughter.” - -The white man exclaimed with horror: - -“In God’s name stop!” - -“Is not the heart of Donald Payne filled with hate for the man who has -filled his life with suffering?” - -“Yes, Natachee, I hate George Clinton.” - -“But you will not take the revenge that I, Natachee, have planned for -you?” - -“No--No--No!” - -“The heart of a white man is a strange thing,” returned the Indian. “I, -Natachee, cannot understand.” - - * * * * * - -The sun was not yet above the mountains, but the sky was glorious with -the beauty of the new day, when Hugh Edwards stood in the doorway of the -Indian’s hut. - -Against a sky of liquid gold, melting into the deeper blue above, -wreaths of flaming crimson cloud mists were flung with the careless -splendor of the Artist who paints with the brush of the wind and the -colors of light on the canvas of the heavens. The man bared his head -and, with face uplifted, watched. - -He felt the soft breath of the spring on his cheek and caught the -perfume of cedar and pine. He heard the birds singing among the blossoms -on the mountain side. He saw the mighty peaks and crags towering high. -He looked down upon the foothills and mesas and afar over the desert -where gray-blue shadows drifted on a sea of color into the far purple -distance. A squirrel, in a live oak near by, chattered a glad good -morning. A buck stepped from the cover of a manzanita thicket and stood, -for a moment, with antlered head lifted, as if he too sensed the beauty -and the meaning of life. A timid doe came to stand beside her lordly -mate. The man, motionless, held his breath. In a flash they were gone. - -Natachee the Indian stood beside his white companion. - -Hugh Edwards held out his hand to the red man. - -“Good-by, Natachee.” - -“You go?” asked the puzzled Indian. - -“Yes, you have paid your debt, Natachee.” - -The fire of savage exultation flamed in the red man’s eyes. - -“Hugh Edwards will take the revenge that I, Natachee, have offered?” - -“No.” - -The Indian said doubtfully, as if striving for an answer to the thing -which puzzled him so: - -“There is something in the white man’s heart that is more than hate?” - -“Yes, Natachee. Yesterday I believed that there was nothing left for me -in life but hate. Then you, last night, revealed to me what hate might -do, and I knew the strength of love. I must go now--to the woman who is -waiting for me, down there in the Cañon of Gold.” - -But Hugh Edwards, when he told Saint Jimmy that George Clinton was -living, had been mistaken. - -The very night that Natachee brought the girl from that place where -Sonora Jack had taken her, Marta’s father died in a Los Angeles -hospital. In the same hour that the Indian and the girl were stealing -from the Mexican house south of the border, the man for whose crime -Donald Payne was sent to prison was dictating a confession. With the -last of his strength, he signed the instrument. - -Natachee, when he offered to Hugh Edwards his scheme of revenge, did not -know that at that very moment every newspaper in the land was heralding -the innocence of the escaped convict, Donald Payne. The man who went -down the mountain slopes and ridges toward the Cañon of Gold that -morning did not know that he was even then a free man. The girl who -waited for her lover who had never spoken to her of his love did not -know. But Doctor Burton, when he went to Oracle the evening before to -complete his arrangements for that wedding journey, had received the -news. - -It was like Saint Jimmy to meet Hugh Edwards on the mountain side that -morning, and to tell him what he had learned before Hugh had come within -sight of the house in the cañon. It was like Saint Jimmy, too, to -suggest that perhaps now Marta need never know, at least not until after -they had returned from their trip abroad. - - - - -CHAPTER XXXV - -FREEDOM - - It was the plan that had been arranged by Saint Jimmy. - - -Late in the afternoon of that appointed day, an automobile from Tucson -turned off from the Bankhead Highway into the old road that leads to the -Cañada del Oro. - -At the point where the road enters the Cañon of Gold, which is as far as -an automobile can go on that ancient trail, Hugh and Marta, with old -Thad, were waiting. - -The automobile would take them, without a stop, straight south through -Tucson to Nogales, where they would cross the international boundary -line into Nogales, Mexico. From there, immediately after the wedding -ceremony, Donald Payne and his bride would travel by rail to Mexico -City, from which point in due time they would go to the lands of the old -world. Thad would return to the Cañada del Oro, and would, for a while -at least, make his home with Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. - -It was the plan that had been arranged by Saint Jimmy when they all -believed that it was unsafe for Hugh to make his real name known in the -United States. For Marta’s sake, the original plan was still to be -carried out. When Marta and her husband were safely out of the country -and on their way abroad, Doctor Burton would give the facts to the -newspapers. In a few months the sensational story would cease to be of -news interest to the press and would be forgotten by the public. Then -Marta would be told that her husband’s innocence had been -established--that Donald Payne, no longer a fugitive from prison, was -free to return again to his own country. - -Saint Jimmy and his mother had said their goodbys at the little home of -the old prospectors and their partnership girl. - -From a rocky point on Samaniego Ridge, high above the Cañon of Gold, -Natachee the Indian saw the black moving spot which was the automobile -on the old trail that had been followed by so many peoples, in so many -ages. - -Motionless, as a figure of stone, with a face unmoved, the red man -watched. - -The automobile stopped. - -The dark eyes of the Indian, trained to such distance, could see, as no -white man could have seen, the three figures entering the machine. - -The automobile moved away, winding down through the foothills, crawling -cautiously over the ridges, laboring heavily across the sandy washes, -growing smaller and smaller until even to the Indian’s vision it was -lost in the gray-brown plain of the desert. But still Natachee’s gaze -held toward the south where presently he saw a faint cloud of dust -rising from the yellow threadlike line of highway. Then the cloud of -dust melted into the desert air. A moment longer the Indian watched. -Then slowly his gaze swept the many miles that lie between the foot of -the Santa Catalinas and the far horizon. - -A puff of air, fragrant with the scent of the desert, stirred the single -feather that drooped from the loosely twisted folds of the Indian’s -headband. In the blue depth of the sky, a wheeling eagle screamed. - -Lifting his dark face toward the mountain peaks that towered above his -lonely hut, Natachee the Indian--mystic guardian of the Mine with the -Iron Door--smiled. - - -THE END - - * * * * * - -By HAROLD BELL WRIGHT - - -THAT PRINTER OF UDELL’S - -A gripping story of character and action, dealing with a young man’s -fight for more practical Christianity. - - -THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS - -The hearts of men and women, their thoughts and acts, seen in the clear, -inspiring atmosphere of the Ozark region. - - -THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS - -Through experience of people and conditions in a mid-western town, Dan -Matthews learns that a man’s true ministry is the work in which he -serves best. - - -THE UNCROWNED KING - -A beautiful allegory of life, showing that “the Crown is not the -Kingdom, nor is one King because he wears a Crown.” - - -THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH - -Achievements of human enterprise in a charming love story whose -background is an epic of desert reclamation. - - -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY -New York London - - * * * * * - -By HAROLD BELL WRIGHT - - -HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE - -A great human story of American manhood and womanhood in the industrial -life of to-day. - - -THE RE-CREATION OF BRIAN KENT - -Keen revelation of life’s invisible forces, out of which come a man’s -recovery from desperation, and his success in life and love. - - -WHEN A MAN’S A MAN - -In the cattle country of Arizona, where a man _must_ be a man, a -stranger from another way of life proves himself in many stirring -experiences. - - -THE EYES OF THE WORLD - -A beautiful love story with the inspiration of Nature contrasted -impressively with a life of materialism. - - -THEIR YESTERDAYS - -A delicate story of life and love and the great elemental things that -rule men from early childhood onward. - - -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY -New York London - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm -concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, -and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following -the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use -of the Project Gutenberg trademark. 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You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: The Mine with the Iron Door</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Harold Bell Wright</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: August 5, 2021 [eBook #65995]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tim Lindell, Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR ***</div> -<hr class="full" /> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/cover.jpg"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" height="550" alt="" /></a> -</div> - -<p class="c">THE MINE<br /> WITH THE IRON DOOR</p> - -<div class="bbox"> -<p class="c"><big>BOOKS BY<br /> HAROLD BELL WRIGHT</big></p> - -<p class="c"> -THAT PRINTER OF UDELL’S<br /> -THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS<br /> -THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS<br /> -THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH<br /> -THEIR YESTERDAYS<br /> -THE EYES OF THE WORLD<br /> -WHEN A MAN’S A MAN<br /> -THE RE-CREATION OF BRIAN KENT<br /> -THE UNCROWNED KING<br /> -HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE<br /> -THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR<br /> -</p> - -<p class="c"> -D. APPLETON & COMPANY<br /> -New York <span style="margin-left: 4em;">London</span><br /> -</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_i" id="page_i">{i}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ii" id="page_ii">{ii}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iii" id="page_iii">{iii}</a></span> </p> - -<div class="figcenter"> -<a href="images/frontispiece.jpg"> -<img src="images/frontispiece.jpg" height="600" alt="[Image unavailable.]" /></a> -<br /> -<span class="caption">SHE CAUGHT HIM BY THE ARM.... “THE SHERIFF IS HERE!”</span> -</div> - -<div class="bbox1"> -<div class="bboxx1"> -<h1>THE MINE<br /> -WITH THE IRON DOOR</h1> - -<p class="c">A ROMANCE<br /> -<br /><br /> -BY<br /> -HAROLD BELL WRIGHT<br /> -<br /><small> -AUTHOR OF “HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE,” “THE<br /> -SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS,” “THE WINNING<br /> -OF BARBARA WORTH,” ETC.</small><br /> -<br /> -<br /> -THE RYERSON PRESS<br /> -TORONTO<br /> -1923</p> -</div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_iv" id="page_iv">{iv}</a></span></p> - -<p class="c"> -COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY<br /> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> -<br /> -<br /> -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA<br /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_v" id="page_v">{v}</a></span><br /> -<br /> -TO<br /> -MY FRIENDS<br /> -IN THE OLD PUEBLO<br /> -TUCSON</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vi" id="page_vi">{vi}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_vii" id="page_vii">{vii}</a></span> </p> - -<h2><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a>CONTENTS</h2> - -<table border="0" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="0" summary=""> - -<tr><td class="rt"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td> -<td class="rt"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> - -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">The Cañon of Gold</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_1">1</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">At the Oracle Store</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_7">7</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">The Pardners’ Girl</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_13">13</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">Saint Jimmy</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_25">25</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">The Prospector’s Story</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_34">34</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">Night</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_45">45</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">The Stranger’s Quest</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_50">50</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">The New Neighbor</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_58">58</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">“Gold is Where You Find It”</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_80">80</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">Summer</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_90">90</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">The Lizard</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_103">103</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">Ghosts</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_108">108</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">The Awakening</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_120">120</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">The Storm</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_132">132</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">Marta’s Flight</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_149">149</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">XVI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">Natachee</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_156">156</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">XVII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">The Sheriff’s Visit</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_172">172</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">XVIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XVIII">An Indian’s Advice</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_185">185</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">XIX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIX">On Equal Terms</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_191">191</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">XX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XX">The Only Chance</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_196">196</a> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_viii" id="page_viii">{viii}</a></span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">XXI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXI">The Way of a Red Man</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_208">208</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">XXII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXII">The Lost Mine</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_217">217</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">XXIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIII">Sonora Jack</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_225">225</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">XXIV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIV">The Way of a White Man</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_235">235</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">XXV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXV">The Ways of God</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_247">247</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">XXVI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVI">Tragedy</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_256">256</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">XXVII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVII">On the Trail</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_263">263</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">XXVIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXVIII">The Outlaws</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_276">276</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">XXIX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXIX">The Rescue</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_291">291</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">XXX.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXX">Pardners Still</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_305">305</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">XXXI.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXI">The Mexican’s Confession</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_312">312</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">XXXII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXII">Revelation</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_320">320</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">XXXIII.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIII">Gold</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_324">324</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">XXXIV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXIV">Morning</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_330">330</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="rt"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">XXXV.</a></td><td class="pdd"><a href="#CHAPTER_XXXV">Freedom</a></td><td class="rt" valign="bottom"><a href="#page_337">337</a></td></tr> -</table> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_ix" id="page_ix">{ix}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_x" id="page_x">{x}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_1" id="page_1">{1}</a></span> </p> - -<h1><a name="THE_MINE_WITH_THE_IRON_DOOR" id="THE_MINE_WITH_THE_IRON_DOOR"></a>THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR</h1> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I<br /><br /> -THE CAÑON OF GOLD</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>And yet—those who look for it still find “color” in the Cañada del -Oro. Romance and adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold. The -treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine behind an iron -door.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>ROM every street and corner in Tucson we see the mountains. From our -places of business, from our railway depots and hotels, from our -University campus and halls, and from the windows and porches of our -homes we look up to the mighty hills.</p> - -<p>But of all the peaks and ranges that keep their sentinel posts around -this old pueblo there are none so bold in the outlines of their granite -heights and rugged cañons, so exquisitely beautiful in their soft colors -of red and blue and purple, or so luring in the call of their remote and -hidden fastnesses, as the Santa Catalinas.</p> - -<p>Every morning they are there—looking down upon our little city in the -desert with a brooding, Godlike tolerance—remote yet very near. All -day<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_2" id="page_2">{2}</a></span> long they watch with world-old patience our fretful activities, our -puny strivings and our foolish pretenses. And when evening is come and -the dusk of our desert basin deepens, their castle crags and turret -peaks signal, with the red fire of the sunset, “good-night” to us who -dwell in the gloom below. Even in the darkness we see their shadowy -might against the sky, and feel the still and solemn mystery of their -enduring strength under the desert stars.</p> - -<p>This is a story of some people who lived in the Catalinas.</p> - -<p>If you would find more exactly the scenes of this romance you must take -the new Bankhead Highway that, in its course from Tucson to Florence and -Phœnix, runs for miles in the shadow of these mountains. From the old -Mexican quarter of the city—picturesque still with the colorful life of -the West that is vanishing—you go straight north on Main Street, where -the dust of your passing is the dust of the crumbled adobe buildings and -fortifications of the ancient pueblo that had its beginning somewhere in -the forgotten centuries. Leaving the outskirts of the town your way -leads over rolling lands of greasewood and cacti, down the long grade -past the cemetery, past the Government hospital in the valley, to the -bridge that spans the Rillito. From the little river you climb quickly -up to the desert slopes that form the western base of the main range and -that lie under their wide skies unmarked by human hands since the -beginning of deserts and mountains. Beyond the famous Steam<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_3" id="page_3">{3}</a></span> Pump Ranch, -some sixteen miles from Tucson, the road to Oracle branches off from the -Bankhead Highway and climbs higher and higher until from a wide mesa you -can see the place of my story—the mighty Cañada del Oro—the Cañon of -Gold.</p> - -<p>But if you know the way you may turn aside from the main road before you -come to this new Oracle branch and take instead the old road that winds -closer to the mountains and for several miles follows the bed of the -lower cañon. It was along this ancient trail that the eventful and -romantic life of this southern Arizona country, through its many ages, -moved.</p> - -<p>This way, centuries ago, came the Spaniards—lured by tales of a strange -people who used silver and gold as we use tin and iron, and who set -turquoise in the gates of their houses. This way came the Franciscan -Fathers to find in the Cañada del Oro gold for their mission at San -Xavier. This way, from the San Pedro and the Aravaipa, came savage -Apache to raid the peaceful farming Papagos and later to war against the -pale-face settlers in the valley of the Santa Cruz. Prehistoric races, -explorers, Indians, priests, pioneers, prospectors, cattlemen, soldiers -and adventurers of every sort from every land—all, all have come this -way—along this old road through the Cañon of Gold.</p> - -<p>And because there was water here, and because there was gold here, this -wild and adventurous life, through the passing centuries, made this -place a camping ground and a battle field—a place of labor<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_4" id="page_4">{4}</a></span> and crime, -of victory and defeat; of splendid heroism, noble sacrifice, and -dreadful fear. Set amid the grandeur and the beauty of these vast -deserts, lonely skies and wild and rugged mountains, the Cañada del Oro -has been, most of all, as indeed it is to-day, a place of dreams that -never came true; of hopes that were never fulfilled; of labor that was -vain.</p> - -<p>Of all the stirring tales of this picturesque region of the Santa -Catalinas, of all the romantic legends and traditions that have come -down to us from its shadowy past, none is more filled with the essence -of human life and love and hopes and dreams than is the tale of the Mine -with the Iron Door.</p> - -<p>But this is not a story of those old Spaniards and padres and Indians -and pioneers. It is a story of to-day.</p> - -<p>The old, old tale of the Mine with the Iron Door is as true for us as it -ever was for those who lived and loved so many years ago. We too, in -these days, have our dreams that must remain always, merely dreams and -nothing more. We too, in these modern times, are called upon to bury in -the secret places of our modern hearts hopes that are dead. In every -life there are the ashes of fires that have burned out or, by some cold -fate, have been extinguished. For every living one of us, I believe, -there is a Cañada del Oro—a Cañon of Gold—there is a lost mine that -will never be found—there are iron doors that may never be opened.</p> - -<p>And yet—those who look for it still find “color<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_5" id="page_5">{5}</a></span>” in the Cañada del -Oro. Romance and adventure still live in the Cañon of Gold. The -treasures of life are not all hidden in a lost mine behind an iron door.</p> - -<p>As the old prospector, Thad Grove, said to his pardner one time when -their last pinch of dust was gone and their most promising lead had -pinched out: “After all, it’s a dead immortal cinch that if we <i>had</i> -a-happened to strike it rich like we was hopin’, we couldn’t never bin -as rich as we was hopin’ to be. There jest naterally <i>ain’t</i> that much -gold, nohow.”</p> - -<p>“Sure,” returned Bob Hill, the other old-timer, “and ain’t you never -took notice how much richer a feller with one poor, little, old nugget -in his pan is than the hombre what only thinks he’s got a bonanza -somewheres on the insides of a mountain? An’ look at this, will you: If -everybody was to certain sure <i>find</i> the mine he’s huntin’ there’d be so -blame <i>much</i> gold in the world that it’d take a hundred-mule train to -pack enough to buy a mess of frijoles. It’s a good thing, <i>I</i> say, that -somebody, er something has fixed it somehow so’s <i>all</i> our fool dreams -<i>can’t</i> come true.”</p> - -<p>“Speakin’ of love,” said Thad on another occasion, when the two were -discussing the happiness that had so strangely come to them with their -partnership daughter, “love ain’t no big deposit that a feller is allus -hopin’ to find but mostly never does. Love is jest a medium high-grade -ore that you got to dig for.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_6" id="page_6">{6}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Yep,” agreed Bob, “an’ when you’ve got your ore you’ve sure got to run -it through the mill an’ treat it scientific if you expect to recover -much of the values.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The affairs of the old Pardners and their daughter Marta were matters of -great and never-failing interest to the loungers who gathered in front -of the general store and post-office in Oracle.</p> - -<p>Bill Janson, known as the Lizard, invariably opened and led the -discussions. The Janson family, it should be said, had drifted into the -Cañada del Oro from Arkansas. They were, in the picturesque vernacular -of the cattlemen, “nesters.” The Lizard, an only son, was one of those -rat-faced, shifty-eyed, loose-mouthed, male creatures who know -everything about everybody and spend the major part of their days -telling it.</p> - -<p>It was on one of those social occasions when the Lizard was entertaining -a group of idlers on the platform in front of the store that I first -heard of the two old prospectors and their partnership girl.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_7" id="page_7">{7}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II<br /><br /> -AT THE ORACLE STORE</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“My Gawd! Hit’s enough t’ drive a decent man plumb loony, a-tryin’ -t’ figger hit out.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">“Y</span>ES, sir,” said the Lizard, “I’m a-tellin’ ye that them thar Pardners -an’ their gal—Marta her name is—are th’ beatenest outfit ye er ary -other man ever seed. Ain’t nobody kin figger ’em out, nohow. They’ve -been here nigh about five year, too. Me an’ paw an’ maw, we been here -eight year ourselves—comin’ this fall. Yes, sir, they’re sure a queer -actin’ lot.”</p> - -<p>The Lizard had so evidently made his introductory remarks for my benefit -that some sort of acknowledgment was unquestionably due.</p> - -<p>“What are they, miners?”</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh, they’re a-workin’ a claim—makin’ enough t’ live on, I -reckon—leastways they’re a-livin’. But that ain’t hit—hit’s that thar -gal of theirn.” He shook his head and heaved a troubled sigh. “Law, -law!”</p> - -<p>And no one could have failed to mark the eager viciousness of the -Lizard’s expression as the loose-mouthed creature ruminated on the -delectable gossip he was about to offer.</p> - -<p>“Ye see hit’s like this: Them two old-timers had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_8" id="page_8">{8}</a></span> this here gal with ’em -when they first come into th’ cañon down yonder. She was a kid—’long -’bout fourteen, then. An’ there ain’t nobody kin tell fer sure who she -is, ner whar she come from. They say as how old Bob an’ Thad found her -when they was a-prospectin’ onct down on th’ border somewhares—tuck her -away from some Mexican outfit er other. Mebby hit’s so an’ mebby hit -ain’t. But everybody ’lows as how she ain’t come from no good sort -nohow, ’cause if she had why wouldn’t the Pardners tell hit? An’ take -an’ look at this dad-beatin’ father arrangement—take their names fer -instance: one is Bob Hill, t’other is Thad Grove, an’ what’s the gal’s -name but Marta Hillgrove—Hill-Grove—d’ye ketch hit? An’ one week old -Bob he’ll be her pappy, an’ th’ next week old Thad he’s her paw, an’ the -gal she jist naterally ’lows they both her daddies. My Gawd! Hit’s -enough t’ drive a decent man plumb loony a-tryin’ t’ figger hit out.”</p> - -<p>The Lizard’s friends laughed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, ye kin laugh, but I’m a-tellin’ ye thar’s somethin’ wrong somewhars -an’ I ain’t th’ only one what says so neither. Won’t nobody over here in -Oracle have nothin’ t’ do with her. Will they?” He turned to the -loungers for confirmation.</p> - -<p>“She’s a plumb beauty, too, an’ a mighty cute little piece—reg’lar -spitfire, if ye git her started—an’ smart—say, she bosses them pore -old Pardners till they’re scared mighty nigh t’ death of her—an’ -proud—huh—she’s too all-fired proud to suit some of us.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_9" id="page_9">{9}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The crowd grinned.</p> - -<p>“The Lizard, he sure ought to know,” said one.</p> - -<p>“How about it, Lizard?” came from another. “You been a-tryin’ t’ make up -t’ her ever since she moved into your neighborhood, ain’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Ye all don’t need to mind about me,” retorted the Lizard, with a -vicious leer. “My day’ll happen along yet. Ye notice I ain’t drawed what -Chuck Billings got.”</p> - -<p>“Chuck Billings,” he continued for the benefit of any one who might not -be well versed in Cañada del Oro history, “he was one of George -Wheeler’s punchers, an’ he tuck up with her one evenin’ when she was -a-comin’ home from Saint Jimmy’s, an’ I’ll be dad-burned if her old -prospectin’ daddies didn’t work on Chuck ’til George jist naterally had -t’ send him int’ th’ hospital at Tucson. Chuck he ain’t never showed up -in this neighborhood since neither. I heard as how George told him if he -did get well an’ dast t’ come back he’d take a try at him hisself.”</p> - -<p>“Good for George!”</p> - -<p>“Heh? What’s that?”</p> - -<p>“Does George Wheeler live in the Cañada del Oro, too?”</p> - -<p>“Naw, Wheeler he’s got a big cow ranch jist back here from Oracle a -piece. George he rides all th’ cañon country though—him an’ his -punchers. An’ us folks down in th’ cañon we go through his hoss pasture -when we come up here t’ Oracle fer anythin’. George an’ his wife they’re -’bout th’ only<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_10" id="page_10">{10}</a></span> folks what’ll have any truck with that pardnership gal. -But shucks, George an’ his wife they’d be good t’ anybody. Take Saint -Jimmy an’ his maw now, they have her ’round of course.”</p> - -<p>“Saint Jimmy is your minister, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“He’s what?”</p> - -<p>“A minister—clergyman, you know—a preacher.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ye mean a parson—Shucks! Naw, Saint Jimmy he’s jist one of these -here fellers what’s everybody’s friend. He lives with his maw up on th’ -mountain ’bove Juniper Spring, ’bout three mile from Wheeler’s ranch, -jist off th’ cañon trail after ye come up into th’ hills. A little white -house hit is. You kin see hit easy from most anywheres. His real name’s -Burton. He’s a doctor, er was ’fore he got t’ be a lunger. He was -a-livin’ back East when he tuk sick. Then him an’ his maw they come t’ -this country. He’s well enough here, ’pears like; but they do say he -dassn’t never leave Arizona an’ go back t’ his doctorin’ agin like he -was. He’s a funny cuss—plays th’ flute t’ beat anythin’. You kin hear -him ’most any time of a pretty evenin’. He’ll roost up on some rock on -th’ side of th’ mountain somewhares an’ toot away ’til plumb midnight; -but he won’t never play when ye ask him, ner fer any of th’ dances we -have over here in Oracle neither. I heard George Wheeler say onct as how -Saint Jimmy war right smart of a doctor back t’ his home whar he come -from. You see, Saint Jimmy he’s been a-teachin’ this here gal of th’ -Pardners book larnin’.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_11" id="page_11">{11}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Lizard opened his wide mouth in a laugh which showed every yellow -tooth in his head. “I’ll say he’s a-teachin’ her. I’ve seed ’em together -up on th’ mountains an’ in th’ cañon more’n onct—book larnin’—huh! Ye -don’t need t’ take my word fer hit neither—ye kin ask anybody ’bout -what decent folks thinks of Marta Hillgrove. She——“</p> - -<p>How much more the Lizard would have said on his favorite topic will -never be known for at that moment a man appeared in the open doorway of -the store.</p> - -<p>Not one of the group of loungers spoke, but every eye was turned on the -man who stood looking them over with such cool contempt.</p> - -<p>He was dressed in the ordinary garb of civilization, but his dark, -impassive countenance, with the raven-black hair and eyes, was not to be -mistaken. The man was an Indian.</p> - -<p>Presently, without a word, the red man stepped past the loungers and -walked away up the road.</p> - -<p>Silently they watched until the Indian was out of sight.</p> - -<p>The Lizard drew a long breath.</p> - -<p>“That thar’s Natachee. He’s Injun. Lives all alone somewheres in th’ -mountains, away up at th’ head of th’ Cañada del Oro. He’s one of them -thar school Injuns. Talks like a reglar book when he wants t’, but -mostly he won’t say nothin’ t’ nobody. Wears white clothes all right, -like ye see, when he has t’ come t’ town fer anythin’; but out in th’ -mountains he goes ’round jist like all th’ Injuns used to. Which goes t’ -show, I claim, that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_12" id="page_12">{12}</a></span> an Injun’s an Injun no matter how much ye try t’ -larn him.”</p> - -<p>“That’s right,” agreed one of the listeners.</p> - -<p>“He’s a real sociable cuss, ain’t he?” commented another with a grin.</p> - -<p>“Him an’ Saint Jimmy’s friendly enough,” said the Lizard, “an’ I know -th’ old Pardners claim he ain’t no harm. But I ain’t havin’ no truck -with him myself. This here’s a white man’s country, I say.”</p> - -<p>A chorus of “You bet!” “That’s what!” and “You’re a-shoutin’!” approved -the Lizard’s sentiments.</p> - -<p>Then another voice said:</p> - -<p>“Do you reckon this here Natachee really knows anything about that old -lost mine in the cañon, like some folks seem to think?”</p> - -<p>The Lizard wagged his head in solemn and portentous silence, signifying -that, however ready he might be to talk about the Pardners’ girl, the -Mine with the Iron Door was not a subject to be lightly discussed in the -presence of a stranger.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_13" id="page_13">{13}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III<br /><br /> -THE PARDNERS’ GIRL</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she -jest can’t have two fathers.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE house in the Cañon of Gold where the Pardners and their girl lived -was little more than a cabin of rough, unpainted boards. But there was a -wide porch overrun with vines, and a vegetable garden with flowers. -Beyond the garden there was a rude barn or shelter, built as the Indians -build, of sahuaro poles and mud, with a small corra made of thorny -ocotillo, and the place as a whole was roughly inclosed by an old fence -of mesquite posts and barbed wire. On every side the mountains -rose—ridge and dome and peak—into the sky, and night and day, through -summer droughts and winter rains, the cañon creek murmured or sang or -roared on its way from the woodsy heart of the Catalinas to lose itself -in the sandy wastes of the desert below. The little mine where the -Pardners worked was across the creek a hundred yards or more from the -kitchen door.</p> - -<p>It was that time of the year when, if the rain gods of the Indians have -been kind, the deserts and mountains of Arizona riot in a blaze of -color. On the mountain sides, silvery white Apache plumes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_14" id="page_14">{14}</a></span> and graceful -wands of brilliant scarlet mallow were nodding amid the lilac of the -loco-weed, while, in every glade and damp depression, the gold of the -buck-bean shone in settings of brightest green. And on the cañon floor, -the pink white bloom of cañon anemone, with yellow primroses and -whispering bells, made points and patches of light in the shadow of the -rocky walls.</p> - -<p>It is not enough to say that the Pardners’ girl fully justified the -Lizard’s somewhat qualified admiration. There was something -more—something that neither the Lizard nor his kind could appreciate. -She was rather boyish, perhaps, as girls reared in the healthful -out-of-door atmosphere are apt to be, but it was a dainty boyishness—if -sturdy—that in no way marred the exquisite feminine qualities of her -beauty. Her hair and eyes were dark, and her cheeks richly colored with -good health and sunshine; and she looked at one with a disconcerting -combination of innocence and frankness which, together with the charm of -her sex, was certain to fix the attention of any mere male, whatever his -station in life or previous condition of servitude. In short, the -strangeness of Marta Hillgrove’s relationship to the grizzled old -Pardners, with the mystery of her real parentage, was not at all needed -to make her the talk of the country side. She was the kind of a girl -that both men and women instinctively discuss, though for quite -different reasons.</p> - -<p>Bob Hill put his empty coffee cup down that Saturday morning with a long -breath of satisfaction,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_15" id="page_15">{15}</a></span> and felt for the pipe and the sack of tobacco -in his shirt pocket.</p> - -<p>“Thar’s nothin’ to it, daughter,” he remarked—his faded blue eyes -twinkling and his leathery, wrinkled, old face beaming with pride and -love—“if Mother Burton learns you any more cookin’, Thad an’ me will -founder ourselves sure. I’m here to maintain that one whiff of a -breakfast like that would make one of them Egypt mummies claw himself -right out of his pyramid.”</p> - -<p>Thad Grove grunted a scornful, pessimistic, protesting grunt and rubbed -the top of his totally bald head with aggressive vigor.</p> - -<p>“She ain’t your daughter, Bob Hill—not this week. It’s my turn to be -daddy an’ you know it. You’re allus a-tryin’ to gouge me out of my -rights.”</p> - -<p>Marta’s laughter was as unaffected as the song of the cardinal that at -that moment was waking the cañon echoes. Patting Thad’s arm -affectionately, she said:</p> - -<p>“Make him play fair, daddy, make him play fair. I’ll back you up every -time he tries to cheat.”</p> - -<p>“By smoke!” ejaculated Bob. “I clean disremembered what day it was -to-day. But to-morrer is another week an’ she’ll be mine all right -then.” He glared at Thad triumphantly. “I tell you, Pardner, jest -a-thinkin’ of me goin’ to be daddy to a gal like her makes me all set -up. I’ve sure got a feelin’ that to-morrer is the day we’ll dig clean -through to our bonanza.”</p> - -<p>“Huh,” retorted Thad. “I got a feelin’ we ai<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_16" id="page_16">{16}</a></span>n’t goin’ to dig into no -bonanza to-morrer, nor nothin’ else.”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” demanded Bob.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Cause to-morrer is Sunday, ain’t it? Holy Cats! but you’re a-gettin’ -loonier and loonier. If you keep on a-dyin’ at the top you won’t be fit -to be daddy to nobody. I’ll jest up an’ git myself app’inted guardian -for my off weeks—that’s what I’ll do.”</p> - -<p>“I may be a-dyin’ at the top,” returned Bob, “but, by smoke, I ain’t -coverin’ no alkali flat under my hat like you be. As for us workin’ -Sundays—I know we ain’t allowed, in general, but it’s a plumb sin if we -can’t—jest for to-morrer—with me all set like I am.”</p> - -<p>He looked at Marta appealingly.</p> - -<p>“Whatever my gal says goes,” said Thad.</p> - -<p>Bob continued persuasively:</p> - -<p>“You see, honey, I’ve got it all figgered out that when we git in about -three feet further than we’ll make to-day we’re bound to uncover our -everlastin’ fortunes. You want us all to be rich, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“It’s no use,” said the girl firmly. “You both know well enough that I -will not permit you to break the Sabbath. Saint Jimmy’s mother says it -is no way for Christians to do, and that settles it. Anything that -Mother Burton says is wrong <i>is</i> wrong. You both consider yourselves -Christians, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“You’re dead right, daughter,” said Thad, with an air of gentle -complacency. “I hadn’t a mite of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_17" id="page_17">{17}</a></span> a notion to work on Sunday myself. I -wouldn’t go so far as to say I was much of a Christian but”—he glared -at his pardner—“it’s a cinch I’m no Zulu. As for anybody that intimates -we got a chance to uncover a fortune anywhere in that hole out there, -between the dump and China—wal, I’d hate to tell you what sort of a -Christian I think <i>he</i> is.”</p> - -<p>Bob grinned cheerfully.</p> - -<p>“Mebby I ain’t so much of a Christian neither,” he agreed, “but if I’d -a-been that old Pharaoh what built them pyramids——“</p> - -<p>The girl interrupted:</p> - -<p>“Now, there you go again. That’s the second time. What in the world -started you to talking about Egypt and pyramids and Pharaoh and mummies -and things like that?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I jest happened to take a peek into one of them books that Saint -Jimmy got us to buy for you, that’s all,” returned the old-timer, with a -sly wink at the smiling girl. “An’ anyway, it seems like I ought to know -somethin’ about mummies by this time, after livin’ as long as I have -with that there.” He pointed a long, gnarled finger at his pardner. -“Egypt or Arizona, livin’ or dead, it’s all the same, I reckon. A -mummy’s a mummy wherever you find it.”</p> - -<p>Thad rubbed his bald head with deliberate care.</p> - -<p>“Daughter, does Mother Burton’s brand of Christianity say anything about -what a man should do to his enemies?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_18" id="page_18">{18}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Indeed it does,” returned the girl. “It says we must love our enemies -and forgive them.”</p> - -<p>“All right—all right—an’ what does it say about lovin’ an’ forgivin’ -your friends, heh?”</p> - -<p>“Why—nothing, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“Course it don’t,” cried the old prospector in shrill triumph.</p> - -<p>“Course it don’t. An’ do you know why? I’ll tell you why. It’s because -it’s so doggone easy to forgive an enemy compared to what it is to -forgive a friend, that’s why. The Good Book knows ’tain’t necessary to -say nothin’ about friends, ’cause it’s jest as nateral and virtuous to -hate a friend as ’tis to love an enemy—that’s what I’m a-meanin’.”</p> - -<p>Marta was not in the least disturbed over this exchange of courtesies by -her two fathers. Rising from the table, she laughingly remarked that if -they were not <i>too</i> busy they might saddle her horse, as she must go to -Oracle for supplies. Whereupon the Pardners went to the barn, leaving -their girl free to clear away the breakfast things, wash the dishes, and -finish her morning housework.</p> - -<p>It was an unwritten law of the partnership that the particular father of -the week should stand obligated to the parental responsibilities of the -position. It was by no means the least of his duties that he must endure -the criticisms of the other upon the way he was “bringing up” his -daughter. It seems scarcely necessary to add that criticism was never -wanting and that it was never without directness and point. To -compensate for this burden of re<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_19" id="page_19">{19}</a></span>sponsibility, the parent was permitted -to say “my gal” while the critic, by the rules of the game, must -invariably say “that gal of yourn.”</p> - -<p>While Thad the father was currying his daughter’s horse, Nugget—a -bright little pinto—Bob squatted comfortably on his heels, his back -against the wall of the barn.</p> - -<p>“Pardner,” he said, as one who speaks after mature deliberation, “I -ain’t meanin’ to mix none in your family affairs, but as a friend I’m -a-feelin’ constrained to remark that you ain’t doin’ right by that gal -of yourn nohow.”</p> - -<p>Marta’s father was making a careful examination of the pinto’s off -forefoot and seemed not to hear.</p> - -<p>Bob continued:</p> - -<p>“Anybody can see that she comes mighty nigh bein’ grown up. First thing -<i>you</i> know somebody’ll make her understand all to once that she’s a -woman, and then——“</p> - -<p>Thad dropped the pinto’s foot and glared at his pardner over the horse’s -back.</p> - -<p>“Then <i>what</i>?”</p> - -<p>“Then she’ll be wantin’ to know things. An’—it might be too late to -tell her.”</p> - -<p>“You mean that I ought to tell my gal what we know about her?” demanded -Marta’s father. “Is that what you’re tryin’ to say?”</p> - -<p>“You guessed it, Pardner,” returned the critical one cheerfully. “It’s -time that your gal knowed about herself. Bein’ her daddy, it’s up to you -to tell her.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_20" id="page_20">{20}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The other exploded:</p> - -<p>“Which is exactly what I tried all last week to tell <i>you</i>, when you was -her daddy, you blamed old numskull, an’ you wouldn’t near listen to me. -A healthy father you are. When it’s <i>your</i> daughter that ought to be -told, you can’t even whisper, but when she’s mine you can yell your fool -head off tellin’ me what <i>I</i> ought to do. Besides, you said yourself -that we don’t actually know enough to tell her anything.”</p> - -<p>“But that was last week, you see,” returned Bob calmly. “You was doin’ -the talkin’ then—now <i>I’m</i> tellin’ you.”</p> - -<p>When Thad, without replying, fell to rubbing Nugget’s glossy hide with -such energy that the little horse squirmed like a schoolboy undergoing -maternal inspection, Bob continued:</p> - -<p>“Marta is bound to know, when she stops to think about it, that she jest -can’t have two fathers. It’s plumb unnateral, even for two such daddies -as she’s got. So far she ain’t give it much thought. She’s sort of -growed up with the idea an’ accepted things as young folks do—up to a -certain time, that is. My point is, that from now on her time is liable -to come any day. Right now, if she thinks of it at all she jest smiles -an’ plays the game with us, but that’s ’cause she’s mostly kid yet. You -wait ’til the woman in her is woke up—right there she’ll quit playin’ -an’ somethin’ is due to happen. You ain’t doin’ right by your daughter, -Thad, not to tell her—you sure ain’t.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_21" id="page_21">{21}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Thad Grove faced his old pardner miserably. “I know you’re right, Bob. -Marta ought to be told what we know about her. I can see that it’ll look -mighty bad to her some day if she ain’t. But, hang darn it, it’s jest -like you said last week—we don’t know enough for me to tell her -anything. If I was to tell her what little we do know, it would look a -heap sight worse to her than it possibly can with her not bein’ told -anything, like she is now. The way I figger, if the gal don’t know -nothin’, she’s got a chance to ride over it; but if she knows the little -that we know she’ll be plumb ruined.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t reckon it’s near so bad as that, Pardner,” said the other -soothingly. “I’m here to tell you that there ain’t nothin’ could ruin -that gal of yourn.”</p> - -<p>At this, the fire of old Thad’s soul flared up anew.</p> - -<p>“Is that so?” he returned in a voice of withering scorn. “<i>Is</i> that so? -Well, I’m a tellin’ <i>you</i> that you can ruin <i>anybody</i>.”</p> - -<p>“Saint Jimmy, for instance?” retorted Bob with sarcasm.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Saint Jimmy. You can’t tell what sort of a scoundrel Saint Jimmy -would a-been if he hadn’t happened to a-turned sick. There’s many a man -in the pen, right now, jest on account of havin’ too much good health.”</p> - -<p>“I reckon you’re speakin’ gospel for once,” agreed Bob reluctantly. -Then, as if he had not forgotten his critical privileges, he added: “But -there’s some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_22" id="page_22">{22}</a></span>thing else you ought to tell your gal—something that the -best authorities all agree ought to be told every gal by somebody—an’ -bein’ as you’re her father, an’ she ain’t never had no real ma, why—it -would look like it was up to you.”</p> - -<p>“What’s that?” demanded Thad suspiciously.</p> - -<p>“That’s what they call love,” returned the other gently. “Growin’ up -like Marta has, with jest us two old, dried-up, desert rats, she don’t -know no more about love an’ its consequences than—than—nothin’.”</p> - -<p>Marta’s father dropped his brush and kicked it viciously across the -stable. Nugget danced with excitement.</p> - -<p>“Love! Holy Cats! What fool notion’ll take you next? You don’t need to -worry none. Some feller will happen along some day an’ tell her more -about love in a minute than you’ve ever knowed in all your life.”</p> - -<p>“That’s jest it,” returned the other. “Some feller is bound to tell her, -jest like you say. He’ll slip up on her quiet like, when she ain’t -suspicionin’ nothin’, an’ break it to her sudden ’fore she knows where -she’s at. That’s how them consequences happen. An’ that’s why she ought -to know beforehand, so’s she can be watchin’ out.”</p> - -<p>Thad was rubbing his bald head seeking, apparently, for an answer -sufficiently crushing, when a clear call came from the house.</p> - -<p>“Daddy—Oh, Daddy, I am ready.”</p> - -<p>With frantic haste, the Pardners, working to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_23" id="page_23">{23}</a></span>gether as if they had never -had a difference, saddled and bridled the pinto. Together they led the -little horse to the house.</p> - -<p>When the girl was in the saddle, she looked down into their upturned -faces with such an expression of girlish affection and womanly -thoughtfulness that the two old men grinned with sheepish delight and -pride.</p> - -<p>“You will find your dinner all ready for you,” she said, while Nugget -tossed his head, impatient to be off. “It is on the table, covered with -a cloth. I’ll be home in time for supper. <i>Adios.</i>” She lifted the -bridle rein and the pinto loped away.</p> - -<p>The Pardners stood watching while she opened and closed the gate, cowboy -fashion, without dismounting. With a wave of her hand she rode on up the -cañon while the two old men followed her with their eyes until she -passed from sight around a turn in the cañon wall.</p> - -<p>Thad spoke slowly:</p> - -<p>“You’re plumb right, Bob. The gal has mighty nigh growed into a woman, -ain’t she? It don’t seem more’n a month or two neither, does it?”</p> - -<p>“It sure don’t,” returned the other softly. “An’ ain’t she a wonder, -Thad—ain’t she jest a nateral-born wonder?”</p> - -<p>“She’s all of that,” agreed Thad, “an’ then some. It plumb scares me -though, when I think of her findin’ out about herself an’ her all -educated up by Saint Jimmy an’ his mother like she is. Holy Cats, Bob! -What’ll we do?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_24" id="page_24">{24}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“She’s bound to know some day,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>“She’s bound to, sure,” echoed Thad with a groan. “But my God a’mighty -ain’t either of us got nerve to tell her <i>now</i>. If she hadn’t been goin’ -to school to Saint Jimmy these last five years—I mean if she was like -she would a-been with jest me an’ you to bring her up, it might not -a-mattered. But now—now it’s goin’ to be plain hell for her when she -finds out.”</p> - -<p>Bob murmured softly:</p> - -<p>“Won’t even let us work on Sundays ’cause it ain’t the right way for -Christians like us to do. We’d ought to a-told long ago, that’s what we -ought to a-done.”</p> - -<p>“Sure, we ought to told her,” cried Thad, “jest like we’d ought to done -a lot of things we ain’t. But mournin’ over what ought to been done -ain’t payin’ us nothin’. What’re we <i>goin’</i> to do, that’s what we got to -figger out. The gal’s got to be told.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” returned Bob. “An’ she’s got to be told ’fore some sneakin’ -varmint beats us to it an’ tells her for true what me an’ you are only -suspicionin’. How’ll you ever do it?”</p> - -<p>“How’ll <i>I</i> ever do it?” shrilled Thad. “Holy Cats! I can’t—How’ll you -ever do it yourself?”</p> - -<p>Bob answered helplessly:</p> - -<p>“I can’t neither—an’ by smoke, I won’t.”</p> - -<p>“She’s got to be told,” insisted Thad.</p> - -<p>“She sure has,” said Bob.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_25" id="page_25">{25}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV<br /><br /> -SAINT JIMMY</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>Wise Mother Burton came to wonder, sometimes, if Saint Jimmy’s -teaching was not more a matter of love than even he perhaps -realized.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">D</span>OCTOR JIMMY BURTON and his mother spent their first year in Arizona at -Tucson and Oracle. But when they were satisfied that Jimmy could live if -he gave up his too strenuous professional work and remained in the -Southwest, and that if he did not follow that course he would as surely -die, they built the little white house on the mountain side at Juniper -Springs, above the Cañada del Oro. As Jimmy explained, “it was quite -necessary, under the circumstances, that they live where they could see -out.”</p> - -<p>It was during that first summer in Oracle that the neighbors began to -speak of his tender care of his mother, for, even in those days when he -was too ill to do more than think, his thoughts were all for her. And so -lovingly did he try to shield her from the pain of his suffering, so -cheerfully did he accustom her to the thought of the utter hopelessness -of his professional future, and so courageously, for her sake, did he -accept the pitifully small portion that life offered him, that the -people marveled at the spirit<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_26" id="page_26">{26}</a></span> of the man. It was a question, they -sometimes said, with a touch of sincere reverence in their voices, if -Doctor Burton needed his mother as much as the doctor’s mother needed -him. But Jimmy and his mother knew that the truth of the matter was they -needed each other.</p> - -<p>And so in their mutual need both mother and son found compensation for -their dreams that now could never come true. In place of the -professional honors that were predicted with such confidence for her -boy, and toward which she had looked with such pride, the mother saw her -son honored by the love of the unpretentious country folk. From plans -that had failed and hopes that were buried, Jimmy himself turned to the -grandeur of the mountains and the beauty of tree and bush and flower—to -the limitless spaces of the desert and the peace of the quiet stars. The -life of the great eastern city, with its hunger for fame, its struggle -for riches, its endless tumult and its restless longings, faded farther -and farther away. The simple, more primitive, more peaceful life of -God’s great unimproved world became every day more satisfying.</p> - -<p>To the roaming cowboys and miners and their kind, and to the people of -the little mountain village, that tiny white house on the hill was -known. And many a man, when things were going wrong, came to spend an -hour with this friend whose understanding was so clear and whose counsel -was so true. Many a girl or woman in need of comfort, strength or -courage came to sit a while with Mrs. Burton. And some<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_27" id="page_27">{27}</a></span>times a tired -rider of the range would hear in the twilight dusk the clear, sweet song -of Jimmy’s flute and, hearing, would smile and lift his wide-brimmed -hat; or perhaps a lonely prospector, camped for the night in some gulch -or wash would hear, and, hearing, would think again of things that in -his search for gold he had forgotten. And this is how Doctor James -Burton became Saint Jimmy and Saint Jimmy’s mother became Mother Burton -to them all.</p> - -<p>It was natural that the good doctor should become Marta Hillgrove’s -teacher, and that Mrs. Burton should mother the girl who, until her -fathers brought her to the Cañada del Oro, had never known a woman’s -guiding love. Indeed, it was Saint Jimmy and his mother and all that -their friendship meant to Marta that had kept the Pardners in that -neighborhood. Never before since the beginning of their partnership had -those wanderers stayed so long in one place. For four—nearly -five—years Marta had been studying under Saint Jimmy; a fair equivalent -of the usual college course. With this textbook education she had -received from Mother Burton the kind of training that such a woman would -have given a daughter of her own. And yet these most excellent teachers -knew no more of their pupil’s history than did those thoughtless ones -who so freely discussed the girl and looked at her askance for what they -thought her parentage might be.</p> - -<p>It should be said, too, that this schooling which Marta had received -from Saint Jimmy and his mother was wholly a matter of love. As Doctor -Burton<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_28" id="page_28">{28}</a></span> explained to the Pardners, when they insisted that he should be -paid “same as a reg’lar teacher,” the work was really a blessing to him -in that his pupil contributed more to his life than he could possibly -give to hers; while Mother Burton warned the anxious fathers, gently but -firmly, that if they ever said another word about pay they would ruin -everything.</p> - -<p>But as the years passed and she watched the amazing development of the -girl’s mind, and saw the unfolding of her richly endowed womanhood, wise -Mother Burton came to wonder sometimes if Saint Jimmy’s teaching was not -more a matter of love than even he perhaps realized.</p> - -<p>On that spring morning when Marta rode to Oracle and her fathers -discussed the problem that so troubled them, Saint Jimmy sat in the yard -before the cottage door. On every side he saw the Mariposa tulips -lifting their lovely orange cups, and sweet pea blossoms swinging like -pink and white fairies above a lilac carpet of wild verbena and purple -fragrant hyptis, while against the rocks that were stained with splashes -of gray and orange and red and yellow lichens stood the purple -pentstemon. The mountain sides below were wondrous with the scarlet -glory of the ocotillo and the indescribable beauty of the chollas and -opuntias with their crowns and diadems of red and salmon and orange and -pink. The slopes and benches of the lower levels were bright with great -fields of golden brittle-bush; and beyond these, on the wide spaces of -the mesa, he could see the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_29" id="page_29">{29}</a></span> yuccas (our Lord’s candles) in countless -thousands, raising their stately shafts with eight-foot clusters of -creamy-white bloom.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Burton, leaving her housework for a moment, came to stand in the -doorway. When they had spoken of the beautiful sight that never failed -to move them—calling each other’s attention to different favorite -views—Saint Jimmy said:</p> - -<p>“Mother, doesn’t it all make you sort of hungry for something—something -that can’t be told in words?” he laughed in boyish embarrassment.</p> - -<p>His mother smiled.</p> - -<p>“Marta will be coming from Oracle with the mail, I suppose—this is -Saturday, you know.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know,” said Jimmy softly, and wondered if his mother guessed -what it really was that he hungered for and could not talk about even to -her.</p> - -<p>Mrs. Burton was turning back into the house when they heard some one -coming up the trail from the cañon. A moment later the Pardners -appeared. Saint Jimmy and his mother knew at once that the old -prospectors had come on business of greater moment than to make a mere -neighborly call.</p> - -<p>When they had exchanged the customary greetings and Marta’s fathers had -assured their friends that the girl was well, Thad and Bob sat looking -at each other in troubled silence.</p> - -<p>“Wal,” said Bob, at last, “why don’t you go ahead? She’s your gal this -week. Bein’ her daddy makes it your play, don’t it?”</p> - -<p>Thad, rubbing his bald head desperately, made<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_30" id="page_30">{30}</a></span> several ineffectual -attempts to speak. At last, with a recklessness born of this inner -struggle, he addressed Mrs. Burton:</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>You see, ma’am, me an’ my pardner here has been takin’ notice lately -how my gal Marta is due, first thing we know, to be a growed-up woman.”</p> - -<p>“She is, indeed!” replied Jimmy’s mother with an encouraging smile.</p> - -<p>“Yes, ma’am, that’s what me an’ Bob here took notice. An’ we’ve been -figgerin’ up that mebby it was time she knowed what we know about her. -You an’ your son knows the same as everybody does, I reckon, that we -ain’t Marta’s real honest-to-God daddies.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Mrs. Burton, “but we have never, in any way, mentioned the -matter to Marta.”</p> - -<p>“No, ma’am,” said Thad, “an’ we ain’t neither.”</p> - -<p>“An’ that’s jest what’s the matter now,” put in Bob. “The gal ain’t -never been told nothin’.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Burton looked at her son.</p> - -<p>“I am sure that you men are right,” said Saint Jimmy. “I have been -wanting to talk with you about it. You ought to tell Marta everything -you know of her and her people—how she came to you—everything.”</p> - -<p>The Pardners consulted each other silently. Then Thad turned to Marta’s -teacher; the old prospector’s faded blue eyes were fixed on the younger -man’s face with a steady, searching gaze that permitted no evasion, even -if Saint Jimmy had been disposed to parry the question.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_31" id="page_31">{31}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Is there, to your thinkin’, any perticler reason why my gal ought to be -told at this perticler time?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy smiled reassuringly.</p> - -<p>“No particular reason, so far as I know,” he said. “Of course you -realize that there has always been more or less talk. Sooner or later -the girl is bound to hear it. She should be fortified with the truth.”</p> - -<p>Again Bob and Thad looked at each other helplessly.</p> - -<p>“An’ if the truth ain’t jest what you might call fortifyin’—what then?” -said Thad at last.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” echoed Bob. “What then? What if my pardner an’ me can’t say that -all the gossips is talkin’ ain’t so?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy did not answer. Mother Burton looked away. Old Thad rubbed -his bald head in mournful meditation.</p> - -<p>“Doctor Burton,” said Bob slowly, as one feeling his way amid -conversational dangers, “Thad an’ me ain’t to say blind, if we be -gittin’ old. We can still tell ‘color’ when we run across it.” He -consulted his pardner with a look and Thad nodded his head in approval. -Bob continued: “We’re almighty proud of what you been doin’ for our -gal,” he caught himself quickly. “Excuse me, Pardner—for your gal, I -mean.”</p> - -<p>Thad raised his hand—a gesture which signified that, in the stress of -the situation, he waived the fine point of their usual courtesy, and for -this crucial occasion acknowledged their joint fatherhood.</p> - -<p>Old Bob swallowed, with difficulty, something<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_32" id="page_32">{32}</a></span> that seemed to obstruct -his usual freedom of speech.</p> - -<p>“An’ I reckon you understand, sir, that we ain’t noways lackin’ in -appreciation an’ gratitude to you an’ your ma for helpin’ Marta to grow -up into the young woman she is. My pardner an’ me, we sure done what we -could, an’ we’d been glad to a-done more if it had a-been possible, but -it wasn’t, not for us, an’ we’re sensible to what it all means to our -gal. If she wasn’t trained up an’ all educated like you an’ your ma has -made her, it wouldn’t much matter what her own folks was or how she -first come to us.”</p> - -<p>“I understand,” said Saint Jimmy gently, “and I know that the girl could -not love you men more if you were, in fact, her own fathers. I know, -too, that nothing could make her love you less. But I am convinced that -she should know all that you know about her.”</p> - -<p>“We would a-told her the story long ago,” said Thad, “if only we’d -a-knowed a little more than we do, or mebby, if we hadn’t knowed as -much, or if what little we do know didn’t look so almighty bad.”</p> - -<p>“It will look a heap worse to her now than it ever did to us,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>“It sure will,” agreed Thad, “an’ so, you see, we’ve been waitin’ an’ -puttin’ it off, hopin’ that we would mebby, somehow, find out something -that, as it is, is lackin’.” He appealed to Mrs. Burton: “You can see -how it is, can’t you, ma’am?”</p> - -<p>“I understand,” said the good woman, gently,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_33" id="page_33">{33}</a></span> “but I agree with my son. -Whatever it is, the story will make no difference in Marta’s love for -you, just as it has made no difference in your love for her.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Thad, “but how about the difference it might make to—“ he -paused and looked at his pardner helplessly. “Ahem—to—I mean——“</p> - -<p>Bob spoke quickly:</p> - -<p>“To you an’ Saint Jimmy, ma’am. What difference will it make to you -folks?”</p> - -<p>Thad drew a deep breath of relief and rubbed his bald head with -satisfaction.</p> - -<p>Mother Burton met them bravely with:</p> - -<p>“Nothing that you have to tell can change our feeling for Marta. I could -not love her more if she were my own daughter.”</p> - -<p>The two old men looked at Saint Jimmy eagerly.</p> - -<p>“You dead sure that nothin’ would make you change toward our gal?” -demanded Bob.</p> - -<p>“You plumb certain, be you, sir?” said old Thad.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy smiled reassuringly.</p> - -<p>“As certain as I am of death,” he answered.</p> - -<p>With an air of excited relief Thad faced his pardner.</p> - -<p>“That bein’ the case I move, Pardner, that we tell Doctor Burton here -what we know, an’ he can tell our gal or not as he sees fit, and when he -sees fit.”</p> - -<p>“Jest what I was about to offer myself,” returned Bob. “You go ahead.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_34" id="page_34">{34}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V<br /><br /> -THE PROSPECTOR’S STORY</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“No, sir, take it anyway you like, it jest naterally looks bad; an’ -that’s all me an’ my pardner knows about it.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">“I</span>T was about sixteen year ago,” Thad began at last.</p> - -<p>“Seventeen, the middle of next month,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>Thad continued:</p> - -<p>“Me an’ my pardner here was comin’ in to Tucson from the Santa Rosa -Mountains, which is down close to the Mexican line. We’d been out for -about three months an’ was needin’ supplies. ’Long late in the afternoon -of the second day from where we’d been workin’, we stopped at a little -ranch house about three mile this side of the line for water. We knowed -the old Mexican man an’ woman what lived there all right—’most -everybody did—everybody like us old desert rats, that is—an’ didn’t -nobody know any good of ’em either.”</p> - -<p>“Some claim that the old woman was Sonora Jack’s mother,” said Bob. -“Sonora Jack, you know, is half Mex, and a mighty bad citizen, too. He’s -somewheres across the line right now, hidin’ out for a killin’ he an’ -his crowd made in a hold<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_35" id="page_35">{35}</a></span>up’ bout the same time that we’re tellin’ you -of.”</p> - -<p>Thad took up the story.</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, we’d filled our water bags an’ was standin’ talkin’ with the -old woman who’d come to watch us—the man, he was away it appeared—when -all at once a little boy come trottin’ ’round the corner of the cabin -from behind somewheres.”</p> - -<p>“About three or four, he was,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>“About that,” agreed Thad. “An’ when he seen us he jest stopped short, -kind of scared like, an’ stood there cryin’.</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, me an’ Bob tumbled in a holy minute that he didn’t belong -there. We knowed them old Mexicans didn’t have no kid that wasn’t growed -up long ago. An’ this little chap didn’t look like a Mexican youngster -nohow. The old woman acted kind of rattled at us lookin’ at the kid so -sharp, an’ started in tellin’ us that the muchachito was one of her -grandsons. That sounded fair enough at first, but when she turned an’ -yelled at the kid in Mex, givin’ him the devil for not stayin’ behind -the house like she’d told him to, we seed that somethin’ was wrong. He -didn’t savvy Mex no more than we do Chinee.</p> - -<p>“While the poor little cuss was standin’ there scared stiff an’ -cryin’—not knowin’ what the old woman wanted, Bob here went down on one -knee an’ held out his hands invitin’ like. ‘Come here, sonny,’ says he -to the kid in English, ‘come on over here an’ let’s have a look at you.’</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, that youngster gave a funny little<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_36" id="page_36">{36}</a></span> laugh, right out through -his tears, an’ come runnin’.</p> - -<p>“The old woman didn’t know what to do; but I was keepin’ one eye on her -so she didn’t dare try to start anything much.</p> - -<p>“Bob, he asked the youngster, ‘What’s your name, sonny?’ an’ the little -feller answered back, bright as a dollar: ‘My name’s Marta.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>Marta?’ says Bob, lookin’ up at me puzzled like. ‘That’s a funny name -for a boy.’</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>I ain’t no boy,’ said the kid, quick as a flash, ‘I’m a girl, I am.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“An’ by smoke! she was,” ejaculated Bob.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” continued Thad, “an’ when the old woman seen that the little gal -was talkin’ to us—the old woman she didn’t savvy a word of anything but -Mex, but she could tell what was goin’ on—when she see it, she jest -naterally grabbed the youngster an’ yanked her into the house an’ shut -the door.</p> - -<p>“Me an’ Bob made camp not far away that night, an’ after supper, an’ it -had got good an’ dark, we was settin’ by the fire talkin’ things over, -when all at once we heard the sound of a wagon an’ a child -screamin’—sort of choked like. You can believe we wasn’t long gettin’ -to where the sound come from. Them Mexicans was lightin’ out with that -little gal for across the border.</p> - -<p>“By that time, me and my pardner was so plumb sure that there was -somethin’ wrong that we didn’t waste no more strength in foolishness. We -jest proceeded to give that hombre the third degree<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_37" id="page_37">{37}</a></span> ’til he ups an’ -confesses that the baby was left with them by some white folks who was -on a huntin’ trip, an’ that they was only keepin’ the youngster ’til her -daddy an’ mammy come back for her.</p> - -<p>“You can guess how quick me an’ Bob was to believe any such yarn as -that; so we figured the safest thing to do was to take the baby -ourselves into Tucson; which we done.</p> - -<p>“Well, sir, by the time we struck town the little gal had made such a -hit with us both that we couldn’t near think of givin’ her up.”</p> - -<p>“Darndest affectionate kid that ever was,” put in Bob. “Started right -off first thing lovin’ us two old rapscallions like we’d always belonged -to her, an’ callin’ us both ‘daddy.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“We sure done our best to find her real folks, though,” said Thad. “We -stayed in Tucson for more’n a month. But the authorities nor nobody -couldn’t get no hint nowhere about any kid bein’ lost, nor stole, nor -nothin’. Things was movin’ pretty fast in this country them days, an’ -the sheriff always had his hands full; so it wasn’t long ’til everybody -got busy with some fresh excitement, an’ me an’ Bob was left with the -baby on our hands. There didn’t appear to be nothin’ else we could do, -so we jest decided that Providence, or good luck, or somethin’, had -fixed it so’s us two old mavericks was blessed with a offspring whether -we was regularly entitled to one or not. Then pretty soon we moved on -over into the Graham Mountains, an’ jest naterally took her along.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_38" id="page_38">{38}</a></span></p> - -<p>“We both was lovin’ her so by now that we was about to fight to see -which one was to be her daddy, when we compromised by agreein’ to take -turn an’ turn about—week by week. An’ that’s how we come to give her -both our names—Hillgrove. Her first name is Martha, we suppose; but -Marta was the best she could ever tell us. An’ that’s about all there is -of it up to the time we fetched her here an’ you started in teachin’ -her.”</p> - -<p>“You see, ma’am,” said Bob, “this here is the way me an’ Thad has got it -figgered: The baby must have been left with them Mexicans where we found -her, ’cause she ain’t Mexican nor any part Mexican herself. Wal, what -kind of white folks do you reckon would go away an’ leave a little gal -like that, with such an outfit? They couldn’t a-left her accidental -like, ’cause if they had they’d a-come back for her, an’ then they’d -been huntin’ us. With all the fuss we made about it in Tucson, somebody -would a-knowed somethin’ about her sure, if her people hadn’t wanted to -get shet of her on account of them bein’ the sort they was. An’ there -ain’t been no time since then that me an’ Thad has been hard to find. -Don’t you see, her folks couldn’t a-been decent even if her father an’ -mother was—was—I mean, even if she was borned all regular an’ -right—which don’t look no way likely. Any way you take it, they must -a-been a bad sort to throw away a baby like her.”</p> - -<p>“You can bet they was,” added Thad mournfully, “for it’s a dead immortal -cinch that them old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_39" id="page_39">{39}</a></span> Mexicans couldn’t a-come by her no other way; -’cause they never went anywhere an’ if they had stole her it sure would -a-raised enough interest in the country for somebody to a-heard about -it. No, sir, take it any way you like, it jest naterally looks bad. -An’,” the old prospector finished with an air of relief, “that’s all me -an’ my pardner knows about it.”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy did not speak. He was evidently deeply moved by the strange -story. Mrs. Burton was drying her eyes. The Pardners waited, with no -little anxiety.</p> - -<p>At last Bob asked timidly:</p> - -<p>“Be you still thinkin’, sir, as how our gal ought to be told?”</p> - -<p>Reluctantly, Saint Jimmy answered:</p> - -<p>“I am afraid that Marta must know.”</p> - -<p>He looked at his mother.</p> - -<p>“I am sure she must know,” said Mrs. Burton with quiet decision. “And -you, my son, are the one to tell her. It will come to her easier from -you, her teacher, than from any one else.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, ma’am,” cried Thad eagerly. “That’s the way me an’ Bob figgered -it.”</p> - -<p>“Will you do it, sir?” asked Bob.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Saint Jimmy, “I will tell her.”</p> - -<p>The Pardners sighed with relief.</p> - -<p>“That sure lets us out of a mighty bad hole,” said Thad. “It’ll be a -heap easier on our gal, too.”</p> - -<p>“It sure will,” echoed Bob. “Ain’t nobody can tell what kind of a -God-awful mess us old fools would<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_40" id="page_40">{40}</a></span> a-made of it. We’re almighty grateful -to you, sir, for helpin’ us out.”</p> - -<p>“We are that,” came from Thad with pathetic earnestness.</p> - -<p>Bob said hurriedly:</p> - -<p>“An’ now that it’s all settled, Pardner, I move that me an’ you pulls -out of here before our gal happens along. I wouldn’t be ketched by her -right now for all the money we’re goin’ to have when we strike that big -vein we’re tunnelin’ for.”</p> - -<p>“Which ain’t so much as it might be at that,” retorted Thad.</p> - -<p>“You can’t never tell,” returned Bob with his usual cheery optimism, -“gold is where you find it.”</p> - -<p>When Bob and Thad were gone, Saint Jimmy and his mother, discussing the -matter, were forced to agree with the Pardners. It certainly did look -bad. In fact it looked so bad that Saint Jimmy was not at all happy -under the burden of the responsibility which the old prospectors had -shifted from their own shoulders to his. He foresaw that it would not be -easy to tell this young woman whom he had educated, and whose fine, -sensitive pride he knew so well, this story that he had just heard from -her two foster fathers.</p> - -<p>When Marta stopped at the Burtons’ on her way home from Oracle, later in -the day, neither Saint Jimmy nor his mother mentioned the Pardners’ -visit, and there seemed to be no opportunity for the girl’s teacher to -tell her the story he was so sure<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_41" id="page_41">{41}</a></span> she should know. Some other time, he -told himself, it would be easier, perhaps.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>While the Pardners’ daughter was riding home from the Burtons’ that -afternoon, and the Pardners were at work in their little mine, Natachee -the Indian stood on a point of rock, high on the mountain side—so high -that he could look beyond the Cañon of Gold and afar off, over the brown -desert that, from the foothills of the Catalinas, stretches away, weary -mile after weary mile, until, in the shadowy blue distance, it is lost -in the sky.</p> - -<p>To those of us who are accustomed to the present-day Indian in his white -man’s garb, doing the white man’s work on the white man’s roads and -ranches, Natachee would have aroused peculiar, not to say amusing, -interest. From the single feather in the headband which bound his long, -raven-black hair to his beaded moccasins, he was dressed in the -picturesque costume of his savage fathers. Save for a broad hunting -knife, he was armed only with the primitive bow and arrows. He was in -the best years of his manhood and his face and bearing would have graced -the hero of a Fenimore Cooper Indian tale.</p> - -<p>But however much he seemed out of step with the times, that lone figure, -standing sentinel-like on the rocky point, fitted his wild surroundings. -So, indeed, might one of his ancestors have stood to watch the strange -new human life when it first began to move along those trails that, -until then,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_42" id="page_42">{42}</a></span> had known only the sandaled and moccasined feet of -prehistoric peoples.</p> - -<p>An hour passed. The Indian held his place as motionless as the rock -against which he leaned, while his somber gaze ranged over those mighty -reaches of desert and mountain and sky. High over Rice Peak a golden -eagle wheeled on guard before the nest of his royal mate. But Natachee -seemed not to see. From a dead oak on Samaniego Ridge a red-tailed hawk -screamed his shrill challenge. The Indian apparently did not hear. A -company of buzzards circled above a dark object in the wash below the -Wheeler Ranch corrals. Natachee gave no heed. A ground squirrel leaped -to a near-by rock to sit bolt upright with bright eyes fixed upon the -red man, the while he sounded a chirping note of inquiry. But the -Indian’s gaze remained steadfastly fixed on that distant landscape where -he could see a cloud of dust that was raised by a swiftly moving -automobile on the Oracle road. On the Bankhead Highway there were two -similar clouds. In the purple haze beyond the point of the Tortollita -Mountains, a streamer of smoke marked the position of a Southern Pacific -Overland train that was approaching Tucson from the western coast. The -face of the red watchman on the mountain side was set stern and grim. In -his somber eyes there was a gleam of savage meaning.</p> - -<p>The sun was just touching the tops of the Tucson hills when the Indian -started and leaned forward with suddenly quickened interest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_43" id="page_43">{43}</a></span></p> - -<p>No ordinary power of human vision would have noticed that black speck in -the vast stretch of country, much less could the ordinary observer have -said exactly what it was that had attracted the Indian’s attention. But -Natachee saw that the tiny dot, moving so slowly on the old road into -the Cañada del Oro, was a man. His interest was excited to an unusual -degree because the man was walking, unaccompanied even by a pack burro.</p> - -<p>And now the evening wind from the desert, fragrant with the smell of -greasewood, mesquite and cat-claw, swept along the mountain side. The -Tucson hills were massed dark blue with their outlines sharply cut -against the colors of the sunset. Natachee, watching, saw that lone -figure on the trail below enter the Cañon of Gold and lose itself in the -gathering dusk.</p> - -<p>As the shadows thickened, the night prowlers on padded feet crept from -their dark retreats into the gloom. Owls and bats on silent wings swept -by. Old ghosts of the dead past stirred again on the old desert and -mountain ways. In the deeper dusk that now filled the cañon, voices -awoke—strange, murmuring, whispering, phantom voices that seemed to -come from an innumerable company of dreary, hopeless souls. The light -went out of the western sky. Details of plant and rock and bush were -lost. Weird and wild, like a mysterious spirit brooding over the scene, -the dark figure of the Indian on the rocky point above the Cañon of Gold -was silhouetted against the starlit sky.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_44" id="page_44">{44}</a></span></p> - -<p>In the little white house on the mountain side, Saint Jimmy was thinking -of the strange story that the Pardners had told.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>In their home beside the cañon creek, the old prospectors and their -partnership daughter were sleeping, with no dreams of the strange -leading of the tangled threads of lives to the Cañon of Gold.</p> - -<p>Far away to the south, in old Mexico, two men sat in a cantina. Between -them, on a table, with glasses and a bottle of mescal, lay a crudely -drawn map. As they talked together in low tones, they referred often to -the rude sketch which bore in poorly written words “La mina con la -puerta de fierro en la Cañada del Oro”—The mine with the door of iron -in the Cañon of the Gold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_45" id="page_45">{45}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI<br /><br /> -NIGHT</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>Night skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they -are heavy with brooding fears.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE man who was following the old road up the Cañon of Gold had made his -way a mile or more from the point where he was last seen by the Indian, -when the deepening twilight warned him of the nearness of the night. It -was evident, from the pedestrian’s irresolute movements and from his -manner of nervous doubt in selecting a spot for his camp, that not only -was he a stranger in the Cañada del Oro, but as well that he was -unaccustomed to such surroundings.</p> - -<p>He was a young man of about twenty-two or twenty-three years—tall, but -rather slender, with a face habitually clean shaven but covered, just -now, with a stubby beard of several days’ growth. His skin, where it was -exposed, was sunburned rather than tanned that deep color so marked in -the out-of-doors men of the West. On the whole, he gave the impression, -somehow, of one but recently recovered from a serious illness; and yet -he did not appear overfatigued, though the pack which he carried was not -light and he had evidently been many hours on the road. In spite of his -rude dress and unkempt<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_46" id="page_46">{46}</a></span> appearance due to his mode of traveling there -was, in his bearing, the unmistakable air of a man of business. But he -was that type of business man that knows something more than the daily -grind of money-making machines. His world, apparently, was not wholly a -world of factories and banks and institutions of commerce.</p> - -<p>Forced, at last, by the approaching darkness, to decide upon some place -to spend the night, the traveler selected a spot beside the cañon creek, -a hundred yards from the road. But even after he had lowered his heavy -pack to the ground, he stood for some minutes looking anxiously about, -as if still uncertain as to the wisdom of his selection.</p> - -<p>Nor was the man’s manner wholly that of inexperience. Suddenly, without -thought of his evening meal, or any preparation for his comfort until -the morning, he climbed again up the steep bank to the road, where he -gazed back along the way he had come and studied the mountain sides with -eyes of dread. The man was in an agony of fear. Not until it was too -dark to distinguish objects at any distance did he return to the place -where he had left his pack and set about the necessary work of preparing -his supper and making his bed.</p> - -<p>Hurriedly, as best he could in the failing light, he gathered a supply -of wood and, after several awkward failures, succeeded in kindling a -fire. From his pack he took a small frying pan, a coffeepot, a tin cup, -and a meager supply of food. With these, and with water from the creek, -he made shift to pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_47" id="page_47">{47}</a></span>pare an unaccustomed meal. Several times he paused, -to stand gazing into the fire as if lost in thought. Again and again he -turned his head quickly to listen. Often with a shuddering start he -whirled to search the darkness beyond the flickering shadows, as if in -fear of what the light of his fire might bring upon him. When he had -eaten his poorly prepared supper, he spread his blankets and lay down.</p> - -<p>There was something pitiful in the trivial and puny details of this lone -stranger’s camp in the wild Cañada del Oro. There was something sinister -in the night life that crept and crawled in the darkness about him. -There was something pathetic in the man’s lying down to sleep, -unprotected, amid such surroundings.</p> - -<p>The mountains are very friendly to those who know them; to those who -know them not, they are grim and dreadful—when the day is gone. Night -skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they are heavy -with brooding fears. The timid life of the wild places is good company -for those who know each voice and sound; to others every movement is a -menace, every call a voice of danger—when the sun is down.</p> - -<p>Cowering in his blankets the man listened for a while to the strange and -fearful things that stirred in the near-by bushes, on the rocky ledges, -and on the mountain sides above. He heard the cañon voices whispering, -murmuring, moaning. The night deepened. The boisterous song of the creek -be<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_48" id="page_48">{48}</a></span>came a sullen growl. The mountain walls seemed to close in. The stars -above the peaks and ridges were lonely and far away. The camp fire, so -tiny in the gloom, burned low.</p> - -<p>The sleeping man groaned and stirred uneasily as if in pain, and a fox -that had crept too close slipped away in startled flight. The man cried -out in his sleep, and a coyote that was following the scent of the camp -up the wind turned aside to slink into the thicket of mesquite. The man -awoke and springing to his feet stood as if at bay, and a buck that was -feeding not far away lifted his antlered head to listen with wary -alertness. From somewhere on the heights came the cry of a mountain -lion, and at the sound the night was suddenly as still as death. The man -shuddered and quickly threw more wood on the dying fire. Again he lay -down to cower in his blankets—to sleep restlessly—and to dream his -troubled dreams.</p> - -<p>In the first faint light of the morning, a dark form might have been -seen moving stealthily down the mountain above the stranger’s camp. The -buck, with a snort of fear, leaped away, crashing through the brush. The -prowling coyote fled down the cañon. On every side the wild creatures of -the night slunk into the dense covers of manzanita and buckthorn and -cat-claw.</p> - -<p>Silently, as the gray shadows through which he crept, Natachee the -Indian drew near the place where the white man lay. From behind a -near-by bush the Indian observed every detail of the camp.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_49" id="page_49">{49}</a></span> When the -form wrapped in the blanket did not stir, the Indian stole from his -sheltering screen and with soft-footed, noiseless movements, inspected -the stranger’s outfit. He even bent over the sleeping man to see his -face. The man moved—tossing an arm and muttering. Swift as a fox the -Indian slipped away; silent as a ghost he disappeared among the bushes.</p> - -<p>The gray of the morning sky changed to saffron and rose and flaming red. -The shadowy trees and bushes assumed definite shapes. The detail of the -rocks emerged from the gloom. The man awoke.</p> - -<p>He had just finished breakfast when he heard the sound of horse’s hoofs -on the road. With a startled cry he leaped to his feet. The Lizard was -riding toward him.</p> - -<p>Like a hunted creature the man drew back, half crouching, as if to -escape. But it was too late. Pale and trembling he stood waiting as the -horseman drew up beside the road, on the bank above the creek, and sat -looking down upon him and his camp.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_50" id="page_50">{50}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII<br /><br /> -THE STRANGER’S QUEST</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“What’s yer name? Whar ye from? What’re you a-doin’ here?”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Lizard’s preliminary inspection of the stranger and his camp might -or might not have been prompted by a habit of caution. When it was -finished he called a loose-mouthed “Howdy” and, without waiting for a -response to his greeting, spurred his mount, slipping and sliding with -rolling stones and a cloud of dust, down to the edge of the creek.</p> - -<p>Dismounting and throwing the bridle rein over his horse’s head, he -slouched forward—a vapid grin on his sallow, weasel-like face.</p> - -<p>“I seed yer smoke an’ ’lowed as how I’d drop along an’ take a look at -who’s here; bein’ as I war aimin’ t’ ride t’ Oracle sometime t’-day -anyhow. Not as I’ve got anythin’ perticler t’ go thar fer nuther, ’cept -t’ jist set in front of th’ store a spell an’ gas with th’ fellers. -Thar’s allus a bunch hangin’ ’round of a Sunday.”</p> - -<p>He looked curiously at the stranger’s outfit and, ignoring the fact that -the camper had not spoken, seated himself with the air of one taking his -welcome for granted.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_51" id="page_51">{51}</a></span></p> - -<p>The stranger smiled. The fear that had so shaken him a few moments -before was gone, and there was relief in his voice as he bade his -visitor a quite unnecessary welcome.</p> - -<p>“Ye’r a-footin’ hit, be ye?” the Lizard continued with garrulous ease. -“Wal, that’s one way of goin’; but I’ll take a good hoss fer mine. A -feller’ll jist naterally wear out quick ernough no matter how keerful -he’d be. Never ’lowed I had ary call t’ take an’ plumb <i>walk</i> myse’f t’ -death on purpose. Them’s good blankets you’ve got thar. Need ’em, too, -these nights, if ’tis spring. That thar coffeepot ain’t no ’count, -though—not fer me, that is—wouldn’t hold half what I’d take three -times a day, reg’lar.” He laughed loudly as if a good joke were hidden -somewhere in his remarks if only the other were clever enough to find -it.</p> - -<p>“You live in this neighborhood, do you?” the stranger asked.</p> - -<p>“What, me? Oh shore. My name’s Bill Janson—live down th’ cañon a piece, -jist below whar th’ road comes in. Paw an’ maw an’ me live thar -t’gether. We drifted in from Arkansaw eight year ago come this fall. -What’s yer name? Whar ye from? What’re you a-doin’ here?”</p> - -<p>The stranger hesitated before he answered slowly:</p> - -<p>“My name is—Edwards—Hugh Edwards. I came here from Tucson. I want to -prospect—look for gold, you know. I heard there were some—ah—placers, -I think you call them, in this cañon.”</p> - -<p>The Lizard grinned, a wide-mouthed grin of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_52" id="page_52">{52}</a></span> superior knowledge. “Hit’s -plumb easy t’ see y’ know all about prospectin’. Y’r some edicated, I -jedge. Ben t’ school an’ them thar college places a right smart lot, -ain’t y’ now?”</p> - -<p>The other replied with some sharpness:</p> - -<p>“I suppose it is not impossible for one to learn how to dig for gold, -even if one has learned to read and write, is it?”</p> - -<p>The Lizard responded heartily, but with tolerant superiority:</p> - -<p>“Larn—shore—ain’t nothin’ t’ pannin’ gold ’cept a lot of hard work an’ -mighty pore pay. Anybody’ll larn ye. Take the Pardners up yonder—old -Bob Hill an’ Thad Grove—they’d—“ he checked himself suddenly and -slapped a lean thigh. “By Glory! I’ll bet a pretty you’ve done come t’ -find that thar old lost Mine with th’ Iron Door, heh? Ain’t ye now?” He -leered at the stranger with shifty, close-set eyes, his long head with -its narrow sloping brow cocked sidewise with what was meant to be a very -knowing, “I-have-you-now-sir” sort of air.</p> - -<p>The man who had given his name as Hugh Edwards laughed.</p> - -<p>“Really I can’t say that I would object to finding any old mine if it -was a good one, would you?”</p> - -<p>The Lizard shook his head solemnly and with a voice and manner that was -nicely calculated to invite confidence, replied:</p> - -<p>“Thar’s been a lot of people, one time an’ another, a-huntin’ this Mine -with th’ Iron Door. Thar was one bunch that come clean from Spain; an’ -they<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_53" id="page_53">{53}</a></span> had a map an’ everythin’. You ain’t got no map ner writin’ of any -sort, now, have you?”</p> - -<p>“No,” returned the stranger. “But I suppose it is true that there is -gold to be found here?”</p> - -<p>The Lizard was plainly disappointed but evidently deemed it unwise to -press his inquiry.</p> - -<p>“Oh, shore, thar’s gold here—some—fer them what likes t’ work fer hit. -They’ve allus been a-diggin’ in this here cañon an’ in these here -mountains, as ye kin see by their old prospect holes everywhar. But -nobody ain’t never made no big strikes yet. Thar’s one feller a-livin’ -in these hills what don’t dig no gold though; an’ they do say, too, as -how he knows more ’bout th’ ol’ lost mine than ary other man a-livin’. -Some says he even knows whar hits at.” The Lizard shook his head -solemnly. “You shore want t’ watch out fer <i>him</i>, too. He’s plumb -bad—that’s what I’m a-tellin’ you.”</p> - -<p>“Yes?” said Hugh Edwards, encouragingly.</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh, he ain’t no white man neither. He’s Injun—calls hisse’f -Natachee, whatever that is. He’s one of these here school Injuns gone -wild agin—lives all ’lone way in the upper part of th’ cañon somewhar, -whar hits so blamed rough a goat couldn’t get ’round; an’ togs hisse’f -up with th’ sort of things them old-time Injuns used to wear—won’t even -use a gun, jist packs a bow an’ arrers. I ain’t got no use fer an Injun -nohow. This here’s a white man’s country, I say, an’ this here Natachee -he’s the worst I ever did see. He’d plunk one of them thar arrers of -hisn inter you, er slit yer throat any old time if he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_54" id="page_54">{54}</a></span> dast. I can’t say -fer shore whether he knows about this Mine with th’ Iron Door er not, -but hit’s certain shore you got t’ watch him. Hit’s all right fer that -thar Saint Jimmy an’ them old Pardners t’ be friends with him if they -like hit, but I know what I know.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards did not overlook this opportunity to learn something of the -people who lived in the Cañon of Gold; and the Lizard was more than -willing to tell all he knew, perhaps even to add something for good -measure. When at last the Lizard arose reluctantly, the stranger had -heard every current version of the history and relationship of the two -old prospectors and their partnership daughter, with copious comments on -their characters, sidelights on their personal affairs, their -intercourse with their neighbors, their business, and every possible -theory explaining them.</p> - -<p>“Not that thar’s anybody what really knows anythin’,”—the Lizard was -careful to make this clear—“<span class="lftspc">’</span>cept of course that old story ’bout them -a-findin’ th’ gal somewhars when she warn’t much more’n a baby; which, -as I say, ain’t no way nateral enough fer anybody t’ believe—’cause -babies like her ain’t jist found—picked up anywhar, as you may say, -without no paw ner maw ner nothin’. An’ if thar warn’t somethin’ wrong -about hit, what would them two old devils be so close-mouthed fer? Why, -sir, one time when I asked ’em about hit—jist sort of interested an’ -neighborly like—they ris up like they was a-fixin’ t’ climb all over -me. Yes, they did<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_55" id="page_55">{55}</a></span>—ye kin see yerself hit ain’t all straight, whatever -’tis. Even a feller like you can’t help puttin’ two an’ two together if -he’s got any sense a-tall.</p> - -<p>“Wal,” he concluded regretfully, “I shore got t’ be gittin’ on t’ Oracle -er hit won’t be no use fer me t’ go, nohow.” He moved slowly toward his -horse. “Better come along,” he added. “This here trail t’ Oracle goes -right past the Pardners’ place, an’ Saint Jimmy’s an’ George Wheeler’s. -Best come along an’ see th’ country an’ git acquainted.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks,” said Edwards, “but really I can’t go to-day. I want to get -settled somewhere before I take much time for purely social matters, you -see.”</p> - -<p>“Huh,” grunted the Lizard, “gettin’ settled ain’t nothin’; hit’s all day -’til t’morrer ain’t hit?” Then, as if suddenly inspired with the -possibilities of having a friend at the very source of so much -interesting, if speculative, information, the Lizard added: “I’ll tell -ye what ye do, you come along with me as fer as th’ Pardners’ place. -They’ll he’p ye t’ get located. They’re all right that a-way, an’ there -ain’t nothin’ them two old-timers don’t know about th’ prospectin’ game. -An’ right up th’ cañon, not more’n a half a quarter from them, is an old -cabin you could take. Hit war built by some prospector long time ago. -George Wheeler, he told me. Seems th’ feller lived thar fer two er three -year an’ then went away an’ didn’t never come back. You might have t’ -fix th’ shack up a bit, but that wouldn’t be no work; an’ thar’s allus -some gold t’ be found up<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_56" id="page_56">{56}</a></span> an’ down th’ creek. Th’ Pardners they’ll larn -ye how, an’ mebby <i>you</i> kin larn somethin’ ’bout them an’ that thar gal -of theirn.”</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” returned Edwards, “but I really can’t go now. I am not -packed yet, you see.”</p> - -<p>But the Lizard was not to be deprived of the advantage of his -opportunity. “Aw, shucks—what’s th’ matter with ye? Grab yer stuff an’ -come along. Ye can’t be stand-offish with me.”</p> - -<p>Because there seemed to be no way of refusing the invitation, the -stranger hastily threw his things together and, with his pack on his -back, set out up the cañon in company with the Lizard.</p> - -<p>On the steep side of the mountain above, Natachee, creeping like a dark -shadow among the rocks and bushes, followed the two men.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy, that Sunday morning, was sitting with a book by the window. -But Mother Burton, looking through the door from their tiny kitchen -where she was busy with her household work, could see that her son was -not reading. Jimmy’s book was open, but his eyes were fixed upon the far -distant horizon where the desert, with its dreamy maze of colors, -becomes a faint blue shadow against the sky. And Jimmy’s mother knew -that his thoughts were as far from the printed page as that shadowy -sky-line was distant from the window where he sat.</p> - -<p>Often she had seen him in those moods—sitting so still that the spirit -seemed to have gone out from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_57" id="page_57">{57}</a></span> its temporary dwelling place to visit for -a little those places which lie so far beyond the horizon of all fleshly -vision and earthly hopes and aspirations. Of what was he thinking, she -wondered, if indeed it could be said at such times that he was thinking -at all. What was he seeing, with that far-away look in his eyes, as of -one whose vision had been trained in the schools of suffering, of -disappointments, and failures, and disillusions, to a more than physical -strength. Was he communing with some one over there in that world beyond -the sky-line of material things? Was he merely dreaming of what might -have been? Or was he living in what might be? Wise Mother Burton, to -know that there were certain rooms in her son’s being that even her -mother love could not unlock. Wise Mother Burton, to understand, to -know, when to speak and when to be still.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy was aroused at last by the clatter of iron-shod hoofs on the -cañon trail. An instant later, Nugget, running with glorious strength -and ease, dashed into view, and Marta’s joyous self came between the man -at the window and the distant sky-line. Another moment and the girl -stood in the open doorway.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_58" id="page_58">{58}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII<br /><br /> -THE NEW NEIGHBOR</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>But what a man is, <i>that</i> is a matter of concern to every one who -is called by circumstance to associate with him.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>ITH a merry greeting to Saint Jimmy, Marta ran straight to the -welcoming arms of Mother Burton.</p> - -<p>“Goodness me, child,” the older woman exclaimed when she had kissed her -and held her close for a moment as such mothers do, “you look as if—as -if you were going to jump right out of your skin; I do declare!”</p> - -<p>And Saint Jimmy, watching them, silently agreed with his mother, -thinking that he had never seen the girl quite so animated. Her vivid, -flamelike beauty seemed to fill the house with joyous warmth and light, -while her laughter, in quick response to Mrs. Burton’s words, rang with -such happy abandon, and thrilled with such tingling excitement, that her -teacher knew something unusual must have happened.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” cried Mother Burton, shaking the girl playfully, and -laughing with her. “What is the matter with you? What are you so excited -about? Have Thad and Bob struck it rich at last?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_59" id="page_59">{59}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Marta shook her head.</p> - -<p>“No, but it is something almost as good. We have a new neighbor.”</p> - -<p>Mother Burton looked from Marta to her son inquiringly, as if mildly -puzzled to know why the mere arrival of a newcomer in the neighborhood, -unusual as it was, should cause such manifestations.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy, smiling, asked:</p> - -<p>“What is his name? Where is he from? And what is he like?”</p> - -<p>The girl’s face was glowing with color and her eyes were bright as she -answered:</p> - -<p>“His name is Hugh Edwards. He came here from Tucson. I didn’t quite -understand where he lived before he went to Tucson.” She paused and the -ghost of a troubled frown fell across her brow. “But it was somewhere,” -she finished brightly.</p> - -<p>“Quite likely you are right,” said Jimmy, grave as a judge on the bench.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she continued, “and he has come here to stay. He is awfully -poor—poorer than any of us. Why, he hasn’t even a burro to pack his -outfit—had to pack it himself on his back, and he has been sick too, -but he doesn’t look a bit sick now.” She laughed a little laugh of -charming confusion. “He looks as if—as if—oh, as if he could do just -anything—you know what I mean.”</p> - -<p>“You make it very clear,” murmured Saint Jimmy.</p> - -<p>Mother Burton made a curious little noise in her throat.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_60" id="page_60">{60}</a></span></p> - -<p>Marta looked from one to the other suspiciously. Then a bit defiantly -she said:</p> - -<p>“I don’t care, he does. And he is different from anybody that ever came -to the Cañada del Oro before—for that matter, he is different from -anybody that I have ever seen anywhere.”</p> - -<p>“Dear me,” murmured Mother Burton, “how interesting! But how is he -different, dear?”</p> - -<p>The girl answered honestly:</p> - -<p>“I can’t exactly tell what it is. For one thing, it is easy to see that -he is educated. But of course Jimmy is too, so it can’t be <i>that</i>. I am -sure, too, that he has lived in a big city somewhere and has known lots -of nice people, but so has Jimmy. I don’t know what it is.”</p> - -<p>“I judge he is not, then, one of our typical old prospectors,” said -Saint Jimmy.</p> - -<p>Again the girl’s joyous, unaffected laughter bubbled forth.</p> - -<p>“Old! He is no older than you are; I suspect not quite so old, and he -has the nicest eyes, almost as nice as you, Jimmy—only, only different, -somehow—nice in another way, I mean. And he knows absolutely nothing -about prospecting. He is so green it is funny. But he’s going to live in -the old Dalton cabin right next door to us and we’re going to teach -him.”</p> - -<p>“Fine,” said Saint Jimmy with proper enthusiasm, and managed somehow to -hide the queer, sinking pain that made itself felt suddenly down deep -inside of him. Saint Jimmy was skilled by long practice in hiding pain.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_61" id="page_61">{61}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Dear me!” exclaimed Mother Burton. “This is interesting. But I must -finish my morning work,” she added, moving toward the kitchen.</p> - -<p>“I’ll help,” volunteered Marta quickly, and started after the older -woman.</p> - -<p>But Mother Burton answered:</p> - -<p>“No, no, I was almost finished when you came.” Then catching the girl in -her arms impulsively, and looking toward her son whose face was turned -again to the far-off horizon, she added in a hurried whisper: “Get him -out of doors, dear, he has been sitting like that all this blessed -morning—make him go for a walk.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Marta led her teacher straight to their favorite spot on the mountain -side, some distance from the house. Here, in the shade of a gnarled and -twisted cedar that for a century or more had looked down upon the varied -life that moved through the Cañon of Gold below, they had spent many an -hour over the girl’s studies. Against the bole of the tree they had -contrived a rude shelf and pegs for hats and wraps. Mrs. Burton had -contributed an old kitchen table and two chairs that neither rain nor -sun could injure, and there was a large, flat-topped rock that served as -bookcase and desk, or for a variety of other purposes, as it might -happen.</p> - -<p>On this occasion, Marta converted the rock into a couch by throwing -herself full length upon it with the unconscious freedom of a schoolboy. -Saint Jimmy seated himself in a chair and, in defiance of all<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_62" id="page_62">{62}</a></span> -schoolmaster propriety, elevated his feet to the table top.</p> - -<p>They talked a while, as neighbors will, of the small affairs of the -country side. But Doctor Burton could see that Marta’s thoughts were not -of the things they were saying; and so, presently, from her rocky couch, -the girl spoke again of the stranger who had come to be her nearest -neighbor. She described him now in fuller detail—his eyes, his voice, -his smile. She contrasted him with the Pardners, the Lizard, and with -other men whom she had seen. She imagined fanciful stories for his past -and invented for him various wonderful futures. And always she came back -to the curious assertion that he was like her teacher, only different.</p> - -<p>And Saint Jimmy, as he listened, asked an occasional encouraging -question and studied her as in his old professional days he might have -studied a patient. Never before had he seen the girl in such a mood. It -was as if something deep-buried in her inner self was striving to break -its way through to the surface of her being, as a deep-buried seed, when -its time comes, forces its way through the dark earth to the light and -sun.</p> - -<p>Then for some time the girl was silent. With her head pillowed on one -arm, and her eyes half closed, she lay as if she had drifted with the -currents of her wandering thoughts into the quietude of dreams—dreams -that were as intangible, yet as real, as the blue haze and purple -shadows through which she saw the distant desert and mountains.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_63" id="page_63">{63}</a></span></p> - -<p>And Saint Jimmy, too, was still; while his face was turned away toward -the far-off horizon, as if he saw there things which he might not talk -about.</p> - -<p>On the pine-clad heights of Mount Lemmon there were a few scattered -patches of snow that had not yet yielded to the spring; but the air was -soft and fragrant with the perfumes of warm earth and growing plants and -opening blossoms. There was the low hum of the bees that were mining in -the fragrant cat-claw bushes for the gold they stored in their wild -treasure-houses in the cliffs. Not far away a gambrel partridge -gallantly assured his plump gray mate, who sat on the nest in the -shelter of a tall mescal plant, that there was no danger. A Sonora -pigeon, from the top of a lone sahuaro, called his soft, deep-throated -mating call. And a vermilion flycatcher sprang into the air from his -perch near-by and climbed higher and higher into the blue and then, -after holding himself aloft for a moment, puffed out his red feathers, -and, twittering in a mad love ecstasy, came drifting back like a -brilliant-colored thistle bloom, or an oversized and fiery-tinted -dandelion tuft.</p> - -<p>Marta’s teacher had not forgotten that the Pardners had trusted him to -tell their girl the things that they—Saint Jimmy and his mother—were -agreed she should know. And Saint Jimmy meant to tell her. But somehow -this did not seem to be the time. He stole a look at the girl lying on -the rocks. No, this was not the time. He could not tell her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_64" id="page_64">{64}</a></span> just now. -He would wait. Some other time, perhaps, it would be easier.</p> - -<p>“Jimmy,” said the girl at last, and her words came slowly as if she -spoke out of the haze of her dreams, “when you went to school—I don’t -mean when you were just a little boy, but when you were almost a -man—was it a big school?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy did not answer at once, then, without taking his eyes from -what ever it was that he was looking at in the distance, he said:</p> - -<p>“Why, yes, it was a fairly large school.”</p> - -<p>“And were there both men and women students?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, there were a good many women in the University, and a few in the -medical school, where I finally finished.”</p> - -<p>“I expect you had lots of friends, didn’t you, Jimmy? I should think you -would—men and women friends both. And I suppose there were all kinds of -good times—parties and dances and picnics.”</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton turned suddenly to look at her. “What in the world are you -driving at now?”</p> - -<p>“Please, Jimmy,” she said wistfully, “I want to know.”</p> - -<p>And something made him look away again.</p> - -<p>“I suppose I had my share of friends,” he answered. “And there was a -reasonable amount of fun, as there always is at school, you know. But -we—most of us—worked hard, too.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she returned quickly, “and you dreamed and planned the great -things you would do in the world when your school days should be over, -and, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_65" id="page_65">{65}</a></span> spite of all your friends and the good times, you could hardly -wait to begin—yes, I am sure that is the way it would be.”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy did not speak.</p> - -<p>“And when your school days were finished, and you were actually a doctor -in a big city, you still had lots of men and women friends, and you -found a little time, now and then, for parties and—and dinners and such -things, didn’t you, Jimmy?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy smiled, a patient, shadowy smile as he answered:</p> - -<p>“My practice at first certainly left me plenty of time for other -things.”</p> - -<p>The girl did not notice the smile, because she was not looking at her -companion.</p> - -<p>“You lived in a nice house, too, with books and pictures and—and -carpets on the floors. Do you know, I think I have wanted more than -anything else in the world to live in a house with carpets on the -floors. That is, I mean, I have wanted it ever since I knew there were -such things. Do you know, Jimmy, I never saw a house with carpets until -that first day I came to see you and Mother Burton?”</p> - -<p>She laughed a little.</p> - -<p>“That was a long, long time ago, wasn’t it? And I couldn’t much more -than read then. Gee! how scared I was of you and Mother Burton.”</p> - -<p>“You have made wonderful progress in your studies and in every way,” -said Jimmy, proudly.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she returned. “The carpets did it—the carpets and you and Mother -Burton. I don’t see<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_66" id="page_66">{66}</a></span> how you ever managed to teach me, though. I guess -you just learned by doctoring so many sick people. It must be a -wonderful, satisfying work—helping people, I mean, like a doctor, or a -teacher, or any work like that. It’s not like just finding gold in the -ground. Even though you do have to work so hard to get the gold, it’s -not like—like working for <i>people</i>—or <i>with</i> people. Getting gold out -of the ground seems to take you away from people. You don’t seem to be -doing anything for anybody—but only just for yourself. Prospectors and -workers like that ’most always live alone, I have noticed. I don’t think -many of them are very happy either. I have seen quite a lot of -prospectors in my time, you know, Jimmy. In fact, except for you, -prospectors and that sort are the only kind of men I have ever -known—until now.”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy was watching her closely.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said softly, as if he did not wish to disturb her mood.</p> - -<p>“I suspect it was pretty hard, wasn’t it, Jimmy, when you got sick -yourself and had to give up your work and all your plans and leave your -nice home and all your friends and everything and come away out here to -get well, and then to find that you never could go back but must stay -here always—poor Jimmy! It must have been mighty hard.”</p> - -<p>“It wasn’t exactly easy,” he said slowly, “not at first. I fought a good -deal until I learned better. After that it was not so hard—only at -times, perhaps. Even now, I rebel occasionally, but not for long.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_67" id="page_67">{67}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Which was as near a complaint as any one had ever heard from Doctor -Jimmy Burton.</p> - -<p>“Jimmy,” said Marta earnestly, “I think that you are the most wonderful -man that ever was—that ever could be.”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy shrugged his shoulders, and waved a protesting hand.</p> - -<p>“But you are,” she insisted, “and you know how I love you, don’t you? -Not merely because you have helped me as you have, but because you are -<i>you</i>. You <i>do</i> know, don’t you, Jimmy?”</p> - -<p>There was an odd note in Jimmy’s voice now—it might have been -gladness—it might have been protest—or perhaps it was both—with a -hint of pain.</p> - -<p>“Marta! I——“</p> - -<p>He stopped as if he found himself suddenly unable to finish whatever it -was that he had started to say. It may be that this was one of the times -when Saint Jimmy was not wholly reconciled to the part that life had -assigned to him.</p> - -<p>Apparently Marta did not notice her teacher’s manner. Her thoughts must -have been centered elsewhere because she said, quite as if she had been -considering it all the time:</p> - -<p>“I feel sure that Mr. Edwards has been hurt some way, just as you have, -Jimmy. I mean that he has been to school, and had a world of nice -friends and good times, and then started his real work and all that, -and, now for some reason, has had to give up his work and home and -friends and everything, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_68" id="page_68">{68}</a></span> come out here. He didn’t tell us much, but -you could sort of feel that he was that kind of a man. You <i>can</i> feel -those things about men, can’t you, Jimmy?”</p> - -<p>Jimmy nodded:</p> - -<p>“I suppose so.”</p> - -<p>“I don’t know why he didn’t tell us more about himself—about before he -came to Tucson, I mean. Perhaps he will some day; but he acts as if he -didn’t like to think about it now. You know what I mean, don’t you?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, I know.”</p> - -<p>“It is rather important that one have a past, isn’t it, Jimmy?” She -smiled as she added: “Rather important that one have the right kind of a -past, I mean.”</p> - -<p>“To my mind it is quite important,” answered Jimmy soberly. And suddenly -he remembered again the story that the Pardners had told.</p> - -<p>She nodded thoughtfully.</p> - -<p>“You have talked to me a lot about heredity and breeding and good blood -and early environment and those things. I suspect it is your being a -doctor that makes you consider them as you do. And Mother Burton, she -has told me a lot, too, about your ancestors, away back. And so I can -see that it is your past and the things you have to remember that make -you the kind of a man you are. If you didn’t have the father and mother -that you had, and the fathers and mothers that they had, and if you -hadn’t had the schools and the friends and the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_69" id="page_69">{69}</a></span> home with carpets and -the work of helping people that you have had, why, you wouldn’t be you -at all, would you, Jimmy?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy moved uneasily. He wished now, in the light of the Pardners’ -story and their conclusion as to the birth and parentage of this girl, -that he had not included some subjects in his pupil’s course of study.</p> - -<p>Marta continued as if, scarcely conscious of her companion’s presence, -she were thinking aloud.</p> - -<p>“And so if—if any one else <i>did</i> have the same kind of things to -remember that you have, he would be the same kind of a man that you -are—not exactly, of course. He might not be a doctor, or might not be -sick, but on the whole—well—you see what I mean, don’t you, Jimmy?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy was quite sure that he saw her meaning. In fact, Doctor -Burton was fast being convinced that he realized, more clearly than -Marta herself, the real meaning of her unusual mood. Her next words -confirmed his fast-growing suspicion that, however scientifically right -he had been in his teaching, he had not been altogether kind in -stressing certain truths.</p> - -<p>“It’s funny that I never really thought of it before,” she said, “but I -don’t seem to have any past at all. All I can remember is just moving -around with my two fathers, who, of course, are not my fathers at -all—at least not both of them. And, if it were not for you and Mother -Burton, we wouldn’t have stayed here any longer than we did the other -places. I think I must have been born while my<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_70" id="page_70">{70}</a></span> real father and mother -were moving somewhere. I never cared much about it before, Jimmy, but -somehow I wish—now—that I—that I knew who I am. I wish—I wish—I had -things to remember—such as you and Mr. Edwards have—schools and -friends and good times and a home with carpets—I mean.”</p> - -<p>There was a suspicious brightness in the frank eyes and her lips were -trembling a little; a state of affairs very unusual to the Pardners’ -daughter.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy realized that it was going to be even harder than he had -foreseen to make known to this girl the things he had promised to tell -her. Certainly he could not tell her just now.</p> - -<p>His voice was gentle as he finally said:</p> - -<p>“I wouldn’t worry about all that, if I were you, dear. You see, it -doesn’t really matter so much whether you know or not—your people must -have been the best kind of people because you are what you are, and -after all, it is what you are right now that counts. It is your own dear -self, and not what you might have been that matters, don’t you see? Why, -you have a better education already than most girls of your age. As for -the rest—the friends and all that—those will come in time, I am sure.”</p> - -<p>She smiled her gratitude bravely, then:</p> - -<p>“Jimmy, may I ask you something more—something real personal?”</p> - -<p>“As personal as you like,” he answered gravely.</p> - -<p>“Well, among all your friends at school, and among all the people you -met and knew afterwards,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_71" id="page_71">{71}</a></span> was there ever—was there ever one who was -more than all the others—one girl or woman, I mean?”</p> - -<p>Jimmy considered, then deliberately:</p> - -<p>“You mean, in my school days and before I was forced to give up my -work?”</p> - -<p>She nodded.</p> - -<p>“No,” said Jimmy readily. “Once or twice I thought there might be, but I -soon found out that I was mistaken—of course I am glad now that I found -it out.”</p> - -<p>“But didn’t you, in all of your plans and dreams for your life and -work—didn’t you ever include some one, didn’t you ever plan for -a—for—well, for”—she finished triumphantly—“for two little boys like -the Wheelers have?”</p> - -<p>“I looked forward in a general way to a home and children, as I think -every man does,” he answered.</p> - -<p>She caught him up eagerly:</p> - -<p>“You really think that every man includes such things in his plans?”</p> - -<p>“At least,” he replied, “I fail to see how any normal, right-thinking -man can ignore such things in his life plans.”</p> - -<p>“I wonder if that could be it?” said Marta.</p> - -<p>“You wonder what?”</p> - -<p>“If Mr. Edwards came to the Cañada del Oro because his plans included -some one who refused to be included.”</p> - -<p>“Good Lord!” ejaculated Saint Jimmy under his breath.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_72" id="page_72">{72}</a></span></p> - -<p>“No,” she continued, “I don’t believe that is it. He doesn’t act as -though that was the reason.”</p> - -<p>Suddenly her mood changed. She seemed to awaken to some hitherto -unrealized possibilities of her life, and to grasp with startled -fierceness a defiant truth.</p> - -<p>“Jimmy,” she cried, “just because I have no past is no reason why I -should not have a future, is it?”</p> - -<p>Before he could find an answer she went on, and her words came rushing, -tumbling, hurrying out, as if the floodgate of her emotions were -suddenly lifted and the passionate spirit of her released.</p> - -<p>“I can see now that I have always been like our cañon creek in summer, -just playing along any old way, taking things as they are, without even -caring whether I stopped or not, but now—now I feel like the creek is -to-day, with its springtime life, boiling and roaring and leaping—I -won’t—I won’t be like the creek though—that for all its strength and -fuss and fury just fades away at last into nothing, out there in the -desert. I want to keep on going and going and going—I don’t know where. -I don’t care where, just on, and on, and on!”</p> - -<p>She sprang to her feet and stood before him in all the radiant, vigorous -beauty of her young womanhood, and with reckless abandon challenged:</p> - -<p>“Jimmy, let’s run away. Let’s go away off somewhere beyond the farthest -line yonder that you are always looking at; and then let’s keep on -going, just you and I. Wouldn’t it be fun if we were to be married? Why -shouldn’t we? You’re not too old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_73" id="page_73">{73}</a></span>—I’m not too young. We could live in a -little house somewhere—a house with carpets, Jimmy—and books and -pictures, and you could make music, and I would take care of you—Oh, -such good care of you, Jimmy. I’d cook all the things you like and ought -to eat, and wash for you, and mend your things, and you could go on -teaching me, and scolding me when I forgot to use the right words, -and—and—wouldn’t it be fun, Jimmy? Of course after a while Mother -Burton would come too—and perhaps there would be a place somewhere near -for my daddies to prospect—Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, let’s go!”</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton laughed, and it was well for the girl that she was still -too much of a child to know how often grim tragedy wears a mask of -mirth.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When the stranger had told the Pardners and their daughter his simple -story—how he had been ill and could find no work in Tucson, and so had -come to the Cañada del Oro with the hope of finding enough gold to live -by, and Marta had ridden away to spend the Sunday with Saint Jimmy and -Mother Burton, Thad said doubtfully:</p> - -<p>“I don’t see as there’s much we can do. We can’t learn nobody to find -gold whar it ain’t, an’ if we knowed whar it was we certain sure would -stake out some claims for ourselves, wouldn’t we? I don’t take no stock -in there bein’ anythin’ more than a color mebby, round that old Dalton -cabin yonder.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_74" id="page_74">{74}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Gold is where you find it,” remarked Bob cheerfully. “You can’t never -tell when or where you’re going to strike it rich.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all right,” retorted Thad. “But it stands to reason that if the -feller what built that cabin hadn’t of worked out his claim, he’d be -there workin’ on it yet, wouldn’t he? He quit and vamoosed because he’d -worked it out, I’m tellin’ you.”</p> - -<p>Bob returned with energy:</p> - -<p>“And I’m maintainin’ that no claim or mine or nothin’ else was ever -worked out. Folks jest quit workin’ on ’em, that’s all. There’s many and -many a mine been abandoned when three hours more—or one more shot, -mebby, would a-opened up a bonanza. This young man may go right up there -in the creek and stick in his pick a foot from where the other feller -took out his last shovel of dirt an’ turn up a reg’lar glory-hole. Don’t -you let him give you the dumps, Mr. Edwards, he’s the worst old -pessimist you ever see. There’s enough gold in this neighborhood to buy -all the bacon an’ beans you’ll need, long as you live, if you’re willin’ -to scratch around for it; an’ you’ve got jest as good a chance as there -is to strike a real mine an’ make your everlastin’ fortune, too.”</p> - -<p>“If you want my honest opinion, Mr. Edwards,” said Thad solemnly, as if -his pardner had not spoken, “you’ll be a fool to spend any time here.”</p> - -<p>The younger man smiled:</p> - -<p>“But you see, Mr. Grove, I am rather forced to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_75" id="page_75">{75}</a></span> do something right now. -As I told you, I’m not in a position to spend much time tramping about -the country looking for what might be a better place. All my -capital—all my worldly possessions, in fact—are in that pack there. -After all, you know the old saying,” he finished laughingly, “<span class="lftspc">‘</span>It takes -a fool for luck.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“That ain’t so,” growled Thad, “<span class="lftspc">’</span>cause if it was, my pardner there would -be as rich as Rockefeller and Morgan an’ the rest of them billionaires -all rolled into one.”</p> - -<p>Bob grinned at Edwards reassuringly. Then he said to Thad:</p> - -<p>“Now that you’ve got that off your mind, suppose we jest turn in an’ do -what we can for the boy here.”</p> - -<p>“This here’s Sunday, ain’t it?” returned Thad, doubtfully. “Didn’t my -gal tell us yesterday that we couldn’t——“</p> - -<p>“Your gal,” interrupted Bob, fiercely. “Your gal—huh. I’m here to tell -you that you’d best keep within your rights, Thad Grove, even if me an’ -you be pardners. She’s my gal this week beginnin’ at sun-up this -mornin’, an’ you know it; an’ besides, there’s good scripture for us -helpin’ Mr. Edwards here to get located, even if ’tis Sunday.”</p> - -<p>“Scripture!” said Thad scornfully. “What scripture?”</p> - -<p>“It’s that there part where the Lord is linin’ ’em up about what they -did an’ what they didn’t do,” explained Bob. “Says He to one bunch, -‘When I was dead broke an’ hungry an’ thirsty an’ all but<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_76" id="page_76">{76}</a></span> petered out, -you ornary skunks wouldn’t turn a hand to give me a lift, an’ so you -don’t need to figger that you’re goin’ to git in on the ground floor -with me now that I’ve struck pay dirt’—or words to that effect. An’ -then to the other bunch He says: ‘You’re all right, Pardners; come on in -an’ make your pile along with me, ’cause I ain’t forgot how when I was a -stranger you took me in. You grubstaked me when I was down and out, an’ -for that, all I’ve got now is yourn’—leastways, that’s the general -meanin’ of it.”</p> - -<p>Whereupon Thad conceded that while it would be wrong actually to work on -the day of rest, it might be safe for them to show the stranger around -and sort of talk things over.</p> - -<p>And all that day, while the two old prospectors were conducting him to -the cabin that, for the following months, was to be his home, while they -were showing him about the neighborhood and advising him in a general -way about his work, and as they sat at the dinner which Marta had left -prepared for them, Hugh Edwards felt that he was being weighed, -measured, analyzed. Nor did he in any way attempt to avoid or shirk the -ordeal. Fairly and squarely, with neither hesitation nor evasion, he met -those keen old eyes that for so many years had searched for the precious -metal that is hidden in the sands and rocks and gravel of desert wastes, -and lonely cañons, and those mountain places that are far remote from -the haunts of less hardy and courageous men.</p> - -<p>They did not ask many questions about his past,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_77" id="page_77">{77}</a></span> for it is not the way -of such men to pry into another’s past. By their code a man’s personal -history is his own most private affair, to be given or withheld as he -himself elects. But what a man is, <i>that</i> is a matter of concern to -every one who is called by circumstance to associate with him. They were -not particularly interested in what this man who had given his name as -Hugh Edwards <i>had</i> been. They were mightily interested in discerning -what sort of a man Hugh Edwards, at that moment, was.</p> - -<p>“Well, Pardner,” said Bob, later in the afternoon when Edwards, with -sincere expression of his gratitude, had left them to go to the cabin -which by common consent they now called his, “what do you make of him?”</p> - -<p>Old Thad, rubbing his bald head, answered in—for him—an unusual vein:</p> - -<p>“He’s a right likable chap, ain’t he, Bob? If I’d ever had a boy of my -own—that is, supposin’, first, I’d ever had a wife—I think I’d like -him to be jest about what I sense this lad is.” Then, as if alarmed at -this betrayal of what might be considered sentiment, the old prospector -suddenly stiffened, and added in his usual manner: “You can’t tell what -he is—some sort of a sneakin’ coyote, like as not, a-tryin’ to pass -hisself off as a harmless little cottontail. I’m for layin’ low an’ -watchin’ his smoke mighty careful.”</p> - -<p>“He’ll assay purty high-grade ore, I’m a-thinkin’,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>“Time enough to invest when said assay has been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_78" id="page_78">{78}</a></span> made,” retorted Thad. -“It looks funny to me that a man of his eddication would be a-comin’ up -here in this old cañon to waste his time tryin’ to do somethin’ that he -don’t know no more about than a baby. Hard work, too; an’ anybody can -see he ain’t never done much of that.”</p> - -<p>“He’s been sick,” returned Bob.</p> - -<p>Thad grunted:</p> - -<p>“Huh! If he was, it was a long time ago. Did you notice the weight of -that pack—He’s a totin’ it like it warn’t nothin’ at all.”</p> - -<p>“He looks kind of pale when his hat is off,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>To which Thad returned:</p> - -<p>“He’s mighty perticler about where he was an’ what he was doin’ for a -livin’ before he blew into Tucson.”</p> - -<p>“As for that,” returned Bob, “there’s been some things happen since me -an’ you was first pardners that we ain’t jest exactly a-wavin’ in the -wind—an’ look at us now.”</p> - -<p>Thad’s dry retort was inevitable:</p> - -<p>“Yes, jest look at us!”</p> - -<p>Bob chuckled.</p> - -<p>“<i>You</i> ain’t so mighty much to look at, I admit.”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Thad, “as long as my gal thinks I’m all right, you——“</p> - -<p>“My gal—<i>my</i> gal,” snapped Bob. “Why have you allus got to be a-tryin’ -to do me out of my rights. You know well as I do this is my week.”</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, Pard,” the other apologized in all seriousness. “And that -leads me to remark that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_79" id="page_79">{79}</a></span> your gal didn’t appear altogether indifferent -an’ uninterested in this young prospectin’ neighbor of ours. You took -notice, too, I reckon.”</p> - -<p>“I ain’t blind, be I?” answered Bob. “An’ why wouldn’t she take notice? -My gal ain’t no wizened-up old mummy like me an’ you. Why wouldn’t she -take notice of a fine, up-standin’ clean-eyed, straight-limbed, -fair-spoken youngster like him, heh? It’s nateral enough—an’ right -enough too, I reckon.”</p> - -<p>Old Thad, with sudden rage, shook his long finger at his pardner and, in -a voice that was high pitched and trembling with emotion, cried:</p> - -<p>“Nateral enough, you poor old, thick-headed, ossified, wreck of manhood, -you. Nateral enough! Holy Cats! It’s <i>too</i> nateral, that’s what I’m a -meanin’, it’s <i>too</i> nateral—whether it’s all right or all wrong—it’s -too almighty nateral—that’s what it is.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Later, when Marta had returned to her home in the Cañon of Gold—when -the sun was down and the shadow of the approaching night was deepening -over desert and mesa and mountain—a cowboy on his way to the home ranch -stopped to listen as the music of Saint Jimmy’s flute came soft and -clear through the quiet of the evening, from that spot beneath the old -cedar tree, high on the mountain side. A wandering Mexican, camped near -Juniper Spring below, heard and crossed himself. Natachee the Indian who -was following a faint trail toward the wild upper cañon heard and -smiled. Jimmy’s mother heard, and her eyes filled with tears.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_80" id="page_80">{80}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX<br /><br /> -“GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT”</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“As the ocean calls the water of the rivers, and the rivers call -the creeks and springs, so this story, of a treasure hidden in a -mine that is lost, has called many people to the Cañon of Gold.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Cañon of Gold was still in the shadow of the mountains the next -morning when the Pardners went to give their new neighbor his first -lesson in the work that was to occupy him for months to come.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards greeted them without a trace of the hesitating fear that he -had shown during the first moments of their meeting, the day before. His -eyes now met theirs fairly, with no hint of questioning dread. It was as -if the restful peace and strengthening quiet of that retreat which was -hidden so far from the overcrowded highways of life had begun already to -effect, in the troubled spirit of this stranger, a magic healing.</p> - -<p>“Well,” said Thad gruffly, “we’re here—where’s your pick an’ shovel an’ -pan?”</p> - -<p>When the younger man had produced those implements which were so new and -strange to him, Bob asked kindly if he had had a good night’s sleep, if -he found the cabin comfortable, and if he had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_81" id="page_81">{81}</a></span> fortified himself for the -day’s work with a proper breakfast.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards laughed, and, with his face lifted to the mountain heights -that towered above them, squared his shoulders and drew a long deep -breath.</p> - -<p>“I haven’t had such a sleep since I can remember. As for breakfast, -well, if I eat like this every day, I will exhaust my supplies before I -even learn to know gold when I see it. I feel as if I could move that -hill over there into the cañon.”</p> - -<p>Bob chuckled.</p> - -<p>“You’ll find you’ve got to move a lot of it, son, before you make enough -at this gold-huntin’ game to buy your grub.”</p> - -<p>“That’s the trouble with prospectin’ in this here Cañada del Oro -country,” said Thad. “The harder you work the more you eat, and the more -you eat the harder you got to work. Come on, let’s get a-goin’.”</p> - -<p>For several hours the old Pardners labored with their pupil beside the -creek, then, with hearty assurance of further help from time to time as -he made progress, they left him and went to their own little mine, some -five hundred yards down the cañon.</p> - -<p>The afternoon was nearly gone when Edwards, who was kneeling over the -gravel and sand in his pan at the edge of the stream, looked up.</p> - -<p>On a bowlder, not more than five steps from the amateur prospector, sat -an Indian.</p> - -<p>With an exclamation, the white man sprang to his feet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_82" id="page_82">{82}</a></span></p> - -<p>The Indian did not move. Dressed as he was in the wild fashion of his -fathers and with his primitive bow and arrows, he seemed more like some -sculptured bit of the past than a creature of living flesh.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards, standing as one ready to run at the crack of the starter’s -pistol, swiftly surveyed the immediate vicinity. His face was white and -he was trembling with fear.</p> - -<p>With grave interest the red man silently observed the perturbed -stranger. Then, as Edwards again turned his frightened eyes toward him, -the Indian raised his hand in the old-time peace sign and in a deep, -musical voice spoke the one word of the old-time greeting:</p> - -<p>“How.”</p> - -<p>Edwards broke into a short, nervous laugh.</p> - -<p>“How-do-you-do—By George! but you gave me a start.”</p> - -<p>Some small animal—a pack rat or a ground squirrel—made a rustling -sound in the bushes on the bank above, and with a low cry the frightened -man wheeled, and again started as if to escape.</p> - -<p>The Indian, watching, saw the meaning in every move the stranger made, -and read every expression of his face.</p> - -<p>With an effort Edwards controlled himself.</p> - -<p>“Are you alone?” he asked. “I mean”—he caught himself up quickly—“that -is—have you no horse?”</p> - -<p>“I am always alone,” the Indian answered calmly. Then, as if to put the -other more at ease, he con<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_83" id="page_83">{83}</a></span>tinued in excellent English: “Night before -last, when the sun went down, I was up there on Samaniego Ridge,” he -pointed with singular grace. “There on that rock near the dead sahuaro, -and I saw you as you came up the old road into the cañon.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards again betrayed himself by the eagerness of his next -question:</p> - -<p>“Did you see any one else?”</p> - -<p>“There was no one on your trail,” returned the Indian.</p> - -<p>At this the stranger seemed to realize suddenly that he was permitting -his fears to reveal too much, and, as one will, he sought to amend his -error with a half-laughing excuse.</p> - -<p>“Really, you know, I didn’t suppose there was any one following me.” He -indicated his work with a gesture. “I am not exactly used to this sort -of life, you see, and—well—I confess the loneliness, the strangeness -of my surroundings, and all, have rather got on my nerves—quite -natural, I suppose.”</p> - -<p>The Indian bowed assent.</p> - -<p>As if determined to correct any impression he might have made by his -unguarded manner, Edwards abruptly dropped the subject, and with an air -of enthusiastic delight spoke of his surroundings, finishing with the -courteous question:</p> - -<p>“You live in this neighborhood, do you?”</p> - -<p>There was a quick gleam of savage light in the dark eyes that were fixed -with bold pride upon the questioning white man, and the Indian answered -more in the manner of his people:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_84" id="page_84">{84}</a></span></p> - -<p>“In the years that are past my fathers came to these mountains to hunt -and to make war like men. They come now with the squaws to gather -acorns, when the white man gives them permission. I live here, yes, as a -homeless dog lives in one of your cities. My name is Natachee.”</p> - -<p>The deep, musical voice of the red man revealed such bitter feeling that -Hugh Edwards was moved to pity. And then, as he stood there in the -silence that had fallen upon them, a strange thing happened. It was as -if the spirit of the Indian had somehow touched the inner self of the -stranger and had quickened in him a kindred savage lusting for revenge -upon some enemy who had brought upon him, too, humiliation and shame and -suffering beyond expression. The white man’s hands were clenched, his -breast heaved with labored breathing, his face was black with passion, -his eyes were dreadful with the scowling light of anger and hate.</p> - -<p>A faint smile came like a swift shadow over the face of the watching -Indian; then he spoke with deliberate meaning:</p> - -<p>“And why have you come to the Cañada del Oro? Why should a man like you -wish to live here, in the Cañon of Gold?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards gained control of himself with an effort.</p> - -<p>“I came to look for gold; as you see,” he said at last.</p> - -<p>Again that faint smile like a quick shadow touched the face of the red -man.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_85" id="page_85">{85}</a></span></p> - -<p>And this time the other saw it. Looking straight into the eyes of the -Indian, he said coldly:</p> - -<p>“And you, what do you do for a living?”</p> - -<p>Natachee, returning look for look, answered simply:</p> - -<p>“I live as my fathers lived.”</p> - -<p>“I have heard about you, I think,” said Edwards.</p> - -<p>The Indian’s deep voice was charged with scorn.</p> - -<p>“Yes, the Lizard called at your camp—you would hear about every one -from the Lizard.”</p> - -<p>“He told me that you were educated.”</p> - -<p>Natachee answered sadly:</p> - -<p>“It is true, I attended the white man’s school. What I learned there -made me return to the desert and the mountains to live as my fathers -lived; and to die as my people must die.”</p> - -<p>When the white man, seemingly, could find no words with which to reply, -the Indian spoke again.</p> - -<p>“If it is gold that brought you here to the Cañada del Oro, why do you -not search for the Lost Mine with the Iron Door?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards, remembering what the Lizard had said, smiled.</p> - -<p>“And is there, really, such a mine?”</p> - -<p>“There is a story of such a mine.”</p> - -<p>“Do many people come to look for it?”</p> - -<p>Natachee answered gravely and with that dignity so characteristic of a -red man, while his words, though spoken in English, were the words of an -Indian:</p> - -<p>“Too many people come. As the ocean calls the water of the rivers, and -the rivers call the creeks and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_86" id="page_86">{86}</a></span> springs; so this story of a treasure -hidden in a mine that is lost has called many people to the Cañon of -Gold. For many years they have been coming—for many years they will -continue to come. The white people say they do not believe there ever -was such a mine and they laugh about it. They look for it just the same. -Even the Pardners, who dig for gold in their own little hole down there, -laugh, but I know that they, too, believe even as they laugh. That is -always the white man’s way—always he is searching for the thing which -he says does not exist, and at which he laughs.”</p> - -<p>“But what about you?” asked Hugh Edwards. “Do you believe in this lost -mine?”</p> - -<p>The Indian’s face was a bronze mask as he answered:</p> - -<p>“Of what importance is an Indian’s belief to a white man? When the winds -heed the dead leaves they toss and scatter, when the fire heeds the dry -grass in its path, then will a white man heed the words of an Indian.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I wouldn’t say it was as bad as that,” returned Edwards easily, and -as he spoke he went to bend over his pan again. “Mine or no mine,” he -continued, as he examined the sand and gravel he had been washing, “I -think I have some real gold here.”</p> - -<p>When there was no answer he said:</p> - -<p>“You must know gold when you see it. Will you look at this and tell me -what you think?”</p> - -<p>Still there was no answer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_87" id="page_87">{87}</a></span></p> - -<p>With the gold pan in his hand, the white man turned to face his visitor. -The Indian had disappeared.</p> - -<p>In amazement, Hugh Edwards stood staring at the spot where the Indian -had been sitting but a moment before. Then, while his eyes searched the -vicinity for some movement in the brush, he listened for a sound. Not a -leaf or twig or blossom stirred—not a sound betrayed the way the red -man had gone.</p> - -<p>With an odd feeling that the whole incident of the Indian’s visit was as -unreal as a dream, the man had again turned his attention to the -contents of his gold pan when a gay voice came from the top of the bank.</p> - -<p>“Well, neighbor, have you struck it rich?”</p> - -<p>Looking up, he saw Marta.</p> - -<p>“I have struck something all right, or rather something struck me,” he -laughed, as she joined him beside the creek. Then he told her about the -Indian.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she said, “that was Natachee. He always comes and goes like that. -Everybody says he is harmless. He and Saint Jimmy are quite good -friends; but he gives me the creeps.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Ugh! -I always feel as if he were wishing that he could scalp every one of -us.”</p> - -<p>“To tell the truth,” returned Edwards, “I feel a little that way -myself.”</p> - -<p>That evening as Hugh Edwards sat with the Pardners and their girl on the -porch, he asked the old prospectors about the Mine with the Iron Door.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_88" id="page_88">{88}</a></span></p> - -<p>They laughed, as Natachee had said, but Edwards caught an odd note of -wistfulness in their merriment. Thad answered his question, with a brave -pretense of scorn:</p> - -<p>“There’s lost mines all over Arizona, son. Better stick to your pick and -shovel if you want to eat reg’lar. You won’t pan out so mighty much, -mebby, but what you do get will be real.”</p> - -<p>“But this here Mine with the Iron Door is different some ways from all -them others,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>And again Edwards caught that wistful note in the old-timer’s voice.</p> - -<p>“You mean that you believe there is such a mine?” he said.</p> - -<p>“Holy Cats—No!” growled Thad. “We don’t believe in nothin’ ’til we got -it where we can cash it in.”</p> - -<p>Bob was thoughtfully refilling his pipe. “They say it was made by the -old padres, away back, a hundred years before any of us prospectors ever -hit this country. I know one thing that you can see for yourself, -easy—there’s the ruins of a mighty old settlement or camp or somethin’ -on the side of the mountain up above the Steam Pump Ranch. They say it -was there that the Papagos, what worked the mine for the priests, lived. -The Papagos and the padres always was friendly, you know. The padres -have got a big mission, San Xavier, down in the Papago country, right -now—built somethin’ like three hundred years ago, it was. I ain’t never -been able myself to jest figger their idea in fixin’ up the mine with -that iron door. Mebby it was on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_89" id="page_89">{89}</a></span> account of them only workin’ it by -spells, like when they was needin’ somethin’ extra for their mission or -for their church back home in Spain, where they all come from, and so -wanted to shut it up when they was gone away. Then one time, the story -goes, along come one of these here earthquakes, and tumbled a whole -blamed mountain down on top of the works. The old priests and their -Papago miners figgered it out that the landslide was an act of God—Him -bein’ displeased with the way they was runnin’ things er somethin’, an’ -so they was scared ever even to try to dig her up again. An’ so you see, -after all these years, the trees and brush growed over the mountain -again and the old mine got to be plumb lost for certain sure.”</p> - -<p>“An’ so far as we’re consarned,” added the other pardner emphatically, -“it’s goin’ to stay lost. This ain’t no country for a big mine nohow. -Mineralized all right, but look at the way she’s all shot to pieces; -busted forty ways for Sunday—ain’t nothin’ reg’lar nowhere, unless you -was to go down a thousand or two feet, mebby, and that ain’t no prospect -for a poor man, I’m a-tellin’ you. Find a little placer dirt, yes, and -you might strike a good pocket once in a lifetime or so, but that ain’t -to say real minin’. Take my advice, son, and don’t let this lost mine -get to workin’ on you or you’ll go hungry.”</p> - -<p>“That’s all true enough, Pardner,” said Bob, “but you know how ’tis, you -can’t never tell—Gold is where you find it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_90" id="page_90">{90}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X<br /><br /> -SUMMER</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Daddy,” says she, “Hugh has changed a lot since he come to us, -ain’t he?”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE weeks of the spring passed. The gleaming snow fields vanished from -the dark pine heights of Mount Lemmon. The creek, which ran through the -Cañon of Gold with such boisterous strength that day when the stranger -came and Marta talked with Saint Jimmy under the old cedar on the -mountain side, crept lazily now, with scarce a murmur, pausing often to -rest in the shady quiet of an overhanging rock or to sleep, half hidden, -among the roots of a giant sycamore.</p> - -<p>The Sonora pigeon, his mission accomplished, had long since ceased to -give his mating call. The nest in the mesquite thicket had been filled -and was empty again. The partridge was leading her half-grown covey far -from the mescal plant where they were born. The vermilion flycatcher was -too busy, with his exacting parental duties, even to think of indulging -in those fantastic exhibitions which ultimately had placed the burdens -of fatherhood upon his shoulders.</p> - -<p>There was not a day of those passing months that the Pardners and their -girl did not in some way<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_91" id="page_91">{91}</a></span> come in touch with their neighbor. Sometimes -Edwards would go to counsel with the two old prospectors as they worked -in their little mine. Again, they would go over to his place to advise -him, with their years of experience, in his small operations. Often he -would spend the evening with them on the porch in neighborly fashion, or -they would go to smoke with him before the door of his tiny cabin. -Occasionally, it was no more than a shout of greeting across the three -hundred or more yards that separated the two places; but always the -contact that had been established that day when the Lizard brought the -stranger to the Pardners’ door was maintained.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards might have gone from the place where he labored to the -Pardners’ mine, along the creek under the high bank, without passing -their house at all, but he never did. That is, he never both went and -returned by the creek route. Either going or coming, he would always -climb out of the deep cut made by the stream to the level of the main -floor of the cañon where the house stood—except, of course, when Marta -had gone to the store at Oracle or to see Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton.</p> - -<p>The girl was always included, too, in those evenings on the porch or -before his cabin door. Always, on her way to the store, she stopped to -see if she could bring anything for him. And often, with the freedom of -the rude environment she had known since she could remember, and with -the frank innocence of her boyish nature, Marta would run over to give -him a lesson in the arts of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_92" id="page_92">{92}</a></span> kitchen; or, perhaps, to contribute -something of her own cooking—a pie or cake or pudding—that would be -quite beyond the range of his poor culinary skill. It was indeed all -very natural—perhaps, as Thad had said that first day, it was too -darned natural.</p> - -<p>To the Pardners, Hugh Edwards was an object of continued speculative -interest, a subject of endless and somewhat violent arguments; and, it -must be added, a never-failing source of amusement and delight. The -genuineness and depth of this friendship for their young neighbor was -evidenced at last by their telling him the story of their partnership -daughter as they had told it to Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. It was -not long after this mark of their confidence that the old prospectors -were led into a characteristic discussion of their observations.</p> - -<p>Hugh had gone to them at their mine with a bit of quartz which he had -picked up in the bed of the creek. The consultation was over and the two -old prospectors were sitting in the shade of the tunnel opening watching -the younger man as he climbed up the steep bank toward the house. Old -Bob was grinning.</p> - -<p>“He sure thought he had found somethin’ good this time, didn’t he? The -boy’s all right, don’t never show a sign of bein’ sore when his rich -rocks turn out to be jest nothin’ but rock—jest keeps right on tryin’. -Don’t seem to care a cuss how many blanks he draws.”</p> - -<p>Thad chuckled:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_93" id="page_93">{93}</a></span></p> - -<p>“If hard work will get him anything, he’s sure due to strike it rich. -Hits it up from crack of day ’til plumb dark an’ acts like he hated even -to think of sleepin’ or eatin’.”</p> - -<p>“It’s funny, too,” said Bob, “<span class="lftspc">’</span>cause you remember at first he didn’t -’pear to take no interest a-tall. Jest poked along in a come-day, -go-day, God-send-Sunday sort of a gait, as if all he wanted was to git -his powder back with what frijoles, bacon, and coffee he had to have. -He’s sure come alive, though. I wonder——“</p> - -<p>Thad was rubbing his bald head with a slow, speculative movement.</p> - -<p>“Had you took notice how he allus goes up to the house when he brings -them pieces of fool rock to us? My gal, she says to me the other -evenin’——“</p> - -<p>“Your gal! Your gal!” Marta’s father shouted. “This here’s my week, and -you know it blamed well, you old love pirate, you. Can’t you never be -satisfied with your share? Have you got to be allus tryin’ to euchre me -out of my rights?”</p> - -<p>“I apologize, Pardner, I forgot, I apologize plenty,” said Thad -hurriedly. “As I was meanin’ to say, that gal of yourn, she says to me, -‘Daddy’—last Saturday it was, so she had a right to call me -daddy—‘Daddy,’ says she, ‘Hugh has changed a lot since he come to us, -ain’t he?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Well,” returned Bob, “what if my daughter did make such a remark, -it——“</p> - -<p>“She was my daughter then,” interrupted Thad sternly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_94" id="page_94">{94}</a></span></p> - -<p>“She’s mine right now,” retorted Bob with equal force. “What if she did -say it? I maintain it only goes to show what a smart, observin’ gal -she’s growed up to be.”</p> - -<p>Thad grunted disgustedly.</p> - -<p>“It’s almighty plain that she didn’t inherit none of her observin’ -powers from you.”</p> - -<p>Bob glared at him.</p> - -<p>“Wal, what are you seein’ that I ain’t?” he demanded. “Somethin’ that’s -wrong, I’ll bet—By smoke! Thad, if you was to happen to get into Heaven -by any hook or crook so ever, you’d set yourself first off to -suspicionin’ them there angels of high gradin’ the gold they say the -streets up there is paved with.”</p> - -<p>The other returned with withering contempt:</p> - -<p>“You’ve said it! But don’t it signify nothin’ to you when your gal—when -any gal takes notice of how a feller is lookin’ different from what he -did when she first met up with him? Ain’t it got no meanin’ for you when -she says, ‘Since he come to us’? <i>Come to us—to us</i>—can’t you see -nothin’? If I was as dumb as you be, I’d set off a stick of powder under -myself to see if I couldn’t get some sort of, what I heard Doctor Jimmy -once call, a re-action.”</p> - -<p>Bob laughed.</p> - -<p>“I figger on gettin’ all the reactions I need from you, without wastin’ -any powder. Hugh did come to us, didn’t he? Even if that measly Lizard -did fetch him far as the gate.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_95" id="page_95">{95}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Oh, sure,” grumbled the other with fine sarcasm. “Hugh, he didn’t come -to this here Cañada del Oro—not a-tall—he jest come to <i>us</i>.”</p> - -<p>Bob continued as if the other had not spoken:</p> - -<p>“As far as his not bein’ the same as when he come, well, he -ain’t—anybody can see that. ’Tain’t only that he’s started in to -workin’, all at once, like he jest naterally <i>had</i> to get rich. He’s -different in a lot of ways. Take his looks, for instance—he used to be -kind of white like—you remember, and now he’s tanned as black as any of -us old desert rats. He’s sturdier and heavier like, every way. Hard work -agrees with him, ’pears like.”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Tain’t only that,” said Thad.</p> - -<p>“Sure—his hair ain’t so short no more.”</p> - -<p>“There’s more than hair an’ bein’ tanned,” said Thad.</p> - -<p>“Yep, there is,” agreed Bob. “Do you mind how, when he first come, he -acted sort of scared like—right at the very first, I mean.”</p> - -<p>“That’s it,” returned Thad, “his eyes was like he was expectin’ one or -t’other, or both of us, to throw down a gun on him. An’ yet I sensed -somehow, after the first minute, that it wasn’t us he was afraid of. He -sure walks up to a man now, though, like he could jump down his throat -if he had to.”</p> - -<p>“I’ll bet my pile he would, too, if he was called,” chuckled Bob. “And -have you noticed how easy he laughs, an’ the way he sings and whistles -over there when he’s fussin’ ’round his shack of a mornin’ or evenin’?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_96" id="page_96">{96}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“He sure seems contented enough,” said Thad, “an’ that’s another thing -I’ve noticed, too,” he added slowly. “The boy ain’t been out of the -cañon since he come.”</p> - -<p>“Ain’t no reason for him to go,” said Bob. “We take out what little gold -he pans with ourn, don’t we? An’ it’s easy for Marta to buy his supplies -for him while she’s buyin’ for us. There ain’t nobody at Oracle that -he’d be wantin’ to see.”</p> - -<p>“Mebby that’s it,” said Thad.</p> - -<p>“Mebby what’s it?” demanded Bob.</p> - -<p>“That there ain’t nobody at Oracle that he wants to see—or that he -don’t want to see him—whichever way you like to say it.”</p> - -<p>“There you go again,” said Bob. “Can’t talk more’n a minute on any -subject without hintin’ that somethin’ is wrong. The boy is all right, I -tell you.”</p> - -<p>“Well, Holy Cats! who said he wasn’t?” cried Thad. “I wouldn’t hold it -against him much if he never went to Oracle or nowhere else; jest stuck -in this here cañon ’til he died, hidin’ out in the brush somewhere every -time anybody strange showed up nearer than George Wheeler’s. You an’ me -has both suffered from the same sort of sickness more’n once, or I’m -a-losin’ my memory. You’re allus makin’ out that I’m thinkin’ evil when -I’m only jest tryin’ to look at things as they actually are. If I’d -intimated that the boy was a hoss-thief or a claim-jumper or somethin’ -like that, you’d have reason to climb on to me, but I’m likin’ him an<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_97" id="page_97">{97}</a></span>’ -believin’ in him as much as ever you or anybody else ever dared to.”</p> - -<p>Bob grinned.</p> - -<p>“It’s funny how we’re all agreed on that, ain’t it? He is sure a likable -cuss. I was a-warnin’ him the other day about handlin’ his powder. ‘You -don’t want to forgit, son,’ says I, ‘that there’s enough in one of them -sticks to blow you so high that you’d think you was one of them heavenly -bodies up yonder.’ He laughed an’ says, says he, ‘That bein’ the case, -it would be mighty comfortin’ to know there was no one to dock me for -the time I was up in the air, wouldn’t it?’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>“Huh!” grunted Thad, “that’s an old one.”</p> - -<p>“Sure it’s an old one,” retorted Bob, “but nobody can’t say it ain’t a -good one; and I’m here to maintain that you can tell a heap more about a -man by the jokes he laughs at than you can by the religions he claims to -believe in.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” retorted Thad grimly, “I’ve allus took notice, too, that them -that’s all the time seein’ evil in whatever anybody does is dead -immortal certain to be havin’ a lot of their own doin’s that need to be -kept in the dark. As for this game of lookin’ for some sort of -insinuations in everything a body says, it’s like a lookin’ glass—what -you see is mostly yourself. That’s what I’m meanin’.”</p> - -<p>“Hugh is a good boy all right,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>“He’s all of that and then some,” said Thad.</p> - -<p>The truth of the matter is, Hugh Edwards had found, in the Cañada del -Oro, something more than<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_98" id="page_98">{98}</a></span> the gold for which he worked so laboriously -through the long days, and which he had come to hoard with such miserly -care. In the Cañon of Gold, he had found more than rugged health; more -than a sanctuary from whatever it was that had driven him from the world -to which he belonged into the lonely seclusion of that wild country. -Into his loneliness had come a sweet companionship that had grown every -day more dear. In this new joy and gladness, bitterness and pain had -ceased to darken his hours with hatred and with useless and vengeful -longings. Crushed and beaten, humiliated and shamed, his every hour an -hour of dread, he had found inspiration and spirit to plan his life -anew. Out of his hopelessness, a glorious new hope had come. He had -learned again to dream; and he had gained strength to labor for his -dreams.</p> - -<p>But he had not told Marta what it was that he had found. He could not -tell her yet. Before he could tell her, he must have gold. And he must -have, not merely an amount that would satisfy the bare necessities of -life—he must have much more than that. He was not so foolish as to feel -that he must be in a position to offer this girl the extravagant -luxuries of life. But his need was born of a dire necessity—a necessity -as vital as the need of food. Without gold, the realization of his dream -was an impossibility. His only hope of happiness was in the possibility -of his success in finding a quantity of the yellow metal for which, -through the centuries, so many men had labored, as he was laboring now, -in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_99" id="page_99">{99}</a></span> the Cañon del Oro. He could not explain to Marta—he could only -dream and hope and work, as those others before him had dreamed and -hoped and worked in the Cañon of Gold. And so, with a strength that was -like the strength of Saint Jimmy, this man was resolutely hiding the -love that had re-created him. Marta must not know—not now.</p> - -<p>But Marta knew—knew and yet did not know. The girl, whose womanhood had -developed in the peculiarly sexless environment that had been hers since -she could remember, had formed no habit of self-analysis. She was wholly -inexperienced in those innocent but emotionally instructive friendships -which girls and young women normally have with boys and men of their own -age. Except for her fathers and Saint Jimmy, she had had no contact with -men. In her childlike ignorance she asked of herself no questions. She -gave no more thought to the meaning of her interest in Hugh Edwards than -a wild bird gives to its mating instinct. But as their friendship grew -and ripened, this girl of the desert and mountains knew that she was -happy as she had never been happy before. She felt a kinship with the -wild life about her that thrilled her with its poignant mystery. The -flowers had never before bloomed in such passionate profusion. The birds -had never voiced such melodies. The very winds were freighted with -perfumes that filled her with strange delight. The days, indeed, flew by -on wings of sunshine—the nights were haunted with shadowy promises as -vague and intangible as they were sweet.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_100" id="page_100">{100}</a></span></p> - -<p>Natachee, as the weeks passed, seemed to develop a strange interest in -the man who was so obviously from a world that is far indeed from the -haunts of the lonely red man. Frequently the Indian called at the little -cabin to spend an hour or more. Always he appeared suddenly, at the most -unexpected moments, as if he were a spirit materialized that instant -from an invisible world, and always he disappeared in the same startling -fashion.</p> - -<p>Sometimes, when he was with Edwards and the Pardners, he would discuss -matters of general interest with the speech and manner of any well-bred -college man. Save for his savage costume, his dusky countenance, and a -certain touch of poetic feeling in his choice of words and figures of -speech, there would be nothing, on these occasions, to mark him as -different, in any way, from his white companions. But on other -occasions, when Natachee and Edwards were alone, the red man would, for -the moment, cast aside every mark of his training in the schools, and, -with the voice, words, and gestures peculiar to his race, express -thoughts and emotions that were purely Indian. Much of the time, -however, he would sit silently watching the white man at his work. Often -he would come and go without a word. He would sometimes appear, too, -when Marta and Edwards were together, and on these occasions, save for a -courteous greeting, he was rarely more than a silent observer.</p> - -<p>The Lizard had at first endeavored to cultivate the stranger’s -friendship, but, receiving no encouragement,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_101" id="page_101">{101}</a></span> had soon limited his -attentions to a sullen “Howdy” when he passed on his way to or from -Oracle.</p> - -<p>But Saint Jimmy had not yet met the man who was living next door to -Marta. Often the girl begged her teacher to go with her to call on the -new neighbor. Mother Burton frequently scolded him, gently, for his -discourtesy to the stranger. And Saint Jimmy promised many times that he -would call, but he invariably postponed the date of his visit. He would -set out on his social mission in all good faith, but invariably, when he -came within sight of the cabin so near to Marta’s home, he would stop -and, instead of going on, would spend the hours alone on the mountain -side looking out over the desert. Had Saint Jimmy been other than the -gentle spirit he was, he might have said that he heard quite enough -about Hugh Edwards from Marta without going to visit him.</p> - -<p>Many times, too, Saint Jimmy thought to tell Marta the story her fathers -had intrusted to him, but for some reason he always found it as -difficult to talk to his pupil about the mystery of her early childhood -as he found it hard to call on this man in whom she was so interested.</p> - -<p>Often he said to his mother that he would delay no longer—that he would -tell the girl the next time she came to see them; but each time he put -it off. The girl was always so radiantly happy, so overflowing with the -joy of life. Perhaps, Saint Jimmy told himself, perhaps, it might never -be necessary for her to know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_102" id="page_102">{102}</a></span></p> - -<p>The dry season of the summer passed—the summer rains came; and again -the desert, the foothills and mountain sides were bright with blossoms. -It was during this “Little Spring,” as the Indians call this second -blossoming time of the year, that Saint Jimmy finally called on Hugh -Edwards.</p> - -<p>And—it was the Lizard who brought it about.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_103" id="page_103">{103}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI<br /><br /> -THE LIZARD</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“No,” said Doctor Burton, slowly, “I have heard nothing about Mr. -Edwards. Nothing wrong, I mean.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Lizard was on his way to Oracle that day when he turned aside from -the more direct trail to take the path that led past the little white -house on the mountain side. Approaching the Burton home, he pulled his -horse down to a walk, and, as he rode slowly up the winding way, his -shifty eyes searched the vicinity on every side. It was not long before -he saw Doctor Burton, who was seated, with his back comfortably against -a rock in the shade of a Juniper tree, reading.</p> - -<p>As the Lizard left the trail and rode toward him, Saint Jimmy glanced up -from his book. With a look of mild interest, he watched as the horse -with its rider climbed the steep side of the mountain.</p> - -<p>When he had come quite near, the Lizard stopped, and slouching down in -the saddle looked at the man seated on the ground with a wide grin, -while the horse with a long breath of relief dropped his head and -settled himself sleepily, as if understanding from long experience that -his master would have no further use for him for some time to come.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_104" id="page_104">{104}</a></span></p> - -<p>“How do you do?” said Jimmy, smiling.</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Bout as usual,” returned the horseman. “I’m eatin’ reg’lar. ’Lowed hit -war time I rode by to see how you was a makin’ hit these days. I see -ye’re still alive,” he laughed, in his loose-mouthed way.</p> - -<p>“I am doing very well,” returned Saint Jimmy, wondering what the real -object of the fellow’s call might be.</p> - -<p>“Yer maw’s well too, I reckon?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, thank you.”</p> - -<p>“Been over t’ Oracle lately?”</p> - -<p>“I was there yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh! I was up t’ the store myself day before. Hear anythin’ new, did -ye?”</p> - -<p>“Nothing startling,” smiled Saint Jimmy. “Your father and mother are -well, are they?”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Bout as usual. Ain’t seed George Wheeler lately, have ye—er any of -his folks?”</p> - -<p>“George was at our house a few days ago,” returned Jimmy. “Stopped in a -few minutes on his way home from the upper ranch.”</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh!—George say anything, did he?”</p> - -<p>“No. Nothing in particular.”</p> - -<p>The Lizard shifted his slouching weight in the saddle. “I met up with -one of George’s punchers t’other day. Bud Gordon, hit war. He says as -how th’ lions is a-gettin’ ’bout all of George’s mule colts up ’round -his place above.”</p> - -<p>“So George was telling us. It’s too bad. You ranchers will be planning -another hunt soon, I suppose.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_105" id="page_105">{105}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Lizard shook his head solemnly, then leered at Saint Jimmy with an -evil grin.</p> - -<p>“Thar’s varmints in this here neighborhood what needs a-huntin’ a mighty -sight more’n lions an’ coyotes an’ sich.”</p> - -<p>Jimmy waited.</p> - -<p>“You say you ain’t heerd nothin’?” demanded the Lizard.</p> - -<p>“About what?”</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">’</span>Bout that there new prospector, what’s located in th’ old cabin down -thar by th’ Pardners’ place.”</p> - -<p>“No,” said Doctor Burton slowly. “I have heard nothing about Mr. -Edwards—nothing wrong, I mean.”</p> - -<p>“Wal, if ye ain’t, hit’s ’cause ye ain’t been ’round much, er ’cause ye -ain’t listened very close. Mebby, though, folks would be kind o’ -slow-like sayin’ anythin’ t’ you—seein’s how you’d likely be more -interested ’n anybody else.”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy was not smiling now.</p> - -<p>“I think you are mistaken about my interest,” he said curtly. “I have no -desire to listen to you or to any one else on the subject.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ye ain’t, heh?” the man on the horse returned with a sneer. “I -’lowed as how ye’d be mighty quick t’ listen, seein’ ’s how this new -feller’s cut you out with th’ gal, like he has.”</p> - -<p>When Saint Jimmy did not speak, the Lizard continued with virtuous -indignation:</p> - -<p>“Things was bad enough as they was, but now since this new feller’s -come, she’s a-carryin’ on past<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_106" id="page_106">{106}</a></span> all reason. You kin find ’em t’gether at -his shack er down in th’ creek whar he’s a-pretendin’ t’ work, er out in -the brush somewhar ’most any time. An’ when she ain’t over t’ his place -er out with him somewhar, he’s dead certain t’ be at her house. I seed -them t’gether when I passed on my way up here. She’s too good t’ speak -to me, what’s been neighbor t’ her ever since she come into this -country, but she kin take up with this stranger quick enough.”</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton was on his feet.</p> - -<p>“That’s enough,” he said sharply. “You might as well go on your way now. -You have evidently said what you came to say.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” returned the Lizard with insolent superiority. -“There ain’t no use in yer tryin’ t’ be so high an’ mighty with me. -She’s throwd me down fer you often enough. Now that yer gettin’ th’ same -thing, ye ought t’ be a grain more friendly, ’pears t’ me. As fer this -other feller, he’ll sure get what’s a-comin’ t’ him, an’ so will she.”</p> - -<p>Jimmy caught his breath.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?”</p> - -<p>“I mean that folks ’re a-talkin’, an’ that they’ll likely do more than -talk this time. We’ve allus had our doubts about th’ gal—who wouldn’t -have—her bein’ raised by them two old mavericks like she war an’ bein’ -named fer both an’ both claimin’ t’ be her daddy—an’ nobody knowin’ a -foreign thing ’bout who her real paw an’ maw was, er even whether she -ever had any. But folks has put up with her an’ you ’cause you was -supposed to’ be a-teachin’ her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_107" id="page_107">{107}</a></span> an’ cause yer Saint Jimmy.” He laughed. -“Saint Jimmy—mighty pretty, heh? But this new feller that’s got her -now—Edwards, he calls hisself—he ain’t pretendin’ nothin’. Him an’ -her, they——“</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton started forward, his eyes were blazing and his voice rang:</p> - -<p>“Shut up—if you open your foul mouth again, I’ll drag you from that -horse and choke the dirty life out of you.”</p> - -<p>The Lizard, amazed at the usually gentle-mannered Saint Jimmy, -straightened himself in the saddle and caught up the reins.</p> - -<p>“Get out!” continued the man on the ground. “Go find some filthy-minded -scandalmonger like yourself to listen to your vile rot. I’ve had -enough.”</p> - -<p>The Lizard snarled down at him:</p> - -<p>“If you warn’t a poor lunger, I’d——“</p> - -<p>But as Saint Jimmy reached for him, he touched his horse with the spur, -and the animal leaped away.</p> - -<p>Twenty minutes later, Doctor Burton was on his way to the cabin in the -cañon.</p> - -<p>Marta was at home, sitting on the porch with her sewing, when her -teacher rode down into the Cañon of Gold. She saw him as he turned aside -toward the neighboring cabin, and was on the ground in time to introduce -the two men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_108" id="page_108">{108}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII<br /><br /> -GHOSTS</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The Cañon of Gold is haunted by the ghosts of these disappointed -ones. I, Natachee, know these things because I am an Indian.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>ARTA could not have explained, even to herself, why she was so anxious -to see Saint Jimmy and Hugh Edwards together. Certainly she made no -effort to find an explanation.</p> - -<p>Through the years that he had been her teacher, Saint Jimmy had come to -personify, as it were, her spiritual or intellectual ideal.</p> - -<p>Any why not, since it was Saint Jimmy who had helped her form her -spiritual and intellectual ideals? Their daily association, their -friendship, their love—for she did love Saint Jimmy—had all been -grounded and developed in an atmosphere of books and study that was -purely Platonic. In her teacher she had come to see embodied the -essential truths which he had taught. She had never for a moment thought -of Doctor Burton and herself as a man and a woman. He was simply Saint -Jimmy. She was his grateful pupil who loved him dearly because he was -Saint Jimmy.</p> - -<p>But from the very first moment of their meeting Marta was conscious that -the appeal of Hugh Ed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_109" id="page_109">{109}</a></span>wards’ personality was an appeal that to her was -new and strange—she was conscious that he had made an impression upon -her such as no man had ever before made. For that matter, she had never -before met such a man. As she had said so many times, he made her think -of Saint Jimmy and yet he was different. And because the experience was -so foreign to anything that she had ever known, she did not understand.</p> - -<p>Because Hugh Edwards made her think so often of Saint Jimmy, and because -he was so different from Saint Jimmy, she was anxious to see the two men -together. Nor could the girl understand her teacher’s persistent failure -to call on their new neighbor. It was not at all like Saint Jimmy. -Nothing, perhaps, revealed quite so fully Marta’s lack of experience in -such things as her failure to understand why Saint Jimmy was so slow in -making the acquaintance of Hugh Edwards.</p> - -<p>And now at last her wish to see these two men together was gratified. -The girl’s radiant face revealed her excitement. Her voice was jubilant, -her laughter rang out with delicious abandon. She was tingling with -animation and lively interest. Her two friends could no more resist the -impulse to laugh with her than one could refrain from smiling at the -glee of a winsome child.</p> - -<p>As they shook hands she watched them, looking from one to the other with -an expression of such eager, anxious inquiry on her glowing countenance -that the men were just a little embarrassed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_110" id="page_110">{110}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I really should have come to see you long ago,” said Saint Jimmy. “The -right sort of neighbors are not so plentiful in the Cañada del Oro that -we can afford to neglect them. I have heard so much about you, though, -that I feel as if you were really an old-timer whom I have known for -years.”</p> - -<p>He looked smilingly at Marta.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards did not appear at all displeased at the suggestion that the -girl had been talking about him.</p> - -<p>“And I,” he returned with an equally significant glance at Marta, “have -heard so much about Doctor Burton that if there was ever a time when I -didn’t know him I have forgotten it.”</p> - -<p>Marta was delighted. She could not mistake the fact that the two men, as -it sometimes happens, liked each other instantly. They seemed to know -and understand each other instinctively. The truth is that the men -themselves were just a little relieved to find this to be the fact.</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton saw in Marta’s neighbor a man of more than ordinary -personality. That one of such character and education should choose to -live as Edwards was living, amid surroundings so foreign to the -environment in which he had so evidently been born and reared, and -should be content to occupy himself with such menial labor, was to Saint -Jimmy a puzzling thing. But Saint Jimmy was too broad in his -sympathies—too big in his understanding of life to be suspicious of -everything that puzzled him. It would, indeed, have been difficult for -any<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_111" id="page_111">{111}</a></span> healthy-minded, clean-thinking person to be suspicious of Hugh -Edwards.</p> - -<p>And Hugh Edwards recognized instantly in Marta’s teacher that quality -which led all men, except such poor characterless creatures as the -Lizard, to speak in his presence with instinctive gentleness and -deference.</p> - -<p>When they were seated in the shade of the cabin and the two men, who -were to her so like and yet so unlike, were exchanging the usual small -talk with which all friendships, however close and enduring, commonly -begin, Marta watched and listened.</p> - -<p>She was right, she thought proudly; they were alike, and yet they were -different. What was it? Too frank to dissemble, too untrained in such -things to deceive, too natural and innocent to hide her interest, she -compared, contrasted, analyzed. But while she was seeking an answer to -the thing that puzzled her, there was in her mind and heart not the -faintest shadow of a suggestion that she was choosing.</p> - -<p>There was no occasion for choice. Indeed, she was not in reality -thinking—she was feeling.</p> - -<p>And the men, while more apt in hiding their emotions, were scarcely less -conscious of the situation.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Doctor Burton saw the girl’s face change. She was looking past -them as they sat facing her, toward the corner of the cabin. Her -expression of eager animation vanished and in its stead came a look of -almost fear. In the same instant, Jimmy was conscious that Edwards, too, -had noticed the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_112" id="page_112">{112}</a></span> girl’s change of countenance, and that a quick shadow -of dread and apprehension had fallen upon him. The two men turned -quickly.</p> - -<p>Natachee was standing at the corner of the cabin.</p> - -<p>For a long moment no one spoke. Then with a suggestion of a smile, as if -for some reason he was pleased with the situation, the Indian raised his -hand and uttered his customary word of greeting:</p> - -<p>“How.”</p> - -<p>They returned his salutation and he came forward to accept the chair -offered by Edwards. And though his dress, as usual, was that of a -primitive savage, his manner, at the moment, was in no way different -from the bearing of any white man with a background of educational and -social advantages. As he seated himself, he smiled again, as if finding -these three people together gave him a peculiar satisfaction.</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton spoke with the easy familiarity of an old friend:</p> - -<p>“Natachee, why on earth can’t you act more like a human being and less -like a disembodied spirit? You always come and go as silently as a -ghost.”</p> - -<p>“I am as God made me,” the Indian returned lightly, then he added with -mocking deference to the three white people: “Except for a few -improvements added by your civilization. It is odd, is it not,” he -continued, “how the noble red man of your so highly civilized writers -and painters and uplifters of various sorts becomes so often an ignoble<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_113" id="page_113">{113}</a></span> -vagabond once you have subjected him to those same civilizing -influences?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly no one would accuse you of having acquired too much -civilization,” retorted Jimmy.</p> - -<p>“I hope not, I am sure,” returned the Indian quietly. Then turning to -the others, he said graciously, “You will pardon us for this little -exchange of compliments. We are not really being rude to each other, -just friendly, that is all. With me, Saint Jimmy always drops his mask -of saintliness and becomes a savage, and I cease being a savage and -become, if not a saint, at least an imitator of the white man’s virtues. -It is the privilege of our friendship.”</p> - -<p>“You are an old fraud,” declared Saint Jimmy.</p> - -<p>“You flatter me,” returned Natachee. “My white teachers would be proud -of the honor you confer. They tried so hard, you know, to educate me.”</p> - -<p>Edwards was amazed. He had never before heard Natachee talk in this -bantering vein. With him the Indian had always spoken gravely. He had -seldom smiled and had never laughed. The white man felt, too, that -underlying the playfulness of the Indian’s words and the seeming -pleasant humor of his mood, there was a savage interest—a cruel -certainty in the final outcome of some game in which he was taking a -grim part. He seemed to be playing as a cat plays with the victim of its -brutal and superior cunning.</p> - -<p>While Edwards was thinking these things and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_114" id="page_114">{114}</a></span> watching the red man with -an odd feeling of dread which made him recall Marta’s saying that the -Indian always gave her the creeps, Natachee addressed the girl with -grave courtesy:</p> - -<p>“It is really time that your teacher called upon your good neighbor, -isn’t it? I was beginning to fear that our Saint was harboring some -hidden grievance that provoked him to forget the social obligations of -his exalted position.”</p> - -<p>Marta made no reply save a nervous laugh of embarrassment.</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton flushed and said hurriedly:</p> - -<p>“I was just asking Mr. Edwards, Natachee, when you materialized so -unexpectedly, how he liked living in the Cañada del Oro.”</p> - -<p>“And I was about to reply,” said Edwards with enthusiasm, “that it is -the most beautiful, the most wonderfully satisfying place, I have ever -known.”</p> - -<p>The Indian smiled, and his dark eyes glanced from Marta to Saint Jimmy, -as he said:</p> - -<p>“Our cañon is being very good to Mr. Edwards, I think. It is giving him -health, gold enough for the necessities of life, and that peace which -passeth all understanding, with the possibility of acquiring great -wealth. It delights him with the beauty and the grandeur of nature. It -bestows upon him the blessings of a charming and delightful -companionship. And last, but not least, it affords him a sanctuary from -his enemies—if he has any. What more could any man ask of any place?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_115" id="page_115">{115}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards moved uneasily.</p> - -<p>The expression of Marta’s face was that of a wondering, half-frightened -child.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy looked at the Indian intently, as if he, too, had caught the -feeling of a hidden, sinister meaning beneath the red man’s courteous -manner and half-jesting words.</p> - -<p>“Natachee,” he said slowly, “I have often wondered—just what does the -Cañada del Oro mean to you?”</p> - -<p>At the Doctor’s simple question or, perhaps, at the tone of his voice, -the countenance of the Indian suddenly became as cold and impassive as a -face of iron. Sitting there before them, clothed in the wild dress of -his savage ancestors, with his dark features framed in the jet-black -hair with that single drooping feather, he seemed, all at once, to have -thrown off every vestige of his contact with the schools of -civilization. When he had been speaking in the manner of a white man, -there had been something pathetic in his appearance. Only his native -dignity had saved him from being ridiculous. But now he was the living -spirit of the untamed deserts and mountains that on every side shut in -the Cañon of Gold. His dark eyes, filled with the brooding memories of a -vanishing race, turned slowly from face to face.</p> - -<p>The three white people waited, with a strange feeling of uneasiness, for -him to speak.</p> - -<p>“You say that I, Natachee, come and go as a ghost. Well, perhaps I am a -ghost. Why not?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_116" id="page_116">{116}</a></span> It would not be held beyond the belief of some of your -philosophers that the spirit of one who once, long ago, dwelt amid these -scenes, should return again in this body that you call me, Natachee the -Indian. The Cañada del Oro is peopled with ghosts. Those who, in the -years that are gone, lived here in the Cañon of Gold were as the -blossoms on the mountain sides in spring. In the summer months when -there was no rain, the blossoms disappeared. Then the rains came—the -‘Little Spring’ is here—and look, the flowers are everywhere.</p> - -<p>“In this Cañon from the desert below to the pines above, there are holes -by the thousands where men have dug for gold. Climb the mountains and go -among the cliffs and crags and there are more and more of these holes -that were made by those who sought the yellow wealth. Walk the ridges -and make your way into the hidden ravines and gorges—everywhere you -will find them—these holes that men have dug in their search for -treasure. And every hole—every stroke of a pick—every shovel of -dirt—every pan of gravel—was a dream that did not come true; a hope -that was not fulfilled.</p> - -<p>“The Cañon of Gold is haunted by the ghosts of these disappointed ones. -They are the shadows that move upon the mountain sides when the sun is -down and the timid stars creep forth in the lonely sky. They are the -lights that come and go in the cañon depths when the frightened moon -tries to hide in the pines of Mount Lemmon. They are the voices that we -hear in the nighttime, whispering,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_117" id="page_117">{117}</a></span> murmuring, moaning. Weary spirits -that cannot rest, troubled souls that find no peace—the disappointed -ones.</p> - -<p>“And you who dare to dream and hope and labor here in the Cañon of Gold -to-day as those thousands who dared to dream and hope and labor here -before you—what are you but living ghosts among these restless spirits -of the dead? What are you to-day but shadows among the shades of -yesterday?</p> - -<p>“You, Doctor Burton, are only a memory of dreams that did not come true. -You, Mr. Edwards, are but the ghost of the man you once planned to be. -You, Miss Hillgrove, are but the living embodiment of hopes that were -never fulfilled.</p> - -<p>“As the shadow of an eagle passes, you came and you shall go. As the -trail of the eagle in the air so shall your dreams, your hopes and your -labor, be.</p> - -<p>“I, Natachee, know these things. But because I am an Indian, I dream no -dreams—I have no hopes.” He arose and for a moment stood silent before -them. Then he said: “Natachee the Indian lives among the ghosts in the -Cañon of Gold.”</p> - -<p>Before they could speak, he was gone; as silently as he had come he -disappeared around the corner of the cabin.</p> - -<p>The two men and the girl sat as if under a spell and in the heart of -each there was a strange sadness and a shadow of fear.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>As Doctor Burton made his way homeward, he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_118" id="page_118">{118}</a></span> wished more than ever that -he had told Marta the things that the Pardners had related to him.</p> - -<p>Ever since that day when she had first talked to him of the stranger, -Saint Jimmy had watched carefully the girl’s growing interest in her new -neighbor. And, while Marta herself had been wholly unconscious of the -true meaning of those emotions which so disturbed her, her teacher had -understood that the womanhood of his child pupil was beginning to assert -itself. He was too wise not to know also that the time was approaching -when Marta herself would understand.</p> - -<p>Through all her girlhood she had been no more conscious of herself than -were the wild creatures that she knew so much better than she knew her -own humankind. She had lived and accepted life without a thought of the -part that, as a woman, she would some day be called upon to play in it. -Because of this freedom from self, she had not been deeply concerned -about the beginnings of her life. But with the arousing of those -instincts that were to her so strange would come inevitably a tremendous -quickening of her interest in herself. This new and vital interest in -herself would as surely force her to inquire with determined and fearful -persistency into her past. Who was she? Who were her parents? Under what -circumstances was she born?</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton knew the fine pride and the sensitive nature of his pupil -too well not to realize that, when the time did come for the girl to ask -these<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_119" id="page_119">{119}</a></span> questions, her happiness might well depend upon the answers.</p> - -<p>The Lizard’s loose-mouthed gossip had brought him suddenly face to face -with a situation which was to his mind filled with real danger to -Marta’s future. His meeting with Hugh Edwards, his quick observation of -the comradeship that had developed between Marta and her neighbor, the -uneasy forebodings aroused by the Indian’s words, all combined now to -make him resolve that, at any cost to himself, he no longer would put -off telling the girl what she ought to know. If Hugh Edwards were not -the type of man he was, or if Marta were not the kind of girl she was, -it would not, perhaps, make so much difference. To-morrow Marta was -going to Oracle. She would stop at the little white house on the -mountain side on her way home. Saint Jimmy promised himself that he -would surely tell her then.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_120" id="page_120">{120}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII<br /><br /> -THE AWAKENING</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>She understood now why the old prospectors had never talked to her -of her parents or told her how she happened to be their partnership -daughter.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">M</span>ARTA began that day with such buoyant happiness that even her fathers, -accustomed as they were to her habitually joyous nature, commented on -it.</p> - -<p>The air was tingling with the fresh and vigorous sweetness of the early -morning. From the kitchen door, as she prepared breakfast, she saw the -mountain tops, golden in the first waves of the sunshine flood that a -few hours later would fill the sky from rim to rim and cover the earth -from horizon to horizon with its dazzling beauty. From some shelf on the -cañon wall, a cañon wren loosed a flood of joyous silvery music, gracing -his song with runs and flourishes, rich and vibrant, as if the very -spirit of the hour was in his melody, and while the cañon echoed and -reëchoed to the wondrous, ringing music of the tiny minstrel and the -girl, with happy eyes and smiling lips, listened, she saw a thin column -of smoke rise from that neighboring cabin and knew that her neighbor, -too, was beginning his day.</p> - -<p>Like the puff of air that stirred the yellow blossom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_121" id="page_121">{121}</a></span> of the whispering -bells beside the creek, the thought came: Was he enjoying with her the -beauty and the sweetness of the morning? Was he sharing her happiness in -the new day? Then, as she watched, Hugh appeared in the cabin doorway -with a bucket in his hand. He was going for water to make his coffee. -She saw him pause and look toward her, and her face was radiant with -gladness as her voice rang out in merry greeting.</p> - -<p>All that forenoon she went about her household work with a singing -heart. When the midday meal was over, her fathers saddled Nugget and, as -soon as she had washed the dishes, she set out for Oracle to purchase -some needed supplies.</p> - -<p>When the girl stopped at his cabin, as she always did, to ask if she -could bring anything for him from the store, Edwards thought she had -never looked so radiantly beautiful. Glowing with the color of her -superb health and rich vitality—animated and eager with the fervor of -her joyous spirit—she was so alluring that the man was sorely tempted -to say to her those things that he had sternly forbidden himself even to -think. Lest his eyes betray the feeling he had sentenced himself to -suppress, he made pretext of giving some small attention to her horse’s -bridle, so that from the saddle she could not see his face.</p> - -<p>As she rode on up the trail, he stood there watching her. When she had -passed from sight around a sharp angle of the cañon wall, he went slowly -to the place where through the long days he labored in his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_122" id="page_122">{122}</a></span> search for -the grains of yellow metal that had come to mean so much more to him -than mere daily bread.</p> - -<p>Where the trail to the little white house on the hill branches off from -the main road to Oracle, Marta checked her horse. She wanted to go to -Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. She wanted them to know and share her -happiness. She wanted to tell them how grateful she was for their -love—for all that they had done to save her from the ignorant, -undisciplined and dangerously impulsive creature she would have been but -for their patient teaching. In the fullness of her heart she told -herself that without Saint Jimmy and his mother she could never have -known the joy and gladness that had come to her. Without conscious -reasoning, she realized that it was their teaching, their love, their -understanding of her needs, that had fitted her for that time of her -awakening to the glad call of those deeper emotions that now moved her -young womanhood. But above Mount Lemmon and back of Rice Peak, huge -cumulus clouds were rolling up, and the girl knew that she must continue -on the more direct way if she would finish her errand at the store and -return before the storm that might come later in the day. On her way -back, she could stop at the Burtons, for then, if the storm came, it -would not so much matter.</p> - -<p>Through narrow, rocky ravines and tree-shaded draws and sandy washes, up -the steep sides of mountain spurs and along the ridges, Nugget carried<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_123" id="page_123">{123}</a></span> -her, out of the Cañon of Gold to the higher levels. And everywhere about -her as she rode, the mountain sides were bright with the blossoms of the -“Little Spring.” Sego lilies and sulphur flowers, wild buckwheat, -thistle poppies and bee plant, and, most exquisitely beautiful of all, -perhaps, the violet-tinted blue larkspur—<i>Espuela del -caballero</i>—Cavalier’s spur—the early Spaniards called it.</p> - -<p>In George Wheeler’s pasture, not far from the corrals with the windmill -and the water tank, she met the sturdy, red-cheeked Wheeler boys and -Turquoise, one of the ranch dogs, playing Indian. From their ambush -behind a granite rock, they shot at her with their make-believe guns, -and charged with such savage fury and fierce war whoops that Nugget -danced in quick excitement. While she was laughing with them and they -were courteously opening the big gate for her, their father shouted a -genial greeting from the barn, and Mrs. Wheeler from the front porch -called a cheery invitation for her to stop awhile. But she answered that -it looked as if it were going to rain, and that she must be home in time -for supper, and rode on her way to the little mountain village.</p> - -<p>In the wide space in front of the store, a group of saddle horses stood -with heads down and hanging bridle reins, waiting with sleepy patience -for their riders who were lounging on the high platform that, with steps -at either end, was built across the front of the building. As she drew -near, Marta recognized the Lizard. Then, as they watched her -approaching,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_124" id="page_124">{124}</a></span> she saw the Lizard say something to his companions, and -the company of idlers broke into loud laughter. The girl’s face flushed -with the uncomfortable feeling that she was the victim of the fellow’s -uncouth wit. Two of the men arose and stood a little apart from the -Lizard and his fellow loungers.</p> - -<p>When the girl stopped her horse, a sudden hush fell over the group, and -as she dismounted she was conscious that every eye was fixed upon her. -With burning cheeks and every nerve in her body smarting with indignant -embarrassment, the girl went quickly up the steps and into the store. As -she passed them, the two cowboys who stood apart lifted their hats.</p> - -<p>The girl was just inside the open doorway when the Lizard spoke again, -and again his companions roared with unclean mirth at the vulgar -jest—and this time Marta heard. She stopped as if some one had struck -her. Stunned with the shock, she stood hesitating, trembling, not -knowing what to do. For the first time in her life the girl was -frightened and ashamed.</p> - -<p>Two women of the village who were buying groceries regarded her coldly -for a moment, then, turning their backs, whispered together. Timidly the -girl went to the farther end of the room where, to hide her emotions -until she could gain control of herself, she pretended an interest in -the contents of a show case.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Before the laughter of the Lizard’s crowd had ceased, one of the cowboys -who had raised his hat<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_125" id="page_125">{125}</a></span> walked up to them. With an expression of -unspeakable disgust and contempt upon his bronzed face, the rider looked -the Lizard up and down. Those who had laughed sat motionless and silent. -Slowly the man from Arkansas got to his feet.</p> - -<p>The cowboy spoke in a low voice, as if not wishing his words to be heard -in the store.</p> - -<p>“That’ll be about all from you—you stinkin’ son of a polecat. Never -mind yer gun,” he added sharply as the Lizard’s hand crept toward the -leg of his chaps. “Thar ain’t goin’ to be no trouble—not here and now. -I’m jest tellin’ you this time that such remarks are out of order a -heap, here in Arizona. They may be customary back where you come from, -but they won’t make you popular in this country—except, mebby, with -varmints of your own sort.”</p> - -<p>He included the Lizard’s friends in his look of cool readiness.</p> - -<p>Not a man moved. The cowboy carefully rolled a cigarette. Calmly he -lighted a match, and with the first deep inhalation of smoke, flipped -the burnt bit of wood at the Lizard. To the others he said:</p> - -<p>“I notice you hombres are thinkin’ it over. You’d best keep right on -thinkin’. As for you——“</p> - -<p>He again looked the man from Arkansas up and down with slow, -contemptuous eyes. Then, without another word, he deliberately turned -his back upon the Lizard and his friends and walked leisurely to his -horse.</p> - -<p>As the cowboy and his companion rode away<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_126" id="page_126">{126}</a></span> another chorus of laughter -came from the group of idlers and this time their merriment was caused, -not by anything the Lizard said, but was directed at the Lizard himself.</p> - -<p>“Better not let Steve Brodie catch you again,” advised one.</p> - -<p>“He’ll sure climb your frame if he does,” said another.</p> - -<p>“Steve’s a-ridin’ fer the Three C now, ain’t he?” asked another, -seemingly anxious to change the subject.</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh—Good man, Steve,” came from another.</p> - -<p>With an oath, the Lizard slouched away to his horse and, mounting, rode -off in the direction of his home.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>In the store, Marta struggled desperately to regain at least a semblance -of composure.</p> - -<p>The two women, when they had made their purchases, were in no haste to -go, and, under the pretext of taking advantage of their meeting for a -friendly chat, furtively watched the Pardners’ girl.</p> - -<p>Marta, pretending to examine some dress goods displayed on a table -behind the stove, tried to hide herself. When the kindly clerk came to -wait on her she started and blushed. Trembling and confused, she could -not remember what it was that she had come to buy.</p> - -<p>The clerk looked at her curiously. The women whispered again and -tittered.</p> - -<p>At last, in desperation, the girl stammered that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_127" id="page_127">{127}</a></span> she did not want -anything—that she must go—that she would come in again before she -started home. With downcast eyes and burning cheeks, she fled.</p> - -<p>As she passed the men on the platform and walked swiftly to her horse -she kept her eyes on the ground. She was so weak that she could scarcely -raise herself to the saddle.</p> - -<p>But the men were not watching her now. With their faces turned away they -were, with one accord, interested in something that held their gaze in -another direction.</p> - -<p>Perplexed and troubled, Marta made her way slowly back toward the cañon. -When Nugget, thinking quite likely of his supper, or perhaps observing -the dark storm clouds that now hid the mountain tops, would have broken -into a swifter pace, she pulled him down to a walk. Annoyed at the -unusual restraint, the little horse fretted, tossed his head, and tugged -at the bit. But she would not let him go. The girl wanted to think. She -felt that she <i>must</i> think.</p> - -<p>What was the meaning of that incident at the store? Why did those men -laugh in just that way when they first saw her? Why had they watched her -like that when she dismounted? Why had they looked at her so as she -passed them? Why did those women refuse to speak to her?—they knew her. -And what had they whispered after turning their backs upon her? She had -never before been conscious of anything like this. All her life she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_128" id="page_128">{128}</a></span> -met rough men. She had not been unaccustomed to rude jests. She had -been, in the presence of men, like a young boy—unconscious of her sex. -The only close association with men she had ever known was with Saint -Jimmy and her fathers—until Edwards came. It could not be that these -people were any different to-day than on other days when she had gone to -the store. It must be that she herself was different.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” she told herself at last, “she <i>was</i> different.”</p> - -<p>Just as she had found a deeper happiness than she had ever before known, -she had found a new consciousness—a new capacity for feeling—that had -made her blush when the men looked at her—that had made her ashamed -when she had heard the Lizard’s jest.</p> - -<p>And then her mind went back to consider things which she had always -accepted as a matter of course, without question or particular -thought—as she had accepted her two fathers.</p> - -<p>Why had she never been invited to the parties and dances at Oracle? Why -was it that, except for Mother Burton and good Mrs. Wheeler, she had no -women friends? Only men had attempted to be friendly with her, and they -had approached her only when she met them by chance, alone. She knew -them all—they all knew her. Suddenly she remembered how Saint Jimmy had -warned her once—long before Hugh Edwards had come to the Cañada del -Oro:</p> - -<p>“You must be always very careful in your friend<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_129" id="page_129">{129}</a></span>ships, dear. Before you -permit an acquaintance with any man to develop into anything like -intimacy, you must know about his past. And by past, I mean -parentage—family—ancestors, as well as his own personal record. For -let me tell you that no one can escape these things. We are all what the -past has made us.”</p> - -<p>The inevitable question came in a flash. What was her own past—her -parentage—her family? The conclusion came as quickly. She understood -now why the old prospectors had never talked to her of her own parents, -nor told her how she happened to be their partnership daughter. She -understood now the significance of her name, Hillgrove—her two fathers -had given her their names because she had no name of her own. Nothing -else could so clearly explain the attitude of the people which had been -so forcefully impressed upon her by her new consciousness.</p> - -<p>Just as the young woman reached this point in her reasoning, her horse -stopped of his own volition. The girl had been so engrossed with her -thoughts that she had not seen the Lizard ride from behind a thick -screen of low cedars beside the trail and check his horse directly -across the path. She was not at all frightened when she looked up and -saw him waiting there, barring her way. Indeed, she regarded the fellow -with a new interest. It was as if one factor in her sad problem had -suddenly presented itself in a very definite and tangible form.</p> - -<p>“Well,” she said at last, “what do <i>you</i> want?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_130" id="page_130">{130}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Lizard’s wide-mouthed, leering grin was not in the least reassuring.</p> - -<p>“I knowed ye’d be a-comin’ along directly,” he said, “an’ ’lowed we’d -ride t’gether.”</p> - -<p>“But what if I do not care to ride with you?” she returned curiously.</p> - -<p>“Oh, that ain’t a-botherin’ me none. I ain’t noways thin-skinned,” he -returned, reining his horse aside from the trail to make room for her. -“Come along—ye might as well be sociable like. I know I can’t make much -of a-showin’ in eddication an’ fine school talk like you been used to, -but I’m jist as good as that lunger Saint Jimmy, er that there fancy -neighbor of yourn any day.”</p> - -<p>Something in the fellow’s face, or some quality in his tone, brought the -blood to Marta’s cheeks.</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” she said curtly, “but I prefer to ride alone.”</p> - -<p>She lifted the bridle rein and Nugget started forward.</p> - -<p>But the Lizard again pulled his mount across the trail and the man’s -ratlike face was twisted now, with sudden rage.</p> - -<p>“Oh, you do, do you? Wall, let me tell you I’ve stood all I’m a-goin’ t’ -stand on your account to-day.”</p> - -<p>“Why, what do you mean?” she demanded, amazed.</p> - -<p>“Never you mind what I mean, my lady. You jist listen to what I got t’ -say. You’ve been a-playin’ th’ high an’ mighty with me long enough. D’ -ye think I don’t know what you are? D’ ye think I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_131" id="page_131">{131}</a></span> don’t know all about -your carryin’ on. My Gawd a’mighty, hit’s a disgrace t’ any decent -neighborhood. A pretty one you are t’ be a-puttin’ on airs with me. Why, -you poor little fool, everybody knows what you are. Who’s yer father? -Who’s yer mother? Decent people has got decent folks, an’ you—you ain’t -got none. You ain’t even got a name of yer own—Hillgrove—two fathers. -Yer jist low-down trash an’ nobody that’s decent won’t have nothin’ t’ -do with you. You prefer t’ ride alone, do you? All right, my fine lady, -you needn’t worry none, you’re goin’ t’ ride alone all right. I wouldn’t -be seen within a mile of you.”</p> - -<p>With the last brutal word, he whirled his horse about and set off down -the trail as fast as the animal could run.</p> - -<p>The girl, with her head bowed low over the saddlehorn, sat very still. -Her trembling fingers nervously twisted a lock of Nugget’s mane. Here -was confirmation, indeed, of all the doubts and fears to which she had -been led by her own painful thoughts. Here was the answer to all her -questions. Here at last was the explanation of those emotions which were -to her so new and strange.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_132" id="page_132">{132}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV<br /><br /> -THE STORM</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“There ain’t a God almighty thing that we can do ’til th’ mornin’.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE old Pardners, when their day’s work was finished, climbed slowly -down from the mouth of the tunnel to the creek and, crossing the little -stream, climbed as slowly up to the level above. As his head and -shoulders came above the top of the steep bank, Thad, who was in the -lead, stopped.</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter?” called Bob, who was close behind in the narrow path -with his head on a level with his pardner’s feet. “Gittin’ so old you -can’t make the grade without takin’ a rest, be you?”</p> - -<p>“Whar’s the little pinto hoss?” demanded Thad in an injured tone, as if -the absence of Nugget was a personal grievance.</p> - -<p>Bob climbed to his pardner’s side.</p> - -<p>“Looks like Marta ain’t back yet.”</p> - -<p>“She ought to be,” said Thad with an anxious eye on the threatening -clouds that now hung dark and heavy over the upper cañon.</p> - -<p>“Stopped at Saint Jimmy’s, I reckon,” returned Bob, who was also -studying the angry sky. “Goin’ to storm some, ain’t it?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_133" id="page_133">{133}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“The gal sure can’t miss seein’ that,” returned the other, “an’ she -ought to know that when we do get a storm this time of the year, it’s -always a buster. I wish she was home.”</p> - -<p>“Mebby she’s over to Edwards’,” said Bob hopefully.</p> - -<p>They went on toward the house until they gained an unobstructed view of -the neighboring cabin and premises.</p> - -<p>“Her hoss ain’t there neither,” said Thad, and again he looked up at the -dark, rolling clouds.</p> - -<p>“Oh, she’ll be comin’ along in a minute or two,” offered Bob soothingly, -but his voice betrayed the anxiety his words were meant to hide.</p> - -<p>Marta was no novice in the mountains, and the old Pardners knew that it -was not like their girl to ignore the near approach of a storm that -would in a few moments change the murmuring cañon creek into a wild, -roaring flood that no living horse could ford or swim. The trail, on its -course from her home to the Burtons, and to Oracle, crossed and -recrossed the creek many times, and should the storm break in the upper -cañon at the right moment, it would easily be possible for the girl to -be trapped at some point between the cañon walls and the bends of the -stream, and forced to spend at least the night there. More than this, -there was a place where the trail followed for some distance up the -narrow, sandy bed of the creek itself, between sheer cliffs. The -Pardners and Marta had more than once seen a rolling, plunging, raging -wall of water<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_134" id="page_134">{134}</a></span> come thundering down the cañon from a storm above, with a -mad force that no power on earth could check or face, and with a -swiftness that no horse could outrun.</p> - -<p>A few scattered drops of rain came pattering down. The Pardners without -another word hurried over to Edwards’ cabin.</p> - -<p>The younger man, who was coming up the path from his work, greeted them -with a cheery, “Hello, neighbors—looks like we’re going to have a -shower.” Then as he came closer and saw their faces, his own countenance -changed and the old look of fear came into his eyes. “Why, what’s the -matter—what has happened?” He glanced quickly around, as if half -expecting to see some one else near-by.</p> - -<p>“Marta ain’t come home,” said Thad.</p> - -<p>And in the same instant Bob asked:</p> - -<p>“Did she say anythin’ to you about bein’ specially late gettin’ back -to-day?”</p> - -<p>Edwards drew a long breath of relief.</p> - -<p>“No, she said nothing to me about her plans. But really, there is no -cause for worry, is there? She always stops at the Burtons’ with the -mail on her way back, you know. Perhaps she stayed longer than she -realized. Come on in out of the wet,” he added, as the pattering drops -of rain grew more plentiful. “She will be along presently, I am sure.”</p> - -<p>With a glance at the fast-approaching storm, Thad said quickly:</p> - -<p>“You don’t understand, son, we ain’t worried<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_135" id="page_135">{135}</a></span> about the gal gettin’ -wet.” And then in a few words he explained the grave possibilities of -the situation. “If she stops at Saint Jimmy’s, it’ll be all right, but -if she’s a-tryin’ to make it home and gets caught in the cañon——“</p> - -<p>A gust of wind and a swirling dash of rain punctuated his words.</p> - -<p>Old Bob started for the cañon trail. The others followed at his heels. -When they reached the narrow road a short distance away they halted for -a second.</p> - -<p>“There’s fresh hoss tracks,” said Bob. “Somebody’s been ridin’ this way. -’Tain’t the pinto, though.”</p> - -<p>“It’s the Lizard probably,” said Edwards. “I saw him pass on his way up -the cañon this forenoon.”</p> - -<p>Half running, they hurried on. Before they reached the first turn in the -cañon, a fierce downpour drenched them to the skin. The falling flood of -water, driven by the blast that swept down from the mountain heights and -swirled around the cliffs and angles of the cañon walls, hissed and -roared with fury.</p> - -<p>“There goes any chance of strikin’ her trail,” shouted Thad grimly.</p> - -<p>The three men bent their heads and broke into a run.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of that stretch of the trail which follows the bed of -the creek, Bob stopped abruptly.</p> - -<p>“Look here,” he said to the others, “we’ve got to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_136" id="page_136">{136}</a></span> use some sense an’ go -at this thing right. If we all of us go ahead like this, we’ll all be -caught on t’other side of the creek when the rise gets here. If she -ain’t already in the cañon, she might be at Saint Jimmy’s, and she might -not. There’s a chance that the gal got started home from the store late -an’ was afraid to try comin’ this way, and so left Oracle by the Tucson -highway, figurin’ to cut across the hills somewheres to the old cañon -road an’ try crossin’ the creek lower down, like we do sometimes. It’ll -be plumb dark pretty quick an’ if she ain’t at Saint Jimmy’s, there -ought to two of us cover both trails—the one by Burtons’ an’ the one -that goes direct, an’ there ought to one of us stay on this side of the -creek in case she has made it the other way ’round. You won’t be much -good nohow, son,” he continued to Edwards, “if it comes to huntin’ the -hills out, ’cause you don’t know the country like we do. Suppose you go -back down to the lower crossin’ where the old road comes into the cañon, -you know—the way you come. If she don’t show up there in another hour -or two, you’ll know she didn’t go that way. There ain’t another thing -that you can do ’til daylight.”</p> - -<p>“You men know best,” said Edwards and turned to go.</p> - -<p>Thad caught the younger man by the arm.</p> - -<p>“Wait.” For a second he paused, then spoke slowly: “It might not be a -bad idea while you’re down that way to drop in on the Lizard.”</p> - -<p>“Come on,” cried Bob. “We sure got to run for it if we beat the rise -into this cut.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_137" id="page_137">{137}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Pardners disappeared in the gray, swirling downpour. Edwards, with a -new fear in his heart, ran with all his strength down the cañon. But it -was not alone the thought of the coming flood that made his heart sink -with sickening dread—it was the memory of the Lizard’s face that day -when the fellow had first told him of Marta.</p> - -<p>By the time he reached the cabin, Hugh heard the roaring thunder of the -flood. For an instant he paused. Had the two old prospectors gained the -higher ground beyond the stretch of trail in the creek bottom in time? -He turned as if to go back, then came the thought he could not now -retrace his steps beyond the first crossing. Whether the Pardners were -safe or were caught by the flood, it was too late now for human aid to -reach them.</p> - -<p>Again he hurried on down the cañon. When he came to the place where he -had made his camp that first night in the Cañon of Gold, it was almost -dark, but over the spot where he had built his fire and spread his -blanket bed he could see a leaping, racing torrent that filled the -channel of the creek from bank to bank.</p> - -<p>For nearly three hours he waited where the old road crossed the stream. -Convinced at last that Marta had not come that way, he went on down the -cañon, to the adobe house where the Lizard lived with his parents.</p> - -<p>It was late now but there was a light in the window. The dogs filled the -night with their clamor as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_138" id="page_138">{138}</a></span> approached and he stopped at the -dilapidated gate to shout:</p> - -<p>“Hello—Hello!”</p> - -<p>The door opened and a long lane of light cut through the darkness. The -Lizard’s voice followed the light:</p> - -<p>“Hello yourself—what do you want—who be you?”</p> - -<p>“I’m Edwards from up the cañon—call off your dogs, will you?”</p> - -<p>From the gate, he could see the fellow in the doorway turn to consult -with some one inside. Then the Lizard called to the dogs and shouted:</p> - -<p>“Come on in, neighbor. Little late fer you t’ be out, ain’t it?” he -added as Edwards approached, then: “Who you got with you?”</p> - -<p>“There is no one with me,” returned Edwards as he paused in the light -before the door.</p> - -<p>“Come in—yer welcome—come right in an’ set by the fire. Yer some wet, -I reckon.” As the Lizard spoke, he drew aside from the doorway and as -Edwards entered he saw the man place a rifle, which he had held, against -the wall.</p> - -<p>An old woman sat beside the open fire smoking a cob pipe. The Lizard’s -father stood with his back to the wall at the far end of the room. They -greeted the visitor with a brief, “Howdy.” The Lizard offered a -broken-backed chair.</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” said Edwards, “but I can’t stop to sit down. I came to ask -if you have seen Miss Hillgrove this afternoon.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_139" id="page_139">{139}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Lizard and his father looked at each other. The old mother answered:</p> - -<p>“What’s the matter, come up missin’, has she?”</p> - -<p>Edwards told them in a few words.</p> - -<p>The old woman spat in the fire and laughed.</p> - -<p>“She’s most likely out in the brush somewheres with some no-account -feller like herself. Sarves her right if she gits caught by the creek. -Sich triflin’ hussies ought ter git drowned, I say—allus a-tryin’ t’ -coax decent folks inter meanness. Best not waste yer time a-huntin’ sich -as her, young man.”</p> - -<p>Edwards spoke sharply to the Lizard, who was grinning with satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“Did you see Miss Hillgrove this afternoon, anywhere on the trail -between here and Oracle?”</p> - -<p>The father answered in a voice shrill with vicious anger.</p> - -<p>“Wal, an’ what ef he did—who be you to be a-comin’ here at this time o’ -the night wantin’ t’ know ef my boy has or hain’t seed nobody?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards forced himself to speak calmly.</p> - -<p>“I am asking a civil question which your son should be glad to answer.” -He again faced the Lizard. “Did you see her?”</p> - -<p>An insolent, wide-mouthed grin was the Lizard’s only reply.</p> - -<p>The old woman by the fire looked over her shoulder.</p> - -<p>“Tell him, boy, tell him,” she croaked. “You ain’t got no call to be -skeered o’ sich as him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_140" id="page_140">{140}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Shucks, maw,” said the son. “I ain’t skeered o’ nothin’. I’m jist -a-havin’ a little fun, that’s all.”</p> - -<p>He addressed Edwards:</p> - -<p>“You bet yer life I seed her ’bout a mile this side o’ Wheeler’s pasture -it was. We shore had a nice little visit too. You an’ that thar Saint -Jimmy needn’t t’ think you’re th’ only ones.”</p> - -<p>Before Edwards could speak, the old woman cried again:</p> - -<p>“Tell him, son—why don’t ye tell him what ye said?”</p> - -<p>The Lizard grinned.</p> - -<p>“I shore told her enough. I’d been a-aimin’ t’ lay her out first chanct -I got. When I got through with her, you can bet she knowed more ’bout -herself than she’d ever knowed before. She shore knows now what she is -an’ what folks is a-thinkin’ ’bout her an’ her carryin’ on with that -there lunger an’ you.” His voice rose and his rat eyes glistened with -triumph. “She wouldn’t ride with me—Oh, no!—‘prefer t’ ride alone,’ -says she. An’ I says, says I—when I’d finished a-tellin’ her what she -was an’ how she didn’t have no folks, ner name, ner nothin’—‘You -needn’t t’ worry none, there wouldn’t no decent man be seen within a -mile of you.’ An’ then I left her settin’ thar like she’d been whipped.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards moved a step nearer. It seemed impossible to him that any -man could do a thing so vile.</p> - -<p>“Are you in earnest?” he asked. “Did you really say such things to Miss -Hillgrove?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_141" id="page_141">{141}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I shore did,” returned the Lizard proudly. “I believe in lettin’ sech -people know whar they stand. She’s been a-playin’ th’ high an’ mighty -with me long enough.”</p> - -<p>Then Edwards struck. With every ounce of his strength behind it, the -blow landed fair on the point of the Lizard’s chin. The loose mouth was -open at the instant, the slack jaw received the impact with no -resistance. The effect was terrific. The fellow’s head snapped back as -if his neck were broken—he fell limp and senseless halfway across the -room.</p> - -<p>The old woman screeched to her man:</p> - -<p>“Git him, Jole, git him!”</p> - -<p>The Lizard’s father started forward and Edwards saw a knife.</p> - -<p>A quick leap and Hugh caught up the rifle that the Lizard had placed -against the wall. Covering the man with the knife, the visitor said -coolly to the woman:</p> - -<p>“Not to-night, madam. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but he isn’t going to -get any one just now.”</p> - -<p>He backed to the door and opened it with his face toward them and his -weapon ready.</p> - -<p>“I will leave this gun at the gate,” he said. “If you are as wise as I -think you are, you will not leave this room until you are sure that I am -gone.”</p> - -<p>He pulled the door shut as he backed across the threshold.</p> - -<p>As Hugh Edwards made his way back up the cañon he reflected on what the -Lizard had said.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_142" id="page_142">{142}</a></span> One thing was certain, Marta had not started home by -the highway. But where was she now? At Saint Jimmy’s? Edwards doubted -that the girl would go to her friends after such an experience. Nor did -he believe that she would come directly home. He knew too well the -sensitive pride that was under all the frank boyishness of her nature. -No one was better fitted than he to appreciate the possible effects of -the Lizard’s cruelty.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards knew the dreadful power of humiliation and shame. He knew -the burning, withering torture of unexpected and unjust public exposure -and of undeserved popular condemnation. He knew the horror and despair -of innocence subjected to the unspeakable cruelty of those evil-minded -gossips whose one hope is that the venomous news they spread may be -true, so that they will not be deprived of their vicious pleasure. -Better than any one, Hugh Edwards knew why Marta had not come home after -meeting the Lizard.</p> - -<p>Like a hunted creature, wounded and spent, this man had come, as so many -had come before him, to the Cañada del Oro. He had come to the Cañon of -Gold to forget and to be forgotten—and he had found Marta. In the -frankness and fearlessness of her innocence, the girl had not known how -to keep her love from him. And seeing her love, hungering for that love -as a starving man hungers for food, as a soul in torment hungers for -peace, he had resolutely forbidden himself to speak the words that would -make her his.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_143" id="page_143">{143}</a></span></p> - -<p>When he had first come to the cañon, he had hoped only to find gold -enough to secure the bare necessities of life. And when out of their -daily companionship his love had come with such distracting power, he -had been the more miserable. But when he had heard from the Pardners -their story of how they found the girl, he had seen that there was no -reason save his own ill-starred past why, if he could win freedom from -that past, he might not claim her. That freedom—the freedom from the -thing that had driven him to hide in the Cañada del Oro—the freedom to -tell her his love, could only be had in the gold for which he toiled in -the sand and gravel and rocks beside the cañon creek.</p> - -<p>As men, through all the years, have sought gold for love, so he had -worked in that place of broken hopes and vanished dreams. Every day when -she was with him he had sternly forced himself to wait. Every night he -had dreamed, in his lonely cabin, of the time when he should be free. -Every morning he had gone to his work at sunrise, buoyed with the hope -that before dark his pick and shovel would uncover a rich pocket of the -yellow metal. Every evening at sunset, as he climbed up the steep path -from the place of his labor, he had whispered to himself, “To-morrow.” -And now it had all come to this. With the knowledge of what the Lizard -had done, and the full realization of all that might so easily result, -the man’s control of himself was broken. He was beside himself with -anxiety. If<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_144" id="page_144">{144}</a></span> Marta was not safe with her friends in the little white -house on the mountain side, where was she? Had the Pardners found her? -Was she wandering half insane with shame and despair through the storm -and darkness? Had she been caught in that plunging flood that was -roaring with such wild fury down the cañon? Was her beautiful body, that -had been so vivid, so radiant with life, at that moment being crushed -and torn by the grinding bowlders and jagged walls of rocks? Perhaps the -Pardners, too, had been met by that rushing wall of water before they -could escape from the trap into which he had seen them disappear. As -these thoughts crowded upon him, the man broke into a run. There must be -something—something that he could do. The sense of his utter -uselessness was maddening.</p> - -<p>At the gate to Marta’s home he stopped, and in the agony of his fears he -shouted her name. Again and again he called, until the loneliness of the -dark house and the sullen grinding, crashing roar of the creek drove him -on. At the first crossing above his own cabin, the stream barred his -way. Again he cried with all his might, “Marta! Marta! Thad! Bob!” But -the sound of his voice was lost, beaten down, overwhelmed by the wild -tumult of the plunging torrent. At last, weary and spent with his -efforts, and realizing dully the foolishness of such a useless waste of -his strength, he returned to Marta’s home.</p> - -<p>He did not stop at his own cabin. Something<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_145" id="page_145">{145}</a></span> seemed to lead him on to -that house to which he had drifted months before, as a broken and -battered ship drifts into a safe harbor from the storm that has left it -nearly a wreck. Since the first hour of his coming, that home had been -his refuge. Every morning from his own cabin door he had looked for the -chimney smoke as a wretched castaway watches for a signal of hope and -cheer. Every night in his loneliness he had looked for the lights as one -lost in the desert looks at a guiding star. He could not bear the -thought now of those dark windows and empty rooms.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>As the Pardners were climbing out of the creek bed where the trail -leaves the cañon for the higher levels they heard the thundering roar of -the coming flood.</p> - -<p>“Thank God, we know that won’t git her anyhow,” gasped old Thad. “That -there run jest about winded me.”</p> - -<p>Bob, panting heavily, managed a sickly grin.</p> - -<p>“Like as not we’ll find her safe an’ dry eatin’ supper at Saint Jimmy’s, -an’ ready to laugh at us for a pair of old fools gettin’ ourselves so -worked up over nothin’.”</p> - -<p>“Here’s hopin’,” returned the other. “But it’s bound to be a bad night -for the boy back there. Pity there won’t be no way to get word to him -’til mornin’.”</p> - -<p>They could not go very fast, and it was pitch dark before they reached -the little white house. But at the sight of the lighted windows they -hurried as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_146" id="page_146">{146}</a></span> best they could, stumbling over the loose rocks and slipping -in the mud up the narrow, zigzag trail.</p> - -<p>In less than ten minutes from the time Saint Jimmy opened the door in -answer to their knock they were again starting out into the night. And -this time they separated. Thad returned to the point where the path that -leads by the Burton place branches off from the main trail to make his -way from there on, while Bob continued on the path from the white house -which joins again the main trail at Wheeler’s pasture gate.</p> - -<p>Another hour, and the storm was past. Through the ragged clouds, the -stars peered timidly. But every ravine and draw and wash was a channel -for a roaring freshet.</p> - -<p>A little way from Wheeler’s corral, in the pasture, Thad met his pardner -coming back. He was riding and leading another horse saddled.</p> - -<p>“She didn’t start home on the highway,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>“They seen her at Wheeler’s, did they?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, George saw her himself when she was goin’, an’ when she come back. -George, he’s saddled up an’ gone on into Oracle to pass the word. He’ll -be out with a bunch of riders at sun-up.”</p> - -<p>Thad climbed stiffly into the saddle and for some minutes the two old -prospectors sat on their horses without speaking, while over their heads -the windtorn clouds swept past as if hurrying to some meeting place -beyond the distant hills.</p> - -<p>“There ain’t a God almighty thing that we can do ’til th’ mornin’,” said -Bob at last.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_147" id="page_147">{147}</a></span></p> - -<p>Slowly and in silence they rode back to the little white house on the -mountain side, there to wait with Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton for the -coming of the day.</p> - -<p>The two old prospectors, who had spent the greater part of their lives -amid scenes of hardship and danger and whose years had been years of -disappointment and failure in their vain search for treasure of gold, -had given themselves without reserve to the child that chance had so -strangely placed in their keeping. Lacking the home love and the -fatherhood that spurs the millions of toiling men to their tasks, and -glorifies the burden of their labors, Bob and Thad had spent themselves -in their love for their partnership daughter. But, because these men had -been schooled in silence by the deserts and the mountains, they made no -outward show of their anxiety and fear. They did not cry out in wild -protest and vain regrets and idle conjectures. They did not walk the -floor or wring their hands. They sat motionless in stolid -silence—waiting.</p> - -<p>Mother Burton, in the seclusion of her own room, found relief for her -overwrought nerves in quiet tears and carried the burden of her anxious, -aching mother-heart to the God of motherhood.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy paced the floor with slow, measured steps, pausing now and -then to look from the window into the night or to stand in the open -doorway with his face lifted to the wind-swept sky, listening—listening -for a voice in the darkness.</p> - -<p>In Marta’s home beside the roaring creek—alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_148" id="page_148">{148}</a></span> amid the dear intimate -things of her daily life—the man who had been made to live again in her -love waited—waited for the eternity of the night to lift from the Cañon -of Gold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_149" id="page_149">{149}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV<br /><br /> -MARTA’S FLIGHT</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>She did not know where she was going. She did not care. What did it -matter where she went?</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE victim of the Lizard’s unspeakable brutality was as one dazed by an -unexpected blow. Coming, as the fellow’s vicious attack did, so close -upon her own uneasy thoughts, it seemed to answer all her troubled -questions and she accepted every cruel word as the truth.</p> - -<p>Nugget, wondering, perhaps, why his rider remained so motionless when -the other horse and rider had gone on, essayed an inquiring step or two -forward. When his mistress gave no heed to his movement, he tossed his -head and pulled at the slack bridle rein invitingly. “What’s the -matter?” he seemed to say. “Come on—why don’t we go?” But still she -gave no sign of life. Slowly, as if still wondering and a bit doubtful, -the little horse moved on down the familiar way toward home. At the -pasture gate, the pinto, without a sign from his rider, placed himself -so that she could reach the latch. Mechanically she opened the gate and -the knowing animal helped her close it from the other side.</p> - -<p>But when Nugget would have taken the trail<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_150" id="page_150">{150}</a></span> which goes past that white -house on the mountain side by which they always went home from Oracle, -Marta reined him back with a sudden start. She could not go that way -now. She remembered with a wave of hot shame how she had proposed to -Saint Jimmy that they be married and run away somewhere—and how she had -pictured their home. She understood now why he had laughed in that -queer, strained way. It would have seemed funny to any man like Doctor -Burton, with such a family name and birth and breeding, that a girl like -her—born as she was without a name, with no right to be born at all, -even—would dare to suggest such a thing.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton had been good to her—yes, they would be -good to any one like that. They had pitied her and had wanted to help -her. But of course Saint Jimmy had laughed when she asked him to marry -her. She would love those dear friends always, but at the thought of -ever meeting them again she shook with terror. She felt that she would -die with shame.</p> - -<p>As she rode on, the girl gave no heed to the heavy storm clouds that -were massing above the upper cañon. At any other time she would have -seen and would have pushed her horse to his utmost speed in a race with -the coming flood. But now she was too occupied to think of the -approaching danger. In fact, her thoughts of Saint Jimmy and Mother -Burton were only momentary. When her horse had turned into the direct -trail to the cañon, she was fighting to keep herself from thinking of -the man<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_151" id="page_151">{151}</a></span> who lived in the cabin so close to her home. She was telling -herself over and over that she must not think of him. And yet she did, -and her thoughts burned like coals of fire.</p> - -<p>Marta knew now with terrifying certainty that she loved Hugh -Edwards—not, indeed, with the love that she gave Saint Jimmy and, -which, until Edwards came, was the only kind of love she knew, but with -that other love—the love that a woman gives to the one man she chooses -above all others to be her man for all time to come, in the lives of her -children—their children. Her happiness that morning had been born of -the certainty that the man she had chosen wanted her. He had never -spoken a word of love to her but she knew. In a thousand ways he had -told her. His very efforts to keep from speaking had made her more sure -in her happiness.</p> - -<p>She had not understood. She had not even realized why she had wanted him -to speak. She had only felt instinctively that she belonged to him, and -that he wanted her, but that for some reason he hesitated. But now the -Lizard had explained it all. She knew now that her love for Edwards was -an evil love. She knew that her instinctive answer to him was a wicked -thing. She knew that the emotions stirred by him were vile. She -understood at last why he had not spoken the words she hungered to hear. -He would never speak. He was like Saint Jimmy. The mother of Hugh -Edwards’ sons must not be a nameless nobody—a creature of shameful -birth and evil desires—a woman upon whom<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_152" id="page_152">{152}</a></span> decent women turn their backs -and at whom men like the Lizard laughed in scorn.</p> - -<p>The girl was almost in sight of Hugh’s cabin when, with sudden energy, -she sat erect and again checked her horse. Around that next turn in the -cañon wall he would be waiting. She could not go on. A barrier, -invisible but mightier than any mountain wall, had fallen across her -way. She was separated—shut out. She was unclean. She must not go near -the one she loved.</p> - -<p>Wheeling her horse, the girl rode away up the cañon, straight toward the -storm that was gathering in the mountains above. She did not know where -she was going. She did not care. What did it matter where she went? She -would go anywhere but there where he was waiting.</p> - -<p>Blindly she rode into that stretch of the trail that lies in the channel -of the creek between the sheer walls. But when, at the end of the -hall-like passage, her horse would have followed the trail out of the -cañon, she pulled him back. The pinto fretted and tried to turn once -more toward home, but she forced him to leave the trail and go on up the -creek.</p> - -<p>For some time the little horse labored through the sand and gravel or -picked his way, as a mountain horse will, around bowlders and over the -rocks. So that when those first few drops of rain came pattering down, -the girl was already a considerable distance up the cañon. Again Nugget -protested, and again she forced him on.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_153" id="page_153">{153}</a></span></p> - -<p>She had reached a point beyond where the cañon turns back toward the -south when the storm broke and the rain came swirling down the mountain -in torrents. The fierce downpour, driven by the heavy gusts of wind, -forced her to bend low in the saddle. On every side the dense gray -curtain enveloped her. Her horse broke in open rebellion. Nugget knew, -if his rider had forgotten, the grave danger of their position in the -creek bed, and he proceeded to take such action as would at least insure -their immediate safety.</p> - -<p>There were a few preliminary bounds, then a scrambling rush with flying -gravel and rolling rocks and tearing brush, with plunging leaps and -straining heavy lifts, during which the girl rider could do little more -than cling to the saddle. When her horse finally consented again to the -control of the bit, and stood trembling, with heaving flanks, on the -steep side of the mountain, Marta had lost all sense of direction. In -the terrific downpour, she could not see a hundred yards. Wrapped in the -gray folds of that wind-blown curtain, every detail of the landscape -save the near-by bushes was obscured beyond recognition. No familiar -peak or sky-line could be seen.</p> - -<p>Suddenly Nugget threw up his head—his ears pointed inquiringly. The -girl, too, looked and listened. Then above the hiss of the rain on the -rocks and bushes, and the roar of the wind along the mountain slope, she -heard the thunder of the coming flood. Nearer and louder came the sound -until pres<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_154" id="page_154">{154}</a></span>ently that rolling crest of the flood, freighted with -crushing, grinding bowlders, swept past and the gray depths of the cañon -below her horse’s feet were filled with the wild uproar.</p> - -<p>Marta knew that to go back the way she had come was impossible. She -realized dully that Nugget had saved both her life and his. It did not -much matter, but she was glad that the little horse was not down there -in the bed of the creek. They might as well go on somewhere, she -thought; perhaps Nugget could find some place where he at least would be -more comfortable.</p> - -<p>Giving her horse the signal to start, she dropped the bridle rein on his -neck, thus permitting him to choose his own course. With sure-footed -care, the little horse picked his way along the mountain side, always -climbing a little higher until finally they reached what the girl knew -must be the top of a ridge or spur of the main range. Following this -ridge, which led always upward but at an easy grade, the pinto moved -with greater freedom. They came at last to a low gap through which -Nugget went without a sign of hesitation, and again he was making his -way along the steep side of the mountain.</p> - -<p>It was nearly dark when the girl became aware that her horse was -following a faint trail. She did not know when they had come into this -trail. It was so faintly marked that it could scarcely be distinguished, -if at all. But Nugget seemed perfectly content and confident, and -because there was no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_155" id="page_155">{155}</a></span> reason for doing otherwise, and because she did -not care, she let the horse go the way he had chosen.</p> - -<p>The night came swiftly down. The gray curtain deepened to black. The -girl did not even try to guess where she was except that she knew she -must be somewhere on one of the mountain slopes that form the upper part -of Cañada del Oro—the wildest and most remote section of the Santa -Catalina range.</p> - -<p>She was exhausted with the stress of her emotions and numb with her -rain-soaked clothing in the cool air of the altitude to which they had -climbed. As the light failed and the black wall of the night closed in -about her, she swayed, half fainting, in her saddle. Nugget stopped and -the girl slipped to the ground, clinging to the saddle for support. -Peering into the gloom she could barely distinguish the mass of a -mountain cedar a little farther on.</p> - -<p>Wearily she stumbled and crept forward until she could crawl beneath the -low sodden branches.</p> - -<p>The girl felt herself sinking into a thick darkness that was not the -darkness of the night.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_156" id="page_156">{156}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI<br /><br /> -NATACHEE</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“My gifts are only the gifts of an Indian, Miss Hillgrove; I see -with the eyes of a red man, that is all.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>S consciousness returned to Marta, her first sensation was that of -physical comfort. She thought that she was in her own bed at home, -awakening from a dream. Slowly she opened her eyes. Instead of her own -familiar room she saw the rough, unhewn rafters, the log walls, and the -rude furnishings of an apartment that was strange.</p> - -<p>Wonderingly, without moving, she looked at the unfamiliar details—at -the fireplace of uncut rocks with a generous fire blazing on the -hearth—the lighted lamp on the table—the rough board cupboard in the -far corner—the cooking utensils hanging beside the fireplace—and at -the skins of mountain lion and lynx and fox and wolf and bear that hung -upon the walls. It all seemed real enough, and yet she felt that it must -be a part of her dream. She would awaken presently she thought—how -curious—how real it was.</p> - -<p>She put a hand and arm out from under the covers and touched, not the -familiar blankets of her own bed, but a fur robe. The effect was as if -she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_157" id="page_157">{157}</a></span> come in contact with an electric wire. In the same instant she -saw the sleeve of her jacket, and realized that she was not in her own -bed at all, but was lying fully dressed on a rude couch—that her -clothing was still wet from a storm that was not a dream storm, and that -everything else was as real.</p> - -<p>But where was she? Who had brought her to this strange place? Fully -awake now, the girl made a more careful survey of the room, and this -time saw hanging on a peg in the log wall near the fireplace a bow with -a sheaf of arrows, and on the floor beneath a pair of moccasins.</p> - -<p>“Natachee!”</p> - -<p>With a shudder, as if from a sudden chill, Marta threw back the fur robe -and sat up. She was not frightened. It is doubtful if Marta had ever in -her life known real fear. But there was something about the Indian that -always, as she had expressed it, “gave her the creeps.”</p> - -<p>Swiftly her mind reviewed the hours that had passed since she left her -home to go to Oracle. Her good-by to Edwards, her happiness as she rode -over the familiar trail, her meeting with the Wheeler children and their -parents, the incident at the store, her troubled thoughts as she started -homeward, and then, the crushing shame—the horror of the things that -the Lizard had made known to her. Of her actual movements after the -Lizard left her, she remembered almost nothing clearly. That part of her -experience remained to her still as a dream. But that one dominant -necessity which had driven her<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_158" id="page_158">{158}</a></span> into the storm and the night; <i>that</i> -stood clear in all its naked and hideous reality. She could not, with -the burning certainty of her shame, she could not see Saint Jimmy nor -Hugh Edwards again.</p> - -<p>Rising, she went to the fireplace and stood before the blaze to dry her -still damp clothing. She was calmer now. The wild uncontrolled storm of -her emotions had passed. With her physical exhaustion had come a sort of -relief from her emotional strain. She could think now. As she stood -looking down into the fire she told herself, with a degree of calmness, -that she <i>must</i> think. She must plan—she must decide—what should she -do?</p> - -<p>She was standing there, with her eyes fixed on the blazing logs in the -fireplace, when she became aware that she was not alone. As clearly as -if she had seen it, she felt a presence in the room. She turned to look -over her shoulder. Natachee stood just inside the closed door of the -cabin. He had entered, opening and closing the heavy door without a -sound.</p> - -<p>As she whirled to face him, the Indian bowed with grave courtesy.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon, Miss Hillgrove, I did not mean to startle you but I -thought you might be sleeping.”</p> - -<p>There was nothing either in the Indian’s face or in his manner to alarm -her. Save for his savage dress he might have been any well-bred college -or university man. Nor did the girl in the least fear him. She only felt -that curious creepy feeling that she always experienced in his -presence.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_159" id="page_159">{159}</a></span></p> - -<p>As if to put her more at ease, Natachee went to bring a rustic chair -from the other end of the room, saying in a matter-of-fact tone:</p> - -<p>“I have been out taking care of your little horse. He will be -comfortable for the night, I think.” He placed the chair before the fire -and drew back. “Won’t you be seated? You can dry your boots so much -better.”</p> - -<p>Marta sat down and, holding her wet feet to the blaze, looked again into -the ruddy flames. The Indian, standing at the other side of the room, -waited, motionless as a graven image, for her to speak.</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” she said at last.</p> - -<p>At her words, or rather at her air of utter hopelessness, a flash of -cruel satisfaction gleamed for an instant in the somber eyes of the red -man.</p> - -<p>But Marta did not see.</p> - -<p>“It is nothing,” said the Indian and his deep voice gave no hint of the -fire that had, for the instant, blazed in his dark impassive -countenance. “It is a pleasure to be of any service.” And then with a -smile which again the girl did not see, he added, “I was caught in the -storm myself.”</p> - -<p>Without raising her eyes Marta said wearily, as if it did not in the -least matter:</p> - -<p>“It was you who found me and brought me here?”</p> - -<p>“I was on my way home from the cañon below when I chanced to catch a -glimpse of you and your horse against the sky. Naturally I was curious -to know who it was that rode in these unfrequented<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_160" id="page_160">{160}</a></span> mountains through -such a storm and at such an hour. I managed to follow you and so found -your horse. Then I found you and brought you here.”</p> - -<p>When the girl was silent he continued:</p> - -<p>“My poor little hut is not much, I know, but it is a shelter at least, -and I assure you you are as welcome as if it were the home of your -dreams.”</p> - -<p>At this the girl threw up her head with a start. Staring at him with -wide questioning eyes she said wonderingly:</p> - -<p>“The home of my dreams? What do you know of my dreams?”</p> - -<p>Natachee bowed his head.</p> - -<p>“I beg your pardon. My choice of words was unfortunate but -unintentional, I assure you. And yet,” he finished with quiet dignity, -“it would be difficult for any one to imagine a woman like you being -without a dream home.”</p> - -<p>With a shudder the girl turned back to the fire.</p> - -<p>Again that gleam of savage pleasure flashed in the eyes of the Indian.</p> - -<p>“But I am forgetting,” he said, “you have had nothing to eat since noon -and it is now past midnight. This is a poor sort of hospitality indeed.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke he went to the cupboard and began putting dishes and food on -the table.</p> - -<p>The girl watched him curiously—his every movement was so sure, so -complete and positive. There was no show of haste and yet every motion -was as quick as the movements of a deer. He gave the impression of -tremendous strength and energy, yet<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_161" id="page_161">{161}</a></span> his touch was as light as the hand -of a child, and his step as noiseless as the step of that great cat, the -cougar. Indeed, as he went to and fro between the table, the cupboard -and the fireplace, Marta thought of a mountain lion.</p> - -<p>“And how do you know that I have had nothing to eat since noon?” she -asked presently.</p> - -<p>Without looking up from the venison steak he was preparing, he answered:</p> - -<p>“You went to Oracle early in the afternoon—you did not stop at the -Wheeler ranch on your way back—you did not go to Saint Jimmy’s—you did -not go to Hugh Edwards’—you did not go home.”</p> - -<p>The girl’s cheeks flushed as she persisted:</p> - -<p>“But how do you know? Have you some supernatural gift that enables you -to see what people are doing no matter where you are?”</p> - -<p>Natachee laughed.</p> - -<p>“My gifts are only the gifts of an Indian, Miss Hillgrove; I see with -the eyes of a red man, that is all.”</p> - -<p>The girl looked again into the fire.</p> - -<p>“I wish you did have the gift of second sight,” she said, speaking half -to herself.</p> - -<p>The Indian flashed a look at her that would have startled her had she -seen it.</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“Because,” she answered slowly, “because then perhaps you could tell me -something that I want very much to know.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_162" id="page_162">{162}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Indian, who was behind her, smiled.</p> - -<p>“Dinner is served,” he said.</p> - -<p>“Really I—I don’t think I can eat a thing,” she faltered, looking up at -him.</p> - -<p>“I know,” he returned gravely, “but perhaps if you try—“ he placed a -chair for her and stood expectantly.</p> - -<p>And Marta felt herself compelled to obey his unspoken will. Perhaps -because of the strange effect of the Indian’s personality upon her, or -perhaps because she sought relief from the pain of thoughts which she -could not express, the girl encouraged the red man to talk of his life -in the mountains. And Natachee, as if courteously willing to serve her -purpose, followed her conversational leadings with no mention of her own -life in the Cañada del Oro or of her friends. Over their simple meal, of -which Marta managed to partake because she felt she must, he told her of -his hunting experiences and drew from his seemingly inexhaustible store -of desert and mountain lore many strange and interesting things. Nor was -there, in anything that he said or in his way of speaking, the slightest -hint of his Indian nature.</p> - -<p>As they left the table, and Marta resumed her seat before the fire, she -said:</p> - -<p>“But I do not understand how a man educated as you are can be satisfied -to live like—“ she hesitated.</p> - -<p>“Like an Indian?” he finished for her.</p> - -<p>“Well, yes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_163" id="page_163">{163}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>There was a long moment of silence before he replied with a marked -change in his voice:</p> - -<p>“I live like an Indian because I am an Indian. Because if I would I -could not be anything else.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke he came to the other side of the fireplace and seated -himself on the floor and the act had for the girl the odd effect of a -deliberate renunciation of the civilization which she, in her chair, -seemed for the moment to personify. It was as if in answering her -question he had cast off the habit of his white man’s schooling; had -thrown aside mask and cloak and placed before her his true self. As he -sat there, in the picturesque garb of his savage fathers, with the ruddy -light of the fire playing on his bronze, impassive countenance and -glinting in the somber depths of his steady eyes, the young white woman -looking down upon him could detect no trace of the white man’s training.</p> - -<p>“And yet,” she said, “this cabin—this room—does not look like any -Indian’s home that I ever saw.”</p> - -<p>He answered with the native imagery of a red man:</p> - -<p>“The cougar that has been taught to jump through a hoop at the crack of -his trainer’s whip is still a cougar. The eagle in a white man’s cage -never acquires the spirit of a dove.”</p> - -<p>“But I should think that with your education you would live among your -people and teach them.”</p> - -<p>Gazing steadfastly into the fire he answered grimly:</p> - -<p>“And what would you have me teach my people?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_164" id="page_164">{164}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Why, teach them what you have learned—teach them how to live.”</p> - -<p>The Indian looked at her, and the girl saw something in his countenance -that made her feel, all at once, very weak and helpless. She was -embarrassed as if caught in some petty meanness. In her confusion she -began to stammer an apology but the red man raised his hand.</p> - -<p>“You, a white woman, shall hear an Indian. I, Natachee, will speak.</p> - -<p>“It would be easier to number the drops of water that fell in the storm -to-night than to tell the years of these mountains that look down upon -the Cañada del Oro and the desert beyond. They have seen the ages pass -as the cloud shadows that race across their foothills when the spring -winds blow. Before the beginnings of what you white people call history -they had watched many races of men rise to the fullness of their -strength and pride, and fall as the flowers of the thistle poppies fall -in the desert dust. In the time appointed the Indians came.</p> - -<p>“From the peaks of these mountains Natachee the Indian can see far. From -the place where the sun rises in the east, to the mountains behind which -he goes down in the west, and from the farthest range that lies like a -soft blue shadow in the north, to that line in the south where the -desert and the sky become one, this land was the homeland of my Indian -fathers. Since the God of all life placed us here it has been our home. -What has the Indian to-day?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_165" id="page_165">{165}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Was there a place where the tall pines grew and the winter snows -lingered long into the dry season to feed the streams where the wild -creatures drink—‘I want those trees, they are mine,’ said the white -man. And he cut them down and sold them for gold, and the naked -mountains held no snows to feed the creeks; and the meadows that God -made became barren wastes—lifeless. Was there a spring of water—‘It is -mine,’ cried the white man, and he built a fence around it and made a -law to punish any thirsty creature that might dare to drink without -paying him. In this homeland of my fathers the wild life was as the -grass on the mesas. The Indian took what he needed. It was here for all. -The white man saw the antelopes in the foothills, the deer on the -mountain slopes, the bear in the cañon, the sheep among the peaks, and -he shouted: ‘They are mine—all mine.’ And every man in his white -madness, for fear some brother would destroy one more wild thing than he -himself could count among his spoils, killed and killed and killed; and -only the buzzards profited by the slaughter. But I, Natachee, an Indian, -here in this homeland of my fathers, because I dared to kill the deer -from which we had our meat this evening, am a violator of the white -man’s laws, and subject to the white man’s punishment.</p> - -<p>“You tell me that I should teach my people how to live? By that you mean -that I should teach them the ways of the white people? Is it the duty of -one who has been robbed of all that was his to accept<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_166" id="page_166">{166}</a></span> the thief as his -schoolmaster and spiritual guide? Would you say that one who had been -tricked and cheated out of his birthright must adopt the principles and -customs of the trickster? Could you expect one who had been humiliated -and shamed and broken to set up the author of his degradation as his -ideal and pattern?</p> - -<p>“The schools of the white people taught me nothing that would cause the -white people to permit me ever to make a place for myself among them as -their equal. No education can ever, in the eyes of the white man, make a -white man of an Indian. All kinds of animals are educated for the circus -ring, and the show bench, and the vaudeville stage. If they prove clever -enough you applaud them. You reward them for amusing you. You educate -the Indian. If he be clever enough you give him a place in your social -circus so long as he amuses you. But do you permit him to become one of -you in your homes, your professions, your law-making, your -business—no—he is no more one of you than the performing bear is one -of you. Do you think that I, Natachee, do not know these things? Do you -think my people do not know that, when one of their boys is put in the -white man’s schools, he grows up to be something that is neither a white -man nor an Indian? It is because they do know, that they look upon me, -Natachee, as an outcast of the tribe. Would the outcast, without place -or people in the world, teach others the things that made him an -outcast?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_167" id="page_167">{167}</a></span></p> - -<p>“The only thing that an Indian can teach an Indian is to die. In the day -of their strength and pride my fathers in these mountains saw the smoke -from the first camp fire made by a white man in the Cañada del Oro. It -was a signal smoke—but no Indian then could read its meaning. We know -now that it meant the time had come when the Indians, too, must go into -the shadows, even as the many races that had passed before them. But my -people shall not be unavenged—as the red man is going, the white man -too shall go.</p> - -<p>“The strength of the Indian was the red strength of the mountains and -deserts and forests and streams. The Indian is dying because the white -man stole his red strength and turned it into a white man’s strength, -which is yellow gold. But the white man’s yellow strength is his -weakness. In the golden flower of his greatness are the seeds of his -decay. For gold, your people destroy the forests—tear down the -mountains—dry up or poison the streams—lay waste the grass lands and -bring death to all life. For gold they would rob, degrade, enslave and -kill every race that is not of white blood. For gold they rob, degrade, -enslave and kill their own white brothers. Even the natural mating love -of their men and women they have made into a thing to buy and sell for -gold. In this lust for gold their children are begotten, and born to -live for gold, and of gold to perish. The very diseases that rot the -white man’s bones, wither his flesh, dim his eyes and turn his blood to -water are diseases which he buys with his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_168" id="page_168">{168}</a></span> gold. And the only heaven -that his religious teachers can conceive for his celestial happiness is -a place where he may forever wear a crown of gold, make music upon a -harp of gold, and walk upon streets of gold. It was this gold, which is -both the white man’s strength and his weakness, that brought your race -like a pestilence upon my people. By this same gold for which the Indian -peoples have been destroyed shall the Indians be revenged; for by this -gold shall the destroyers themselves, in their turn, be destroyed.</p> - -<p>“There is nothing left for the Indian but to die. I, Natachee, have -spoken.”</p> - -<p>At his closing words Marta Hillgrove caught her breath sharply.</p> - -<p>“Nothing left but to die? And you—have you never dreamed of—“ she -could not speak her thought.</p> - -<p>Again that quick light of savage pleasure flashed across the dark face -of the red man.</p> - -<p>“An Indian has no right to dream of love,” he answered, “for love to an -Indian means children. Why should an Indian wish to have children?”</p> - -<p>When the girl hid her face in her hands, he continued with cruel -purpose:</p> - -<p>“Is it so hard for Marta Hillgrove to understand that there might be -circumstances under which it would become a duty to deny one’s self the -happiness of loving? If it is there are two men who could, I am sure, -make it clear to her.”</p> - -<p>For some time the Indian sat watching the white<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_169" id="page_169">{169}</a></span> woman as one of his -ancestors might have watched an enemy undergoing the agony of torture. -Then rising he said:</p> - -<p>“Come, it is time that you were taking your rest. You have nearly -reached the limit of your endurance. You will sleep there on the couch. -I shall be within call. In the morning I will take you home.”</p> - -<p>He threw more wood upon the fire and turned to leave the room.</p> - -<p>“You are very kind,” said the girl, “but I cannot go home.”</p> - -<p>Natachee faced her and she saw the savage triumph that for the moment -burned through the mask of stolid indifference which he habitually wore.</p> - -<p>“Kind?” he said with cruel insolence. “Kind! And why should I, Natachee, -an Indian, be kind to you, a white woman? Make no mistake, Miss -Hillgrove, if I do not to-night treat you as my fathers treated the -women of their enemies, it is not because I am kind. It is only because -it will afford me a more enduring and keener pleasure to return you to -your friends down there in the Cañon of Gold.”</p> - -<p>The girl, cowering in her chair, heard no sound when the Indian left the -room.</p> - -<p>When morning came and Natachee again appeared he was his usual stolid, -courteous self. But Marta knew now what fires of bitter hatred smoldered -beneath the red man’s calm exterior. He made no reference to her -statement that she could not go home, nor did the girl dare to repeat -what she had<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_170" id="page_170">{170}</a></span> said. She felt that she was powerless to do other than -resign herself to the will of the Indian who seemed to find a cruel -satisfaction in returning her to Saint Jimmy and Hugh Edwards.</p> - -<p>When they had eaten breakfast, Natachee brought her horse.</p> - -<p>The cañon creek below was still a roaring torrent, impossible to cross, -but the red man led her by ways known only to himself around the head of -the cañon and so at last to Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton.</p> - -<p>For the next two or three weeks Marta avoided Hugh Edwards. She saw him -frequently at a distance, and when he came to spend an evening hour on -the porch, but she did not go to his cabin alone and always managed that -her fathers were present when she talked with him in her own home. -Edwards accepted the situation understandingly, and said no word, but -worked harder than ever. Neither did she spend much time with Saint -Jimmy, though she went nearly every day to see Mother Burton. The girl -was very gentle with the two old prospectors and with tender -thoughtfulness sought to make them feel that she was their partnership -girl exactly as she had been ever since she could remember. But she -would not go to Oracle, so either Bob or Thad was forced to go to the -store whenever it was necessary for some one to bring supplies.</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton blamed himself bitterly for the whole affair, but the -Pardners insisted that the fault was theirs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_171" id="page_171">{171}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You can see yourself, sir,” said Bob, “that if we’d raised the gal up -knowin’ all the time what she had to know some day, it couldn’t never -a-struck her like this.”</p> - -<p>And Thad added:</p> - -<p>“The God almighty truth is that me an’ my pardner was jest too darned -anxious to shirk what was plain enough our duty, and so shifted the -responsibility on to you. It was a mean, low-down trick an’ no way fair -to you, an’ you jest got to see it that way. We know how you feel about -not tellin’ her ’cause we’re feelin’ that way a heap ourselves, but it -ain’t addin’ none to our comfort to have you tryin’ to shoulder the -blame what belongs to us.”</p> - -<p>The two old men were so miserable that Saint Jimmy’s sympathy for them -lessened somewhat his own suffering, and the three agreed that the only -thing they could do was, as Bob said, “to blame everybody in general and -nobody in perticler and make it up to the girl the best they could.”</p> - -<p>Then came that eventful day when Sheriff Jim Burks and two of his -deputies rode into the Cañada del Oro.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_172" id="page_172">{172}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII<br /><br /> -THE SHERIFF’S VISIT</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Come to think of it, it’s generally a healthy proposition not to -know too much about your neighbors—the ones that you like, I -mean.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Pardners were coming from their mine to the house for the midday -meal when the officers stopped at the gate.</p> - -<p>“Howdy, Jim?” called Bob with the cheerful grin he kept for his friends. -“Which one of us are you wantin’ now?”</p> - -<p>The sheriff laughed as he shook hands with the two old prospectors.</p> - -<p>“If you’ll give our horses a feed, I’ll let you both off this time.”</p> - -<p>“How about yourselves?” asked Thad. “Would you fight if we was to try to -force you to eat a bite?”</p> - -<p>“I’ll say we would not,” returned one of the deputies, swinging from his -saddle.</p> - -<p>“I’m that holler that I’d ring if anybody was to kick me,” drawled the -other.</p> - -<p>“I’ll have to hear what the boss says before I commit myself,” said the -sheriff. “How about it, Marta?” he called to the girl who stood in the -doorway. “Are you backing the offer of these two daddies of yours?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_173" id="page_173">{173}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You know I am, Mr. Burks,” she returned heartily. “You are always -welcome here. I’ll be ready for you in a few minutes.”</p> - -<p>While they waited Marta’s call to dinner, the men exchanged news of -general interest and talked together as old friends will. And Marta, in -the kitchen, could hear through the open window every word as clearly as -if she had been sitting with them.</p> - -<p>Presently the sheriff made known his mission in the Cañon of Gold. “You -haven’t got any strangers in the neighborhood, have you?” he asked -casually.</p> - -<p>“Nope,” said Bob.</p> - -<p>“Nary a stranger,” echoed Thad.</p> - -<p>“That is,” amended Bob, “not that we have seen or heard of. This here -Cañada del Oro is a pretty big piece of country, Jim, an’ mighty rough, -as you know, an’ Thad an’ me we stick kinda close to our diggin’.”</p> - -<p>“Natachee been ’round lately?”</p> - -<p>“Oh, he drops in once in a while, same as always,” returned Bob. “He was -here yesterday.”</p> - -<p>“Natachee would sure know if there was any one around,” mused the -officer. “There is nothing stirring in these mountains that Indian don’t -see. I’m looking for a convict who escaped from the Florence -penitentiary,” he continued. “The last trace we had of him he was headed -this way. He came into Tucson and managed to get a sort of an outfit -together and struck out for somewhere in this general direction.”</p> - -<p>At the officer’s words old Thad rubbed his bald<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_174" id="page_174">{174}</a></span> head meditatively. Bob -bent over to pick up a bit of rock which he proceeded to examine with -minute care. The girl in the kitchen caught at the table for support -and, faint and trembling, with white face and horror-stricken eyes, -stared through the open door toward that neighboring cabin.</p> - -<p>Then she heard Thad say:</p> - -<p>“We sure ain’t seen nothin’ like a convict in these parts, Jim. When did -he make his break?”</p> - -<p>“Two weeks ago,” answered the sheriff.</p> - -<p>The color returned to the girl’s face and her trembling limbs became -steady. But as she turned again toward the stove where the meal for her -guests was cooking, she glanced through the open window and stood as if -turned to stone.</p> - -<p>Natachee was moving with noiseless step toward the group of men outside.</p> - -<p>Then she heard Bob’s laugh.</p> - -<p>“Talkin’ about the devil, sheriff, suppose you take a look behind you.”</p> - -<p>While the officers and the Pardners were exchanging greetings with the -Indian, Marta, going to the door, summoned the hungry men. They trooped -into the house and Natachee, declining the invitation to join them at -the table on the plea that he had eaten an early dinner, seated himself -just inside the open doorway to continue his part in the general -conversation.</p> - -<p>When the sheriff had explained his mission to the Indian, Natachee, with -his eyes fixed on Marta’s face, confirmed the Pardners’ opinion that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_175" id="page_175">{175}</a></span> no -stranger had recently come into the Cañon of Gold.</p> - -<p>“That’s good enough for me,” said the sheriff. And then to his men: -“We’ll swing over into the Tortollita country this afternoon. No use -wasting any more time here.”</p> - -<p>“We can just about make it over to Dale’s ranch by dark,” returned one -of the deputies.</p> - -<p>“We ain’t due to strike no such meal as this at Dale’s,” said the other -officer mournfully, “Dale’s batchin’.”</p> - -<p>And with one accord they all smilingly expressed their appreciation of -Marta’s cooking and acknowledged their gratitude for her hospitality, -while the girl happily assured them again of the welcome that always -awaited them in her home.</p> - -<p>For some time following this the hard-riding officers were too busy -demonstrating their approval of the dinner to engage in conversation. -Natachee waited.</p> - -<p>At last the Indian spoke casually:</p> - -<p>“You do not always succeed in finding these escaped convicts, do you, -sheriff? This is a big stretch of country to cover and it’s not so very -far to the Mexican line. I should think a man would have a fairly good -chance.”</p> - -<p>“They have more than a fair chance,” returned the sheriff. “But still we -get most of them. A man must have food and water, you know. If our man -knows this sort of country, we can nearly always figure out about what -he will do.”</p> - -<p>He put down his knife and fork and sat back in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_176" id="page_176">{176}</a></span> his chair with the -genial air of one who is at peace with the world.</p> - -<p>“It’s mostly the strangers that drift in from other parts that we never -get,” added one of the deputies. “You can’t tell what they’ll do, nohow. -Generally they lose themselves and never show up.”</p> - -<p>Rolling a cigarette the sheriff, in a reminiscent mood, continued:</p> - -<p>“That’s right. There was one that got away from San Quentin over in -California about six months ago, and we lost him clean. They traced him -as far as Phœnix and notified me to be on the lookout, because it was -reasonably sure that he was heading south, but that’s the last anybody -ever heard of him. He may show up yet—if he’s not dead. We always try -to keep them in mind, you know.”</p> - -<p>The Indian, watching Marta, saw the terror that came into her eyes at -the sheriff’s words. Quietly she drew away from the group and slipped -into the adjoining room where she stood just inside the half-open door -listening.</p> - -<p>The eyes of the Pardners were fixed upon the officer with intense -interest.</p> - -<p>Natachee smiled.</p> - -<p>“What did this man look like?”</p> - -<p>The sheriff answered:</p> - -<p>“The description sent to me says he is a man of about twenty-two or -three, tall, rather slender, gray eyes, brown hair, clean shaven, -good-looking, well educated, well appearing, likable sort of a chap. -Haven’t seen him, have you, Natachee?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_177" id="page_177">{177}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I might run across him somewhere, some day,” returned the Indian.</p> - -<p>There was a sound in the adjoining room and the sheriff, who was sitting -with his back toward the door, turned his head inquiringly.</p> - -<p>Old Bob spoke quickly:</p> - -<p>“What was he in for, Jim?”</p> - -<p>And Thad asked in the same breath:</p> - -<p>“A killin’, was it?”</p> - -<p>The officer gave his attention again to his hosts.</p> - -<p>From where he sat the Indian, through the open kitchen door, saw Marta -running toward the neighboring cabin.</p> - -<p>The sheriff was answering the old prospectors:</p> - -<p>“He was sent up for wrecking a big investment company in Los Angeles. -You remember—the papers were full of the affair at the time.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards did not know that his neighbors were entertaining visitors. -He was at work in the creek bed when the sheriff arrived and when he -went up to his cabin for his noontime lunch the Pardners and their -guests were on the far side of the house, so that he could not see them. -He had returned to his work and was energetically wielding his pick when -he heard Marta’s hurried step on the bank above. The girl came running -and sliding down the steep path.</p> - -<p>At sight of Marta’s face, Edwards dropped his pick and ran to her.</p> - -<p>“Marta dear, what is the matter? What has happened?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_178" id="page_178">{178}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>In his alarm for her he forgot himself for the moment, and would have -taken her in his arms, but her first hurried words brought him back with -a shock.</p> - -<p>“The sheriff—“ she cried in a voice that trembled with fear and -excitement.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards stood as if stunned by a sudden blow, staring at her dully, -unable to speak.</p> - -<p>“Don’t you understand?” she said sharply. “The sheriff is here—why -don’t you speak? Why don’t you say something?” She caught him by the arm -and shook him. “The sheriff is here, I tell you. He is looking for a man -who escaped from prison.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards drew a long shuddering breath and the girl saw him, in -obedience to his first impulse, turn and start as if to run. Then, as -suddenly he checked himself, and stood looking about in fearful -indecision, not knowing which way to go. Another moment and he had -regained control of himself.</p> - -<p>Facing her with a steadiness which revealed the real strength of his -character he said coolly:</p> - -<p>“This is interesting, I’ll admit, but don’t you think perhaps you are a -little overexcited?” he smiled reassuringly. “Suppose you tell me more.”</p> - -<p>Calmed by his strength the girl answered:</p> - -<p>“Sheriff Burks and two of his men are searching for a convict who -escaped from the Florence penitentiary two weeks ago. They stopped at -our house to inquire if we had seen any strangers in the cañon recently, -and we asked them to stay for dinner of course. Natachee happened in as -he always does<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_179" id="page_179">{179}</a></span> when any one from outside comes to the -cañon—and—and—while they were all eating and talking I slipped out -the front door and ran over here to tell you.”</p> - -<p>Edwards laughed.</p> - -<p>“A convict escaped from Florence two weeks ago. Well, he certainly is -not in the Cañada del Oro or Natachee would know.”</p> - -<p>The girl looked at him pleadingly.</p> - -<p>“I—I—am afraid Natachee does know.” She shuddered. “He—it would be -just like him to bring the sheriff and his men here. -Please—please—won’t you go? For my sake, won’t you?”</p> - -<p>At this Edwards looked at her searchingly.</p> - -<p>“Go where?” he said at last. “What do you think the Indian knows? Why -should I go anywhere?”</p> - -<p>“You—you do not understand,” the girl faltered. “You must hide -somewhere, quick—Please, Hugh, they may come any minute.”</p> - -<p>Again Edwards looked about as if, while prompted to yield to her -entreaty, he was still undecided as to the best course to pursue.</p> - -<p>“But surely you know that I did not escape from Florence two weeks ago,” -he said slowly.</p> - -<p>“I know—I know,” she cried, “but there was another.”</p> - -<p>“Another?”</p> - -<p>“Yes—a man who escaped from San Quentin six months ago. They followed -him as far as Phœnix. He was coming this way. He was twenty-two or<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_180" id="page_180">{180}</a></span> -twenty-three years old—tall—slender—gray eyes—brown hair—well -educated—Oh, Hugh—Hugh—don’t stand there looking at me like that! You -must do something—you must go—quick—somewhere—anywhere where these -men won’t see you.”</p> - -<p>With a low cry of horror and despair the man leaped away, running like a -startled deer up the creek. But before he had gone a hundred feet he -stopped as suddenly as he had started and faced back toward the girl, -holding out his arms in an unmistakable gesture of love and longing.</p> - -<p>But Marta did not see. She had dropped to the ground, where she crouched -with her face buried in her hands.</p> - -<p>Still holding out his arms the man went slowly toward her. Then again he -stopped, to stand for a moment irresolute, as one fighting with all the -strength of his will against himself. And then once more he faced the -other way, and stooping low, with head down, ran as if in fear for his -life.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When Marta had recovered a little of her self-control she realized that -she must not be seen near Edwards’ cabin by the officers, who by this -time must have finished their dinner. Hurriedly she stole away down the -creek, thinking that if she was seen coming up the path that led from -the Pardners’ mine to the house no one would question as to where she -had been.</p> - -<p>When she had gained the top of the bank she saw<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_181" id="page_181">{181}</a></span> her fathers just -outside the kitchen door deep in a heated argument. There was no one -else in sight. Catching her breath sharply, the girl hurried on until -she could gain an unobstructed view of the neighboring cabin. There was -no one there. With a sob of relief she almost ran the remaining distance -to the Pardners, who were by now watching her expectantly, as if -wondering what she would do or say.</p> - -<p>“Where are they? Have they gone?” she cried as she came up to them.</p> - -<p>The two men looked at each other questioningly.</p> - -<p>“Go ahead, you old fool, she’s your gal, ain’t she?” said Bob. “What’s -the use in your standin’ there lookin’ at me like that, I ain’t done -nothin’.”</p> - -<p>“Holy Cats!” ejaculated Thad. “Can’t a man even look at you without you -goin’ mad? I ain’t a-worryin’ none about what you’ve done or about what -anybody’s done, if it comes to that. It’s what you’re likely to do -that’s got me layin’ awake nights.”</p> - -<p>He turned to the girl and in a very different tone said:</p> - -<p>“Sure they’re gone. Jim figgered that if the man they wanted was in the -Cañada del Oro, Natachee would a-seen him and so, as long as the Indian -hadn’t seen nobody strange in these parts, they’ve pulled out for the -Tortollitas. Jim said to tell you good-by an’ that they’d sure enjoyed -your cookin’.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_182" id="page_182">{182}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>To the utter amazement of the two old prospectors their partnership girl -burst into a joyous ringing laugh, and throwing her arms around each -leathery wrinkled old neck in turn she kissed them and ran into the -house.</p> - -<p>Bob looked at Thad—Thad looked at Bob—together they looked toward the -kitchen door through which their girl had disappeared.</p> - -<p>“Holy Cats!” murmured Thad softly, as he rubbed his bald head. “Now what -in seven states of blessedness do you make of that?”</p> - -<p>“She must know,” said Bob. “She must a-heard what Jim said—she ain’t a -plumb fool if she is your gal.” He shook his head. “I give it up. Listen -to that, will you?”</p> - -<p>Marta, busy with her after-dinner kitchen work, was singing.</p> - -<p>“One thing is certain sure,” said Thad softly, “whatever trouble the boy -may have got himself into, it’s a dead immortal cinch that he ain’t in -no way different now from what he was before Jim Burks happened to eat -dinner with us, an’ that blamed Indian began askin’ fool questions about -what ain’t none of his business.”</p> - -<p>“That’s fair enough,” returned Bob. “We didn’t never take to Hugh for -what some judge, that we never saw or heard tell of, said he was or -wasn’t. We threw in with him for what he is. An’ if we’re such a pair of -boneheads as to be livin’ with him like we have all this time without -findin’ out more about what he really is than any judge that ever<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_183" id="page_183">{183}</a></span> sat -on a bench—well—we ought to be sentenced ourselves, that’s what I’m -sayin’.”</p> - -<p>Thad rubbed his bald head.</p> - -<p>“At that,” he said mournfully, “it wouldn’t be the first time by -several, that we’d ought to a-been sentenced, would it? If young Edwards -was to go to pryin’ into our records—huh—I’ll bet he wouldn’t feel -proud of his neighbors no matter what he’s done hisself.”</p> - -<p>Old Bob grinned cheerfully.</p> - -<p>“You’ve said it, Pardner, by smoke!—if he was to know, the youngster -would be hittin’ it out of this Cañada del Oro so fast you wouldn’t see -Mount Lemmon for dust. Come to think of it, it’s generally a healthy -proposition not to know too much about your neighbors—the ones that you -like, I mean. What is it the good book says: ‘Where ignorance is bliss a -man’s a darned fool to poke around tryin’ to find out things?’ As for my -gal, it’s plain to be seen that she’s plumb tickled at the way it’s all -turnin’ out an’——“</p> - -<p>“<i>Your</i> gal!” shrilled Thad. “Your gal!—there you go again. Holy Cats! -Have you got to be allus tryin’ to gouge me out of my rights? Can’t you -never give me a fair break?”</p> - -<p>“Excuse me, Pardner, I forgot. As I was about to say, in my opinion -you’d better let that gal of yourn work her own way out of this. It’s -easy to see that she’s in too deep for us, an’ considerin’ -everything—considerin’ everything, I say—it might not turn out so bad -after all.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_184" id="page_184">{184}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>To which Thad replied:</p> - -<p>“However it looks an’ however it turns out, my gal knows a heap more -about it than us two old sand rats ever could. We’re bankin’ on the boy, -an’ we’re trustin’ the gal, an’ we’re mindin’ our own business, you -bet!”</p> - -<p>To which Bob responded fervently:</p> - -<p>“You bet!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_185" id="page_185">{185}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVIII" id="CHAPTER_XVIII"></a>CHAPTER XVIII<br /><br /> -AN INDIAN’S ADVICE</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>He felt that the Indian was playing some kind of a game—a game -which the red man seemed rather to enjoy but which left the white -man very much in the dark.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">L</span>ESS than a mile up the cañon creek Hugh Edwards stopped. It was -useless, he told himself, to go farther. He would wait there until -night, when, under cover of the darkness, he could return to his cabin -and secure food and the small store of gold he had accumulated. Seating -himself on a rock in the shade of a sycamore, where he could watch and -listen for any one attempting to follow his tracks, he gave himself up -to troubled thoughts.</p> - -<p>True, the sheriff had not come for him this time, but the officers -might, while in the neighborhood, learn of his presence in the Cañon of -Gold and return to investigate. Suppose, for instance, they should meet -and talk with the Lizard. His supply of gold would not take him far, but -he must go as far as he could; as for his dream and Marta—what a fool -he had been to think that he could ever find gold enough to——</p> - -<p>A hand touched his shoulder. With a cry he leaped to his feet, and like -a wild animal caught in a trap whirled to fight.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_186" id="page_186">{186}</a></span></p> - -<p>Natachee made the peace sign. The Indian was smiling as he had smiled -that night when Marta was in his cabin.</p> - -<p>The white man’s nerves were on edge. He glared at the Indian angrily.</p> - -<p>“What do you mean sneaking up on a man like that?” he demanded. “You’ll -get yourself killed for that trick some day.”</p> - -<p>Natachee laughed, and there was a touch of scorn in his voice as he -returned:</p> - -<p>“Not by you, Hugh Edwards.”</p> - -<p>“And why not by me?” demanded the other, goaded by the Indian’s tone and -by the slight emphasis which the red man placed on his name.</p> - -<p>“Because,” said Natachee coolly, “you are not the killing kind, and -because if you should, in a moment of wild madness, attempt such a -thing, I—“ he paused, then with an abrupt change in his tone and manner -said: “I am sorry that I startled you. It was unpardonably rude, I’ll -admit, and you have every reason for being angry. I did not stop to -think.”</p> - -<p>“It is nothing,” returned Edwards. “I was a fool to fly up over such a -thing. I—I’m a bit upset just now, that’s all. Forget it.”</p> - -<p>He resumed his seat on the rock. The Indian seated himself on the ground -near-by.</p> - -<p>Edwards was thinking: Marta had said that Natachee had come to the house -while the officers were there. How much of the sheriff’s talk had the -Indian heard? How much had he guessed? What was he doing here?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_187" id="page_187">{187}</a></span></p> - -<p>Almost as if to answer the white man’s thoughts the Indian said -casually:</p> - -<p>“I happened in at the Pardners’ place a while ago and found Sheriff -Burks and two deputies there. I am going to Tucson to-morrow and dropped -in to see if I could do any errand for them or for Miss Hillgrove. Then -I called at your place to offer a like service but you were not at home. -I happened to see you sitting on the rock here as I came up the cañon.”</p> - -<p>The Indian did not explain how, before the officers were out of sight, -he had made his way with the noiseless speed of a fox to a point where -from behind rocks and bushes he had witnessed the close of the interview -between Marta and Edwards; and how, after the girl had returned to her -home, he had trailed the white man. Neither did he explain that he had -had no thought of going to Tucson when, from the mountain side, he saw -Sheriff Burks and his men ride up to the Pardners’ place.</p> - -<p>“Thank you,” said Edwards, “there is nothing you can do for me in -Tucson.”</p> - -<p>Natachee waited several moments before he spoke again, and the -uncomfortable thought flashed into Edwards’ mind that the Indian seemed -particularly pleased that he, the white man, had nothing to say. -Edwards, in an agony of suspense, wondering, fearing, perplexed, -baffled, dared not speak.</p> - -<p>At last the Indian said softly:</p> - -<p>“The sheriff and his men have gone away. They<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_188" id="page_188">{188}</a></span> are satisfied that the -man they are looking for is not here. I assured them that there was no -stranger in the Cañada del Oro.”</p> - -<p>“They are gone?” said Edwards doubtfully, as if he feared the Indian -were playing him some cruel trick.</p> - -<p>“For this time,” Natachee said gravely.</p> - -<p>“You—you—think they will come again?”</p> - -<p>The Indian looked away and answered with odd deliberation:</p> - -<p>“Who can say? There is always that possibility. Any day—any hour they -may come. But if, in spite of what I told Sheriff Burks, the man wanted -by him is in the Cañada del Oro, my advice to that man would be that he -stay right where he is.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards hesitated. He felt that the Indian was playing some kind of -a game—a game which the red man seemed rather to enjoy but which left -the white man very much in the dark.</p> - -<p>“You don’t think then that he—that the man could get away, out of this -part of the country, I mean?” he said at last.</p> - -<p>“The sheriff and his deputies will be watching every place but the -Cañada del Oro,” returned the Indian. “Because they are just now -satisfied that their man is not here, this is the one safe place for -him. And if they should by any chance return——“</p> - -<p>“What,” cried Edwards eagerly, “what if the officers <i>should</i> return?”</p> - -<p>Still without looking at his companion Natachee answered:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_189" id="page_189">{189}</a></span></p> - -<p>“There are places in the Cañada del Oro where a man, if he knew these -mountains as I know them, could hide from all the sheriffs in Arizona.”</p> - -<p>Haltingly, but with trembling eagerness, Hugh Edwards asked the -inevitable question.</p> - -<p>“And would you, Natachee, help such a man under such circumstances?”</p> - -<p>“I might.”</p> - -<p>At this noncommittal answer Hugh Edwards moved uneasily.</p> - -<p>“Do you know,” he said at last, “I have fancied sometimes that you, -being an Indian, hated all white people bitterly.”</p> - -<p>Natachee made no reply.</p> - -<p>Edwards continued, as one feeling his way over dangerous ground:</p> - -<p>“And yet you seem to enjoy the company of Saint Jimmy.”</p> - -<p>The Indian rose to his feet and stood looking down upon the white man -and something in his face—a shadow of a cruel smile, a gleam of savage -light in his dark eyes—something—made Edwards rise and draw back a -step.</p> - -<p>“I do enjoy the company of Doctor Burton,” said the red man. “He is -suffering. He is dying slowly. He is in torment. I am Natachee the -Indian, why should I not enjoy the company of any white man who is like -your Saint Jimmy or who can be made to suffer in any way?” For a moment -he paused, then in a voice that made his words almost a command, he -added: “I will return from Tucson in<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_190" id="page_190">{190}</a></span> three days. In the meantime if it -should be necessary for you to go into the upper part of this cañon, -find my hut if you can and make yourself at home. You will be very -welcome. If you should not find my place—if you should get yourself -lost, for instance, have no fear, I will find you. But if I were you I -would not leave my cabin and my friends down yonder unless it were -absolutely necessary.”</p> - -<p>Without waiting for a reply the Indian turned, and climbing the steep -bank of the creek with amazing ease and quickness, disappeared.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards went slowly back to his cabin.</p> - -<p>Marta, who was watching, saw him coming and ran joyously to meet him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_191" id="page_191">{191}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIX" id="CHAPTER_XIX"></a>CHAPTER XIX<br /><br /> -ON EQUAL TERMS</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>She did not know what it was that had made the man she loved a -fugitive from the law. She did not care. She was glad—glad because -now her dream of happiness with him was possible.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>S Marta ran to meet him, Hugh Edwards could not but see that she was -elated and happy. Not since that morning before the storm had she been -in such a joyous mood. The depression, that since her meeting with the -Lizard had been so marked, was gone. She was again her own frank, -radiant self. But Edwards did not respond to the girl’s happiness. When -she would have spoken of the sheriff and the escaped convict he coldly -prevented her. Concealing every hint of emotion under a mask of formal -politeness, he repelled every advance and received her loving overtures -of sympathy and loyal comradeship in silence.</p> - -<p>In those months when his friendship for Marta had ripened into love it -had not been easy for Hugh Edwards to deny himself the happiness which -the girl in her love had so innocently offered. With all the strength of -his will he had fought to do the thing that he knew to be right. A -thousand times<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_192" id="page_192">{192}</a></span> he had told himself that to speak the words that would -make her share the black shame of the fate that hung over him would be -the part of a selfish coward. He must protect her from himself. When he -had won gold enough to insure his freedom from the life of a convict, -then he would tell her everything. With gold enough he could escape to a -foreign land and Marta, when she knew his story, would go with him. But -until he could assure himself that complete and final safety from the -prison that threatened was within his reach, both for his own sake and -for hers, he would not speak of his love.</p> - -<p>And now suddenly the girl had learned a part of the truth. And it had -only made her love for him more evident. At the same time the incident -that had revealed to her his real purpose in coming to the Cañada del -Oro had shown him that his fancied security in the Cañon of Gold was -fancy indeed. Any day, any hour, any moment, the officers might come for -him. The Lizard, the Indian, a chance unguarded word of the Pardners, -any one of a hundred things might happen to put the men of the law upon -his track. He must not—he must not—say the word that would bring upon -the girl he loved the shame and misery that so surely awaited him if the -sheriff should find him. More than ever now he was determined to save -Marta from himself. But it was not easy. It had been hard before Marta -knew what Sheriff Burks’ visit had revealed to her—it was harder now. -If only he could find the gold.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_193" id="page_193">{193}</a></span></p> - -<p>But nothing could dampen the girl’s spirit. She was as sure of Hugh -Edwards’ love as if he had spoken. When she had believed that her own -nameless and questionable birth was the reason for his refusal to -declare his love, she had been miserable. But now that his own disgrace -had been revealed she felt that the shame of her unknown parentage need -be no longer a barrier between them. She did not know what it was that -had made the man she loved a fugitive from the law. She did not care. -She was glad—glad—because now her dream of happiness with him was -possible. She saw now that the thing which had kept him from telling his -love was not her lack of an honorable name but the dishonor of his own. -He had been shielding her from himself. His silence had not been to save -himself from the shame that she might bring to him, but rather to save -her from the shame that was already his and which an avowal of his love -would have led her to share.</p> - -<p>And so she tried in every way to win through the guard he had set -against her and to restore the dear comradeship which had been -broken—first by the Lizard, and now through the visit of Sheriff Burks. -With every wile of her womanhood—with every art of her sex—with all -the frankness of her unspoiled nature—she offered herself. Secure in -the confidence of his love, she tempted him to break the silence which -he had with such fortitude imposed upon himself. And while her loving, -generous heart was wrung with pity for his suffering, she gloried<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_194" id="page_194">{194}</a></span> in -the strength that enabled him to endure against her, and rejoiced in the -knowledge that his self-imposed torture was for love of her.</p> - -<p>When she tried to make him talk to her of his past, he was silent. When -she told him of her own history, he answered, bitterly, that she was -fortunate in having no parents to disgrace, no name to dishonor. When -she asserted her belief in him no matter what he was in the eyes of the -law, he smiled grimly and remarked that, while he appreciated and was -grateful for her confidence, her opinion could in no way alter the hard -facts of the case. And every day, from the first light of the morning -until it was so dark that he could no longer see, he toiled with -desperate strength for the gold that would enable him to escape and, by -insuring his freedom, make it possible for him to ask Marta to share his -future.</p> - -<p>He no longer saw the beauty and the grandeur of the mountains. The -flowers no longer bloomed for him. He did not hear the birds that filled -the Cañon of Gold with music. He did not now glory in the vigorous -freshness of the morning. He no longer knew the peace of the restful -nights. His every thought was of gold, gold, gold, because gold to him -meant Marta. As so many men in the Cañon of Gold had whispered in the -night, after a day of heavy fruitless toil: “To-morrow, perhaps,” this -man in the night whispered to himself: “To-morrow, perhaps.”</p> - -<p>Then came that night when Hugh Edwards was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_195" id="page_195">{195}</a></span> startled out of his dream of -the golden possibilities of to-morrow by a sound at his cabin door.</p> - -<p>Springing to his feet he stood trembling with fear and dread—had the -officers come?</p> - -<p>Again came the sound of some one knocking lightly on the door.</p> - -<p>With white lips he whispered to himself:</p> - -<p>“It’s only Thad or Bob or Marta, it’s not late yet.”</p> - -<p>But he knew that it was late. He had seen the light in Marta’s window go -out two hours ago.</p> - -<p>Again the knocking sounded.</p> - -<p>In desperation he threw open the door.</p> - -<p>It was Natachee.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_196" id="page_196">{196}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XX" id="CHAPTER_XX"></a>CHAPTER XX<br /><br /> -THE ONLY CHANCE</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The rabbit that is caught by the fox does not dictate to his -captor.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>ILENTLY the white man drew back.</p> - -<p>The Indian stepped into the cabin and softly closed the door.</p> - -<p>Edwards waited for his visitor to speak, while the red man gazed at him -with a hint of that fleeting, shadowy smile of cruel pleasure and -satisfaction.</p> - -<p>“I returned from Tucson this afternoon,” he said at last. “I came back -to my place another way, over the mountains from the south. When the sun -was gone I came down here to you.”</p> - -<p>Edwards did not know what to say. He realized that Natachee’s visit, at -that hour of the night, was more than a mere social call. He felt that -for some reason he, the white man, had suddenly become of more than mere -passing interest to the Indian. Recalling the Indian’s manner at the -time of their last meeting, he waited anxiously for what was to come. He -managed to murmur a few commonplace words of welcome.</p> - -<p>Natachee said gravely:</p> - -<p>“I have something to tell you—something which I think will be of -interest.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_197" id="page_197">{197}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Edwards nervously offered a chair.</p> - -<p>When they were seated, the Indian said:</p> - -<p>“Perhaps I should tell you that I went to Tucson in your interest.” He -smiled as he added: “In your interest—and for <i>my</i> pleasure.”</p> - -<p>“I can’t see how my interests have anything to do with your pleasure,” -returned the white man, stung by the touch of mockery in the Indian’s -tone.</p> - -<p>“No? I suppose you can’t. But you will understand presently,” said the -other, as if he enjoyed the situation and would prolong the pleasure it -afforded him to witness the white man’s uneasy fears.</p> - -<p>“Suppose you explain yourself and be done with it,” said Edwards -shortly.</p> - -<p>“You white men are all so impatient,” murmured Natachee with taunting -deliberation. “Really, you should learn a lesson of patience from the -Indians. An Indian has need to be patient. He must wait and watch, long -and untiringly, for his few opportunities, and then when his opportunity -at last comes he must not fail through ill-advised haste to make the -most of it. The white man squanders his pleasures as he squanders his -wealth. With reckless, headlong, swinish eagerness to drink his fill at -one gulp; he spills his cup of happiness before he has really tasted it. -The Indian takes his pleasures with careful deliberation, as he compels -his enemies to bear the pain of the torture, and so he enjoys in its -fullness, to the last drop, whatever drink his gods are pleased to set -before him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_198" id="page_198">{198}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“For God’s sake say what you have come to say and be done with it!” -cried Edwards.</p> - -<p>The Indian laughed.</p> - -<p>“Many a white man, in the old days, has begged an Indian to end it all -quickly and have done with it. But,” he added with triumphant insolence, -“the rabbit that is caught by the fox does not dictate to his captor. I, -Natachee the Indian, in my own way will tell you, Donald Payne, what I -have come to say.”</p> - -<p>As the Indian spoke that name, the man, known as Hugh Edwards, sprang to -his feet with a cry.</p> - -<p>Natachee watched the effect of his words with cruel satisfaction.</p> - -<p>When the Indian’s victim had gained some control of his tortured nerves -and had dropped weakly into his chair again, the red man said with -savage irony:</p> - -<p>“I regret, in a way, that Miss Hillgrove is not here to listen to my -story.”</p> - -<p>The white man, with his head bowed in his hands, winced.</p> - -<p>“It would add much to my pleasure if I could watch her enjoying it with -you.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards groaned as one in torment.</p> - -<p>“But all that in good time,” continued the Indian. “I must explain now -how it came about that the rabbit, Donald Payne, is under the paw of the -Indian fox.</p> - -<p>“When Sheriff Burks described the criminal who escaped from the -California penitentiary I saw a possible opportunity that promised me, -Natachee,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_199" id="page_199">{199}</a></span> no little pleasure and satisfaction—an opportunity for which -I have been waiting. Miss Hillgrove’s agitation, her going to you, and -your own action, confirmed my opinion as to where the convict who had so -far escaped the officers was to be found. But I realized that it might -be well to learn more. Thinking it unwise to appear too interested -before the sheriff, I went to Tucson—first making sure that you would -be here when I returned. In the white man’s city, clothed properly in -the white man’s costume, with careful white man’s manners, I was -permitted to search the files of the white man’s newspapers, and, thanks -to my white education, to read the shameful account of this escaped -convict’s crime.</p> - -<p>“I learned how Donald Payne, a promising young business man and a -graduate of the California University, had held an important position of -trust in a certain investment company. This company had been -specifically planned and organized to attract the savings of small -investors. Its appeal was to the better class of workmen, who out of -their meager earnings were ambitious to put by something for the better -education of their children—widows, with a little life insurance money -upon the income of which they must exist—school-teachers, who must save -against that dread day when they could no longer work—stenographers, -clerks, and that class of poor whose education and tastes were above -their earnings, and in whose hearts hope was kept alive by the promise -of safe and honest returns from<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_200" id="page_200">{200}</a></span> their hard-saved pennies. Every dollar -in that institution of trust represented honest human effort and worthy -ambition and heroic selfsacrifice.</p> - -<p>“Oh, it was a white man’s enterprise, born of a white man’s devilish -cunning, and carried out with a white man’s remorseless cruelty to its -damnable end. When the people’s confidence had been won, and they had -been persuaded to place enough of their savings in the hands of these -spoilers to make it worth while, the company failed. The investors lost -everything. The promoters—the principals of the company—gained -everything. But Donald Payne, the brilliant young financial genius whose -manipulation brought about the wreck, went to San Quentin prison.</p> - -<p>“He had served eighteen months of his sentence when he escaped. His -mother, a widow, brokenhearted over the shame and dishonor, scorned and -ostracized by her neighbors and friends, humiliated by the cruel -publicity, died in less than a month after her son was pronounced -guilty. Donald Payne is without doubt the most hated, the most despised -name in this decade.”</p> - -<p>The man who, during the Indian’s deliberate recital, had sat cowering in -his chair, raised his haggard face. His eyes were dull with anguish, his -lips were drawn and white; but in spite of his ghastly appearance there -was a strange air of dignity in his manner as he said hoarsely:</p> - -<p>“And is that all you know?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_201" id="page_201">{201}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Indian waited a little as if to give the greatest possible -significance to his answer, then:</p> - -<p>“No, not quite all. I know that this escaped convict, Donald Payne, has -learned to love a woman. And I know that this woman loves this man, who -is hiding from the officers who would send him back to prison.”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said the white man, hoarsely, “that is true. If it is any -satisfaction to you, I confess my love for Marta Hillgrove. I have every -reason to believe in her love for me, and—I—dare not—for her -sake—tell her of my love.”</p> - -<p>He rose to his feet and stood before the Indian with a dignity and -strength that won a gleam of admiration from the dark eyes of his -tormentor, and in a voice ringing with passionate earnestness cried:</p> - -<p>“But, listen, you damned red savage. You do not yet know all the truth. -Donald Payne was never guilty of the crime for which he was sentenced. I -was an innocent tool in the hands of the real criminal. It was a part of -his plan from the first that some one should be offered, a sacrifice, to -satisfy the public. He schemed far ahead to prove some one guilty and -thus secure himself. I was chosen for that end. I was promoted to a -position of trust with my sacrifice in view. It was all planned, -arranged, and carried out. The man who robbed the people and for whose -crime I was sent to prison is to-day living in Los Angeles in safety and -luxury with the wealth he acquired through the company which he promoted -and wrecked.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_202" id="page_202">{202}</a></span></p> - -<p>“The people who hate me, because they believe me guilty, do not know. -The papers that branded me with shame and heralded my disgrace to every -corner of the world do not know. The jury that convicted me did not -know. The judge did not know. My mother did not know. The penitentiary -does not know. The officers who would drag me back to it all do not -know. <i>But I know—I know—I know!</i>”</p> - -<p>He stood madly, superbly defiant, uplifted for the moment by the -strength of his own asserted innocence. Then suddenly, as a beef animal -falls under the blow of the butcher’s killing maul, he dropped into his -chair, where he writhed in an agony greater than any physical suffering -could have wrought.</p> - -<p>The deep voice of the watching Indian broke the silence.</p> - -<p>“Good! It is even better than I could have believed. In my wildest -dreams I never hoped to see a white man suffer such unmerited torture. -In time, perhaps, you will even come to a degree of sympathy for an -Indian, and to understand, a little, his feeling toward the white race.”</p> - -<p>When Hugh Edwards was able to speak again he said with dreary -hopelessness:</p> - -<p>“They will come for me in the morning, I suppose?”</p> - -<p>“They? Who?”</p> - -<p>“The officers—have you not told them?”</p> - -<p>Natachee laughed.</p> - -<p>“I tell the officers what I know about you?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_203" id="page_203">{203}</a></span> I give you up for them to -take you back to the penitentiary? No—no—you do not seem to have -grasped the purpose of my efforts in your behalf. I shall keep you for -myself. I have too much pleasure in you to permit any one to take you -away from me. You shall go with me, and together we, the two outcasts, -we who are outcasts because of nothing that we have done, but only -because some one wished by our misfortune and suffering to gain riches, -we shall enjoy life together as we can.”</p> - -<p>The note of exaltation that was in his voice, or some hint of a sinister -purpose in his manner, aroused the white man.</p> - -<p>“You mean that you are going to help me to escape?”</p> - -<p>“From your white man’s laws, yes. From me, no—not yet—not until I am -through with you.”</p> - -<p>“Explain yourself,” demanded the other. “What is it that you propose? I -don’t understand.”</p> - -<p>“It is this,” returned the Indian. “You cannot stay here because any -day—to-morrow even—the sheriff may come for you. You cannot go from -this Cañon of Gold because you would surely be caught, unless you could -leave this country, and that you cannot do because you have no money. -You shall come with me. With me you will be safe from the law. No one -will know where you are. No one shall ever find you. I, Natachee, know -these mountains as no white man can ever know them. I will hide you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_204" id="page_204">{204}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>There was something in the Indian’s face that made Hugh Edwards gaze at -him in wondering silence.</p> - -<p>The Indian continued:</p> - -<p>“I will show you where you can dig more gold than ever you would find -here. Who knows, perhaps you may even find the Mine with the Iron Door. -With gold enough you could make your way to safety. You could even take -the woman you love with you. And so you shall work and dream and -dream—and I, Natachee—I will help you to dream. If your dream never -comes true, if your labor is all in vain, if you never find the Mine -with the Iron Door, or if, while you are toiling for the gold you need, -the woman you love should become the wife of your friend Saint Jimmy, -why, that will not be my fault. I will help you to dream. It will be for -you to find the gold that will make your dream come true—<i>if you can</i>.”</p> - -<p>The Indian spoke those last three words with fiendish deliberation and -sinister meaning that was unmistakable.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards understood.</p> - -<p>“You are a devil.”</p> - -<p>“No, I am Natachee the Indian—you are a white man.”</p> - -<p>“You would save me from prison so that you might feast your damned -revengeful spirit on my suffering.”</p> - -<p>“It is a help for you to understand exactly my purpose,” returned the -Indian.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_205" id="page_205">{205}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What if I refused to go with you?”</p> - -<p>“You will not refuse.”</p> - -<p>“Why?”</p> - -<p>“If you go with me you take your only possible chance for the future. -You might, you know, find the gold. If you do not go, I shall send you -back to prison.”</p> - -<p>“I will go.”</p> - -<p>“Good, but—you must understand. You will leave here with me to-night. -There will be no message—no hint to tell any one why you have gone, or -where, or that you will ever come again. As long as you are with me you -will be as one dead to all who have ever known you.”</p> - -<p>“But Marta—Miss Hillgrove—“ cried the other.</p> - -<p>Drawing himself up with the air of a conqueror, the Indian answered -coldly:</p> - -<p>“I, Natachee, have spoken.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When morning came, Marta saw no smoke rising from the chimney of Hugh -Edwards’ cabin. At first she told herself, with a laugh, that Hugh was -sleeping later than usual, and went happily about her own early morning -work. But as the hours passed and there was no sign of life about the -neighboring cabin, she became uneasy. By the time breakfast was over and -the Pardners had gone to their work, the girl was fully convinced that -all was not right and went to investigate.</p> - -<p>Knocking at the cabin door, she called:</p> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_206" id="page_206">{206}</a></span></p> -<p>“Hugh—Oh, Hugh!”</p> - -<p>There was no answer.</p> - -<p>She went hurriedly to the top of the bank above the place where he -worked.</p> - -<p>He was not there.</p> - -<p>Running back to the cabin she knocked again.</p> - -<p>“Hugh—Oh, Hugh! What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>There was no sound.</p> - -<p>Pushing open the door she stood on the threshold. The room was empty.</p> - -<p>The truth forced itself upon the girl with overwhelming weight. Hugh -Edwards was gone. He had not merely left his cabin for an hour or a day. -He had not stepped out somewhere to return again presently. He was -<i>gone</i>. Sometime during the night he had packed his things and had -disappeared with no parting word—no good-by—no promise—leaving no -message. He had vanished.</p> - -<p>The girl was stunned. She argued with herself dully that she must be -mistaken—that it could not be so. Hugh, her Hugh, would never do such a -cruel, cruel thing.</p> - -<p>From the open doorway she looked out at the familiar scene, at the cañon -walls, the mountain ridges and peaks, her home—nothing was changed. She -turned again to the empty, silent room. Hugh was gone.</p> - -<p>But there must be something—some word to tell her—to explain.</p> - -<p>Carefully, with slow, leaden movements, she searched every corner of the -bare room. She looked in the cupboard, under the bunk, in every crevice<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_207" id="page_207">{207}</a></span> -of the walls. She even searched with a stick among the dead ashes in the -fireplace. There was nothing.</p> - -<p>She did not cry out. The hurt was too deep. She sat on the threshold of -the empty cabin and tried to make it all seem real.</p> - -<p>It was two hours later when Saint Jimmy found her sitting there.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_208" id="page_208">{208}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXI" id="CHAPTER_XXI"></a>CHAPTER XXI<br /><br /> -THE WAY OF A RED MAN</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all -the stars in the red man’s sky.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE weeks of the “Little Spring” passed. The blossoms vanished from -mountain and foothill and mesa and desert. The air grew crisp with the -tang of frost. On the higher elevations the cold winds moaned through -the junipers and cedars—wailed among the peaks and shrieked about the -cliffs and crags. Again on Mount Lemmon the snow gleamed, white and -cold, among the somber pines.</p> - -<p>In the wild remote region of the upper Cañada del Oro the man, known to -his friends in the Cañon of Gold as Hugh Edwards, lived with his captor, -Natachee the Indian.</p> - -<p>The white man was not a prisoner of force—rather was he a captive of -circumstance. But captive and prisoner he was, none the less. He was -held by the red man’s threat to reveal his real name and identity as the -convict who had escaped from San Quentin, together with that hope so -cunningly offered by the Indian—the hope of finding the gold that would -bring him freedom and the woman he loved.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_209" id="page_209">{209}</a></span></p> - -<p>Every day the white man toiled with pick and shovel in a hidden gulch -where the Indian had shown to him a little gold in the sand and gravel. -Every night before the fire in the Indian’s hut he brooded over his -memories, dreamed dreams of freedom and love, or sat despondent with the -meager returns of his day’s labor. And always the Indian held out to him -the possibilities of to-morrow. To-morrow he might, at one stroke of his -pick, open a golden vein of such magnitude that the realization of all -his dreams would be assured—to-morrow—to-morrow.</p> - -<p>His small hoard of gold increased so slowly that, unless he should -strike a rich pocket, it would be years before he could accumulate -enough to win his freedom and his happiness. But gold was his only hope. -And every day he found enough to justify the belief that all he needed -was near to his hand if only he could find it. He was held by that chain -of to-morrows.</p> - -<p>In the meantime, what of Marta? Would her love endure? With no -explanation of his sudden disappearance—with no word of love from -him—no promise of his return—no message to bid her hope—would she -wait for him? Was her faith in him strong enough to stand under such a -cruel test?</p> - -<p>Many times during the first weeks of his strange captivity he begged the -Indian for permission to send some word to the woman he loved. But the -red man invariably answered, “No,” with the cold warning that if he made -any attempt to communicate<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_210" id="page_210">{210}</a></span> with any one he should be returned to -prison. When the white man realized that his importunities only served -to give the Indian a cruel pleasure, he ceased to plead.</p> - -<p>Then one evening just at dusk the red man said:</p> - -<p>“Come, my friend, this will not do at all. You are not nearly so -entertaining as you were. You need inspiration—come with me.”</p> - -<p>He led the way to a point on the mountain ridge not far above the hut. -The colors of the sunset were still bright in the western sky and behind -them the higher peaks and crags were glowing in the light, but far below -in the Cañon of Gold and over the desert beyond, the deepening dusk lay -like a shadowy sea.</p> - -<p>“Look!” said the Indian, pointing into the gloomy depths. “Do you see -it—down there directly under that lone bright star? Almost as if it -were a reflection of the star, only not so cold?”</p> - -<p>“Do you mean that light?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, you have good eyes for a white man,” answered the Indian. “I am -glad. I feared you might not be able to see it.”</p> - -<p>He paused and the other, watching the tiny red point in the darkness so -far below, waited.</p> - -<p>“That light is in the home of your friends, the Pardners and their -daughter.”</p> - -<p>The Indian’s victim muttered an exclamation.</p> - -<p>“In fact,” continued Natachee slowly as if to make every word effective, -“it shines through the window of Miss Hillgrove’s room.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_211" id="page_211">{211}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The white man stood with his eyes fixed on that distant light, as one -under a spell, then suddenly he whirled about, cursing his tormentor for -bringing him there.</p> - -<p>The Indian smiled, as in the old days one of his savage ancestors might -have smiled in triumph, at a cry of pain successfully wrung from a -victim of the torture. Then he said with stern but melancholy dignity:</p> - -<p>“I, Natachee, often come here to sit on this spot from which one may -look so far over the homeland of my Indian fathers. But for Natachee -there is no light in the window of love. Where you, a white man, see the -light, the red man sees only darkness. For Natachee the Indian there is -no soft fire of a woman’s love and home and happy children. Where the -fires of the Indian’s home life and love once burned, there are now only -cold ashes and blackened embers. I shall often see you up here watching -your star that is so near. But for me, Natachee, there is no star. The -dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all the stars -in the red man’s sky.”</p> - -<p>In spite of his own suffering, Hugh Edwards was moved to pity.</p> - -<p>On another occasion the Indian told his victim of Marta’s visit to his -hut that night of the storm. He called attention to the fact that the -very chair in which Hugh was sitting was the chair in which she had sat -before the fire. The couch upon which Hugh slept was the couch upon -which she had slept. Hugh’s place at the table had been her place.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_212" id="page_212">{212}</a></span></p> - -<p>Invariably, when he saw that the white man was nearing the limit of his -endurance, the Indian would hold before him the promise of the -future—the love and happiness that would be his when he should find the -gold—the gold that he would perhaps strike—to-morrow.</p> - -<p>At times the Indian would be gone for two or three days. Always he left -with no word or hint that he was going. The white man would awaken in -the morning to find himself alone in the hut, or perhaps the Indian -would disappear at a moment when Hugh’s back was turned, or again -Edwards, upon returning from his work in the evening, would find that -Natachee had left the place sometime during his absence. Invariably, -when the red man reappeared, he came in the same unexpected and -unannounced manner. The white man never knew when to look for him, nor -where. Often the captive would look up from his work to find the Indian -only a few feet away, watching him.</p> - -<p>At times, when Natachee returned from an absence of a day or more, he -would tell his victim of Marta—how he had seen and talked with her—how -she looked—what she was doing—painting such true and vivid pictures of -the girl that the captive’s heart would ache with longing. Then the -Indian, watching with devilish cunning the effect of his words, would -assure his victim that the girl loved him but that she believed he had -left her because he did not care for her, and that the grief of her -disappointment and loneliness was seriously affecting her health.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_213" id="page_213">{213}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What a pity,” the Indian would say mockingly, “that you cannot find the -gold!” And then he would picture the happiness that would come to this -man and woman—how they would go together to a place of peace and -security—how, in the fullness of their love and in the joys of their -companionship, the pain and suffering would all be forgotten. “If,” he -always added, “you could only find the gold.”</p> - -<p>Again the red man, with fiendish skill, would tell how he had seen Saint -Jimmy and Marta together. He would talk of Saint Jimmy’s love for -her—of his tender devotion and care, and of the girl’s affection for -her teacher. He would relate how they spent hours together—how, in her -grief, Marta had sought the comforting companionship of her gentle -friend.</p> - -<p>“I fear,” Natachee would say, “that if you do not find the gold soon it -will be too late. What a tragedy it would be for you, for Doctor Burton, -and for the girl, if, when you are able to go to her, you should find -her the wife of your friend. But to-morrow, perhaps, you will find the -gold.”</p> - -<p>Every evening at sunset, when he thought that the Indian was away -somewhere in the mountains, Hugh Edwards would climb to that place on -the ridge from which he could see that tiny point of red light so far -below in the dark depth of the Cañon of Gold. And not infrequently, when -the light had at last gone out, he would return to the hut to learn that -the red man had been watching him.</p> - -<p>When, under the torment of the Indian’s cruel art,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_214" id="page_214">{214}</a></span> the victim would -rebel, Natachee talked of the prison—of the future of shame and horror -that awaited the returned convict if he should again fall into the -clutches of the law. Reminded thus that his only chance was in finding -gold the man would return to his labor with exhausting energy.</p> - -<p>And Hugh Edwards, with his lack of experience in such things, never once -dreamed that all the gold he dug in that hidden gulch was put there by -the crafty Indian. Night after night when the white man was sleeping, -Natachee stole from the hut to the place where his victim toiled, and -there “salted” the sand and gravel with a small quantity of the precious -metal.</p> - -<p>In her home in the Cañon of Gold, Marta waited, as so many women have -waited while their men toiled for the yellow treasure that meant -happiness. She could not understand. But neither could she doubt Hugh -Edwards’ love. She only knew that some day he would come again. With -Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton to help her, she would be patient.</p> - -<p>More than ever, in those days of her waiting, the Pardner’s girl -depended for strength and courage and guidance upon her two friends in -the little white house on the mountain side. More than ever, they were -dear to her.</p> - -<p>The Pardners too had faith that their neighbor would return.</p> - -<p>“An’ when he comes,” said old Bob, “you can bet your pile he’s comin’ -with bells on. We don’t know what it is that has took him away so -sudden<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_215" id="page_215">{215}</a></span>like, but whatever it is, it ain’t nothin’ that we’ll be ashamed -of when we know.”</p> - -<p>And Thad, with characteristic fervor, added:</p> - -<p>“Well, Holy Cats, there ain’t no law, leastwise in this here Cañada del -Oro, that says a man has got to advertise every time he makes a move. -You’re tootin’—the boy’ll come back, an’ he’ll come with head up an’ -steppin’ high—that’s what I’m meanin’.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>It was on one of these occasions, when the Indian was taunting his -victim with the assurance that more gold than he needed was within his -reach if only he knew where to look, that the white man turned on his -tormentor with a contemptuous laugh.</p> - -<p>“Do you think that I am fool enough to believe that you actually know of -any such rich deposit near here?”</p> - -<p>The words seemed to have a marked effect upon the Indian. Hugh saw, with -a thrill of satisfaction and not a little wonder, that he had by chance -broken through the red man’s armor of stoical composure.</p> - -<p>Natachee threw up his head and held himself stiffly erect with the pride -of a savage conqueror, while his eyes were gleaming with intense mental -excitement, and his voice rang with challenging force, as he said:</p> - -<p>“You think that I, Natachee, am lying when I say that I know where there -is gold beyond even a white man’s dream of wealth?”</p> - -<p>“I know you are lying,” returned Hugh coldly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_216" id="page_216">{216}</a></span> “Your talk of great -wealth so near when I am finding so little is pure fiction. Because you -know that I would almost give my soul to find a reasonably rich pocket, -even, you have invented the story of this marvelously rich deposit, to -torture me. If I believed it were true, I might, under the -circumstances, feel worked up over it, but as it is you may as well save -your breath. You are not worrying me in the least.”</p> - -<p>“Good!” said Natachee, “the night is very dark. If the white man is not -a coward he will come with me.”</p> - -<p>“Go with you?” exclaimed the other. “Where?”</p> - -<p>“You shall never know <i>where</i>,” replied the Indian. “But you shall see -that I, Natachee, do not lie.”</p> - -<p>From a peg in the wall he took a short rope and from the cupboard drawer -a cloth and two candles. One of the candles he offered to Hugh with an -insolent smile.</p> - -<p>“If you are not afraid of the ghosts that, in the night and the -darkness, haunt the Cañon of Gold.”</p> - -<p>The amazed white man, snatching the candle, motioned impatiently for the -Indian to proceed.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_217" id="page_217">{217}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXII" id="CHAPTER_XXII"></a>CHAPTER XXII<br /><br /> -THE LOST MINE</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The hope that brought the first white man to the Cañada del Oro is -your only hope. You shall labor—you shall find your gold—if you -can.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>ROM the door of the hut the Indian led the way into the darkness.</p> - -<p>There was no friendly moon. The sky was overcast with lowering clouds -that shut out the light of the stars. From the thick blackness of the -cañon far below, the sullen murmur of the creek came up like the growl -of angry voices from the depth of some black pit. The mountains seemed -to breathe like gigantic monsters in a weird, dream world. The very air -was heavy with the mystery of the night.</p> - -<p>They had not gone a hundred yards before the white man lost all sense of -direction. As they made their way down the steep side of the mountain he -could scarcely distinguish the form of the Indian who was within reach -of his hand.</p> - -<p>Presently Natachee stopped, and, lighting the candle he carried, said:</p> - -<p>“See, there is your pick and shovel. Are you satisfied that this is the -place where you work?”</p> - -<p>“Certainly, I can see that,” returned the other wonderingly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_218" id="page_218">{218}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Good!” returned the Indian. “Now we will go only a little way from this -place.”</p> - -<p>He extinguished the candlelight, and the inky darkness enveloped them -like a blanket.</p> - -<p>“But,” he added, “I must first make sure of your never again going as we -shall go. I will blindfold you and you will follow me by holding fast to -this rope. Are you willing?”</p> - -<p>There was a taunting sneer in his tone that would have goaded the white -man into any reckless adventure.</p> - -<p>“As you like,” he said shortly.</p> - -<p>When the cloth was bound securely about Hugh’s eyes, the Indian caught -him by the arms and whirled him about until he was completely -bewildered. Then he felt one end of the rope thrust into his hand.</p> - -<p>“Come,” said the Indian, and gave a slight pull on the rope.</p> - -<p>It was impossible for the white man to form any idea as to their course. -At times they climbed upward, then again they descended as rapidly. At -other times they made their way along some steep slope. Now and then the -Indian bade him go on hands and knees, or warned him to move with care -and to hold fast to the shrubs and bushes. At last Hugh Edwards knew -that they were entering a cavern by an opening barely large enough for -them to crawl through. He could not even guess the dimensions of this -underground chamber, but he imagined that it was a passage or tunnel, -for as they went on he touched a wall on his right and the Indian -cautioned him to keep his head down.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_219" id="page_219">{219}</a></span></p> - -<p>For some distance they walked in this fashion, then Natachee stopped, -and the white man heard him strike a match. A moment later his blindfold -was removed.</p> - -<p>“Your candle,” said Natachee sharply, and lighted it from the one he -himself held.</p> - -<p>The white man gazed curiously about him.</p> - -<p>“Look!” cried the Indian. “Look and say if I, Natachee, lied when I told -you of the gold that is so near the place where you work—if only you -knew where to find it.”</p> - -<p>Natachee the Indian had not lied. Thousands upon thousands of dollars in -golden value lay within the circle of the candlelight.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards stood amazed. He could not know the full extent of the -vein, but a fortune of staggering proportions was within sight. The -farther end of the chamber was an irregular mass of rocks and earth that -had quite evidently fallen and slid from above; but the remaining walls -and ceiling were as obviously cut by human hands.</p> - -<p>The white man looked at his companion inquiringly.</p> - -<p>“An old mine?”</p> - -<p>The Indian, with an air of triumph, answered:</p> - -<p>“The Mine with the Iron Door.”</p> - -<p>As one half dreaming feels for something real and tangible, Hugh Edwards -said hesitatingly:</p> - -<p>“But why, knowing this, have you not made use of it—why do you leave -such wealth buried here?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_220" id="page_220">{220}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You forget that I am an Indian,” the red man answered. “If I, Natachee, -were to tell the secret of the Mine with the Iron Door, would the white -men permit me to retain this treasure or to use it for my people? When -has your race ever permitted an Indian to have anything that a white man -wanted for himself? Suppose it were possible for me to take this -treasure without revealing the secret of the mine—of what use would its -gold be to me? Could I, an Indian, use such wealth without bringing upon -myself and my people, envy, hatred and persecution from those who say -that this is a white man’s country?</p> - -<p>“And suppose I could use this gold? What would an Indian do with gold? -The things that the white man buys with gold mean nothing to an Indian. -We do not want the white man’s things. We do not want your factories and -railroads and ships and banks and churches. We do not want your music, -your art, your libraries and schools. An Indian does not want any of the -things that this yellow stuff means to the white man.</p> - -<p>“Could I, with this gold, restore to my people the homeland of their -fathers? Could I destroy your cities, your government, your laws and all -the institutions of your civilization that you have built up in this, -the land that you have taken by force and treachery from my people? -Could I, Natachee, with this gold bring back the forests you have cut -down, the streams you have dried up or poisoned, the lands you have made -desolate? Could I bring<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_221" id="page_221">{221}</a></span> back the antelope, the deer and all the life -that the white man has destroyed?”</p> - -<p>Stooping, he caught up a piece of the quartz that was heavy with the -gold it carried. Holding it in the light of the candle, he said:</p> - -<p>“Before the white man came, this, to the Indians, was only a pretty -stone, of no more value than any other bright-colored pebble. If the red -man used it at all it was as an ornament of trivial significance—of no -real worth. But to the white man, this is everything. It is honor and -renown—it is achievement and success—it is the beginning and the end -of life—it is sacrifice and hardship—it is luxury and want—it is -bloody war with its murdered millions—it is government—it is law—it -is religion—it is love. And it was this—this bit of worthless yellow -dirt—that brought the first white man to the Indians. For gold, the -white adventurers braved the dangers of an unknown ocean and forced -their way into an unknown land. For gold, they have robbed and killed -the people whose homeland they invaded, until to-day we are as dead -grass and withered leaves in the pathway of the fire of the white man’s -greed. We are as a handful of desert dust in the whirlwind of your -civilization.”</p> - -<p>He threw the piece of quartz aside with a gesture of loathing, and stood -for a moment with his head lowered in sorrow.</p> - -<p>And once again Hugh Edwards, in spite of the cruel torture to which the -Indian had subjected him, felt a thrill of pity for his tormentor.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_222" id="page_222">{222}</a></span></p> - -<p>But before the white man could find words to express his emotions, -Natachee suddenly lifted his head, and with the cruel light of savage -exultation blazing in his eyes, went a step toward his startled -companion.</p> - -<p>“Do you understand now why I have brought you here? Do you understand my -purpose in permitting you to see, with your own eyes, the gold of the -Mine with the Iron Door?</p> - -<p>“Your only hope of freedom, from the hell to which you have been -condemned through a white man’s trickery and by your white man’s laws, -is in gold. Only through the possession of gold can you hope to win the -woman you love and who loves you.</p> - -<p>“You say you would give your soul for the gold which means so much to -you. Good! I believe you. I am glad. Here is the gold—look at -it—handle it—dream of all that it would bring you. Here is freedom -from your hell—here is love—here is happiness—here is the woman you -love. It is all here, within reach of your hand, and you shall never -touch one grain of it. If you had a hundred souls to offer in exchange, -you should not touch one grain of it. Because you are a white man, and -because I am an Indian.</p> - -<p>“I, Natachee, have spoken.”</p> - -<p>The meaning of the Indian’s words burned in the white man’s brain. -Slowly he looked about that treasure chamber as if summing up in his -mind all that it might mean to him. His nerves and muscles were tense -with agony. Beads of sweat glistened on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_223" id="page_223">{223}</a></span> his forehead. His face was -twisted in a grimace of pain. And in the agony of his torture a dreadful -purpose came.</p> - -<p>The watching Indian saw, and his sinewy hand loosed the knife in his -belt, as his deep voice broke the silence of the old mine.</p> - -<p>“No, you will not try that. You are unarmed. I would kill you before you -could strike a blow. There is no hope for you there. Your one chance is -to dig for the gold you need. You might strike it rich, you know. Who -can say—to-morrow—another stroke of your pick. The hope that brought -the first white man to the Cañada del Oro is your only hope. As so many -of your race have labored in the Cañon of Gold you shall labor—you -shall find your gold—if you can.”</p> - -<p>The white man bowed his head.</p> - -<p>Natachee went to him with the cloth to bind his eyes.</p> - -<p>Quietly Hugh Edwards submitted to the bandage. The Indian extinguished -the light of the candle and thrust the end of the rope into his victim’s -unresisting hand.</p> - -<p>“The white man is wise to take the one chance that is his,” said the -Indian. “Come. To-morrow, perhaps, you will find gold.”</p> - -<p>Through the remaining weeks of the winter Hugh Edwards toiled with all -his strength for the grains of yellow metal that the Indian secretly -permitted him to find. Day and night the knowledge of the Mine with the -Iron Door tortured him. Many times he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_224" id="page_224">{224}</a></span> was tempted to abandon all hope, -and, by surrendering himself to the officers of the law, escape at least -the torment of his strange situation. But always he was held by the one -chance—to-morrow he might find the gold that meant freedom and Marta -and love.</p> - -<p>And at last, one day in spring, when the mountain slopes again were -bright with blossoms—when the gold of the buckbean shone in the glades, -and whispering bells were nodding in the shadows of the cañon -walls—when the glory of the ocotillo, the flaming sword, was on the -foothills, and “our Lord’s candles” again fit the mesas with their -torches of white, Hugh Edwards looked up from his work in the gulch to -see a stranger.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_225" id="page_225">{225}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXIII<br /><br /> -SONORA JACK</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“But here is the amazing thing—Sonora Jack knows more about these -two old prospectors and their partnership daughter than even you -know.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN he saw that he was discovered, the man who was watching Hugh -Edwards came leisurely forward. At the same instant Hugh thought that he -glimpsed another figure farther away on the mountain side.</p> - -<p>The stranger explained his presence in the neighborhood by saying that -he was hunting and had wandered farther from his camp than he had -intended. For nearly an hour he and Edwards visited in the manner of men -who meet by chance in the lonely open places. Then with a careless -<i>adios</i> he went on his way down the cañon.</p> - -<p>When Hugh, at the close of his day’s work, went up to the cabin, -Natachee was not at home. But when the white man had finished his supper -the Indian appeared, coming in his usual silent, unexpected way. As he -set about preparing his own supper, Natachee said:</p> - -<p>“You had visitors to-day.”</p> - -<p>Hugh was too accustomed to the red man’s uncanny way of knowing things -to be in the least surprised at his companion’s remark.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_226" id="page_226">{226}</a></span></p> - -<p>He answered indifferently:</p> - -<p>“I had a visitor.”</p> - -<p>“There were two in the neighborhood,” returned Natachee. “I saw their -tracks just before dark.”</p> - -<p>Hugh told how only one man had talked with him but that he thought he -had caught a glimpse of another.</p> - -<p>“That was the Lizard,” said Natachee. “I would know his tracks anywhere. -I have seen them often. His right foot turns in in a peculiar way and -his boot heels are always worn on the inside.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards caught his breath.</p> - -<p>“Do you think they were——“</p> - -<p>“After you?” Natachee finished for him. “I can’t say yet. It might be. -What was the man who talked with you like?”</p> - -<p>Hugh described the stranger.</p> - -<p>“Medium height, rather heavy, black hair, eyes very dark, a Mexican, or -at least part Mexican, I would say.”</p> - -<p>“Did he ask many questions about you?”</p> - -<p>“No more than any one would naturally ask.”</p> - -<p>“Did he show any curiosity about me?”</p> - -<p>“No, you were not mentioned. He said he was hunting but he seemed to be -rather interested, too, in prospecting and mining, and asked a lot of -questions about the country up here as if he had a general idea of the -lay of the land but was not exactly sure.”</p> - -<p>Natachee said no more until he had finished his supper. Then, going to a -corner of the cabin at the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_227" id="page_227">{227}</a></span> head of his bed, he pulled up a loose board -in the floor, and from the hiding place took a revolver with its holster -and belt of cartridges.</p> - -<p>Offering the weapon to the astounded white man, he said with a meaning -smile:</p> - -<p>“I brought this for you from Tucson last fall. But, considering -everything, I thought that it might be just as well for you not to have -it unless some occasion should arise. I am going to leave you for a -little while. Until I return you must keep this gun within reach of your -hand every minute—day and night.”</p> - -<p>Hugh took the weapon awkwardly.</p> - -<p>“Do you know how to use it?” asked Natachee sharply.</p> - -<p>The other laughed.</p> - -<p>“Oh, yes. I know how, but I couldn’t hit a flock of barns.”</p> - -<p>“You must carry it just the same,” returned the Indian. “But don’t do -any practicing. Keep your eyes open for any one who may be prowling -around and don’t let them see you if you can avoid it. This stranger may -be a hunter or a prospector—he may be an officer—he may be something -else. I shall know before I see you again.”</p> - -<p>Taking his bow and quiver of arrows, the Indian went out into the night.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>For two days and nights Hugh Edwards was alone. Then Natachee returned.</p> - -<p>When the Indian had eaten, with the appetite of a<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_228" id="page_228">{228}</a></span> man who has been long -hours without food, he said:</p> - -<p>“The man who talked with you is called Sonora Jack. He is a half-breed -Mexican; his real name is John Richards.</p> - -<p>“For several years this Sonora Jack, with a band of Mexicans and white -outlaws, operated in this section of the Southwest. They rustled cattle, -robbed trains, looted banks and stores, and held up everybody they -chanced to run across. With their headquarters somewhere south of the -line, it was not so easy for the United States authorities to capture -them, but after a particularly cold-blooded murder of a poor old couple -who were traveling by wagon through the country, the officers and the -people were so aroused that Sonora Jack, with a large reward on his -head, moved on to other less dangerous hunting grounds. It is generally -believed that he went south somewhere in Mexico.”</p> - -<p>“But are you sure that it was this same Sonora Jack that called on me?”</p> - -<p>The Indian smiled.</p> - -<p>“As sure as I am that you are Donald Payne.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards flushed as he returned coldly:</p> - -<p>“Please don’t forget that Donald Payne is dead.”</p> - -<p>“That depends,” retorted Natachee dryly.</p> - -<p>The white man did not overlook the Indian’s meaning. For a time he did -not speak, then he asked:</p> - -<p>“But what has brought this outlaw here to the Cañada del Oro?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_229" id="page_229">{229}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Natachee’s face was grave as he answered:</p> - -<p>“The Mine with the Iron Door.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards uttered an exclamation.</p> - -<p>“You mean that he has come to look for the lost mine?”</p> - -<p>For several minutes the Indian did not reply, but sat as if lost in -thought, then he said, as one reaching a grave decision:</p> - -<p>“Listen—I will tell you exactly what I have learned. It is of very -great importance to us both.</p> - -<p>“This Sonora Jack, with a Mexican who I am quite sure is a member of his -old band, first appeared in the Cañada del Oro several days ago. They -came in by the Oracle trail and called on Doctor Burton and his mother, -telling them that they were prospectors. I have talked to the Burtons -and they do not dream of the real characters or mission of the two -strangers who camped at Juniper Spring.</p> - -<p>“Apparently Sonora Jack and his companion met the Lizard, for they moved -down the cañon and are now living with the Lizard and his people. The -Lizard seems to be helping them with his supposed knowledge of the -country. Sonora Jack has a map, crudely drawn, and evidently very old. -Under the drawing in one corner is written:</p> - -<p>“<span class="lftspc">‘</span>La mina con la puerta de fierro en la Cañada del Oro’—The mine with -the door of iron in the Cañon of the Gold.”</p> - -<p>Again Hugh Edwards uttered an exclamation of astonishment.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_230" id="page_230">{230}</a></span></p> - -<p>“But how in the world do you know all this?” he demanded.</p> - -<p>The Indian explained.</p> - -<p>“In the Lizard’s house the table is close under one of the windows. -While Sonora Jack and his Mexican and the Lizard were looking at the map -and trying to determine the exact location of a certain gulch that was -many years ago filled by a landslide, I also looked.”</p> - -<p>“But those dogs,” cried the white man, “they were ready to eat me one -night when I happened to call there.”</p> - -<p>“You are not an Indian,” Natachee returned calmly. “Bows and arrows make -no sound. The Lizard will be short of dogs until he has an opportunity -to steal some new curs.”</p> - -<p>“Fine!” said Hugh.</p> - -<p>Natachee continued:</p> - -<p>“I not only saw their map, but, as it happens, there is a little place -under the sill of that particular window where the adobe wall has -crumbled away from the wood, and so I could hear what was said as -clearly as if I had been sitting at the table with them.</p> - -<p>“The Lizard told them all about the Indian who is commonly supposed to -know the secret of the lost mine. Some of the things he said I rather -think you would agree with. He also told them a good deal about you. He -knows you only by the name of Hugh Edwards, but I must say that some of -the things he reported were not what you might call complimentary.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_231" id="page_231">{231}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“I imagine not,” returned Hugh.</p> - -<p>Again Natachee, for some time, seemed to be weighing some matter of -greater moment than the things he had related; while the white man, -seeing the Indian so absorbed in his own thoughts, waited in silence.</p> - -<p>“There was something else that Sonora Jack and his companion talked -about,” said Natachee, at last, “something that I cannot understand.”</p> - -<p>Then looking straight into the white man’s eyes he asked slowly:</p> - -<p>“Will you tell me all that you know about Miss Hillgrove and her two -fathers?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards drew back and his face darkened. The Indian saw the effect -of his words and raised his hand to check the white man’s angry reply.</p> - -<p>“I understand your thought,” he said calmly. “But I assure you I am not -amusing myself at your expense. It is for your interest as well as for -mine that I ask.”</p> - -<p>Believing that the Indian was speaking sincerely, even though for some -reason of his own, and prompted by his alarm at this mention of Marta, -Hugh asked:</p> - -<p>“Am I to understand that Miss Hillgrove was discussed by this outlaw and -his companions?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Natachee. “The Lizard told Sonora Jack all that he knew and -perhaps more. I am asking you so that we may know how much of the -Lizard’s story is true.”</p> - -<p>In a few words Hugh related how the Pardners<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_232" id="page_232">{232}</a></span> had found Marta when the -girl was little more than a baby.</p> - -<p>When he had finished the Indian said:</p> - -<p>“I knew the story in a general way and the Lizard told it substantially -as you have. But here is the amazing thing—Sonora Jack knows more about -these two old prospectors and their partnership daughter than even you -know.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards was speechless with astonishment.</p> - -<p>The Indian continued:</p> - -<p>“When the Lizard first mentioned Miss Hillgrove’s name, it was in -connection with you, and Sonora Jack only laughed and made a coarse -jest. But when the Lizard went on to tell of her relationship to Bob and -Thad, the outlaw was so excited that he almost shouted. He asked -question after question—her age—how long she and the Pardners had been -in the Cañada del Oro—where they came from—everything—and as the -Lizard answered, the outlaw would translate to his Mexican companion, -who was as excited as Sonora Jack himself. And when the Lizard had told -him all he could, the two talked together in Mexican a long time. I -cannot repeat all that was said but Sonora Jack cried many times: ‘It is -the same girl, Jose, the very same—Jesu Cristo! what luck—what -marvelous luck!’</p> - -<p>“One thing is certain—this outlaw in some way expects to make a fortune -through the old Pardners and their girl. I do not know how. But Sonora -Jack said to the Mexican that whether they found<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_233" id="page_233">{233}</a></span> the lost mine or not, -their coming to the Cañada del Oro was certain now to make them both -rich.”</p> - -<p>“Is it possible,” asked Hugh, “that Thad and Bob were one time in any -way mixed up with this Sonora Jack?”</p> - -<p>“I thought of that,” returned Natachee, “and the next day I watched to -see if the outlaws went to the Pardners. They did—they spent nearly two -hours talking with Miss Hillgrove and her fathers. Then they went with -Thad and Bob down to their mine, leaving the girl at the house. They -were with the Pardners over an hour.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards was greatly disturbed by what Natachee had learned. His -first fear, that the stranger who had talked with him was an officer, -was as nothing compared with his fear now for Marta. All night he -pondered over the situation with scarce an hour of sleep. When morning -came he told the Indian that he was going back to his old cabin to be -near the girl—prison or no prison.</p> - -<p>“But can’t you see what a foolish move that would be?” asked Natachee. -“The Pardners know who you are. If they have been, in the past, -connected with Sonora Jack, which is very possible, they will turn you -over to the sheriff in short order to protect both the outlaw and -themselves. If that should happen either through them or through any one -else, you certainly would be in no position to help Miss Hillgrove. You -do not even know yet that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_234" id="page_234">{234}</a></span> Miss Hillgrove is in danger. Sonora Jack will -do nothing until he has satisfied himself about the lost mine, which -brought him into this country at the risk of his life. You can depend on -that. While he is searching for the mine I may be able to learn more of -his interest in the Pardners and their girl. Be patient or you will -spoil everything.”</p> - -<p>And Hugh, because he felt that Natachee for the time being was his ally, -listened to his advice. The white man did not deceive himself as to the -real reason for the Indian’s interest in the situation. Nor did the red -man make any pretenses. But even at that, Hugh felt that he would be -better able ultimately to protect Marta, if for the present he fell in -with the red man’s plan to learn the exact nature of Sonora Jack’s -interest in the girl.</p> - -<p>All that forenoon Natachee did not leave his cabin. But after their -noonday meal he followed Hugh down into the gulch where, for a long -time, he sat on a rock watching the white man at his work. Then he went -back to the hut on the mountain side above.</p> - -<p>When Edwards, a little before sunset, climbed the steep way from the -place of his labor up to the cabin, the Indian was gone.</p> - -<p>No second glance was needed to tell the white man that the cabin had -been the scene of a terrific struggle.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_235" id="page_235">{235}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXIV<br /><br /> -THE WAY OF A WHITE MAN</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>He was conscious of but one thing—a thing that was born of his -white man’s soul.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>ITH a cry of dismay Hugh ran to the place where he kept hidden his -hoard of gold. His pitifully small earnings were untouched. Natachee’s -bow and quiver of arrows, without which the Indian never left the cabin, -were in their usual place. His hunting knife, which was always in his -belt, was lying on the floor. It was not difficult for Hugh to guess -what had happened.</p> - -<p>Sonora Jack, unable with the help of his map to find the Mine with the -Iron Door, and believing that Natachee knew the location of the treasure -had sought the Indian to force him to reveal the secret. While Natachee -was in the gulch with Edwards, Sonora Jack and his companions had -entered the cabin, and waiting there had taken the Indian by surprise -when he returned. The ground in front of the cabin was trampled by -horses, and the tracks of their iron shoes were clear, leading away down -the mountain toward the lower cañon. There was no doubt in Hugh’s mind -but that the outlaws had taken Natachee away with them. Without -hesitation he set out to follow the tracks as fast as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_236" id="page_236">{236}</a></span> could in the -failing light. He was wholly without experience in such matters, but the -ground was soft from the winter rains and the three horses left a trail -that was easy enough to follow.</p> - -<p>When it became too dark to see, he was a mile or two from the cabin, -well down on the steep slope of what he thought must be a spur of -Samaniego Ridge. He had set out to follow the outlaws upon the impulse -of the moment. In his excitement, he had not paused to think. But now, -when he could no longer see the tracks, he was forced to stop and -consider the situation with more deliberation.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards realized that he was in every way but poorly equipped to -meet such an emergency. What, he asked himself, could he do if he should -succeed in finding the outlaws with their captive? If it had been a -question of meeting Sonora Jack alone and bare-handed, he would have no -reason to hesitate. Certainly he would not fear to face such an issue. -Hugh Edwards was far from being either a weakling or a coward. But -Sonora Jack was not alone. There were two others with him and they were -undoubtedly well armed, while their desperate characters were clearly -evidenced by their successful attack on Natachee. Hugh smiled grimly and -touched the weapon at his side as he recalled how he had said to -Natachee:</p> - -<p>“I could not hit a flock of barns.”</p> - -<p>After all, why should he concern himself with Natachee’s affairs? The -red man had never professed anything even approaching friendship for<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_237" id="page_237">{237}</a></span> -him. For weeks the Indian had held him a prisoner and with all the -cruelty and cunning of his savage fathers had tortured him. Why not -abandon him now to his fate? Why not return to the hut, take what gold -he had accumulated and make his way out of the country? But as quickly -as these thoughts raced through his mind, Hugh Edwards dismissed -them—Marta.</p> - -<p>If Natachee had not told him of Sonora Jack’s interest in the old -prospectors and their partnership daughter it might, perhaps, have been -possible for him to desert the Indian now. But in spite of his hatred -for his tormentor, and in spite of the bitter, revengeful purpose which -he knew inspired the red man’s interest in his affairs and in the woman -he loved, Hugh needed Natachee’s help. Perhaps even now, at that very -moment, the Indian was finding, through Sonora Jack, a key to the -mystery of Marta Hillgrove’s birth and parentage. At any cost he, Hugh -Edwards, must find the outlaws and their captive.</p> - -<p>But how? He could not go to Thad and Bob for help. Natachee had made the -possible connection between the old prospectors and Sonora Jack too -clear. Even if he could have found his way in the night to Marta’s home, -he would not dare appeal to them. Saint Jimmy—George Wheeler and his -cowboys? It would be worse than useless for one of Hugh’s inexperience -to attempt to find his way such a distance through such a wild country -in the darkness of the night. He realized hopelessly that he did not -even know which way to start.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_238" id="page_238">{238}</a></span></p> - -<p>He decided at last that the only course possible for him was to wait -with what patience he could for the morning, and then to continue -following the tracks of the horses. He had barely reached this decision -and settled down in the poor shelter of a manzanita bush to pass the -long cold hours of discomfort and anxiety, when he saw, at some distance -down the mountain from where he sat, a strange glow of light.</p> - -<p>It was not a camp fire. It was too soft—too diffused. It was not like -the light of that window which he had watched so many lonely hours. It -was not so steady and it was nearer—much nearer. He could see the trees -and bushes that fringed the top of a cliff. Why—that was it—the light -was from below—there was a fire at the foot of that cliff. He could not -see the fire itself because—why, of course—the cliff that was lighted -from below was the other side of a narrow gorge. He was too far away, -and the walls were too steep for him to see the bottom.</p> - -<p>As quickly as possible, but with every care to make his movements -noiseless, Hugh Edwards stole toward the light. In a few minutes, that -seemed hours to him, he was close to the rim of the gorge. Lying flat on -the ground, he crawled with even greater caution to the edge of the -precipice, where through the fringe of grass and bushes he looked down.</p> - -<p>The place was, as he had reasoned, a deep, narrow cañon with sheer walls -of rock. The cliffs on the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_239" id="page_239">{239}</a></span> side where he lay were fully fifty feet from -base to rim, and for about a hundred years they formed a half circle, -giving a width to the little cañon at that point of about the same -distance. At one end of this natural amphitheater, where a creek came -tumbling down over granite ledges and bowlders, a man with his arms -outstretched could almost touch both walls of the hall-like passage. The -lower end was wider, with no rocks to obstruct the entrance. Except for -the creek which ran close to the foot of the cliff opposite the -semicircular side where Hugh lay, the floor was smooth and level with a -number of mesquite trees and several giant cottonwoods. It was in the -more open center of this arena that Hugh Edwards saw a thing that made -him catch his breath with a shuddering gasp, while his heart pounded and -his hand went to the gun on his hip.</p> - -<p>On a large, altar-shaped rock that had been dislodged from the walls -above by some force of nature, Natachee lay bound. The Indian was on his -back with his arms and legs drawn down and tied securely to the rock, so -that, save for his head, he was held immovable, but with no rope across -his body.</p> - -<p>Sonora Jack stood beside the rock giving directions to his companions, -the Lizard and a Mexican, who were looking after the fire. Nearer the -entrance to the amphitheater were three saddle horses. On the opposite -side of the open space about the rock, and beyond the fire, the men had -placed their rifles against the trunk of a cottonwood. The eyes of the -man on the rim of the cañon wall had barely noted<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_240" id="page_240">{240}</a></span> these details when -Sonora Jack turned from his companions by the fire to Natachee.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said, and every word carried distinctly to the man above, -“how about it, Indio, you got something to say, yet?”</p> - -<p>Natachee did not speak.</p> - -<p>“You not want to tell, heh? All right, you’re some bravo Indio, but you -goin’ to beg me to let you talk ’fore I get through with you. I got -nothin’ ’gainst you, but you know where that Mine with the Iron Door is -an’ sure as fire is hot you’re goin’ to lead me to it. I don’t come all -the way up here from Mexico City just for nothin’. You show me the old -mine, an’ you can put in the rest of your years growin’ old nice an’ -easy. If you don’t—“ he paused significantly, then called to his two -helpers: “Put plenty mesquite on that fire, boys, we want plenty good -red coals. This Indio here needs a little warmin’ up, I think.” Bending -over his victim he said again: “Well, how ’bout it, you goin’ to come -through?”</p> - -<p>Save for the glittering light in the dark eyes of the red man, the -outlaw might have been talking to a stone image.</p> - -<p>Enraged by the silent strength of that opposing will, Sonora Jack went -closer to the Indian’s side.</p> - -<p>“Mebby you no sabe what I’m goin’ to do to you. Mebby you think I got -you here on this rock just for a bluff. Not much, I ain’t. If you don’t -come across an’ show me that mine, I’m goin’ to put ’bout a hatful of -them red coals right here.” With his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_241" id="page_241">{241}</a></span> open hand he slapped Natachee’s -naked chest. “You do what I say or I burn the red heart out of you, an’ -I ain’t hurryin’ the job neither. You ain’t the first mule-head hombre -I’ve made loosen up.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards drew back from the edge of the cliff. For a single instant -he was sick with horror. Then the blood of his race surged through his -veins with tingling strength. In that moment it meant nothing to him -that the man bound to the rock down there was an Indian. It made no -difference that the red man, with cunning cruelty, had for weeks -ingeniously tortured him to gratify a savage thirst for revenge against -all white people. He did not, at the moment, even remember Marta and his -need of Natachee’s help. It mattered nothing that there were three of -those fiends down there and that he was alone. He was conscious of but -one thing: a thing that was born of his white man’s soul. That deed of -unspeakable brutality must not—should not—be accomplished.</p> - -<p>Swiftly he made his way along the rim of the cañon toward the upper end -of the semicircle. He felt as if he were acting in a dream, or as if -some spirit over which he had no control dominated him. But even as he -moved, a plan flashed before him, and he saw clearly every detail of the -only part he could play with the slightest hope of success. The narrow -passage through which the creek entered the amphitheater was hidden from -the men by the deep shadows of the trees. Their rifles were on that side -of the fire.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_242" id="page_242">{242}</a></span></p> - -<p>A short distance above the scene of the impending tragedy he found a -place where he could descend, half sliding, half falling, to the creek, -while the noise of the stream covered any sound from that direction. A -moment more and he had let himself down over the rocks and bowlders, -around which the waters roared, and stood behind the trunk of one of the -giant cottonwoods, not a hundred feet from the outlaw and his -companions. With sheer strength of will he restrained his impulse to -rush forward and throw himself upon those fiends in human form as they -bent over their fire.</p> - -<p>He must wait. He must watch for the exact moment.</p> - -<p>It was not long.</p> - -<p>Sonora Jack, from the Indian’s side, called to his companions:</p> - -<p>“Ya chito tray la lumbre—bring the fire.”</p> - -<p>To Natachee, the outlaw said:</p> - -<p>“One more time I ask you, Indio, are you goin’ to take me to the mine?”</p> - -<p>There was no answer.</p> - -<p>The Lizard and the Mexican raked a quantity of live coals from the fire -on to a flat rock.</p> - -<p>Behind the tree, Hugh Edwards crouched in readiness.</p> - -<p>The two men who were kneeling at the fire rose and started toward the -Indian. Sonora Jack faced toward his victim. It was the moment for which -the man behind the tree was waiting.</p> - -<p>With all his strength, Hugh Edwards ran for the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_243" id="page_243">{243}</a></span> tree against which the -three rifles were standing. He reached his goal at the same instant that -the men with the coals of fire arrived at the rock.</p> - -<p>With a shout, Hugh began emptying his revolver in the general direction -of the outlaws.</p> - -<p>The Lizard, with a scream of terror, ran for the horses. The Mexican and -Sonora Jack, under the combined shock of that fusillade of shots from -the direction of their rifles, with those accompanying yells and the -Lizard’s screaming flight, leaped for the safety of their mounts. The -horses in their fright added to the confusion.</p> - -<p>Dropping his revolver and snatching two of the rifles, Hugh ran forward -to the Indian. By the time Sonora Jack and his companions had succeeded -in mounting their struggling horses, he had cut the ropes that bound -Natachee, and the Indian and the white man, from the shelter of the -rock, were firing into the shadowy group of plunging animals and cursing -men.</p> - -<p>As the outlaws disappeared in the darkness beyond the entrance to the -amphitheater, Natachee caught his rescuer by the arm:</p> - -<p>“Quick, we must get out of this light before Sonora Jack gets hold of -himself.”</p> - -<p>Swiftly he led the way up the creek.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>An hour later, in the Indian’s cabin, Natachee stood before his white -companion. With an expression which Hugh Edwards had never before seen -on that dark countenance, the red man spoke in the manner of his -people.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_244" id="page_244">{244}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Before the winter snows came, a white rabbit was caught by an Indian -fox. The snows are gone and the rabbit has become a mountain lion. Why -has the lion saved his enemy, the fox, from Sonora Jack’s fire?”</p> - -<p>“Why,” stammered Hugh, “I—I—really, you know, I couldn’t do anything -else. I saw the light, then I saw what those devils were going to do, -and—well—I simply couldn’t stand for it.”</p> - -<p>“I, Natachee the Indian, have no claim on you, a white man. I have been -your enemy. I am an enemy to all of your blood. I have tortured you in -every way I knew. I would have continued to torture you.”</p> - -<p>“That has nothing to do with it,” retorted Hugh coldly. “I didn’t do -what I did because I thought you were my friend.”</p> - -<p>The Indian smiled with grave dignity.</p> - -<p>“The live oak never drops its leaves like the cottonwood. The pine never -blossoms like the palo verde. A coyote in the skin of a bear would still -act like a coyote. A deer never forgets that it is not a wolf. You, Hugh -Edwards, saved me, your enemy, from the coals of fire, because you could -not forget your nature—because you could not forget that you are a -white man. I, Natachee, will not forget that I am an Indian.”</p> - -<p>With these words he bowed his head and, turning, went to take his bow -and quiver of arrows from beside the fireplace.</p> - -<p>Standing in the doorway, he spoke again:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_245" id="page_245">{245}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I must go. Sonora Jack will not come here again to-night. If he should, -I will be near. Sleep in peace. When I return I will have something to -tell you.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>All that following day, Hugh Edwards watched for another visit from -Sonora Jack and his companions, and waited with no little anxiety for -Natachee’s return.</p> - -<p>But the outlaws did not come again. It was a little after noon the -second day when the Indian finally appeared. He was driving four burros -equipped with packsaddles.</p> - -<p>When Hugh expressed surprise at sight of the pack animals, Natachee -offered no explanation. In stolid silence the Indian prepared his -dinner. He ate as if he had not touched food for many hours. When he had -finished he said simply:</p> - -<p>“I must sleep. In two hours I will awaken. Then we will talk. Do not go -away from the cabin, please. Watch! If you see anything moving on the -mountain side, call me.”</p> - -<p>He threw himself on his couch and almost instantly was sound asleep.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards, sitting just outside the cabin door, waited.</p> - -<p>A gentle wind breathed through the trees of juniper and live oak and -cedar and sighed among the cliffs and crags; and from below, faint and -far away, came the murmur of the distant creek. He saw the sunlight, -warm on the green of the cottonwoods and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_246" id="page_246">{246}</a></span> willows in the Cañon of Gold. -He watched the cloud shadows drifting across the mountain slopes and -ridges and, looking up to the high peaks, saw the somber pines against -the blue of the sky.</p> - -<p>A rock wren from a bowlder near by observed him with friendly eye and -bobbed a cheerful greeting, and a painted redstart swung on a cat-claw -bush. From somewhere on the side of the gulch where he worked came the -exquisitely finished song of a grosbeak. The towering cliffs behind the -cabin echoed the hoarse croaking call of a raven and now and then there -was a flash of black and white and a bulletlike whiz, as a company of -white-throated swifts shot past.</p> - -<p>But no human thing moved within the range of his vision.</p> - -<p>As he watched, he pondered the meaning of the Indian’s manner. The red -man had often remained silent for days at a time. But now, under the -peculiar circumstances, Hugh felt that there was an unusual significance -in Natachee’s native reticence. What had the Indian been doing? Where -had he been? What had he learned? What was the meaning of those four -burros?</p> - -<p>The deep voice of the Indian broke in upon his thoughts. Natachee was -standing in the doorway.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_247" id="page_247">{247}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXV" id="CHAPTER_XXV"></a>CHAPTER XXV<br /><br /> -THE WAYS OF GOD</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“Listen carefully now and hear with your heart what I, Natachee, -shall say.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE Indian spoke with that strange dignity of mingled pride and pathos -that so often moved the white man to pity:</p> - -<p>“Hugh Edwards, the mountain streams that are born up there among those -peaks are obedient to the will of Him from whose hand the snows fall. -From their cradles among the roots of the pines, they start for the sea -that lies many days beyond that faint blue line yonder, where the earth -and the sky become one. Nor is there any doubt but that the waters, in -the end, reach the appointed place for which they set out. But how or -when, no mortal can say, for the creeks are forced to change their -plans. The clearly marked trail upon which they first set out comes to -an end. The waters that run with such noisy strength down the mountain’s -slopes sink into the desert, and are lost forever to human eyes.</p> - -<p>“It is so with the plans of men. The will of Him who sets the unknown -ways by which these mountain waters shall reach the sea determines also -the unknown ways that men shall go through this life, even to that place -where the spirit’s journey ends.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_248" id="page_248">{248}</a></span> The trail, which at first is so -clearly marked, sinks from sight and is lost in a desert of things which -no mortal can know.</p> - -<p>“I, Natachee, in following the trail of my destiny, have come to such a -place. The course which lay before me as plain as the bed of a mountain -stream is changed. I can no longer go the way I had planned. I am an -Indian. You have said many times that I am a devil—good. Under certain -circumstances every man is a devil. Change the circumstances and the -devil becomes something else. Listen carefully now and hear with your -heart what I, Natachee, shall say.</p> - -<p>“Sonora Jack and his Mexican have left the home of the Lizard, but the -Lizard has gone with them. The three are camped in the foothills a few -miles from the home of the Pardners and their girl. They are hiding -there because they do not know how many there were in the party that -rescued me. It was well that you made so much noise. But Sonora Jack -will not hide long. When he is sure that he is not being followed by a -posse, he will move. But he will not again attempt to find the Mine with -the Iron Door. He fears to stay longer in the Cañon of Gold lest he be -prevented from carrying out some other plan. I could not learn what that -other plan is. I know only that it concerns Marta Hillgrove and the -Pardners. Whatever Sonora Jack plans, it is not good. We must go at once -that we may protect your woman.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards spoke as one who finds it hard to believe what he has -heard:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_249" id="page_249">{249}</a></span></p> - -<p>“You say that <i>we</i> must go—that we must protect Marta? Do you mean that -you will help me to save her from whatever threatens through this Sonora -Jack?”</p> - -<p>Natachee bowed his head for a moment, then met the white man’s eyes -proudly.</p> - -<p>“Did I not say that the trail which I, Natachee, was following had -suddenly changed as the course of a mountain stream is lost in the -desert sands? When Sonora Jack and his companions caught me and tied me -with their ropes to that rock, I was as helpless as a dove in the coils -of a snake. Do you think that I, Natachee, would have weakened under -their torture fire? Sonora Jack would have burned the heart out of the -Indian’s breast but he never would have heard from the Indian’s lips the -secret of the Mine with the Iron Door. It is not a new thing for an -Indian to be tortured for gold. I, Natachee, would have died as so many -of my fathers have died, without a word. But you, a white man, obedient -to your strange white man’s nature, offered your own life to save the -life of Natachee the Indian, who had for months been torturing you. The -trail of hatred and revenge that lay so clear before the red man is lost -in the strange desert of the white man’s ways. I, Natachee, cannot -understand, but who am I to disobey? The life you saved belongs to you, -Hugh Edwards. I, Natachee, am yours until I pay the debt. Can the heart -of the white man understand?”</p> - -<p>The Indian, with an earnestness that left no<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_250" id="page_250">{250}</a></span> doubt of his sincerity, -offered his hand. And Hugh Edwards, though he did not yet realize the -full significance of the Indian’s words, gladly accepted the proffered -friendship, saying as he grasped the Indian’s hand:</p> - -<p>“I am more than glad you feel that way about it, Natachee, but really, -old man, I’m afraid you overrate what I did. I can’t believe yet that -those fellows would have dared to go the limit with you. They might have -burned you pretty bad, I’ll grant, but——“</p> - -<p>At the touch of the white man’s hand and the hearty comradeship of his -words, Natachee dropped his Indian manner and became the Natachee of the -white man’s schools. Smiling, he said:</p> - -<p>“It is evident, my friend, that you do not know Sonora Jack and his -methods. I hope for your sake that if you are ever introduced to him you -will kill him before he can identify you as the man who blocked his way, -as he thinks, to the treasure which brought him from Mexico at such a -risk.</p> - -<p>“But no more of this,” he added. “We have work to do. I went to see -Doctor Burton and told him everything—everything except of our visit to -the mine. Together we made a plan and he bade me assure you of Marta’s -love and tell you how glad he was for you. Then I called on the Pardners -as the Doctor and I had agreed was best. They knew no more of Sonora -Jack than every one who lives in this part of Arizona knows. I explained -to the old prospectors and their girl why you had disappeared<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_251" id="page_251">{251}</a></span> and how -you had been hiding with me this winter. I told them of your innocence -of the crime for which you are under sentence—of your love for -Marta—of your efforts to find the gold that would enable you to leave -the country and take her with you. I leave you to imagine the girl’s -happiness. She would have come to you with me but I would not permit it. -I promised her that instead to-morrow you should go to her.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards, in a fever of longing and anxiety, paced to and fro.</p> - -<p>“But why to-morrow?” he cried. “Why not now—this moment? Who can say -what may happen while we wait?”</p> - -<p>Natachee answered:</p> - -<p>“We have work to do first. Listen—you are not safe for a day, once you -show yourself again. The Lizard has talked too much as I told you he -would. Your disappearance set everybody to wondering, then to -questioning and guessing. You can only save yourself and Marta by -leaving the country before the sheriff learns that you are here and -before Sonora Jack can carry out his plan, whatever it is. Doctor Burton -will have everything arranged. To-morrow you will go.”</p> - -<p>“But—but”—stammered Hugh—“I have no money. There is not gold enough -to buy even my own way out of the country, much less to take Marta with -me.”</p> - -<p>The Indian laughed.</p> - -<p>“I told them you had struck the rich pocket that<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_252" id="page_252">{252}</a></span> you have been working -so hard to find. Bob and Thad loaned me those burros there to bring down -the gold. The Pardners will cash your gold as if they had found it in -their own little mine. Doctor Burton and I planned it all. He will -advance money for your immediate needs until your own gold is in the -bank.”</p> - -<p>“But I tell you I have no gold.”</p> - -<p>“You forget,” returned the Indian calmly, “the Mine with the Iron Door.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>When it was dark, Natachee said:</p> - -<p>“Come, we must not lose an hour.”</p> - -<p>Taking one of the burros with a number of ore sacks which he had brought -from the Pardners, the Indian led the way down into the gulch where he -put Hugh’s pick on the packsaddle. Then tying the cloth over the white -man’s eyes and placing one end of the rope in his hand, he went on; -Hugh, in turn, leading the burro. When they arrived near the entrance to -the mine, they left the pack animal and went into the tunnel.</p> - -<p>Removing the cloth from his companion’s eyes, Natachee said:</p> - -<p>“You shall remain here to dig the gold. I will carry it out to the burro -and take it to the cabin. I trust you not to leave this spot until I am -ready to take you back as we came.”</p> - -<p>Hugh laughed.</p> - -<p>“You may trust me. I’ll promise not to put my head out even. I’ll be too -busy to waste any time investigating.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_253" id="page_253">{253}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Good!” said the Indian and the two men fell to work.</p> - -<p>All night long, Hugh Edwards toiled with his pick, while Natachee sorted -the ore, selecting only the richest pieces of quartz for the sacks. As -fast as the sacks were filled, he carried them from the mine and packed -them on the burro. When they had a load, the Indian led the pack animal -away, to return later for another. It was a full two hours before -daybreak when Natachee announced that they had taken out all that the -four burros could carry. With this last load he led Hugh out of the mine -and back to the cabin. Then, while the white man prepared breakfast, the -Indian went once more to the mine to destroy every evidence of their -visit and to obliterate every sign of the tracks they had made going and -returning. When he again appeared at the cabin, the gray light of the -coming day shone above the crest of the mountains. With the four burros -loaded with the precious ore, the two men set out for the Pardners’ home -in the lower cañon.</p> - -<p>They had reached a point on Samaniego Ridge above the house when -Natachee, who was leading the way, stopped suddenly with a low -exclamation.</p> - -<p>“What is the matter?” cried Hugh.</p> - -<p>The Indian motioned for the white man to come to his side. Silently he -pointed down at the little house on the floor of the cañon below.</p> - -<p>“Well, what is it—what is the matter—what do you see?” said Hugh, -gazing at the familiar scene.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_254" id="page_254">{254}</a></span></p> - -<p>“There is no one there,” returned the Indian in a low voice, “no one -about the house—the door is closed—no one at the mine—no horse in the -corral—no smoke from the chimney. And see,” he pointed to three -buzzards that were circling about the yard in the rear of the house. -While they looked, another huge bird joined the group, and then another.</p> - -<p>With a cry, Hugh Edwards started forward, but Natachee caught him by the -arm.</p> - -<p>“Wait, you do not know who may be watching for you to come—wait.”</p> - -<p>Quickly the Indian led the burros into a little hollow that was fringed -with thick bushes, where he tied them securely. Then showing Hugh where -to lie in a clump of manzanita so that he could watch the vicinity of -the house below, the red man disappeared in the brush.</p> - -<p>For what seemed hours to him, Hugh Edwards waited with his eyes fixed on -the scene below. There was no movement—no sign of life about the little -house. The Indian had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him. The -company of buzzards increased until there were eight or ten now wheeling -above the silent dwelling.</p> - -<p>The watching man had almost reached the limit of his patience, when to -his amazement the front door of the house was thrown open and Natachee -stepped out.</p> - -<p>The Indian signaled his companion to come, and Hugh plunged with -reckless haste down the steep side of the ridge.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_255" id="page_255">{255}</a></span></p> - -<p>The old prospector, Thad Grove, was lying on his bed unconscious from a -blow that had cut a deep gash on the side of his head. Natachee had -found him on the floor in front of the door to Marta’s room. At the end -of the living room, opposite the door to the girl’s chamber, Sonora -Jack’s Mexican companion was lying on the floor severely wounded. Though -unable to move, the man was conscious and his eyes followed the Indian -with the look of a crippled animal at bay.</p> - -<p>The body of the other Pardner was lying in a queer twisted heap in the -yard, halfway between the kitchen door and the barn.</p> - -<p>Marta was gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_256" id="page_256">{256}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVI" id="CHAPTER_XXVI"></a>CHAPTER XXVI<br /><br /> -THE TRAGEDY</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>—signs, which were as clear to the Indian as the words on a -printed page.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>T first, when his mind was able to grasp the terrible facts of the -tragedy, Hugh Edwards nearly lost control of himself. But Natachee -steadied him. The Indian assured him with such confidence that Marta was -in no immediate danger that he took heart again.</p> - -<p>“The girl is worth too much money to Sonora Jack for him to harm her,” -continued Natachee. “He has carried her away, yes, but remember we know -that he expects somehow to make a fortune through her. You may depend -upon it he will take every care to keep her safe.”</p> - -<p>“But how can you know?” said Hugh, wondering at the certainty of the red -man’s words.</p> - -<p>The Indian answered quickly:</p> - -<p>“Because the outlaw, even in his haste, was careful to take the girl’s -things with her.” He led his companion into the girl’s room. “Look—this -closet is nearly empty. The drawers of this dresser are all pulled out -and there is almost nothing left in them. Her toilet articles even are -not here. There are no blankets left on this bed. I tell you there is -much<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_257" id="page_257">{257}</a></span> for you to hope for yet, my friend, if you can make yourself as -cool and self-controlled as I know you are brave.”</p> - -<p>When they had returned to the room where the old prospector lay, the -Indian, after bending over the unconscious man for a moment, turned -again to Hugh; slowly he said:</p> - -<p>“There is no night so dark but there is a little light for those whose -eyes are good. Always one can see the mountain peaks against the sky. -The Mexican there will not talk, and I have not yet looked about outside -the house, but some things are very clear. This happened last night, -because there are still a few coals among the ashes in the kitchen stove -and the clock was wound as usual. Sonora Jack will go to Mexico—he does -not dare remain in the United States where there is a reward out for -him. At the best possible time, it will take him two days to reach the -line. He will not travel with his woman prisoner by daylight. That he -expects to lay up during the day is shown by his taking every particle -of food he could find in the house. It is not likely that he got started -before midnight. With the girl’s clothing, the bedding, the provisions, -and his own things, he must have taken a pack animal. Good! I, Natachee, -will follow a trail like that as fast as a horse can run.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards put his hand on the Indian’s arm.</p> - -<p>“We can get horses and men at Wheeler’s,” he said quickly. “It ought not -to take an hour to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_258" id="page_258">{258}</a></span> raise a posse. We can telephone the sheriff from the -ranch. Come on.”</p> - -<p>He started toward the door but the calm voice of the Indian checked him.</p> - -<p>“You forget. This is no time for you to meet the sheriff. No one but -Doctor Burton and his mother must know of this, until you are safe out -of the country.”</p> - -<p>“I am a fool, Natachee, I forgot. Tell me what to do.”</p> - -<p>For a moment the Indian again bent over the unconscious man on the bed, -then he said:</p> - -<p>“We cannot leave Thad like this. He must have a doctor. I am going to -bring the Burtons. While I am away, you must not leave the old man’s -side. He might regain consciousness for a moment and you must be ready -to hear anything that he can tell you. And keep your eye on that Mexican -snake out there in the other room. He is the kind that may try something -desperate to keep Thad from ever speaking again, for the old prospector -is the only one who can tell us exactly what happened here last night. -Do you understand?”</p> - -<p>“I do,” returned Hugh. “You can trust me.”</p> - -<p>A moment later the Indian was running up the cañon trail toward the -little white house on the mountain side.</p> - -<p>Two hours later Natachee returned with Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton, -who were riding and carrying on their horses a supply of food.</p> - -<p>While Doctor Burton with his mother and Hugh<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_259" id="page_259">{259}</a></span> were doing all that could -be done for Thad and for the wounded Mexican, Natachee, with the -swiftness and certainty of a well-bred hunting dog, examined every foot -of the ground in the vicinity of the house, the barn and the corral.</p> - -<p>When the Indian was satisfied that he could learn nothing more, he -climbed swiftly up the steep side of the cañon to the spot where he and -Hugh had left the four burros with their heavy loads of gold. Edwards -was just coming from the house when Natachee, leading the burros, -arrived at the gate. Together the two men took the animals with their -precious burdens down into the creek bottom and across to the Pardners’ -little mine, where they hurriedly buried the sacks of gold in the dump -at the mouth of the tunnel.</p> - -<p>And then—not far from the house, between two wide-spreading mesquite -trees, where a pair of cardinals had their nest and mocking birds loved -to swing and sing in the moonlight, where anemone and sweet peas and -evening primroses never failed to bloom, the white man and the Indian -dug a grave.</p> - -<p>There was no time to secure a coffin. They dared not make any public -announcement now, nor wait for any formal ceremony. With tender hands -they wrapped the old-timer in his blankets and gently laid him in his -resting place. And who shall say that Mother Burton’s simple prayer was -not as potent before that One who judges not by pomp and ceremony, as -any ritual ordained by church or creed? And who shall say that the old<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_260" id="page_260">{260}</a></span> -prospector himself would not have wished it to be done just that way? As -Saint Jimmy said gently:</p> - -<p>“After all, it is not the first time that Bob has slept on the ground.”</p> - -<p>While Mrs. Burton was preparing a hurried dinner, Natachee told Hugh and -Saint Jimmy the story of the tragedy, as he had read it from the tracks -about the premises—signs which were as clear to the Indian as the words -on a printed page.</p> - -<p>“There were three of them,” said Natachee. “They came from down the -cañon. It was after everybody in the house was sleeping, because Sonora -Jack would not start from where he was hiding in his camp until after -dark. The third man was the Lizard. They left their horses and a pack -mule at the gate. The marks of the Lizard’s feet, where he dismounted, -are very clear. Jack and the Mexican went to the corner of the house -there at the back. They crouched close to the ground against the wall so -they would not be seen easily in the dark, and waited, while the Lizard -went to the barn and frightened the pinto so that the noise would waken -the Pardners and cause one of them to come out to see what was the -matter with the horse.</p> - -<p>“Bob came out by the kitchen door and started for the barn. He did not -see the men who were behind the corner of the house. When the old -prospector was halfway to the barn, Jack and the Mexican ran upon him -from behind. Bob fought them but he had no chance. Perhaps he called to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_261" id="page_261">{261}</a></span> -Thad. I think not, however, from what happened in the house. Either Jack -or the Mexican killed him with a knife, because the Lizard would not -have had time to come from the barn.</p> - -<p>“Then the Lizard went to stand guard at the front of the house to -prevent Marta from escaping by that door, and to give warning in case -any one should come. His tracks are there by the porch. The two outlaws -went into the house by the kitchen door. Thad probably had also been -awakened by the noise at the barn, and while waiting for Bob to come -back must have heard Jack and the Mexican. He was trying to prevent them -from entering Marta’s room when he shot the Mexican, and Sonora Jack -struck him down.</p> - -<p>“The Lizard, I think, is with Jack and the girl. He seems to have turned -his own horse loose and taken the Mexican’s. Marta is riding her pinto. -They have taken the pack mule.”</p> - -<p>As Natachee finished, Mrs. Burton called them to dinner.</p> - -<p>While they were eating, the Indian asked the Doctor about Thad’s -condition.</p> - -<p>“I cannot say yet, as to his complete recovery,” returned Saint Jimmy, -“but I feel reasonably sure that he will pull through all right. I am -quite certain that he will regain consciousness for a time at least. But -the Mexican has no chance. He will live for several days, perhaps, but -the end is certain.”</p> - -<p>“Good!” said Natachee. “You and Mrs. Burton will stay here until Edwards -and I return, will you?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_262" id="page_262">{262}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Indeed we will,” returned Mother Burton quickly.</p> - -<p>“Good!” said the Indian again. “We should be back the morning of the -fourth day.”</p> - -<p>He looked at Doctor Burton inquiringly.</p> - -<p>“We will save time getting started if we take your horses. The Pardners’ -horses are out on the range somewhere—and to go to Wheeler’s for help -would mean the sheriff.”</p> - -<p>“They are yours. Take them, of course,” said Doctor Burton and his -mother in a breath.</p> - -<p>“We will take a little food for to-night and to-morrow,” continued the -Indian, “and a canteen of water. With a little grain for the horses and -the Pardners’ guns, that will be all, except”—he smiled grimly—“my bow -and arrows.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_263" id="page_263">{263}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVII" id="CHAPTER_XXVII"></a>CHAPTER XXVII<br /><br /> -ON THE TRAIL</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>What madness to think that Natachee could ever find them in that -seemingly infinite space.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">T</span>HE trail, left by Sonora Jack, led Edwards and Natachee down the creek -and out of the cañon by the old road. But a mile or two beyond the -crossing, the outlaw had left the road for a course more to the west -through the foothills. And here, in the soft ground where there were no -other tracks, the marks of the horse’s iron-shod feet were very clear, -even to the white man. But when Edwards would have urged his mount -forward, the Indian checked him.</p> - -<p>“There are many miles of desert ahead of us, my friend,” said Natachee. -“I must not permit your impatience to rob us of our horses before our -journey is half finished.”</p> - -<p>Reluctantly Edwards restrained himself, and the Indian, riding a little -in advance, set the pace.</p> - -<p>They had not gone far when Natachee pulled up his horse, and springing -from his saddle, held up his hand for his companion to stop.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” asked Edwards. “What is the matter?”</p> - -<p>The Indian, who was moving here and there as he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_264" id="page_264">{264}</a></span> studied the ground, did -not answer until he was apparently satisfied with his examination of the -tracks.</p> - -<p>As he came back to his waiting horse, he said:</p> - -<p>“They stopped here and the men dismounted to tighten the cinches. I was -right about the Lizard. Those tracks there are his, and there are the -tracks of his horse. Sonora Jack and his horse are over there. When the -men had attended to their saddles, the Lizard went to look after the -pack mule over there, while Jack went to the horse that stood there, -which must have been the pinto. Now that we have identified the horses -with their riders, we can follow the movements of each in case they -should separate—unless, of course, they should change horses.”</p> - -<p>Again the Indian was in his saddle and they went on. At times they rode -at a fast walk, again their sturdy mounts put mile after mile behind -them with the easy swinging lope of the cow horse. Occasionally Natachee -reined in his mount and, bending low from the saddle, studied the trail -carefully, but he never hesitated for more than a moment or two.</p> - -<p>At first, after leaving the old road, the trail led them straight west, -but just before they crossed the Bankhead Highway they turned a little -to the south, so as to pass the southern end of the Tortollita range. -And here in the harder ground, and among the rocks, the trail became -more difficult. Also, as Natachee had foreseen, the outlaw had separated -his party; sending the Lizard with the pack mule one way while he with -Marta went another. The<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_265" id="page_265">{265}</a></span> Indian, explaining to Edwards what had -happened, held to Nugget’s tracks.</p> - -<p>And now, as he proceeded, the outlaw had taken every precaution to throw -any possible pursuer off his trail. Choosing the hardest ground, he had -turned and twisted, doubled back and forth, riding over ledges of rock, -avoiding soft spots of ground, and taking advantage of everything in his -course that would be an obstacle in the way of any one attempting to -follow. At the same time, he had moved steadily toward the west and -south.</p> - -<p>Edwards, in dismay, felt that all hope of rescuing Marta was lost. To -his eyes there was no mark to show which way they had gone. But Natachee -smiled.</p> - -<p>Dismounting, and giving his bridle rein to his companion, the Indian -went ahead, stooping low at times and moving slowly, again running -confidently at a dog trot. Three times he caused Edwards to wait while -he drew a wide circle and picked up the trail at some point further on. -Where Hugh could see not the slightest mark to show that a living thing -had passed that way, the Indian moved forward with a certainty that was, -to the white man, almost supernatural. A tiny scratch on a rock, a -pebble brushed from its resting place, was enough to mark the way for -the Indian as clearly as if it were a paved street. It was late in the -afternoon when the trail finally drew away from the Tortollitas and -again lay clearly marked in the softer ground of the desert. And here, -presently, Natachee pointed out<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_266" id="page_266">{266}</a></span> to Edwards that the tracks of the -Lizard’s horse and the pack mule had again merged with those of the -animals ridden by Sonora Jack and his captive.</p> - -<p>The sun had set when Natachee stopped his horse. There was still light -to see the trail but it would last but a few minutes longer. For some -time the Indian seemed lost in contemplation of the scene. Slowly his -eyes swept the vast reaches of desert and the mountain ranges that lay -before them. His companion waited.</p> - -<p>At last Natachee said:</p> - -<p>“Sonora Jack is going to Mexico. If he were not, he would have gone to -the north of the Tortollitas back there. But Mexico lies there to the -south and this trail is leading almost due west.”</p> - -<p>“What can we do?” cried Edwards. “It will be dark in twenty minutes, we -cannot follow the trail in the night.”</p> - -<p>“Patience,” returned the Indian, “and listen. The ways by which one may -go through these deserts and mountains are more or less fixed.” Pointing -to the southwest where the ragged sky-line of the Tucson range was sharp -against the glowing sky, he continued:</p> - -<p>“The outlaw would not risk going straight south on this side of those -hills because that is the thickly settled valley of the Santa Cruz with -the city of Tucson to bar his way. Do you see, through that gap in the -Tucson range, a domelike peak of another range beyond?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_267" id="page_267">{267}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“Well, that is Baboquivari. The Baboquivari, the Coyote, the Roskruge, -and the Waterman Mountains are in a line north and south with the Pozo -Verdes at the southern end of the line extending into Mexico. On this -side of those ranges the country is rather well covered by cattle -ranches and the main road to San Fernando, Sasabe and Mexico, and there -is a custom house on the line. I do not think Sonora Jack would go that -way.</p> - -<p>“On the other side of that line of mountains lies the thinly settled -Papago Indian Reservation. If this trail here continues its course to -the west, it will pass north of those Waterman Mountains which are at -the northern end of that line of ranges which mark the eastern boundary -of the reservation. The Vaca Hills in the Papago country lie just -beyond. They are surrounded by barren desert. There are no ranches—no -roads. There is no place in all this country more lonely, and there is a -little water there. Sonora Jack could have reached the Vaca Hills by -daybreak this morning. If he spent this day there, he will turn south -from that point and will be making his way to-night through the Papago -Reservation to the Mexican line. I have heard that his old headquarters -were in Mexico, south of the Nariz and Santa Rosa Mountains, which are -on the border.</p> - -<p>“But if I am wrong, and he went south on this side of the Baboquivaris, -then he has gone through the Tucson range by the pass at Picture Rocks -and we will find his trail there. Come!”</p> - -<p>By midnight, they were at Picture Rocks—a nar<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_268" id="page_268">{268}</a></span>row cut through the -Tucson Mountains where the rock walls of the pass are covered with the -strange picture writings of a prehistoric people. At places, the winding -passageway is scarcely wider than the tracks of a wagon, so that it was -not difficult for the Indian, by the light of an improvised torch, to -assure himself that Sonora Jack had not gone that way.</p> - -<p>With his customary exclamation, “Good!” the Indian swung into his saddle -and, leaving the Tucson Mountains behind, pushed out into the desert -with the sureness of a sailor steering toward a harbor light. And now, -through the darkness of the night, he set a pace that taxed the -endurance of the horses. The white man followed blindly.</p> - -<p>Before they were out of the pass, Hugh had lost all sense of direction. -In the desert, the darkness seemed to close in about them like a wall. -The shadowy form of the Indian, the ghostly shapes of the desert -vegetation, and the weird emptiness of those wide houseless spaces, gave -him a feeling of unreality. Vainly he strained his eyes to glimpse a -light. There was no light. Save for the soft thud of the horses’ feet, -the squeaking of the saddle leathers and the jingle of the bridle -chains, there was no sound. He felt that it must all be a dream from -which presently he would awake. And somewhere under those same cold -stars that looked down with such indifference, Marta, too, was -riding—riding. Where was the outlaw leading her and to what end? Where -was she at that moment? What madness to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_269" id="page_269">{269}</a></span> think that Natachee could ever -find them in that seemingly infinite space.</p> - -<p>After a time, which to Hugh seemed an age, they were again riding among -the lower hills of a small desert range. Another half hour and Natachee -stopped. Slipping to the ground and giving his bridle rein to Edwards, -he said:</p> - -<p>“We are at the northern end of the Waterman range. If they went to the -Vaca Hills, they came this way. We will pick up their trail at daylight. -There is water not far from here. Wait until I return.”</p> - -<p>As noiseless as a shadow, the Indian disappeared.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards, peering into the darkness, tried to guess which way the -Indian had gone. He listened. On every side the mysteries of the desert -night drew close. The shadowy bulk of the hills against the stars -assumed the shapes of gigantic and awful creatures of some other world. -The smell of the desert—the low sigh of a passing breath of air—the -stillness—the feel of the wide empty spaces touched him with a strange -dread. The wild, weird call of a coyote startled him. Faint and far -away, the call was answered. The lonesome cry of an owl was followed by -the soft swish of unseen wings. Suddenly, as if he had risen from the -ground, Natachee again stood at his horse’s shoulder.</p> - -<p>“It is all right,” said the Indian as he mounted, “there is no one at -the water hole. We will camp there until daylight.”</p> - -<p>After watering their horses and giving them a feed<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_270" id="page_270">{270}</a></span> of grain, the two -men ate a cold lunch and lay down to rest until the morning. Natachee -slept, but his white companion lay with wide-open eyes waiting for the -light.</p> - -<p>With the first touch of gray in the sky behind the distant Catalinas, -the Indian awoke. By the time there was light enough to see, they were -in the saddle.</p> - -<p>They had not gone far when Natachee reined his horse toward the west and -pointing to the ground said:</p> - -<p>“They went here, see? And yonder are the Vaca Hills.”</p> - -<p>They were nearing the group of low hills that on every side is -surrounded by unbroken desert when Natachee, with a low exclamation, -suddenly stopped, and, standing in his stirrups, gazed intently ahead.</p> - -<p>“What is it?” asked Hugh, trying in vain to see what it was that had -attracted the red man’s attention.</p> - -<p>“A horse.”</p> - -<p>As he spoke, the Indian slipped from his saddle and motioned the white -man to dismount.</p> - -<p>Leading the animals behind a large greasewood bush, Natachee said to his -companion:</p> - -<p>“Stay here with the horses and watch.”</p> - -<p>Before Hugh could answer, the Indian had slipped away through the -gray-green desert vegetation.</p> - -<p>A half hour passed. Hugh Edwards watched until his eyes ached. From -horizon to horizon there was no sign of life. The desert was as still -as<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_271" id="page_271">{271}</a></span> a tomb. Then he saw Natachee standing on one of the hills against -the sky. The Indian was signaling Hugh to come.</p> - -<p>When the white man joined his companion, the Indian did not reply to his -eager questions, and Hugh wondered at the red man’s grim and scowling -face. Silently, Natachee mounted and started his horse forward.</p> - -<p>Presently they rode into a low depression between the hills and Natachee -called Hugh’s attention to the water hole and the place where the outlaw -had made camp. Pointing out that the trail from this camping place led -south, the Indian said:</p> - -<p>“They left here as soon as it was dark last night. They are now close to -the border. Sonora Jack will not camp another day on this side of the -line but will push on this morning into Mexico. We will make much better -time to-day than they could have made last night.”</p> - -<p>“But that horse—what about that horse you saw?” demanded Hugh.</p> - -<p>For a moment, although he stopped, Natachee did not answer. Then, as if -against his will, he said curtly:</p> - -<p>“Ride to the top of that ridge there and you will see.”</p> - -<p>Wonderingly, Hugh obeyed.</p> - -<p>On the farther side of the ridge lay the body of the Lizard.</p> - -<p>Not until the following day did Hugh Edwards understand why the red -man’s face was so grim, and why he would not speak of the Lizard’s -death.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_272" id="page_272">{272}</a></span></p> - -<p>Hour after hour the Indian and the white man followed the trail that led -southward through the Papago country. Natachee set the pace, nor did he -once stop or hesitate, for the tracks of the two horses and the pack -mule were clear in the soft ground, and the outlaw had made no attempt -to confuse possible pursuers.</p> - -<p>Skirting the northern end of the Comobabi range, and leaving Indian -Oasis well to the east, the trail avoided two small Indian villages that -lie at the foot of the Quijotoas and then swung more to the west. -Natachee, who for three hours had not spoken, pointed to a group of -mountains miles ahead.</p> - -<p>“The Santa Rosa and the Nariz Mountains on the Mexican line. Sonora Jack -is making for the headquarters of his old outlaw band.”</p> - -<p>As mile after mile passed in steady, relentless succession, and the -hours went by with no relief from the monotonous pound and swing of the -horses’ feet, Hugh Edwards found reason to be grateful for the past -months of heavy labor that had toughened his muscles and hardened his -body for this test of physical endurance. The sun rode in a sky that -held no relieving cloud. In the wide basin, rimmed by desert mountains -where no trees grew, there was not a shadow to rest his aching eyes. The -smell of the sweating horses and the odor of warm, wet saddle leather -was in every breath he drew. His lips were parched and cracked, his eyes -smarted, his skin was grimy with dust, his clothing damp and sticky with -perspiration. He felt that he had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_273" id="page_273">{273}</a></span> riding for ages. He grimly set -his will to ride on and on and on.</p> - -<p>It was late in the afternoon when Natachee turned aside from the trail -and rode toward a little desert hill near-by. When Edwards, following, -asked the reason, Natachee answered:</p> - -<p>“We are not far from the border. Sonora Jack must have friends in this -neighborhood or he would not have come so far west before crossing into -Mexico.”</p> - -<p>Dismounting, the two men climbed to the top of the hill, and from that -elevation scanned the surrounding country. When Natachee was satisfied, -they returned to their horses and rode on. But now the Indian held to -the trail only at the intervals necessary to assure himself of the -general bearing of the outlaw’s course. At every opportunity he ascended -some high point from which he could survey the country into which the -trail was leading them. After two hours of this they were rewarded by -the sight of a small adobe house and corral, a mile, perhaps, from where -they stood.</p> - -<p>As Natachee pointed to the place he said:</p> - -<p>“That is not Indian. The Papago Reservation line, which follows the -international boundary for so many miles, turns north at the foot of the -Nariz Hills yonder and then after a few miles turns west again to the -Santa Rosa Mountains over there. That little ranch is not on the Indian -Reservation. It cannot be far from the border. It looks Mexican, and the -outlaw’s trail leads directly toward it.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_274" id="page_274">{274}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>At the possibility suggested by the Indian’s words, Hugh Edwards cried:</p> - -<p>“Do you think—are they—is Marta there?”</p> - -<p>Natachee shook his head.</p> - -<p>“No, I think the outlaw would take her into Mexico, but whoever lives -there, they are Sonora Jack’s friends or he would avoid the place.”</p> - -<p>Then with his eyes on his white companion’s face, the Indian said -slowly:</p> - -<p>“Don’t you remember the story you told me—how the old prospectors found -the little girl?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” said Edwards, not at first seeing the connection.</p> - -<p>“Well,” continued Natachee, “have you forgotten that Thad and Bob were -coming in from the Santa Rosa Mountains, and that they found the child -at a Mexican Ranch near the border?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards, fully aroused now, was trembling with emotion. He gazed at -the little ranch house in the distance as if fascinated. Then, without a -word, he went hurriedly down the hill to his horse.</p> - -<p>Natachee was beside him, and, as they mounted, the Indian spoke.</p> - -<p>“We must be careful, friend, it will not do to show ourselves here. If I -am not mistaken, we will pick up the trail again beyond that ranch on -the south.”</p> - -<p>Riding into the nearest opening between the hills of the Nariz range, -the Indian again turned westward, thus leaving the ranch well to the -north. At the western end of the range they found the outlaw’s trail -leading straight south into Mexico.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_275" id="page_275">{275}</a></span></p> - -<p>When the sun went down, Natachee and Edwards, lying in the greasewood -and mesquite on top of a low ridge a few miles south of the -international boundary line, looked down upon the buildings and corrals -of a Mexican Ranch.</p> - -<p>The nearest corral was not more than a quarter of a mile distant. The -fence of a small pasture which lay between them and the corrals was less -than a hundred yards away. In this pasture, within a stone’s throw of -where the white man and the Indian lay, the pinto horse Nugget was -feeding quietly with another horse and a mule.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_276" id="page_276">{276}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXVIII" id="CHAPTER_XXVIII"></a>CHAPTER XXVIII<br /><br /> -THE OUTLAWS</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>In reality, the ranch was a general meeting place, or station, for -cattle rustlers, smugglers, and their kind, from both sides of the -border.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>LL through these lonely months following the disappearance of Hugh -Edwards, Marta Hillgrove had lived in the firm conviction that the man -she loved would come again. She had nothing to justify her belief. She -could not understand why, if he loved her, he had left no message—no -word of hope. But her woman instinct had persistently swept aside all -the opposing facts and held her to the truth which her heart knew. She -was so sure of Hugh Edwards’ love that nothing could shake her faith in -him or cause her to doubt that he would come again to claim her. With -Saint Jimmy’s help she had endured the long days when there had been no -word from the man to whom she had given, without reserve, the wealth of -her first woman love.</p> - -<p>Marta never dreamed what it cost Saint Jimmy to help her. She would -never know. Many, many times Saint Jimmy had told himself that the girl -must never know how hard it was for him to help her through those weeks -of her waiting for Hugh Edwards.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_277" id="page_277">{277}</a></span></p> - -<p>Then, at last, Natachee had come with the explanation of Hugh’s silence, -the story of the hunted man’s innocence of the crime for which he had -been imprisoned, together with the promises of the freedom and happiness -that was now, through the gold her lover had found, so near at hand for -them both.</p> - -<p>Every moment of that day her heart had sung:</p> - -<p>“To-morrow Hugh is coming. To-morrow he is coming.” The hours were -filled with rosy visions of the days, that were now so near, when she -would be with him, with no fear of another separation. Again and again -she assured herself that it was all true—that it was not another of her -dreams. Hugh <i>had</i> found the gold that meant freedom for him, and -happiness for them both. The Pardners, when they had talked with Saint -Jimmy, were willing to do their part in carrying out the plan, as they -would have been willing to submit to any hardship to insure the -happiness of their daughter. Saint Jimmy was arranging everything. -“To-morrow, to-morrow, Hugh would come.”</p> - -<p>There had been a long talk with her two fathers that evening, and when -at last they had said good-night, the girl had not found it easy to -sleep. She was too excited, too thrilled with her happiness. Her mind -was too active with thoughts of what the morning would bring. She heard -the noise at the barn and wondered what mischief Nugget was in. At the -same moment she heard the Pardners stirring in their room, and knew that -they too had been<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_278" id="page_278">{278}</a></span> disturbed by the noise that Nugget was making. The -door of her room was open and she could hear Bob muttering about the -pinto as he passed through the living room on his way out to the barn.</p> - -<p>The noise at the barn ceased. She waited, listening for Bob’s return.</p> - -<p>There was the sound of steps in the kitchen and some one entered the -living room. Thad moved in his room. She caught a whispered word outside -her door. It was not Bob. What did it mean? Sitting up in her bed, she -listened.</p> - -<p>Suddenly all was confusion. Thad’s voice rang out, challenging the -intruders. There was a trampling rush of feet toward her door—a tangle -of straining, writhing figures—a spurt of fire accompanied by the -deafening report of a gun—a cry of pain—a dull, sickening blow—a -moaning voice: “Hay mamacita de me vido”—a dreadful silence.</p> - -<p>Then another voice spoke sharply in Mexican, followed by a groaning -reply; and then a man stood beside her bed telling her that she must -prepare to go with him and assuring her that no harm should come to her -if she was obedient and made no effort to escape. Dumb with terror, the -girl started to dress and Sonora Jack went back to the wounded Mexican. -Marta heard him call to the Lizard to bring up the horses and the pack -mule, and to saddle the pinto. But when the outlaw went again to the -girl he found her kneeling beside Thad, overcome with grief.</p> - -<p>Lifting her to her feet, Sonora Jack said sternly:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_279" id="page_279">{279}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Come, this is no good! The old man, he will be all right when he wake -up. You do what I say an’ make yourself ready to ride your own horse -with me, or I finish him an’ pack you on a mule.”</p> - -<p>He drew a knife and stooped over the old prospector.</p> - -<p>With a cry, Marta sprang to do his bidding.</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>In those first hours of her enforced ride in the night with Sonora Jack -and the Lizard, the girl was still too bewildered and frightened to -think clearly. But when the outlaw ordered the Lizard to take the pack -mule and go one way, while he with Marta went another, in order to -confuse any possible pursuers, she caught, from her captors’ words and -actions, a gleam of hope. Hugh Edwards and Natachee would arrive at her -home in the morning. They would not be long in setting out to find her. -With this hope, and the assurance from the outlaws’ manner toward her -that she was in no immediate personal danger, the girl’s courage -returned and she was able to consider her situation with some degree of -calmness. She did not know that Bob had been killed. But certainly he -had not returned after being called from the house by that noise at the -barn; nor had she heard his voice. This, together with the fact that -neither Sonora Jack nor the Lizard had mentioned the old prospector or -referred to him in any way, led her to believe that he was dead. She -could not know how seriously Thad was hurt. Try as she might, she could -find no hint of the outla<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_280" id="page_280">{280}</a></span>w’s purpose in taking her away. When the -Lizard would have talked to her, Sonora Jack ordered him, curtly, to -keep his mouth shut and look after the pack mule.</p> - -<p>Morning came and they were in the Vaca Hills. When Sonora Jack and the -Lizard had made camp, and breakfast was over, the outlaw ordered the -girl to rest and sleep because there was a long hard ride before her and -she would need all her strength. Then, telling the Lizard that he would -call him later to take his turn watching for any one following on their -trail, Sonora Jack went to the top of a hill, from which he could -overlook the country to the east.</p> - -<p>No sooner had his leader left the camp than the Lizard approached Marta.</p> - -<p>With a leering grin twisting his ratlike features, he said:</p> - -<p>“You’re a-ridin’ with me after all, ain’t ye?”</p> - -<p>The girl, making no effort to hide her disgust, did not answer.</p> - -<p>“Still a-feelin’ high an’ mighty, be ye? Wal, you’d best be a-gettin’ -over hit. You’re a long way from th’ Cañada del Oro right now an’ you’re -a-goin’ a heap further.”</p> - -<p>Marta forced herself to ask calmly:</p> - -<p>“Do you know where we are going?”</p> - -<p>The Lizard looked back at the hill toward which the outlaw had gone.</p> - -<p>“I know whar Sonora Jack <i>says</i> we’re a-goin’—whether we go er not -depends on you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_281" id="page_281">{281}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“What do you mean?” faltered Marta.</p> - -<p>“What do ye reckon I’m here a-mixin’ up in this fer?” retorted the -Lizard.</p> - -<p>“I—I am sure I don’t know.”</p> - -<p>“Oh, ye don’t, don’t ye? Can’t even make a guess, heh? Wal, I’ll tell -ye, hit’s like this: Sonora Jack, he’s a-aimin’ t’ carry ye into Mexico. -He ’lows he knows whar ther’s a feller what’ll be glad t’ pay an -almighty fancy price fer a likely lookin’ gal like you an’ he’s goin’ t’ -sell ye. Onct he’s south of th’ border, he kin work it easy enough. He’s -a-takin’ good care of ye ’cause he’s got t’ deliver ye in first-class -shape. Onct yer delivered an’ th’ other feller has paid Jack’s -price—wal, I reckon you’ll be made t’ earn yer livin’ all right, an’ -pay right smart on yer owner’s investment besides.”</p> - -<p>The explanation of the outlaw’s purpose in abducting her was so -plausible that Marta was stricken with horror.</p> - -<p>After a moment the Lizard spoke again, emphasizing his words with -significant care.</p> - -<p>“That’s what Jack <i>thinks</i> he’s a-goin’ t’ do. Jist like he <i>thinks</i> I -come along t’ help him.”</p> - -<p>The girl caught the fellow’s suggestion with desperate eagerness.</p> - -<p>“But you won’t help him—you—you couldn’t do such a thing. You came to -save me.”</p> - -<p>Then, as she saw the expression of the Lizard’s face, her voice broke -and she faltered:</p> - -<p>“That is what you mean, isn’t it?”</p> - -<p>“What I mean depends on you. When Sonora<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_282" id="page_282">{282}</a></span> Jack wanted me t’ come along -an’ help him git you into Mexico, I seen th’ chanct I been a long time -waitin’ fer. Hit’d be plumb easy t’ git shet of that half-breed Mex -anywhere this side of th’ line. With th’ outfit we got, you an’ me could -make hit on west t’ Yuma an’ California easy.”</p> - -<p>The girl was watching him as if she were under a spell. The look in his -shifty eyes, the expression of his loose mouth fascinated her.</p> - -<p>“But,” he added deliberately, “you’ll have t’ go as my woman.”</p> - -<p>With a low cry, the girl hid her face:</p> - -<p>“No! no!! no!!!”</p> - -<p>“You kin take your choice. I’ll help Sonora Jack sell ye t’ that feller -in Mexico er ye kin go with me.”</p> - -<p>Then the girl’s overstrained nerves gave way. Springing to her feet, she -broke into wild laughter.</p> - -<p>The hysterical merriment with which she received his proposal maddened -the Lizard beyond reason:</p> - -<p>“Hit’s funny, ain’t hit?” he snarled. “I’ve allus been funny t’ you—ye -ain’t never done nothin’ but laugh at me. But I done made up my mind a -long time ago that I’d have ye some day—an’ now—whether ye want t’ go -with me er not—“ he sprang forward and caught her in his arms.</p> - -<p>The girl screamed.</p> - -<p>A moment later the Lizard was caught by a heavy hand and whirled twenty -feet away. As he recovered his balance and snatched at the gun on his -hip, Sonora Jack said sharply:</p> - -<p>“Drop it!<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_283" id="page_283">{283}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>The Lizard, with his eyes fixed on the outlaw’s steady weapon, raised -his empty hands.</p> - -<p>When Sonora Jack, with the coolness of his long experience, had disarmed -his companion, he turned to the girl.</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry for this, Señorita. I have said that with me you would be all -right. I don’t want you should be scared like this. Tell me, please, -what did this hombre say?”</p> - -<p>“It is nothing,” stammered the girl.</p> - -<p>“You don’t cry loud like that for nothin’,” returned the outlaw. “You -don’t get scared so for nothin’.”</p> - -<p>For some time the girl, by refusing to answer or by giving evasive -answers to his questions, tried to keep from telling him what the Lizard -had proposed. But Sonora Jack, with persistent and cunning questions, -with adroit suggestions and bold assertions, drew from her, little by -little, the truth.</p> - -<p>Then the outlaw faced the cringing Lizard.</p> - -<p>“So you think you play a game with Sonora Jack, heh? Don’t I tell you -how the Señorita is worth so much gold to me that she must be guarded -with great care? What am I goin’ to do now? You’re traitor to me. I no -can trust you this much while I’m gone such a little way to watch the -trail. ’Fore we get to the border there’s goin’ to be plenty chances for -you to betray me. I ain’t goin’ to be safe with you, even in Mexico. -Come—the Señorita must not again be scared. Come! You an’ me we take a -little walk over there behind that hill.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_284" id="page_284">{284}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Grasping the Lizard’s arm, he forced the frightened creature to -accompany him.</p> - -<p>The terrified girl, watching, saw them disappear over the low ridge.</p> - -<p>Trembling, she listened.</p> - -<p>There was no sound.</p> - -<p>Presently she saw the outlaw coming back over the hill.</p> - -<p>Sonora Jack was alone.</p> - -<p>Leisurely he approached, and bowing low, said gently:</p> - -<p>“I’m sorry, Señorita, you got so scared. It ain’t goin’ to be so no -more.”</p> - -<p>All night they rode and in the gray light of the early morning came to -that small adobe ranch house near the Mexican border.</p> - -<p>Save for a half-starved dog that slunk from sight behind the house as -they approached, there seemed to be no life about the place. But when -Sonora Jack, riding to within a few feet of the door, shouted, “Buenos -dias, madre,” the door opened and an old Mexican appeared. He greeted -the outlaw with a cordial welcome and came forward to take the horses. -At the same moment an ancient crone hobbled from the house.</p> - -<p>“Hijo mio! Gracias a Dios que volviste sin novedad,” she cried. “My son! -Thanks to God you have returned without mishap.”</p> - -<p>“Si, madre, sin novedad—Yes, mother, without mishap.”</p> - -<p>“You found the Mine with the Door of Iron?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_285" id="page_285">{285}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“No, Mother, but I found something else that will bring much gold to -me.”</p> - -<p>He turned toward Marta and bade the girl dismount.</p> - -<p>To the old man he said:</p> - -<p>“We must eat and go on over the line quickly. Feed and water the animals -but do not remove the saddles.”</p> - -<p>Then leading Marta into the house, he took her to a little room and told -her to lie down and rest until their breakfast was ready, and left her.</p> - -<p>When she was alone, the girl looked about with wondering interest. She -had felt, even as they were approaching the house, that there was -something strangely familiar about the place. She seemed to have been -there before or else to have seen it all in some dream. That corral—the -well—the water trough—the adobe building—the hard-beaten yard—the -pile of mesquite wood—the heap of old tin cans and rubbish. Surely, she -had seen it all before. The interior of the house, too, was familiar in -every detail. The bed upon which she was lying—the old rawhide bottom -chairs—the cracked mirror on the wall and that print of the Holy -Family. How strange it all was! She was certain that once before she had -been shut in that room, and, lying on that bed, had heard those voices -talking in Mexican on the other side of that door.</p> - -<p>In her wanderings with the old prospectors, Marta had picked up enough -of the Mexican language to understand a little of the conversation. She -learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_286" id="page_286">{286}</a></span> that the old woman was Sonora Jack’s mother. As she listened -now, she gathered that they were discussing her. She caught the words -prospectors, Cañada del Oro, and several times she heard, little girl, -while the old woman and the man who had come in after caring for the -animals exclaimed with astonishment. In a flash, the meaning of it all -came to her. She was the little girl. This was the place from which the -Pardners had taken her.</p> - -<p>But try as she might, she could not bring back that childhood experience -with any degree of clearness. It was a hazy fragment—a memory. She -could not recall how she was first brought to that place, nor what her -relationship to those people had been. If only Hugh and Natachee would -come. If only they could be here now. Perhaps—perhaps, they could force -these people to tell what they knew about her.</p> - -<p>At breakfast, the old woman and the man treated Marta with great -deference. Again and again, they assured her in Mexican and broken -English that she must not be frightened, that she would come to no harm -if she obeyed Sonora Jack. When, with Sonora Jack, she rode away to the -south, they watched until she passed from sight.</p> - -<p>They had ridden two or three hours when the outlaw said:</p> - -<p>“Señorita, we goin’ come now to the end of our ride, for a little time. -This is Mexico. The line is ten mile back. Over them hills ahead is a -rancho. We goin’ stop there. It is not so good place as I<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_287" id="page_287">{287}</a></span> like for you, -but it is best I can do for now. Many men are goin’ to be -there—vaqueros—all kinds—bad hombres. All the time they come an’ go. -You no want to be scared, ’cause me—I’m goin’ take good care of you. It -is best if we make like you was my wife.”</p> - -<p>When the girl cried out with fear and he saw the horror in her eyes he -hastened to explain:</p> - -<p>“Señorita, you mistake—it is only that we make believe you are my wife. -You sabe? If I take you to that place as Señorita Hillgrove, you goin’ -to be in much danger. I can fight them, yes—they know that I can fight, -but—“ he shrugged his shoulders, then: “Señora Richard would be safe, -sure. Nobody is goin’ make insult to the wife of Sonora Jack. They know -for that Sonora Jack would sure kill.”</p> - -<p>When Marta would not, or more literally <i>could</i> not, agree, the outlaw -impatiently spurred his horse forward.</p> - -<p>“All right, Señorita, we goin’ to see. I’m goin’ to tell that you are my -wife. I promise it is only a make-believe. If you goin’ to tell it is -not so—that you are not Señora Richards—then I can’t help what comes -next.”</p> - -<p>In a few minutes they were at the ranch. The house was a long, -flat-topped, adobe building with several rooms opening on to a long -ramada. In reality, the ranch was a general meeting place, or station, -for cattle rustlers, smugglers and their kind from both sides of the -border.</p> - -<p>There were eight or ten men gathered in a group in front of the house as -the outlaw and his prisoner<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_288" id="page_288">{288}</a></span> arrived. All of them knew Sonora Jack, and, -with two or three exceptions, greeted him cordially. When the outlaw -told them that his wife was ill from the long ride and must at once -retire, Marta made no protest. Frightened as she was at the villainous -company, worn with the nervous strain and the physical hardship of her -journey, the poor girl’s appearance made Sonora Jack’s statement that -she was ill more plausible.</p> - -<p>A room at the end of the building was soon made ready by a mozo who -appeared in answer to a call from one of the men. The pack mule was -relieved of his burden and the things taken inside. The room was rather -large, with two doors—one opening on to the ramada in front and one -connecting the apartment with another. Two windows supplied plenty of -fresh air, and the place was fairly well furnished as a bedroom. -Evidently it was the best apartment that the establishment afforded.</p> - -<p>When the mozo was gone and the door was shut, Sonora Jack whispered:</p> - -<p>“You done all right, Señorita. Now you goin’ be safe for sure. -Everything goin’ be fine. You make like you too sick to get out of bed. -Me, I bring what you want to eat, myself.” He smiled. “I goin’ tell them -hombres a pretty story ’bout my poor Señora who is so sick. Then I’m -goin’ play cards with them. All night we play an’ you will not be -scared. <i>Adios</i>, Señorita, don’t you be scared, rest an’ sleep.”</p> - -<p>Marta threw herself on the bed and, in spite of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_289" id="page_289">{289}</a></span> her situation, fell -into a deep sleep. When Sonora Jack brought her dinner, she awoke and, -realizing that she must keep her strength for what might come, forced -herself to eat. Then once more she slept.</p> - -<p>When she was again awakened, it was dark. She could not guess the time. -A strip of light shone under the door from that next room and she could -hear the men who were drinking and gambling.</p> - -<p>At times, their voices were raised in angry dispute or in boisterous -laughter; again, there was only the slap-slap of cards as they were -thrown on the table with the accompanying thud-thud of heavy hands, the -click of bottle necks against glasses, the scuffling sound of a boot -heel, the jingle of a spur, or the scrape of a chair on the rough floor. -Then a drunken yell of exultation would ring out, accompanied by a heavy -grumbling undertone.</p> - -<p>The girl, trembling with fear, listened and waited. Would Sonora Jack -keep his promise? Was the incentive, which led him to protect her from -even himself, strong enough to endure when he had become inflamed by -drink?</p> - -<p>Slowly the terrible hours passed. It must be nearly midnight. The voices -of the men in the next room were becoming louder, more quarrelsome and -reckless. Suddenly the frightened girl felt, rather than heard, that -front door opening. In the dim light she saw it swing slowly, inch by -inch.</p> - -<p>She held her breath. She wanted to scream but she dared not. The door -swung a little farther and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_290" id="page_290">{290}</a></span> she could see the stars through the opening. -Then a dark form slipped into the room as soundless as a shadow. -Noiselessly the door was closed.</p> - -<p>Cold with horror, unable to move a muscle, the girl cowered on the bed.</p> - -<p>The shadowy form moved toward her. It stopped—then came a low whisper.</p> - -<p>“Miss Hillgrove, do not be frightened, be very still. I, Natachee, have -come for you.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_291" id="page_291">{291}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXIX" id="CHAPTER_XXIX"></a>CHAPTER XXIX<br /><br /> -THE RESCUE</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>And Marta gave a low cry of delight when, far away to the -northeast, they saw the blue heights of the Santa Catalinas.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">F</span>OR a moment Marta could not speak. Then in spite of herself she gave a -low cry of joy which brought another whispered warning from the Indian.</p> - -<p>Moving closer, he said:</p> - -<p>“Hugh Edwards is waiting with the horses. We have the pinto and your -saddle but I fear you must leave everything else. Not all the men are in -there gambling and drinking. There are three in front of the house at -the farther end of the ramada. They are sitting with their backs toward -your door so I was able to get in. I dared not wait longer because, from -their talk, they are expecting some one to come any minute. Then the -party in the next room will break up and it will be too late for us to -move. We must hurry.”</p> - -<p>“I am ready,” whispered the girl.</p> - -<p>“You will be brave and do exactly what I say?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Good!—Come.”</p> - -<p>There was a burst of angry voices in the next room. The Indian waited -until he was satisfied that the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_292" id="page_292">{292}</a></span> gamblers were continuing their play, -then, leading Marta to the window in the end of the building toward the -west, he slipped through, and from the outside helped the girl to -follow.</p> - -<p>At that moment they heard the sound of feet on the hard earth floor of -the ramada. Some one was coming toward that end of the house. With his -lips to the girl’s ear, Natachee bade her lie down. She obeyed -instantly, and the Indian, knife in hand, crept to the corner of the -building, toward which the sound was approaching, where he stood, -flattened against the wall.</p> - -<p>The man who was coming along the front of the house walked leisurely to -the end of the ramada and stood almost within reach of the Indian’s -hand, looking out toward the west and toward the corrals. Natachee was -as motionless as the wall against which he stood. Had the fellow gone a -step farther or turned his head to look past the corner of the building, -he would have died that same instant. Presently he turned and started -back toward his companions, calling to them in Mexican as he did so:</p> - -<p>“It is strange that they are so late. They should have been here an hour -ago.”</p> - -<p>In a flash Natachee was again at Marta’s side. Lifting her to her feet, -he whispered:</p> - -<p>“Follow me and do as I do.”</p> - -<p>A hundred feet away, a hollow in the uneven ground made a deeper shadow. -Lying prone, the Indian crawled to the little depression. The girl -followed close behind. For a moment they lay side<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_293" id="page_293">{293}</a></span> by side in the -hollow, then the Indian rose and stooping low ran for the dark mass of a -mesquite tree some fifty yards farther on.</p> - -<p>Again Marta imitated his movements.</p> - -<p>“Good!” whispered the Indian as she crouched, breathless, beside him. -“But from here on there are too many dry sticks and things for you to -stumble over and we must go swiftly.”</p> - -<p>Before she realized his purpose, he had caught her up in his arms, and -keeping the tree between them and the house, was running swift and -silent as a wolf through the brush. When they were at a safe distance, -the Indian circled to the right and so gained the shelter of the corral -fence, with the corral which was north of the house between them and the -ramada where the three men were still sitting. Putting the girl down, he -whispered:</p> - -<p>“If you should make any noise now, they will think it is the horses, but -be careful.”</p> - -<p>Following the back fence of the corral, they were soon some distance -east of the house. Then, still keeping the fences between them and the -three men on the ramada, Natachee led the way toward a mesquite thicket -in a sandy wash between two low ridges where Hugh was waiting with the -horses.</p> - -<p>There was no time for greetings. Scarcely had they gained their saddles -when a yell came from the house, and in the light that streamed from the -open door of the room where the gamblers had been carousing, they could -see the dark forms of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_294" id="page_294">{294}</a></span> men gather in answer to the alarm. Clearly -they heard the voice of Sonora Jack crying:</p> - -<p>“Se fue la muchacha! Los caballos! A seguir la!—The girl is gone! The -horses! To follow her!”</p> - -<p>When the Indian made no move to go, but sat calmly watching the lights -and listening to the voices of the outlaws as they called to one another -while saddling their horses, Edwards said impatiently:</p> - -<p>“Come, Natachee, we are losing valuable time here. If we go now, we will -have a good start ahead of them.”</p> - -<p>“No,” returned the Indian. “That is exactly what they expect us to do -and their horses are much faster and fresher than ours. They think that -we are making for the United States by the most direct route, which is -there due north between those two mountain ranges—the Santa Rosas to -the left and the Nariz to the east. They will not waste time trying to -find our trail in the darkness but will try to outride us to the line -and, by scattering, to cover the country so as to prevent us from -crossing. Be patient and you will see.”</p> - -<p>Very soon the Indian’s judgment was proved sound. The outlaws dashed -away as fast as their horses could run toward that gap in the mountains -through which Sonora Jack had brought Marta the day before. When the -last rider was gone and the rolling thunder of the horses’ feet had died -away in the darkness, Natachee spoke again.</p> - -<p>“Good; now we will go. When the day comes, we<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_295" id="page_295">{295}</a></span> must be on the northern -side of the Nariz Mountains and a little to the east of where Edwards -and I struck the hills yesterday. As we start behind the outlaws, we -need not fear pursuit, at least until daybreak.”</p> - -<p>For two or three miles the Indian followed the northern course taken by -the outlaws, then, turning aside from the broad, well-traveled trail, he -led the way at a leisurely but steady pace to the northeast. Another -hour and they were well into the Nariz hills. By daylight they were on -the northern side of the range—in the United States.</p> - -<p>Leaving their horses, they climbed to a point from which they could look -out over the wide plains of the Papago Reservation, with its scattered -groups of hills and small mountain ranges bounded by the mighty bulwark -of the Baboquivaris and the Coyotes on the east and by the Santa Rosa -and Gunsight Mountains on the west. And Marta gave a low cry of delight -when, far away to the northeast, they saw the blue heights of the Santa -Catalinas lifting boldly into the morning sky.</p> - -<p>For some time the Indian scanned the country at the foot of the hills -where they stood. There was not a living creature moving within range of -his vision. With a smile, Natachee turned to his companions and pointing -to the west, said:</p> - -<p>“Sonora Jack and his friends are very busy looking for us over there -between these hills and the Santa Rosas yonder.”</p> - -<p>“Thanks to you, Natachee,” the girl answered with deep feeling.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_296" id="page_296">{296}</a></span></p> - -<p>As if he had not heard, the Indian pointed more to the north and -continued:</p> - -<p>“That smoke which you see over there is from a little ranch—Mexican, I -think—toward which we trailed you and Sonora Jack yesterday. Did you -stop there?”</p> - -<p>Marta told them briefly of her experience—of the old Mexican woman who -was evidently Sonora Jack’s mother, and of her conviction that it was -from those people that the old prospectors had taken her when she was a -little girl.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards heard her story with many exclamations, comments and -questions. The Indian, who continued to scan the country before them -with ceaseless vigilance, listened without a word.</p> - -<p>When Marta had finished her story, Natachee said:</p> - -<p>“It is time we were moving, friends. Sonora Jack will be on our trail. -When he has made sure that we did not take the course he thought we -would take, he will ride east along the Mexico side of this range until -he picks up our trail; for he will know that we would not go into the -Santa Rosa Mountains. I think he will bring with him only one or two -men, because he will not wish to share the profit of his venture with so -many when one or two are all that he needs, now that it is no longer a -question of heading us off before we cross the border. There would be a -greater risk, too, with a large company—in the United States. He will -know that there are<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_297" id="page_297">{297}</a></span> only three of us and will plan to follow and pick -us off at a safe distance when the opportunity offers or attack us -to-night. When he has again taken his prisoner, he can easily rid -himself of one or two helpers as he disposed of the Lizard.”</p> - -<p>A quarter of a mile from where they had left their horses, the low -ridge, beyond which lay the open country, was broken by a narrow, sandy -wash. One side of this natural gateway of these hills is an irregular -cliff some twenty feet in height. The Indian, leading the way straight -to this opening, passed close under the cliff and, leaving the hills -behind, set their course straight toward the distant Santa Catalinas.</p> - -<p>They had ridden but a short way when the Indian again halted. Pointing -to a peak in the northern end of the Baboquivaris, he said to Hugh:</p> - -<p>“That is Kits Peak. If you ride toward it, you will come to Indian -Oasis. There is a store there where you can water and feed your horses -and purchase something to eat for yourselves. I am going back to wait -for Sonora Jack. I will overtake you later.”</p> - -<p>He was turning his horse to ride away, when Edwards cried:</p> - -<p>“Wait a minute. Do you mean that you are going back to meet those -outlaws?”</p> - -<p>“Sonora Jack must be stopped,” returned the Indian.</p> - -<p>“All right,” agreed Hugh, “but Sonora Jack is not alone. Do you think I -am going to ride on and leave you to face those fellows single-handed?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_298" id="page_298">{298}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“You faced three of them single-handed for me. I, Natachee, do not -forget.”</p> - -<p>“But that was different,” argued Edwards. “There were several things in -my favor. No—no, Natachee, it won’t do. When you meet those fellows who -are following our trail, I must be there to do my little bit with you.”</p> - -<p>“But Miss Hillgrove,” said the Indian.</p> - -<p>Marta spoke quickly. “Hugh is right, Natachee.”</p> - -<p>The Indian yielded.</p> - -<p>“Come, then, we must not delay longer, or it will be too late.”</p> - -<p>Swinging in a wide circle to the right, Natachee led the way swiftly -back to a point at the foot of the ridge, a short distance east of that -rocky gateway. They dismounted at a spot that was well hidden and the -Indian, directing Marta to stay with the horses and telling Edwards to -follow, ran quickly along the ridge to the top of the cliff directly -above the tracks they had made when first leaving the hills.</p> - -<p>When he had assured himself that there was no one in sight following -their trail, the Indian stood before his companion and Hugh knew that it -was not the Natachee of the schools that was about to speak. Drawing -himself up proudly, the red man said:</p> - -<p>“Hugh Edwards, listen—seven days ago this stealer of women, Sonora -Jack, and his companions, crawled like three snakes into Natachee’s hut. -Hiding, they struck, when Natachee alone crossed the threshold of his -home. In the night, they bound<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_299" id="page_299">{299}</a></span> the Indian to a rock, and but for you -would have put live coals from their fire on his naked breast. One of -the three who did that thing is dying in the Cañon of Gold—is even now, -perhaps, dead, but I, Natachee, did not strike him. The body of another -is over there in the Vaca Hills. He did not die by the hand of the -Indian he had trapped. Sonora Jack alone is left. He is left for me. Do -you understand?”</p> - -<p>The white man, remembering the Indian’s face and manner when he had -found the Lizard’s body, understood. Slowly—reluctantly, he said:</p> - -<p>“This is your affair, Natachee, have it your own way.”</p> - -<p>They had not waited long when Natachee saw Sonora Jack and a Mexican -riding down through the hills. The Indian, fitting an arrow to his bow, -said to his companion:</p> - -<p>“When I give the word, stand up and cover Sonora Jack with your rifle.”</p> - -<p>With their eyes on the tracks they were following, the outlaws rode -swiftly toward the rocks where Natachee and Edwards were waiting. Sonora -Jack was a little in advance. They were just past the cliff when the -Mexican, with a cry, tumbled from his saddle. Sonora Jack pulled his -horse up sharply and whirled about to see what had happened. At the -moment he caught sight of the arrow in the body of his fallen companion, -Natachee’s voice rang out from the rock above with the familiar command: -“Put up your hands.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_300" id="page_300">{300}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>And looking up, the outlaw saw the Indian with another arrow drawn to -its head, and the white man with his menacing rifle.</p> - -<p>While Edwards covered the trapped outlaw, the Indian relieved their -captive of his guns and ordered him to dismount. Then Natachee motioned -for Edwards to lower his rifle and stood face to face with Sonora Jack. -From his position on the rocks, Hugh Edwards looked down upon them with -intense interest.</p> - -<p>At last the red man spoke.</p> - -<p>“The snake that crawled into Natachee’s hut to strike when the Indian -was not looking is caught. One of his brother snakes he left to die in -the home he robbed. Another, he killed with his own hand. It is not well -that even one of the three snakes that hid in Natachee’s hut should -remain alive. When Sonora Jack, with the help of his two brother snakes, -had bound Natachee to a rock, Sonora Jack was very brave. He was so -brave that he dared even to strike the helpless Indian. Now, he shall -strike the Indian again—if he can.</p> - -<p>“When the snake, Sonora Jack, would have put his coals of fire on the -naked breast of the Indian, he required the help of two others. If I, -Natachee, could not alone kill a snake, I would die of shame. The one -who frightened Sonora Jack and his brave friends so that they ran like -rabbits into the brush is here. But Natachee is not bound to a rock now. -Sonora Jack need not fear the one from whom he and his brothers ran in -such haste. Hugh Edwards<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_301" id="page_301">{301}</a></span> will not point his rifle toward the snake that -I, Natachee, will kill.</p> - -<p>“Sonora Jack boasted that with live coals of fire he would burn the -heart out of Natachee’s breast. There is no fire here, but here is a -knife. Sonora Jack also has a knife. Let the snake, who was so brave -with his two brother snakes when they hid in Natachee’s hut and bound -the Indian to a rock, keep his heart from the knife of the Indian -now—if he can.”</p> - -<p>The two men were by no means unevenly matched in stature or in strength. -Both were men whose muscles had been hardened by their active lives in -the desert and the mountains. Both were skilled in the use of the knife -as a weapon. Sonora Jack fought with the desperate fury of a cornered -animal. The Indian, cool and calculating, seemed in no haste to finish -that which in his savage pride he had set himself to accomplish. So -swiftly did the duelists change positions, so closely were they locked -together as they wheeled and twisted in their struggles, that the white -man, who was trembling with tense excitement, could not have used his -rifle if he would. At his repeated failures to touch the Indian with his -knife, the outlaw lost, more and more, his self-control, until he was -fighting with reckless and ungoverned madness. Natachee, wary and -collected, smiled grimly as he saw the fear in the straining face of his -enemy.</p> - -<p>Then twice, in quick succession, the point of the Indian’s knife reached -the outlaw’s breast but with<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_302" id="page_302">{302}</a></span> no effect. Edwards gasped in dismay as he -saw the baffled look which came into Natachee’s face. Again the Indian, -with all the strength of his arm, drove his weapon at the outlaw’s heart -and again Sonora Jack was unharmed. Suddenly the Indian changed his -method of attack. To Edwards, the duel seemed to become a wrestling -match. For a moment they struggled, locked in each other’s arms, their -limbs entwined, writhing and straining. Then they fell, and to Edwards’ -horror, the Indian was under the outlaw. But the next instant, while -Sonora Jack was struggling to free his knife arm for a death blow, the -Indian, hugging his antagonist close, forced his weapon between Sonora -Jack’s shoulders.</p> - -<p>The muscles of the outlaw relaxed—his body became limp. Natachee rolled -to one side and leaped to his feet. As if he had forgotten the solitary -witness of the combat, the Indian calmly recovered his knife and stood -looking down at the man who was already dead.</p> - -<p>Sick with horror of the thing he had been forced to witness, Hugh -Edwards called to the Indian:</p> - -<p>“Come, Natachee, for God’s sake let’s get away from here.”</p> - -<p>“The snake that crawled into Natachee’s hut is dead,” returned the -Indian. “The stealer of women will not again steal the woman Hugh -Edwards loves.”</p> - -<p>Hugh was already starting back to the place where they had left Marta. -When he noticed that the Indian was not following, he paused to call -again:<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_303" id="page_303">{303}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Aren’t you coming?”</p> - -<p>“Go on,” returned Natachee, “I will join you in a moment.”</p> - -<p>And Hugh Edwards, from where he now stood, could not see that Natachee -was examining the body of the outlaw to learn why the point of his knife -had three times been kept from Sonora Jack’s breast.</p> - -<p>When Hugh reached Marta, the Indian was just behind him. To the girl, -Natachee said simply:</p> - -<p>“You can ride home in peace now. There is no one to follow our trail. -Sonora Jack will never come for you again.”</p> - -<p>And Marta asked no questions.</p> - -<p>On the homeward journey, Natachee did not follow the course they had -come, but took a more direct route. Near Indian Oasis they stopped, -while Natachee went to the store to purchase food. When they camped for -the night, Marta would let them rest only an hour or two, insisting that -she must push on.</p> - -<p>In the excitement and dangers of that first night, there had been no -opportunity for Hugh Edwards to speak to Marta of his love. And now, as -the hours of their long, trying journey passed, he still did not speak. -There really was no need for him to speak—they both knew so well. The -girl was so distressed by her anxiety for Thad and by her grief over -Bob’s death and so worn by her terrible experience, that Hugh could not -bring himself to talk of the plans that meant so much to him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_304" id="page_304">{304}</a></span></p> - -<p>When they were safely back in the Cañon of Gold and Marta was -rested—when she had found comfort and strength in Mother Burton’s arms, -then he would tell her his love and ask her to go with him to a place of -freedom and happiness.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_305" id="page_305">{305}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXX" id="CHAPTER_XXX"></a>CHAPTER XXX<br /><br /> -PARDNERS STILL</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>Every day he spent the greater part of his time under the mesquite -trees with Bob, and in the night, they would hear him going out “to -see,” as he said, “if his pardner was all right.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">I</span>N the Cañada del Oro, Doctor Burton and his mother watched beside the -old prospector and the wounded Mexican.</p> - -<p>The man who had been so heartlessly abandoned by his outlaw leader did -not speak; but his eyes, like the eyes of a wounded animal, followed -every movement of Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton. But as the days and -nights of suffering passed, and he received nothing but the gentlest and -most attentive care from the two good Samaritans into whose hands he had -fallen, the expression of suspicion and fear which had at first marked -his every glance gave way to a look of wondering and pathetic gratitude.</p> - -<p>It was late in the afternoon of that first day following the tragedy, -when Thad regained consciousness. Saint Jimmy, who was at the bedside -when the sturdy old prospector looked up at him with a smile of -recognition, said cheerfully:</p> - -<p>“Good morning, neighbor. How are you? Had a good sleep?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_306" id="page_306">{306}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>There was the suggestion of a twinkle in those faded blue eyes as Thad -returned:</p> - -<p>“There ain’t no need for you to pretend none with me, Doc. I come to, -quite a spell back. Got a peek at you, though, first thing when you -weren’t lookin’ an’ I jest naterally shut my eyes again quick. I been -layin’ here, figgerin’ things out. Got ’em about figgered, I reckon.” -His leathery, wrinkled, old face twisted in a grimace of pain and his -gray lips quivered as he added: “They got my gal, didn’t they?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy returned gravely:</p> - -<p>“You must be careful not to excite yourself, Thad. You have had a -dangerous injury.”</p> - -<p>“Holy Cats! You don’t need to think this is the first time I ever been -knocked out. My old head is tougher than you know. You don’t need to -worry about me gettin’ rattled neither. I tell you I know what happened -up to the time that half Mex devil hit me with his gun. I know they must -a-got her or she would a-been settin’ right here, certain sure—tell -me.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, they took her away, but Hugh Edwards and Natachee are on their -trail.”</p> - -<p>“What time did the boys start after them?”</p> - -<p>“About noon.”</p> - -<p>“Good enough. They won’t throw the Injun off, an’ him an’ Hugh will be -able to handle them if they ain’t too many.”</p> - -<p>“There are only two with Marta—Sonora Jack and the Lizard.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_307" id="page_307">{307}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“The Lizard, you say? Is he in on this deal too?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“Huh, I always knowed he’d do some real meanness if he ever worked up -nerve enough. That made three of them, then?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“I got one of them, didn’t I?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, he is lying in the other room.”</p> - -<p>“Pretty sick, is he?”</p> - -<p>“He is going to die, Thad.”</p> - -<p>“Uh-huh, that’s what I expected him to do when I took a shot at him.”</p> - -<p>The old prospector looked at Doctor Burton appealingly, as if there was -another question which he longed, yet dreaded to ask.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy evaded the unspoken question by asking:</p> - -<p>“Have you guessed who that fellow, John Holt, really is, Thad?”</p> - -<p>“He certain sure ain’t no decent prospector or he wouldn’t be tryin’ to -carry away my gal like he’s doin’—that’s all I know.”</p> - -<p>“He is Sonora Jack the outlaw. Natachee found it out.”</p> - -<p>“Holy Cats! An’ I wasted a shot on a measly Mex when I might jest as -well a-picked the king himself first. But what do you figger he wants to -carry off my gal that-a-way for?”</p> - -<p>“I wish we knew,” said Saint Jimmy.</p> - -<p>“Wal, there ain’t no good tryin’ to guess. We’ll<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_308" id="page_308">{308}</a></span> know what we know when -Natachee and Hugh comes back with her—But, say, Doc——“</p> - -<p>The old prospector hesitated, and his gaze roamed about the room.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy swallowed a lump in his throat.</p> - -<p>“What, Thad?”</p> - -<p>“Where—why—“ the gnarled fingers plucked at the bedding nervously, and -the faded blue eyes at last met the eyes of the younger man with such -pathetic fear that Saint Jimmy’s eyes filled.</p> - -<p>“Why ain’t my Pardner Bob here? Where is he? He didn’t go with the Injun -an’ the boy?”</p> - -<p>“No, Thad, Bob did not go with Hugh and Natachee.”</p> - -<p>The old prospector put out his trembling hand as if to cling to Saint -Jimmy, and Doctor Burton caught it in both his own.</p> - -<p>“They—they didn’t get my pardner—Bob ain’t cashed in?”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy bowed his head.</p> - -<p>Then his mother came to the door and the Doctor willingly made an excuse -to leave his patient for a little. When he returned an hour later and -Mother Burton had yielded her place to him and left the room, old Thad -smiled up at him.</p> - -<p>“That mother of yourn is a plumb wonder, sir. I always suspicioned it on -account of what she’s done for Marta, but I know now that I hadn’t even -begun to appreciate it. I reckon I’ll be gettin’ up now.”</p> - -<p>“And I reckon you won’t,” retorted the Doctor, putting out a firm hand -and pushing him back on<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_309" id="page_309">{309}</a></span> the pillow. “You’ll stay right where you are -until to-morrow morning. You have already talked too much. Here, let me -fix the bandage. There, that will do. Now take this and turn your face -to the wall—and keep quiet.”</p> - -<p>The old prospector obeyed.</p> - -<p>But the next morning he was out of the house before either Saint Jimmy -or his mother had left their beds. When Mrs. Burton went to call him for -breakfast, she found him beside the grave under the mesquite trees.</p> - -<p>“You see, ma’am,” he explained with childish confusion, “I got to -imaginin’ ’long in the night that my Pardner Bob must be feelin’ -all-fired lonesome an’ left-out like, with me sleepin’ in the house an’ -him out here all alone. Bob an’ me ain’t never been very far apart, you -see, for a good many years now, an’ so I felt like he’d kind of want me -’round somewheres. It’s funny, ain’t it, how an old desert rat like me -could get fussed up that-a-way! I think mebby that Bob would feel some -better too if only our gal was here. I’m plumb sure I would. But I know -she’ll be back all right. That Injun can hang to a trail like the smell -follers a skunk, an’ the boy will be here too, with both feet, when it -comes to gettin’ her away from them again. That half Mex an’ the Lizard -won’t stand a show agin Natachee an’ our Hugh. I wish they’d hurry back, -though.</p> - -<p>“Yes, ma’am, I’m comin’.</p> - -<p>“So long, Pardner, I got to get my breakfast. I’ll be back again -directly.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_310" id="page_310">{310}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Every day he spent the greater part of his time under the mesquite trees -with Bob, and in the night they would hear him going out “to see,” as he -said, “if his pardner was all right.”</p> - -<p>It was there that Marta found him the morning of her return with Hugh -and Natachee.</p> - -<p>Later, when Mother Burton had put the tired girl to bed, old Thad roamed -contentedly about the place, petting Nugget and going often to the door -of Marta’s room to listen with a smile for any sound that would tell him -the girl was awake. And that night he did not leave the house.</p> - -<p>“You see, ma’am,” he explained to Mother Burton in the morning, “Bob -he’s all right now that our gal is safe home again and there ain’t -nobody ever goin’ to steal her no more. It’s a good thing the Lizard is -gone an’ that the Injun done for that Sonora Jack, ’cause if they hadn’t -a-got what was comin’ to ’em, I’d be obliged to take a try for them -myself, old as I be. I couldn’t never a-looked Bob in the face again -nohow, if I’d a-let them hombres get away with such a job as that. But -it’s all right now—it’s sure all right.”</p> - -<p>During the forenoon of the day following Marta’s return, the Mexican at -last spoke to Doctor Burton, who was dressing his patient’s wound. As -the man spoke in his native tongue, Saint Jimmy could not understand. -Going to the door, he called Natachee. When the Mexican had repeated -what he had said, the Indian interpreted his words for Saint Jimmy.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_311" id="page_311">{311}</a></span></p> - -<p>“He says he thinks he is going to die and wants to know if it is so.”</p> - -<p>“Shall I tell him the truth, Natachee?”</p> - -<p>“Why not?” returned the Indian coldly. “He may have something that he -wishes to say. Perhaps it is something the friends of Miss Hillgrove -should know.”</p> - -<p>“Tell him, then, that there is no hope for his life. Death is certain. -It may come any time now.”</p> - -<p>When Natachee had repeated the Doctor’s words in the Mexican tongue and -the dying man had replied, the Indian said:</p> - -<p>“There is something that he wants to tell. He says that you and your -mother have been so kind that he will not die without speaking of the -girl you both love so much. I think you should call the others. It may -be in the nature of a confession and it would be well to have them.”</p> - -<p>He spoke again to the Mexican and the man answered:</p> - -<p>“Si, habla le a la muchacha y sus amigos.”</p> - -<p>Natachee interpreted:</p> - -<p>“Yes, call the girl and her friends.”</p> - -<p>A few minutes later Mother Burton, Thad, Hugh Edwards and Marta were -with Saint Jimmy and the Indian in the presence of the dying Mexican.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_312" id="page_312">{312}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXI" id="CHAPTER_XXXI"></a>CHAPTER XXXI<br /><br /> -THE MEXICAN’S CONFESSION</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>It was well that no one in the room, save Natachee and the Mexican, -could at that moment see Saint Jimmy’s face.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">S</span>LOWLY the eyes of the Mexican turned from face to face of the silent -group. But it was upon Saint Jimmy’s face that his gaze finally rested, -and it was to Saint Jimmy that he addressed himself. The Indian, as -coldly impersonal and impassive as a mechanical instrument, translated:</p> - -<p>“He says that you, Doctor Burton, are a man who lives very close to God. -When you are near him, he can feel God.”</p> - -<p>“God is never far from any man,” returned Saint Jimmy.</p> - -<p>Natachee translated the Doctor’s words, and the Mexican replied in his -mother tongue, which the Indian rendered in English.</p> - -<p>“He says, yes, sir, that is true, but some men keep their backs toward -God and refuse to see or listen to Him. He says he is one who has lived -with his face away from God.”</p> - -<p>“Tell him, then, to turn around.”</p> - -<p>Again the Indian translated Saint Jimmy’s words and received the -Mexican’s answer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_313" id="page_313">{313}</a></span></p> - -<p>“He says he sees God when he looks at you—that if you will remain with -him when he dies he can go with his face toward God.”</p> - -<p>“I will not leave him,” returned Saint Jimmy. “Tell him not to fear.”</p> - -<p>When he received this message from the Indian, the man smiled and made -the sign of the cross. Then he spoke again and Natachee translated:</p> - -<p>“He says to thank you, and that now he will tell you all he knows about -the girl you love.”</p> - -<p>It was well that no one in the room, save Natachee and the Mexican, -could at that moment see Saint Jimmy’s face.</p> - -<p>“Tell him that we are listening.”</p> - -<p>With frequent pauses to gather strength or to shape the things he would -say, the Mexican told his story. In those intervals Natachee’s deep -voice, without a trace of feeling, made the message clear to the little -company.</p> - -<p>“His name is Chico Alvarez. He was a member of Sonora Jack’s band of -outlaws in the years when they were active here in this part of Arizona.</p> - -<p>“About twenty years ago they held up a man and woman who were driving in -a covered wagon on the road from Tucson to Yuma and California. The man -and woman were killed. There was a little girl hiding in the bottom of -the wagon. They did not know the baby was there when they shot the man -and woman.</p> - -<p>“When Sonora Jack was searching the outfit for money and valuables, he -found papers and letters<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_314" id="page_314">{314}</a></span> that told him about the little girl. She was -not the child of the people who were killed. They had stolen her, when -she was a little baby, from her real parents who lived in the east.</p> - -<p>“Sonora Jack saved all the papers and letters that told about the child, -but burned everything else in the outfit so that no one would know there -had been a child with the man and woman. He took the baby with him. He -said her parents were very rich and would pay much money to have their -little girl again.</p> - -<p>“The officers were close after the outlaws who were escaping to their -place across the border, and Sonora Jack left the little girl with his -mother, who was Mexican and lived with her man, not Jack’s father, on a -little ranch near the border. When Sonora Jack went back to his mother -for the child, after the sheriff and his men had given up trying to -catch him that time, he found that two prospectors had taken the little -girl away.</p> - -<p>“Sonora Jack dared not come again into the United States because of the -reward that was offered for him, so he could not follow the prospectors, -and the little girl was lost to him. Sonora Jack went south in Mexico -and stayed there where he was safe.</p> - -<p>“Last year a man showed him an old Spanish map of the Cañada del Oro and -the Mine with the Iron Door. Sonora Jack and this man, Chico, came to -find the mine. They did not find the mine but they found again the -little girl, whose people would pay so much money to have her back. -Sonora Jack<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_315" id="page_315">{315}</a></span> planned to steal the girl. He said they would take her into -Mexico and keep her until her people paid much money. If it should be -that her people were dead, then he and Chico would make from her enough -money in another way to pay them for their trouble. That is all.”</p> - -<p>The Mexican closed his eyes wearily.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy spoke quickly:</p> - -<p>“Ask him what became of the things that told about the little girl’s -parents, and how she was stolen from them.”</p> - -<p>The Indian spoke to the man and received his reply.</p> - -<p>“He says, ‘I do not know. Sonora Jack he always keep those things for -himself.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards cried hoarsely:</p> - -<p>“But the name, Natachee, ask him the name.”</p> - -<p>The dying Mexican opened his eyes as the Indian, bending over him, -repeated the question. He answered:</p> - -<p>“Eso nunca me dijo Sonora Jack,” and with a look toward Saint Jimmy, -sank into unconsciousness.</p> - -<p>Natachee faced toward that little company of agitated listeners.</p> - -<p>“He says, ‘Sonora Jack never did tell me that.’<span class="lftspc">”</span></p> - -<p>Mother Burton led Marta from the room. Old Thad, muttering to himself, -followed.</p> - -<p>Doctor Burton turned from the bedside, saying quietly:</p> - -<p>“It is all over. He is gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_316" id="page_316">{316}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>Natachee spoke:</p> - -<p>“You, Doctor Burton—and you, Hugh Edwards, wait here for me. The others -will not come again into this room for a little while. Wait, I will come -back in a moment.”</p> - -<p>The Indian left the room.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards and Saint Jimmy looked at each other in wondering silence.</p> - -<p>When Natachee returned, he held in his hand a flat package, some six -inches wide by eight inches long and about an inch in thickness. The -envelope was of leather, laced securely, and there were straps attached. -The straps had been cut.</p> - -<p>The Indian addressed Hugh:</p> - -<p>“As I fought with Sonora Jack, did you see that when I struck his breast -my knife drew no blood?”</p> - -<p>“Yes,” returned Edwards, “I saw it and wondered about it at the time. -But what happened immediately after made me forget. Now that you mention -it, I remember distinctly.”</p> - -<p>“Good! When you had gone back to Miss Hillgrove, I looked to see why my -knife had refused to touch the snake’s heart until I found the way -between his shoulders. This package was fastened to Sonora Jack’s breast -under his shirt. This strap was over his shoulder to support it. This -other strap was around his chest to hold the packet in place. Look, -there are the marks of my knife. Three times I struck—there and there -and there.”</p> - -<p>The two white men exclaimed with amazement at the Indian’s statement.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_317" id="page_317">{317}</a></span></p> - -<p>“I think,” said Natachee slowly, “that you would do well to see what -this thing is, that the stealer of little girls hid so carefully under -his clothing and fastened so securely to his body.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards drew back with an appealing look at Saint Jimmy, who took -the packet from the Indian.</p> - -<p>“Must this thing be opened?” said Edwards.</p> - -<p>“Yes, Hugh, I think so,” returned the Doctor gently. “Anything else -would hardly be fair to Marta, would it?”</p> - -<p>“No, I suppose not,” answered Edwards with a groan. “All right, go -ahead. You can tell me when you have finished.”</p> - -<p>He turned away and went to the window where he sat with his back toward -Saint Jimmy, who seated himself at the table. Natachee stood near the -door with his arms folded, as motionless as a statue.</p> - -<p>Undoing the lacing of the leather envelope, Saint Jimmy found a number -of newspaper clippings, so cut as to preserve the name and date line of -the paper—several letters—and a diary, with various entries under -different dates, rather poorly written but legible.</p> - -<p>Swiftly he scanned the printed articles. The diary and the letters he -read with more care.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards was like a man condemned already in his own mind, awaiting -the formality of the verdict.</p> - -<p>When Marta’s birth and the character of her parents had been under a -cloud, the man who was<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_318" id="page_318">{318}</a></span> branded before the world a criminal had felt -that their love was right and that there was no obstacle to their -marriage. He had reasoned, indeed, that their happiness would in a -measure lighten the shadow that lay over the girl’s life, and in a -degree would atone for the injustice under which he himself had -suffered. The unjust shame and humiliation that the girl had felt so -keenly—the dishonor and shame that injustice had brought upon him, had -been to them a common bond; while the knowledge of what each had -innocently suffered and the sympathy of each for the other had deepened -and strengthened their love.</p> - -<p>But as he listened to the dying Mexican’s story, he saw the barrier that -was being raised to his happiness with the girl he loved. Marta’s birth -and parentage were not, after all, what the old prospectors, Saint -Jimmy, and Marta herself had believed. What, then, was left to justify -him in asking her to become the wife of a convict? If, indeed, her birth -and name were without a shadow, how could he ask her to accept his -name—dishonored as it was? And if it should be shown that her people -were living—if they were people of importance and honor, how then could -the convict who loved her ask her to share his life of dishonor?</p> - -<p>When the Mexican had been unable to give the name, hope had again risen -in Edwards’ heart. But when Natachee brought the packet which Sonora -Jack had treasured with such care, Hugh Edwards knew that it was only a -matter of minutes<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_319" id="page_319">{319}</a></span> until the identity of the woman he loved would be -established, which meant that now he could never ask her to be his wife.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy finished reading the papers and carefully placed them again -in the leather envelope. To the watching Indian, he seemed undecided. He -had the air of one not quite sure of his hand.</p> - -<p>At last, looking up, he said slowly:</p> - -<p>“You are right, Natachee, this envelope completes the Mexican’s story -and establishes the identity of the girl we have always known as Marta -Hillgrove.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_320" id="page_320">{320}</a></span>”</p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXII" id="CHAPTER_XXXII"></a>CHAPTER XXXII<br /><br /> -REVELATION</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>Natachee remembered</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">H</span>UGH EDWARDS rose to his feet.</p> - -<p>“Well,” he said desperately, “let’s have it.”</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy answered in an odd musing tone:</p> - -<p>“Marta, or Martha, for that is her name, was born in a little city in -southwestern Missouri—in the lead and zinc mining district. Her parents -were both held in the highest esteem in the community where their -families had lived for three generations.</p> - -<p>“About the time Marta was born, her father, who was a real-estate -speculator and trader on a rather small scale, purchased a tract of land -from some people who could barely make a living on it. The land was -hilly and stony and covered mostly with scrub oak, which made it almost -worthless for farming and the man and his wife were glad to get the -usual market price for such property.</p> - -<p>“But shortly after, this same cheap farm land was developed as a very -valuable mineral property—about the richest, in fact, in that -district.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards interrupted:</p> - -<p>“Wait a minute—did you learn all this just now from the contents of -that package?<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_321" id="page_321">{321}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“No, Hugh, the fact is, I was born and grew up in that same Missouri -town. It was the home of my people, and even after I went to St. Louis, -I was in close touch with the old place. These papers here merely fill -in some of the missing details of a story that I have known for years. I -am trying to tell it to you so that you will understand everything -clearly.”</p> - -<p>“Go on, please.”</p> - -<p>“When the property they had sold proved so valuable, the people who had -been glad to receive the price they did for their supposedly worthless -farm lands were very bitter. They considered themselves swindled and, -being the sort they were, brooded over their fancied wrongs until they -formed a plan of revenge. They stole the baby, Martha.</p> - -<p>“The plan of the kidnappers, as it is shown here,” Saint Jimmy touched -the packet on the table, “was to hold the little girl until her father -had made a fortune from the mineral lands he had purchased from them, -and then to force him to pay a large part of that wealth back to them as -a ransom for the child.</p> - -<p>“The man and woman, with the baby, traveled west by wagon. They always -camped. When supplies were needed, the man would go alone to purchase -them. They rarely entered a town except to pass through, and then of -course took every precaution to hide the child. Their plan to extort -money from the father, led them to preserve carefully the evidence that -would later prove the identity of the little girl. Their fears of arrest -led them<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_322" id="page_322">{322}</a></span> to conceal their own identity as carefully. It was more than a -year later when they reached Tucson. The rest of the story we have -heard.</p> - -<p>“I should add that Marta’s mother died six months after the baby was -stolen. George Clinton, after his wife’s death, sold his mining -interests and moved to California.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards started forward. His face was ghastly. His lips trembled so -that he could scarcely form the words. “George Clinton, did you say?”</p> - -<p>“Yes.”</p> - -<p>“George Willard Clinton?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, do you know of him?”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards, fighting for self-control, became very still. Turning his -back on the others, he walked to the window and stood looking out.</p> - -<p>“Yes,” he said at last, and his voice was steady now, “yes, I know him. -He lives in Los Angeles. I had heard that he was at one time interested -in mines in Missouri. But of course I knew nothing of this story that -you have told. He is a very wealthy man.”</p> - -<p>“What a splendid thing for Marta,” exclaimed Saint Jimmy.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards left the window and went to stand beside the body of the -Mexican.</p> - -<p>“Yes, it will be very fine for her.”</p> - -<p>And suddenly, as he stood looking down at the dead man, Hugh Edwards -laughed.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy sprang to his feet. Such laughter was not good to hear.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_323" id="page_323">{323}</a></span></p> - -<p>“Hugh!”</p> - -<p>The man whirled on him. “You win, Saint Jimmy—congratulations.” He -rushed madly from the room.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy gazed at Natachee, speechless with amazement.</p> - -<p>“What on earth did he mean by that!” he said at last.</p> - -<p>“Is it possible you do not know?”</p> - -<p>The other shook his head.</p> - -<p>Natachee said slowly:</p> - -<p>“When everybody believed that the woman Hugh Edwards loved was one who -had no real right to even the name she bore, then he could ask her to -become his wife. Now that the woman is the daughter of honor and wealth, -how can the convict expect her to go with him? Hugh Edwards is not -blind. He sees it is now more fitting that the woman he loves become the -wife of his friend, Saint Jimmy, upon whose name there is no shadow.”</p> - -<p>But Natachee, with the cunning of his Indian nature, had not given Saint -Jimmy the whole truth in his explanation of Hugh Edwards’ manner.</p> - -<p>Natachee remembered that the man who had promoted that investment -company, and who had used his power, as the president of the -institution, to rob the people of their savings, and who, to shield -himself, had sent Donald Payne, an innocent man, to prison, was George -Willard Clinton.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_324" id="page_324">{324}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIII" id="CHAPTER_XXXIII"></a>CHAPTER XXXIII<br /><br /> -GOLD</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>He saw that the need of gold is a curse—that the craving for gold -is a greater curse—that the possession of gold may be the greatest -curse of all.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">W</span>HEN Hugh Edwards left Saint Jimmy and the Indian, he was beside himself -with grief and rage. He had prepared himself, in a measure, to lose -Marta. He had told himself that his love was strong enough to endure -even that test, but to give her up because she proved to be the daughter -of the man who, by making him a convict, had robbed him of the right to -keep her, was more than he could endure.</p> - -<p>As he rushed blindly from the house that had been to him a house of -refuge, but was now become a house of torment, Marta called to him.</p> - -<p>He did not stop. He must get away—away from them all. The old -prospector, Saint Jimmy, Natachee, Marta, the dead Mexican—they had all -conspired with God to sink him in a hell of conflicting love and hatred.</p> - -<p>When he came to himself, he was at the cabin where he had made his home -during those first months of his life in the Cañon of Gold. When he was -seeking a place to hide, as a wild creature<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_325" id="page_325">{325}</a></span> wounded by the hunters -seeks to hide from the dogs, he had found that little cabin. He had -learned to feel safe there. But he did not feel safe there now. The -empty place was crowded with memories that would drive him to some deed -of madness.</p> - -<p>It was there his dream of freedom and love had been born. It was there -that the dear comradeship of the girl had led him to believe there might -still be something to hope for, to work for and to live for. He could -not stay there now. The place was no longer a place where he could hide -from his enemies; it was a trap, a snare. He must go, and go quickly.</p> - -<p>Without consciously willing his movements, indeed, without realizing -where he was going, he climbed out of the cañon and hurried away up the -mountain slopes and along the ridges in the direction of Natachee’s hut. -With no clearly defined trail to follow, it is doubtful if in his normal -mental state he could have found the place. He certainly would not have -made the attempt, particularly at that time of day. But some -subconscious memory must have guided him, for at sundown he found -himself in the familiar gulch where he had toiled all through the winter -for the gold that meant for him the realization of his dreams of freedom -and happiness with Marta. When night came, he was seated on that spot -from which he had so often, in the agony of those lonely months of -hiding, watched the tiny point of light in the gloom of the cañon below.</p> - -<p>With his eyes fixed on that red spot, which he<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_326" id="page_326">{326}</a></span> knew was the window of -Marta’s room, Hugh Edwards brooded over the series of events that had -ended in that hour of his dead hopes and broken dreams.</p> - -<p>His thoughts went back even to those glad days when he was graduated -from his university, and when, with a heart of honest courage and -purpose, he had accepted a position of trust in the institution that -seemed to afford such an opportunity for service. He recalled every -proud step of his advancement from office to office, of increasing -responsibility.</p> - -<p>He lived again that appalling hour when he knew that he had been -promoted only that he might be betrayed. Again he suffered the agony of -his arrest—the trial, with his baffled attempts to prove his -innocence—the hideous publicity—the hatred of the people—and again he -heard the sentence that condemned him to years in prison, and to a life -of dishonor and shame.</p> - -<p>Once more he endured the horror of a convict’s life—and the death of -his mother.</p> - -<p>Then came the terrible experiences of his escape—when he was hunted as -a wild beast is hunted, with dogs and guns.</p> - -<p>And then—the Cañon of Gold, with its promise of peace and safety—its -blessed work and dreams and hopes—its miraculous gift of love.</p> - -<p>One by one, the strange events of his life in the Cañon of Gold passed -in review before him—the period when he lived in the cabin next door to -the old prospectors and their partnership daughter—his<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_327" id="page_327">{327}</a></span> comradeship -with Marta and the sure development of their love—the story of the -girl’s questionable parentage that had made it possible for him to think -of her as his wife—then the visit of the sheriff—his enforced life of -torment with the Indian, and his fruitless toil for the gold that held -him with its promise of freedom and Marta.</p> - -<p>Again he lived over the coming of the outlaw, with the sudden turn of -fortune that made Natachee his ally, and gave him the gold from the Mine -with the Iron Door.</p> - -<p>And then, with the gold in his possession and all its promises almost -within his grasp, the tragedy and disaster that had followed. Until now, -having gained the wealth for which, inspired by love, he had toiled and -fought, he had lost the thing which gave the gold its value. The thing -for which he had wanted the gold had become impossible to him.</p> - -<p>The light in the Cañon of Gold went out. The hours passed, and still the -man held his place on that wild spot high up in the mountains.</p> - -<p>And now he saw and felt the mysteries of the night—saw the wide sea of -darkness that engulfed the vast desert below, and felt the whispering -breath of the desert air—saw the mighty peaks and shoulders of the -mountains lifting out of the dark shadows below, up and up and up into -the star-lit sky, and felt the fragrant coolness dropping from the pines -that held the snows—saw the night sky filled with countless star -worlds, and felt the brooding Presence that fixes the time of their -every movement, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_328" id="page_328">{328}</a></span> marks their paths of gleaming light—saw the black -depths of the Cañon of Gold, and felt the ghostly multitude of the -disappointed ones who had toiled there, as he had toiled, for the -treasure they never found, or, finding, were cursed with its possession.</p> - -<p>And then, as one who in a vision glimpses the underlying truth of -things, this man, on the mountain heights above the Cañada del Oro, saw -that life itself was but a Cañon of Gold.</p> - -<p>As men through the ages had braved the dangers and endured the hardships -of desert and mountains to gain the yellow wealth from the Cañada del -Oro, so men braved dangers and endured hardships everywhere. Every dream -of man was a dream of gold. Every effort was an effort for gold. Every -hope was a hope for gold. For gold was life and honor and power and love -and happiness. And gold was death and dishonor and murder and hatred and -misery.</p> - -<p>It was gold that had led Marta’s father to purchase the rich mining -property from the ignorant owners, for a price that was little more than -nothing. The victims of George Clinton’s shrewdness had stolen his -child, in the hope that by her they might regain the gold they had lost. -It was for gold that Clinton had robbed the people who, because of their -need for gold, had trusted him with their savings. To insure himself in -the possession of gold, Clinton had sent Donald Payne to prison and -condemned him to a life of dishonor. Gold, to the escaped convict, had -meant, at first, the bare necessities of life. It had come to mean -everything for which a man desires to<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_329" id="page_329">{329}</a></span> live. For gold, Sonora Jack had -given himself to crime. Lured by the gold of the Mine with the Iron Door -he had come to the Cañada del Oro and had been brought, finally, to his -death. It was gold that had, at last, led to the revelations that -brought the love of Hugh Edwards and Marta to naught.</p> - -<p>The man saw that the story of his life in the Cañon of Gold, with its -needs, its hopes, its labor, its fears, its victories and defeats, was -the story of all life, everywhere.</p> - -<p>He saw that the need of gold is a curse—that the craving for gold is a -greater curse—that the possession of gold may be the greatest curse of -all.</p> - -<p>When Hugh Edwards went down to the cabin he found Natachee the Indian -waiting for him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_330" id="page_330">{330}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXIV" id="CHAPTER_XXXIV"></a>CHAPTER XXXIV<br /><br /> -MORNING</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>“The heart of a white man is a strange thing—I, Natachee, cannot -understand.”</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">A</span>ND Hugh Edwards knew by the light that flashed in the Indian’s somber -eyes—by the expression of that dark countenance, and by the proud -bearing of the red man, that Natachee had put aside the teaching of the -white man’s school. There was something, too, beneath the Indian’s -stoical composure which told Hugh that he was under the strain of some -great excitement.</p> - -<p>Gazing at Edwards with a curious intentness, the Indian said:</p> - -<p>“My friend has been watching his star in the Cañon of Gold.”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Natachee, I have been up on the mountain.”</p> - -<p>Silently the Indian gave him a letter. It was from Marta.</p> - -<p>Hugh handled the letter, turning it over and over, as if debating with -himself what he should do with it.</p> - -<p>“Open it and read,” said the Indian, “then hear what I, Natachee, shall -say.”</p> - -<p>Edwards opened the letter and read.</p> - -<p>It was not a long letter, but it was filled with the strongest -assurances of understanding and sympathy<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_331" id="page_331">{331}</a></span> that a woman’s loving heart -could pen. Saint Jimmy had told her of the completion of the story that -had been left unfinished by the Mexican, and had explained its effect on -the man she loved. But it made no difference to her, that she was proved -to be the daughter of George Clinton, except that she was glad for her -future husband’s sake that her birth was honorable—that she was not -nameless, as she had believed herself to be. For the rest, everything -must go on exactly as if she were still the old prospectors’ partnership -girl. Saint Jimmy had gone to complete the arrangements he had started -to make when Sonora Jack carried her away. There must be no change in -their plans. When they were safe out of the country, she could -communicate with her father. Hugh must come for her at once. She would -be waiting for him to-morrow morning.</p> - -<p>With deliberate care, Hugh Edwards folded the letter and returned it to -the envelope.</p> - -<p>The Indian was watching him intently.</p> - -<p>The man did not appear in any way surprised, elated or disturbed. One -would have said that he had been expecting the letter—had foreseen its -contents, and had already, in his mind, answered it. His manner was that -of one who, having fought and lived through the crisis of a storm, -methodically and wearily takes up again the routine duties of his -existence.</p> - -<p>Calmly, with a shadowy smile that would have caused Marta to think of -Saint Jimmy, he spoke.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_332" id="page_332">{332}</a></span></p> - -<p>“What is it that you wish to say, Natachee?”</p> - -<p>“I, Natachee the Indian, can now pay the debt I owe Hugh Edwards.”</p> - -<p>“You have more than paid that debt, Natachee.”</p> - -<p>The red man returned haughtily:</p> - -<p>“Is the life of Natachee of such little value that it is paid for by the -death of that snake, Sonora Jack, and his companion who stopped the -arrow?”</p> - -<p>“But for you, Marta would not have escaped from Sonora Jack and the -other outlaws,” returned Edwards.</p> - -<p>“But for me, no one would know the woman Hugh Edwards loves, except as -the Pardners’ girl. Hugh Edwards, but for Natachee, would be free to -make her his wife.”</p> - -<p>Indicating the letter in his hand, Hugh answered:</p> - -<p>“She says here that it need make no difference. She says for me to come, -as if the Mexican had died without speaking, as if you had taken nothing -from Sonora Jack.”</p> - -<p>The Indian’s eyes blazed with triumph.</p> - -<p>“Good! That is as I, Natachee, wanted it to be. Now the way of my friend -to the great desire of his heart is clear. Listen! When you left so -hurriedly, after hearing the name of the girl’s father, Doctor Burton -wondered at your manner. I told him that now, when the girl was known to -be the daughter of a man of wealth and honorable position, you felt you -could not take her for your wife.”</p> - -<p>“That was true enough,” returned Edwards,<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_333" id="page_333">{333}</a></span> wondering at the excitement -which the Indian, with all of his assumed composure, could not hide.</p> - -<p>“Yes, but I did not tell any one that it was the girl’s father who sent -you, my friend, to prison. No one but Hugh Edwards and Natachee knows -that. No one shall know until you, Donald Payne, are revenged for all -that this man Clinton has made you suffer. When you have trapped this -Clinton coyote—when you have made him pay for your shame—your -imprisonment—your mother’s death—when he has paid for everything your -heart holds against him—then I, Natachee, will have paid my debt to -you.”</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards gazed at the Indian, bewildered, amazed, wondering.</p> - -<p>“What on earth do you mean, Natachee?”</p> - -<p>“Do you not understand? Listen.”</p> - -<p>“The girl, who does not know what her father did, will go with you. -Good!—Take her. Let there be a pretense of marriage. Then, when her -shame is accomplished, send her to her father. Let George Clinton, who -made Donald Payne a convict, beg that convict to give his daughter a -name for her children. The shame that he heaped upon your name—the -dishonor that he compelled you to suffer—you will give back to him -through his daughter.”</p> - -<p>The white man exclaimed with horror:</p> - -<p>“In God’s name stop!”</p> - -<p>“Is not the heart of Donald Payne filled with hate for the man who has -filled his life with suffering?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Natachee, I hate George Clinton.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_334" id="page_334">{334}</a></span>”</p> - -<p>“But you will not take the revenge that I, Natachee, have planned for -you?”</p> - -<p>“No—No—No!”</p> - -<p>“The heart of a white man is a strange thing,” returned the Indian. “I, -Natachee, cannot understand.”</p> - -<p> </p> - -<p>The sun was not yet above the mountains, but the sky was glorious with -the beauty of the new day, when Hugh Edwards stood in the doorway of the -Indian’s hut.</p> - -<p>Against a sky of liquid gold, melting into the deeper blue above, -wreaths of flaming crimson cloud mists were flung with the careless -splendor of the Artist who paints with the brush of the wind and the -colors of light on the canvas of the heavens. The man bared his head -and, with face uplifted, watched.</p> - -<p>He felt the soft breath of the spring on his cheek and caught the -perfume of cedar and pine. He heard the birds singing among the blossoms -on the mountain side. He saw the mighty peaks and crags towering high. -He looked down upon the foothills and mesas and afar over the desert -where gray-blue shadows drifted on a sea of color into the far purple -distance. A squirrel, in a live oak near by, chattered a glad good -morning. A buck stepped from the cover of a manzanita thicket and stood, -for a moment, with antlered head lifted, as if he too sensed the beauty -and the meaning of life. A timid doe came to stand beside her lordly -mate. The man, motionless, held his breath. In a flash they were gone.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_335" id="page_335">{335}</a></span></p> - -<p>Natachee the Indian stood beside his white companion.</p> - -<p>Hugh Edwards held out his hand to the red man.</p> - -<p>“Good-by, Natachee.”</p> - -<p>“You go?” asked the puzzled Indian.</p> - -<p>“Yes, you have paid your debt, Natachee.”</p> - -<p>The fire of savage exultation flamed in the red man’s eyes.</p> - -<p>“Hugh Edwards will take the revenge that I, Natachee, have offered?”</p> - -<p>“No.”</p> - -<p>The Indian said doubtfully, as if striving for an answer to the thing -which puzzled him so:</p> - -<p>“There is something in the white man’s heart that is more than hate?”</p> - -<p>“Yes, Natachee. Yesterday I believed that there was nothing left for me -in life but hate. Then you, last night, revealed to me what hate might -do, and I knew the strength of love. I must go now—to the woman who is -waiting for me, down there in the Cañon of Gold.”</p> - -<p>But Hugh Edwards, when he told Saint Jimmy that George Clinton was -living, had been mistaken.</p> - -<p>The very night that Natachee brought the girl from that place where -Sonora Jack had taken her, Marta’s father died in a Los Angeles -hospital. In the same hour that the Indian and the girl were stealing -from the Mexican house south of the border, the man for whose crime -Donald Payne was sent to prison was dictating a confession. With the -last of his strength, he signed the instrument.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_336" id="page_336">{336}</a></span></p> - -<p>Natachee, when he offered to Hugh Edwards his scheme of revenge, did not -know that at that very moment every newspaper in the land was heralding -the innocence of the escaped convict, Donald Payne. The man who went -down the mountain slopes and ridges toward the Cañon of Gold that -morning did not know that he was even then a free man. The girl who -waited for her lover who had never spoken to her of his love did not -know. But Doctor Burton, when he went to Oracle the evening before to -complete his arrangements for that wedding journey, had received the -news.</p> - -<p>It was like Saint Jimmy to meet Hugh Edwards on the mountain side that -morning, and to tell him what he had learned before Hugh had come within -sight of the house in the cañon. It was like Saint Jimmy, too, to -suggest that perhaps now Marta need never know, at least not until after -they had returned from their trip abroad.<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_337" id="page_337">{337}</a></span></p> - -<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XXXV" id="CHAPTER_XXXV"></a>CHAPTER XXXV<br /><br /> -FREEDOM</h2> - -<div class="blockquot"><p>It was the plan that had been arranged by Saint Jimmy.</p></div> - -<p class="nind"><span class="letra">L</span>ATE in the afternoon of that appointed day, an automobile from Tucson -turned off from the Bankhead Highway into the old road that leads to the -Cañada del Oro.</p> - -<p>At the point where the road enters the Cañon of Gold, which is as far as -an automobile can go on that ancient trail, Hugh and Marta, with old -Thad, were waiting.</p> - -<p>The automobile would take them, without a stop, straight south through -Tucson to Nogales, where they would cross the international boundary -line into Nogales, Mexico. From there, immediately after the wedding -ceremony, Donald Payne and his bride would travel by rail to Mexico -City, from which point in due time they would go to the lands of the old -world. Thad would return to the Cañada del Oro, and would, for a while -at least, make his home with Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton.</p> - -<p>It was the plan that had been arranged by Saint Jimmy when they all -believed that it was unsafe for Hugh to make his real name known in the -United States. For Marta’s sake, the original plan was still<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_338" id="page_338">{338}</a></span> to be -carried out. When Marta and her husband were safely out of the country -and on their way abroad, Doctor Burton would give the facts to the -newspapers. In a few months the sensational story would cease to be of -news interest to the press and would be forgotten by the public. Then -Marta would be told that her husband’s innocence had been -established—that Donald Payne, no longer a fugitive from prison, was -free to return again to his own country.</p> - -<p>Saint Jimmy and his mother had said their goodbys at the little home of -the old prospectors and their partnership girl.</p> - -<p>From a rocky point on Samaniego Ridge, high above the Cañon of Gold, -Natachee the Indian saw the black moving spot which was the automobile -on the old trail that had been followed by so many peoples, in so many -ages.</p> - -<p>Motionless, as a figure of stone, with a face unmoved, the red man -watched.</p> - -<p>The automobile stopped.</p> - -<p>The dark eyes of the Indian, trained to such distance, could see, as no -white man could have seen, the three figures entering the machine.</p> - -<p>The automobile moved away, winding down through the foothills, crawling -cautiously over the ridges, laboring heavily across the sandy washes, -growing smaller and smaller until even to the Indian’s vision it was -lost in the gray-brown plain of the desert. But still Natachee’s gaze -held toward the south where presently he saw a faint cloud of<span class="pagenum"><a name="page_339" id="page_339">{339}</a></span> dust -rising from the yellow threadlike line of highway. Then the cloud of -dust melted into the desert air. A moment longer the Indian watched. -Then slowly his gaze swept the many miles that lie between the foot of -the Santa Catalinas and the far horizon.</p> - -<p>A puff of air, fragrant with the scent of the desert, stirred the single -feather that drooped from the loosely twisted folds of the Indian’s -headband. In the blue depth of the sky, a wheeling eagle screamed.</p> - -<p>Lifting his dark face toward the mountain peaks that towered above his -lonely hut, Natachee the Indian—mystic guardian of the Mine with the -Iron Door—smiled.</p> - -<p class="fint">THE END</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_340" id="page_340">{340}</a></span> </p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_341" id="page_341">{341}</a></span> </p> - -<div class="bbox2"> - -<p class="cb">By HAROLD BELL WRIGHT</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="cb">THAT PRINTER OF UDELL’S</p> - -<p>A gripping story of character and action, dealing with a young man’s -fight for more practical Christianity.</p> - -<p class="cb">THE SHEPHERD OF THE HILLS</p> - -<p>The hearts of men and women, their thoughts and acts, seen in the clear, -inspiring atmosphere of the Ozark region.</p> - -<p class="cb">THE CALLING OF DAN MATTHEWS</p> - -<p>Through experience of people and conditions in a mid-western town, Dan -Matthews learns that a man’s true ministry is the work in which he -serves best.</p> - -<p class="cb">THE UNCROWNED KING</p> - -<p>A beautiful allegory of life, showing that “the Crown is not the -Kingdom, nor is one King because he wears a Crown.”</p> - -<p class="cb">THE WINNING OF BARBARA WORTH</p> - -<p>Achievements of human enterprise in a charming love story whose -background is an epic of desert reclamation.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c"> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> -New York <span style="margin-left: 4em;">London</span><br /></p> - -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="page_342" id="page_342">{342}</a></span> </p> - -<div class="bbox2"> - -<p class="cb">By HAROLD BELL WRIGHT</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="cb">HELEN OF THE OLD HOUSE</p> - -<p>A great human story of American manhood and womanhood in the industrial -life of to-day.</p> - -<p class="cb">THE RE-CREATION OF BRIAN KENT</p> - -<p>Keen revelation of life’s invisible forces, out of which come a man’s -recovery from desperation, and his success in life and love.</p> - -<p class="cb">WHEN A MAN’S A MAN</p> - -<p>In the cattle country of Arizona, where a man <i>must</i> be a man, a -stranger from another way of life proves himself in many stirring -experiences.</p> - -<p class="cb">THE EYES OF THE WORLD</p> - -<p>A beautiful love story with the inspiration of Nature contrasted -impressively with a life of materialism.</p> - -<p class="cb">THEIR YESTERDAYS</p> - -<p>A delicate story of life and love and the great elemental things that -rule men from early childhood onward.</p> - -<hr /> - -<p class="c"> -D. APPLETON AND COMPANY<br /> -New York <span style="margin-left: 4em;">London</span><br /> -</p> - -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MINE WITH THE IRON DOOR ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part -of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project -Gutenberg™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ -concept and trademark. 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