“I don’t think so,” Ned hastened to assure him. “Those fellows know the sign as well as we do, and they must have dug for shelter. The fellows are all right, and we’ll hit the trail as soon as we can.”
The Indian was looking at them earnestly, and the professor, who could speak Spanish quite well, took it upon himself to tell him the circumstances. The old man listened intently and then nodded.
“I am a sage,” he said proudly. “I tell you that you shall find them. Yengi is my name.”
The visitors were silent, not knowing how to take this abrupt declaration. Yappi talked rapidly with the sage and seemed impressed.
“Yengi is a wise man,” he told Ned. “What he says is true. Long has he dwelt in these mountains, and his ancestors dwelt here before he did.”
The Indian sage nodded and addressed the whole party. “He speaks truth. For many generations my people have lived in this land. But not here in this mountain. I live here alone. My people lived far to the south, on a broad plain, until the people in beautiful clothes came. Those were the Spanish. They drove some of our people into slavery and killed others, and because we were few in number we were compelled to flee to the mountains and hide like wild beasts. My fathers told me.”
The fire had died down, the storm still beat outside, and the white men were silent as they listened to the simple but tragic story of the Indian sage. They knew that his tale was only too true, for they had read many times of such things, the professor being well versed in the history of the Spanish conquest of the southern part of America. It was a moving experience to hear it now from the lips of a descendent of the persecuted race that suffered so many centuries ago. Ned, the professor and Yappi understood perfectly what the sage was saying, and Don knew enough of Spanish to follow him without trouble.
The professor was smoking his pipe, so the sage reached into a niche beside the fireplace, took out a long crude Indian pipe and gravely lighted it. He smoked awhile in silence and then went on: “But my fathers had revenge.”
No one said anything and he puffed once or twice and then went on: “The English were our saviors. They chased the Spanish from our coasts. But I spoke to you about the revenge that my fathers took. One day in the long ago there was a storm and a Spanish ship fled from the English and was wrecked somewhere on the coast. I do not know where, but the men from the ship came straggling past our hidden village in the fastness of the mountain. My fathers saw them and ambushed them, slaying all of them, allowing only a priest to go free. He had been kind to some Indians once and his life was spared. He had with him a book and he was led to the sea coast, where he took ship to Mexico and was never seen more.”
Yengi looked up as there was a stir among his hearers, and he was astonished to see them regarding him eagerly. He took his pipe out of his mouth in astonishment.