The owl was still in his hand—less by his grasp than by the obstinate clenching of its own curved claws, which now began to hurt again. He unhooked them painfully, one by one, tore a tatter from his shirt and tied it about those mischievous feet. A rather stubborn boy, Faquo. It was very hard to turn his attention from anything upon which he had once started, until it was finished.
At last, when his prize was safely anchored to a clod of adobe, he was free to think of more important matters. Pues! He had walked into a bad trap. There were no doors nor windows down here—clearly the ancients had descended into these cellar-like rooms by ladders, which had long ago disappeared. And how was he to get up that twenty feet? In this adobe he could cut steps to the top; or even, in time, burrow through the base of that eight-foot wall—but his spade stood away up there on the ledge, leaning against the parapet where he had left it.
“Castro! Cas-tro-o!” he screamed at the top of his lungs—but it seemed that his voice did not rise at all out of the sunken chamber. How buried and pent it was! He shouted until he was hoarse; but knew as well that the huaqueros did not hear him, as if he could have seen them still digging stolidly away, far down the other side of the hill.
The place grew terrible to him. In such a maze of ruins they might not find him until too late. Maria would come to look, surely, if he were not home by dark; but how could she expect to find him so far from where he always worked?
He knew well, this boy of the edge of the desert, that one does not last long on such a gridiron of the tropics. Without food one may do for several days; but without water, under that sun——! Already his mouth was parched.
And that maldito owl—that was to blame for it all! He started up angrily with a clod of adobe to throw at it. But his arm dropped suddenly. “No! Nana says always that the birds, too, are children of Taita Diós, and that He loves best those who are good to them. So perhaps I am punished for catching it. Pobrecito! For now we both are caught.”
The owl did not seem to mind so much. It sat bunched upon its tethered feet, blinking back at Faquo. It looked so very grave, so very wise! Quiza it knew very much about the ruins; for here it had lived, and its people, very long now. Perhaps it even knew where was the Big Fish!
Even as Faquo looked at it with these thoughts, the owl turned its head down on one side, and looked at him soberly along its shoulder. Some might have laughed at this proceeding, but not so Faquito. He was too good an Indian to despise the wisdom of them that talk not; and suddenly he asked with great earnestness: “In truth that thou dost know, friend owl! No?”
At this direct question the owl turned its head down upon the other shoulder, and looked wiser than ever. Surely, he knew!
“But where?” cried the boy. “Tell me, owl friend!”