"And did you find all you wanted? Are you going home now to be rich and comfortable all your days?" the boy inquired.
The man's grin grew broader still.
"You don't know gold miners, sonny," he said. "We've been at work on the American River diggings, where your folks ahead there are going, and we found it good enough, but we've heard of something better. Over to the southward of that valley there's another one deeper, wilder, hard to get into but with the richest pay dirt you ever dreamed of. We staked out our claims and left one man to hold it, while we go back to the States for supplies and better equipment. The gold's harder to get out, but it's there all right. It makes American River look like nothing at all."
He turned in the saddle and looked up the little stream bed where the water lay in shallow pools below the overhanging bushes. The black mare had at last struggled to her feet and was now grazing on the sparse grass that bordered the river.
"It is none too safe for you to be here alone, young fellow," the man observed. "There's a band of Indians have been doing considerable mischief around this neighborhood just lately. We've been hearing of them from every party as we came along."
"I'm not afraid," returned Felix stoutly. "One boy and one horse would be hard to find in this great wide prairie. Aren't you afraid you will meet the Indians yourselves?"
"Afraid!" The other laughed aloud. "Why, we're looking for them and it will be a sorry day for them when we find them." He sobered and went on earnestly: "The woman in that party you left called out a message for you as we came by. 'Tell him,' she said to us, 'that the horse is his and that he is to go back with you to the States. Tell him, God bless him,' she said. We'll be glad enough to have you if you care to come with us," he concluded.
Felix looked at the long, empty trail before him; he looked up at the prospector's hard brown face, and then at the little heap of gold dust in his hand.
"I'll not go back—just yet," he said. "There are things I must see first."
They rode jingling away, the sun glinting on their gun barrels and pistol butts until they disappeared in the shimmering hot distance of the dusty trail. Felix, as the heat of the day increased, led the mare up the watercourse to where the bushes were tall enough to afford a little shade. He, himself, crawled under a rock beside one of the pools and lay there very quietly, waiting for the long, sleepy day to pass. It was noontime, with the world so still that he could actually hear the water of the stream filtering through the sand as it ran sluggishly from pool to pool, when a new sound caught his attention. There was a shuffling of muffled feet, a stone dislodged from the bank above, the click of metal against metal, but every noise so stealthy and quiet that he could hardly believe he heard.