"What you buy with all that," he inquired with a friendly grin; "grub?"
"No, señor," answered Amigo, knotting the precious gold in a handkerchief; "cartridges!"
"What for?" queried Bud, and then it was Amigo who smiled.
"To kill Mexicans with!" he replied, and in those words Hooker read the secret of his thrift.
While his wild brethren fought in the hills or prepared for the battles to come, it was his part to earn the money that should keep them in ammunition. It was for that, in fact, that Porfirio Diaz had seized all the peaceful Yaquis in a night and shipped them to Yucatan—for he saw that while they were working the wild Yaquis would never lack.
All the time that Amigo had been doing two men's work and saving on the price of a shirt he had held that cheerful dream in his mind—to kill more Mexicans!
Yet, despite the savagery in him, Hooker had come to like the Yaqui, and he liked him still. With the rurales on his trail it was better that he should go, but Bud wanted him to return. So, knowing the simple honesty of Indians, he brought out his own spare pistol and placed it in Amigo's hands. Often he had seen him gazing at it longingly, for it was lighter than his heavy Mauser and better for the journey.
"Here," he said, "I will lend you my pistol—and you can give it to me when you come back."
"Sure!" answered the Indian, hanging it on his hip. "Adios!"
They shook hands then, and the Yaqui disappeared in the darkness. In the morning, when a squad of rurales closed in on the camp, they found nothing but his great tracks in the dust.