"I will try," Jim replied, much abashed. "I ought to have told you instead of Rosaria, and you would have fixed it all right," he added, cheerfully. "I ought to have known that you wouldn't have let the Indians be cheated."
Mr. Armstrong felt the reproach in the undeserved confidence. Here was a companion who was a sort of embodied conscience. It was not always profitable to have a conscience in business, and yet there was something satisfactory and refreshing in the way in which this affair had terminated. "They say 'honesty is the best policy,'" he said to himself; "I wonder if this little fellow would not be a Mascot to bring me good luck. I have a notion to make him my partner in some of my risky ventures; Providence seems to smile upon him and his principles; perhaps if I make my good-fortune his as well, it will smile upon me." What he said to Jim was this: "You seem fond of a wild western life, Jim, and of the Indians. Our business among the Pueblos is ended. We are going back to Colorado. I have a notion to show you what the Colorado Indians are like. They are Utes, and they do not live in houses, like the Pueblos, but rove about in a perfectly savage manner; they are not peaceful and industrious, like the Pueblos, but lazy and ugly. I do not think that they are susceptible of civilization. I would as soon think of educating a coyote as a Ute.
"Now the Utes possess some of the best mining lands in Colorado, but will never develop them; so it seems to me better that they should be removed to the desert lands, which are worthless for purposes of civilization, and let the whites have their opportunity. I have my eye on a gulch which I discovered while hunting in the San Juan Mountains four years ago, and which I mean to pre-empt just as soon as we get the Utes to give up their present reservation and pack off to Utah. We shall go back that way, and I will show you the spot."
Jim opened his eyes very wide. He did not quite comprehend what Mr. Armstrong had said. Surely he could not mean to defraud the Indians in any way! He would doubtless pay them the worth of their mine, and if they liked the ready money better than the trouble of mining the silver for themselves it would be all fair.
At Antonito Mr. Armstrong left the railroad, provided himself with a span of horses, a wagon, camping outfit, and a brace of greyhounds, and struck out through the Ute reservation for the mountains. He told some gentleman whom he met at Antonito that he proposed to enjoy a little coursing for antelope; but there was a set of surveyors' instruments in the wagon, which proved that he intended to locate the mine which he had come across during his previous visit. His acquaintance attempted to discourage his making the trip alone, saying that the Utes had been restless of late, owing to a failure in receiving their supplies from Government, and it was hardly safe to approach their reservation.
"You need not be afraid of the Utes," another gentleman replied. "I knew their old chief, Ouray, and was entertained once in his house—a neater farm-house than many a white settler can show, and I was hospitably waited upon by his wife, Chipeta, who gave me peaches from their own orchard, and saleratus biscuit, and when I saw the familiar yellow streaks in them, and tasted the old chief's whisky, I had to confess that the Indian was capable of civilization."
Mr. Armstrong laughed, but the first speaker bade him be careful, for all the Utes were not like Ouray, who had so well earned his title of the White Man's Friend.
"Now," exclaimed Mr. Armstrong, after he had driven out of sight of the last human habitation—"now at last we can breathe! What do you think of it, Jim?"
"I didn't know the world was so big," the boy replied; "these must be the Estates del Paradiso which Miss Prillwitz talks about. Why, there's room for all New York to spread itself out, and every child to have a yard to play in. It seems a little bit lonely," he added, after a pause. "I should think you would have liked to have had some of those gentlemen go with you."
"Why, you see, Jim," Mr. Armstrong replied, "I am going to hunt up that silver mine, and I had a little rather not share the secret with any one but you. Besides, I like the loneliness. I grow very tired of people sometimes, Jim, and it seems good to get away from them. Don't you ever feel so?"