“How queer!” said Charlie.
“Yes, ain’t it? You see, a long time ago, when the ’Paches were thick about here, they used to bring in gold to sell—coarse gold, big as rice, nearly. Never would tell where they got it; but when they wanted anything right bad they was right there with the stuff; coarse gold. All sorts of men tried all sorts of ways to find out where it came from. No go.”
“Indians are mighty curious about gold,” said Charlie. “Over in the Fort Stanton country, the Mescaleros used to bring in gold that same way—only it was fine gold, there. Along about 1880, Llewellyn, he was the agent; and Steve Utter, chief of police; and Dave Easton, he was chief clerk; and Dave Pelman and Dave Sutherland—three Daves—and old Pat Coghlan—them six, they yammered away at one old buck till at last he agreed to show them. He was to get a four-horse team, harness and wagon, and his pick of stuff from the commissary to load up the wagon with. They was to go by night, and no other Indian was ever to know who told ’em, before or after—though how he proposed to account for that wagonload of plunder I don’t know. I’ll say he was a short-sighted Injun, anyway.
“Well, they started from the agency soon after midnight. They had to go downstream about a quarter, round a fishhook bend, on account of a mess of wire fence; and then they turned up through a ciénaga on a corduroy road, sort of a lane cut straight through the swamp, with the tules—cat-tail flags, you know—eight or ten feet high on each side. They was going single file, mighty quiet, Mister Mescalero-man in the lead. They heard just a little faint stir in the tules, and a sound like bees humming. Mister Redskin he keels over, shot full of arrows. Not one leaf moving in the tules; all mighty still; they could hear the Injun pumping up blood, glug—glug—glug! The white men went back home pretty punctual. Come daylight they go back, police and everything. There lays their guide with nine arrows through his midst. And that was the end of him.
“But that wasn’t the end of the gobbling gold. Fifteen years after, Pat Coghlan and Dave Sutherland—the others having passed on or away, up, down, across or between—they throwed in with a lad called Durbin or something, and between them they honey-swoggled an old Mescalero named Falling Pine, and led him astray. It took nigh two months, but they made a fetch of it. Old Falling Pine, he allowed to lead ’em to the gold.
“Now as the years passed slowly by, Lorena, the Mescaleros had got quite some civilized; this old rooster, he held out for two thousand plunks, half in his grimy clutch, half on delivery. He got it. And they left Tularosa, eighteen miles below the agency, and ten miles off the reservation, about nine o’clock of a fine Saturday night.
“Well, sir, four miles above Tularosa the wagon road drops off the mesa down to a little swale between a sandstone cliff and Tularosa Creek. They turned a corner, and there was nine big bucks, wrapped up in blankets, heads and all! There wasn’t no arrows, and there wasn’t nothing said. Not a word. Those nine bucks moved up beside Falling Pine, real slow, one at a time. Each one leaned close, pulled up a flap of the blanket, and looked old Falling Pine in the eye, nose to nose. Then he wrapped his blanket back over his face and faded away. That was all.
“It was a great plenty. The plot thinned right there. Falling Pine, he handed back that thousand dollars advance money, like it was hot, and he beat it for Tularosa. They wanted him to try again, to tell ’em where the stuff was, anyhow; they doubled the price on him. He said no—not—nunca—nixy—neinte—he guessed not—nada—not much—never! He added that he was going to lead a better life from then on, and wouldn’t they please hush? And what I say unto you is this: How did them Indians know—hey?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Adam. “I’ve heard your story before, Charles—only your dead Injun had thirty-five arrows for souvenirs, ’stead of nine. The big idea was, of course, that where gold is found the white man comes along, and the Indian he has to move. But all this is neither here nor there, especially here, though heaven only knows what might have been under happier circumstances not under our control, as perhaps it was, though we are all liable to make mistakes in the best regulated families; yet perhaps I could find it in my heart to wish it were not otherwise, as the case may be.”
“Nine arrows!” said Charlie firmly.