“Come.”
This time the order was peremptory and she obeyed it, sliding swiftly down, to be caught and safely deposited on the floor of the shaft. Placing the lantern in her hand, the Indian began to gather a strange collection of articles from one corner of the narrow chamber and to display them to her. As each was held up, an exclamation of surprise broke from her, but even she had grown mostly silent now, and her interest prevented fear. When a goodly heap had been piled beside her, she found her voice again, saying:
“I reckon everything that’s ever been lost from Sobrante since it began is down here. Elsa’s little leathern bags with their knitted covers; Beppo’s plumes; Marty’s watch, that he thought he had lost in the gulch; Wun Lung’s carved image. Oh, Pedro! how dreadful and yet how splendid!”
The shepherd allowed her rhapsodies to answer themselves. Though his eyes betrayed his complacency, he had more serious work on hand, and, pointing upward, he commanded:
“Fetch the padre’s staff.”
Lady Jess now realized that obedience was the shortest road to freedom, so climbed and descended the rope again, with the ease gained by her gymnastic 48 training under the “boys’” tuition. But she took into the pit, beside the staff that curious basket which she had once seen Ferd carrying up the canyon and over which she had, most fortunately, just then stumbled.
“See, Pedro! This will do to hold all those things!”
The Indian “saw,” indeed, that this was a bit of his own handiwork which had been missing from the mesa, for many moons. He nodded gravely, but was more eager for the staff than for his lost property; and, taking the lantern again to the inner wall of the shaft, he set the rod upon its point. It remained motionless, exactly upright, where he placed it; and now, truly, the old man paused to gaze upon it in wordless delight. He was so rapt and still that the girl grew frightened and awestruck, watching his odd behavior, and begged him:
“Tell me what that means, Pedro! The thing is bewitched.”
“Ugh!” said the Indian, arousing from his contemplation, and, stooping began to dig amid the loose stones at his feet, with the only tools at his command––his own lean fingers. For these he sometimes substituted a bit of rock, and to Jessica it seemed as if he would never give over his strange task. When she had begun to really despair of the liberation which had seemed so near a while ago, he ceased his labor and stood upright, holding something shining toward the lantern’s light. To the girl it appeared as only another worthless stone, of a pretty, reddish hue, but wholly unworthy the toil which had been spent to secure it. She was further surprised, if anything could now surprise her, to see the Indian place the fragment carefully 49 within his shirt front and tighten his belt afresh below it. Then he lifted the basket she had filled with the articles they had found and motioned her upwards again.