This quieted the complainers, and they went quietly to their tasks, getting out the ore in large quantities, though it was, of course, impossible to touch the vein in the canyon. That had to be reserved for more peaceful times.
It almost seemed as if the Doctor was right, and that the Apachés would go away contented now; but when Bart asked the Beaver for his opinion, he only laughed grimly.
“As long as we are here they will come,” he said. “They will never stay away.”
“That’s pleasant, Joses,” said Bart; and then he began to bemoan the loss of his little favourite, Black Boy.
“Ah! it’s a bad job, my lad,” said Joses, philosophically; “but when you go out into the wilderness, you never know what’s coming. For my part, I don’t think I should ever take to silver-getting as a trade.”
It was a serious matter this loss of the horses and cattle, but somehow the Indians seemed to bear it better than the whites. Whatever they felt they kept to themselves, stolidly bearing their trouble, while the Englishmen and Mexicans never ceased to murmur and complain.
“How is it, Joses?” asked Bart one day, as they two were keeping guard by the gate. “One would think that the Indians would feel it more than any one else.”
“Well, yes, my lad, one would think so; but don’t you see how it is? An Indian takes these things coolly, for this reason; his horse is stolen to-day, to-morrow his turn will come, and he’ll carry off perhaps a dozen horses belonging to some one else.”
Their task was easy, for the Apachés seemed to have forsaken them in spite of the Beaver’s prophecy, and several days went by in peace, not a sign being discovered of the enemy. The little colony worked hard at getting silver, and this proved to be so remunerative, that there was no more murmuring about the loss of the cattle and horses; but all the same, Bart saw that the Doctor went about in a very moody spirit, for he knew that matters could not go on as they were. Before long they must have fresh stores, and it was absolutely necessary for communications to be opened up with Lerisco if they were to exist at the mountain.
“I don’t know what is to be done, Bart,” the Doctor said one day. “I cannot ask the Indians to go without horses, and if a message is not conveyed to the governor asking him for help, the time will come, and is not far distant, when we shall be in a state of open revolution, because the men will be starving.”