"They were glad to have me as guide. They might have had a better. But you can take my office now. I resign with the utmost pleasure. But how has my uncle and the rest been getting on?"
"They are beautifully posted, as you will see."
From the tone, Filditch did not press; he knew that Bill was not communicative unless he pleased.
"What makes you prowl about alone?" inquired the hunter in a little while.
"I thought I recognised a landmark, and wanted to verify it. The troop is only a little beyond."
"Well, this is a good spot for the camp; but Jim and the boys are clean 'way up by the Yellowstone, where we must scoot in hot haste as soon as your band is recruited. Go, fetch 'em up smart!"
Filditch had "gobbled" his share of the unexpected repast. He felt ever so much better physically from that, and morally because he was assisted out of his dilemma as an inexperienced pilot by the proffered guidance of the Cherokee. He darted away in a delighted spirit.
In the meantime, Bill finished his pipe, muttered some remark on the Mexicans wanting to pick their way for the horses' sakes, and leisurely gathered fuel, of which he made a number of fires.
There was great glee among the four or five score Mexicans who rode into the break in the wooded and rocky land at this brilliant token of welcome. In another moment, old Gregorio Peralta, alighting with a briskness hardly anticipated from his silver beard, shook hands with Bill Williams cordially. Several of these Southerners knew Bill by sight, and nearly all by hearsay. It was Hail-fellow, well met! And the camp seemed in a festival.
Don Gregorio had been partly dispossessed of his prejudice against all whose blood was intermixed, by Mr. Filditch's glowing account of Bill Williams' excellences. He at once cast prejudices aloof, and felt genuine sympathy and admiration as he understood him better. He had pictured all reds to be savages fond of rapine and strong drink, with no clear notion on good and evil; essentially devoted to a brutish life, and only human in externals. In brief, ferocious bipeds incapable of generous sentiments.