"An instant, chief. What the deuce would you have me do with your gold? I am a hunter, whom his horse and rifle suffice. At the period that I crossed the prairie in the company of Loyal-heart, we frequently found rich nuggets beneath our feet, and ever turned from them with contempt."
"What need have we of gold?" Don Louis supported his friend. "Let us forget this placer, however rich it may be. Let us not reveal its existence to anyone, for crimes enough are committed daily for gold. Give up this scheme, chief. We thank you for your generous offer, but it is impossible for us to accept it."
"Well spoken," Belhumeur exclaimed joyously. "Deuce take the gold, which we can make no use of, and let us live like the free hunters we are! By heavens, chief, I assure you, had you told me at the time the object for which you wished me to follow you, I should have let you start alone."
Eagle-head smiled.
"I expected the answer my brothers have given me," he said. "I am happy to see that I have not been mistaken. Yes, gold is useless, to them—they are right; but that is not a motive for despising it. Like all things placed on the earth by the Great Spirit, gold is useful. My brothers will accompany me to the placer, not, as they suppose, to collect nuggets, but merely to know where they are, and go to fetch them when wanted. Misfortune ever arrives unexpectedly: the most favoured by the Great Spirit today are often those whom tomorrow he will smite most severely. Well, if the gold of this placer is as nothing for the happiness of my brothers, who insures them that it may not serve some day to save one of their friends from despair?"
"That is true," said Don Louis, touched by the justice of this reasoning. "What you say is wise, and deserves consideration. We can refuse to enrich ourselves; but we have no right to despise riches, which may possibly, at some future day, serve others."
"If that is really your opinion I adopt it; besides, as we are on the road, it is as well to go to the end. Still, the man who had told me that I should one day turn gambusino would have astonished me. In the meanwhile I will go and try to kill a deer."
On this Belhumeur rose, took his gun, and went off whistling. The Jester was two days absent. About the middle of the third day he reappeared. Six horses lassoed in the prairie were loaded with provisions; six others carried skins filled with water. Eagle-head was satisfied with the way in which the chief had performed his mission: but as the journey they had to make was a long one (for they had to cross the Del Norte desert at its longest part,) he ordered that each horseman should carry on his saddle, with his alforjas, two little water skins.
All these measures having been carefully taken, the horses and their riders rested. Fresh and of good cheer, the next morning, at daybreak, the little troop started in the direction of the desert. We will say nothing of the journey, save that it was successful and accomplished under the most favourable auspices: no incident occurred to mar its monotonous tranquillity. The Comanches and their friends crossed the desert like a tornado, with that headlong speed of which they alone possess the secret, and which renders them so dangerous when they invade the Mexican frontiers.
On arriving in the prairies of the Sierra de los Comanches, Eagle-head ordered the Jester and his warriors to await him in a camp which he formed on the skirt of a virgin forest, in an immense clearing on the banks of an unknown stream, which, after a course of several leagues, falls into the Rio del Norte, and then departed with his comrades. The sachem foresaw everything. Although he placed entire confidence in the Jester, he did not wish, through prudential motives, to let him know the site of the placer. At a later date he had cause to congratulate himself on this step.