[CHAPTER X]
THE WHITE GOD OF THE SINK HOLE
For the last few moments, Roy had leaned forward as if afraid he might miss some word of his companion’s strange tale.
“Indians had saved you!” he exclaimed huskily.
“A white man,” remarked Mr. Weston. “The High Mucky-Muck o’ the Sink Hole—the high priest o’ the Lost Injuns—him that they say loosened some o’ my screws.”
“Go on,” interrupted the boy impulsively, now wholly indifferent as to the result of possibly drawing out the plainsman’s hallucination. Weston arose, went over to the water barrel and put his mouth to the spigot.
“You don’t never see me wastin’ any o’ that sence the day I got out o’ the rocks,” he explained, “an’ I got a purty high regard fur it ever sence.”
He moved the fire coals together with his foot and added a couple new mesquite roots to the embers. As the coals flared into a flame, he took from his hip pocket a worn and greasy pocketbook. The flap was reinforced with a string. Slowly untying this, Weston opened the book and extracted a little pocket or envelope made of what appeared to be thin, black oilcloth. The boy was on his knees close by the fire. Weston squatted on his heels, opened the oilcloth packet and took out a piece of yellowish paper, about twice the size of an envelope, folded once in the middle.
“What’s that?” exclaimed Roy, moving closer.
Weston opened the old sheet, almost ready to come apart in the center. The quick-eyed boy could make out only what seemed to be three words in either hieroglyphics or some language unknown to him, dim with age, and a single line resembling an arrow.
“What’s that?” repeated Weston. “Ef ye’ll tell me that, I’ll know what I been tryin’ to find out fur a good many years. It’s what makes folks say I’m wrong in my upper story.”