As the boy reached forward to take the mysterious sheet in his hands, Weston withdrew it, put it back into its case, dropped it into the pocketbook, and, with the latter in his hands, took a new position cross-legged before the fire.
“In a minute,” he went on. “But let me finish my yarn. I’ll show it to you then. Them as hev seen this ain’t so sure I’m off. Them as ain’t, don’t know. What it means, I reckon they ain’t no one kin tell. I tuk it offen the high Mucky-Muck white man when them Lost Injuns killed him.”
There was already a little chill in the night air. The whole world seemed asleep. Roy wet his lips and looked behind him. He was wondering if old Doolin were near. And yet, neither Weston’s eyes nor voice seemed to be those of a man not in his normal senses.
“I’ll give what happened to you brief,” the westerner went on, slapping the pocketbook on his knee. “As fur as I kin make out, them hills an’ rocks was purty much my imagination. Leastways, I never seen ’em agin, and couldn’t find ’em though I looked offen enough. After gettin’ that drink from the squaw I must a mended fast. When I come to agin, I knowed I was in a cave, but a cave that wa’n’t made by no man. An’ settin’ by me was a Injun fur yer life. I seen about ever’ kind uv Injun in the west, but I ain’t seen none like him before nur sence. An’ he was one uv about thirteen, half squaws an’—I was agoin’ to say bucks—but they wa’n’t bucks. They wuz old men—every one of ’em who wa’n’t an ole woman. No papooses an’ no young people.
“That cave was jist a kind o’ room. They wuz other rooms an’ galleries—plenty of ’em. The Injun by me, an ole man, was on guard. So I sung purty small seein’ I was a pris’ner. He had Injun hair all right, but gittin’ bald. This is where the wise ones all laugh when I tell about that gang. ‘A bald Injun?’ they say. No matter—squaws and men alike they was all more or less bald.
“As fur looks, they didn’t look like no one ’at I ever see, exceptin’ the picters o’ Eskimos an’ Chinks. They had sort o’ slant eyes. But their skins was the unusuallest part uv ’em. They ever’ one looked kind o’ cold-gray-brown like a Injun whose been dead a day or two.”
Roy looked again toward the star-crowned black wall of the Mesa Verde, as if hoping that the absent Doolin might be coming campward.
“Where was this?” he asked, nervously.
“Ain’t no doubt in my mind,” went on Mr. Weston, “but that gang was the last o’ them Lost Injuns. And afore now they’re all gone, I reckon. Where wuz it? Well, sir, that tribe didn’t have no range—they lived in a Sink Hole. That’s the answer. That’s why I reckon they ain’t but two white men ever seen ’em an’ never will.”
“I don’t understand,” interrupted the boy. “What is a Sink Hole?”