“And you?” said Roy. “What then?”
“I piled stones on the dead man an’ slept thar that night. The next day I tried to pick up the trail o’ the Injuns. But they air the kind that don’t leave no trails. Then I lit out northwest. My meal lasted, but the water didn’t. In six days, I struck a trail an’ the next day wuz picked up by a ore wagon comin’ off Awapa Plateau—out o’ my head.”
When the guide had finished his story, he again opened his worn pocketbook.
“Mebbe you’d like a look at the paper,” he added. “An’ remember. Ye don’t have to lie. Ye don’t have to say ye believe a word o’ what I been tellin’ ye. But that scrap o’ paper and this,” pointing to his arm again, “air all I got to prove that A. B. Weston, which is me, has actu’ly seen the Lost Injuns o’ Utah, their goods and chattels o’ solid gold and silver an’ the White God o’ the Sink Hole. Anyway, that’s why I’m ‘Sink Hole’ Weston.”
Weston spread out the paper and handed it to Roy. As he did so, he punched up the fire and the boy leaned forward. For a moment, the boy’s eyes were fixed on the three hieroglyphic words. Then, at the bottom of the sheet, Roy detected two other words in faded ink.
“It’s a name,” exclaimed the lad suddenly.
“But that don’t mean nothin’. Ain’t no one I ever met ever heerd it.”
Roy caught his breath, started, looked again and then shouted:
“I know it. I’ve heard it. You’re not crazy. That’s the name of a man I know. It’s my great uncle!—a Mormon.”
Weston caught the boy by the arm.