“But what, after all,” he said, “if there did happen to be such a place and just such Indians?”
“Bald-headed?” snorted the veteran teamster, cracking his whip as if to emphasize his contempt. “Tell me them plates is studded with diments an’ I’ll swaller it, but I draw the line at bald-headed Injuns.”
For a long time, Roy studied the enigmatic words while the wagon bumped along the rough and rocky trail. But it was no use. The first line had in it ten characters or signs; the second seven; the last eight. Not one of them resembled a letter of any alphabet that Roy knew. Some of them seemed patterned after certain Greek letters, and a few were not dissimilar to “shorthand” or stenographic marks. But neither of these were familiar to Roy. Naturally, they did not suggest Greek or “shorthand” to Weston. The arrow might mean anything; death, the chase, or, as was generally agreed by those who had studied the writing, a point of the compass, which would be south.
When the party stopped at noon, Roy returned the paper to Weston.
“I give it up,” he said, “but if I ever get near Parowan, and I hope to be there before I go back, I’ll send you word of all that I learn about my relative.”
Secretly, he was longing for the guide to make some overtures to him regarding a sort of partnership in a new quest for the Sink Hole. Of course, that could not be at once, but he was a boy, and as full of the spirit of adventure as he was of energy.
“Are you going to make any more attempts to find your Lost Indians?” he asked, while Doolin was preparing the noonday meal.
“Well,” answered Weston, with a peculiar smile, “I promised my wife I wouldn’t. I promised her purty strong, too. That is, I jist told her positive I wouldn’t lessen somepin happened wharby I kin read that writin’.”
“Maybe we could find the Sink Hole with the aeroplane,” suggested Roy, voicing an idea that he had been nursing all day.
Weston shook his head.