CHAPTER XVIII
AN INDIAN’S ADVICE
He felt that the Indian was playing some kind of a game—a game which the red man seemed rather to enjoy but which left the white man very much in the dark.
LESS than a mile up the cañon creek Hugh Edwards stopped. It was useless, he told himself, to go farther. He would wait there until night, when, under cover of the darkness, he could return to his cabin and secure food and the small store of gold he had accumulated. Seating himself on a rock in the shade of a sycamore, where he could watch and listen for any one attempting to follow his tracks, he gave himself up to troubled thoughts.
True, the sheriff had not come for him this time, but the officers might, while in the neighborhood, learn of his presence in the Cañon of Gold and return to investigate. Suppose, for instance, they should meet and talk with the Lizard. His supply of gold would not take him far, but he must go as far as he could; as for his dream and Marta—what a fool he had been to think that he could ever find gold enough to——
A hand touched his shoulder. With a cry he leaped to his feet, and like a wild animal caught in a trap whirled to fight.
Natachee made the peace sign. The Indian was smiling as he had smiled that night when Marta was in his cabin.
The white man’s nerves were on edge. He glared at the Indian angrily.
“What do you mean sneaking up on a man like that?” he demanded. “You’ll get yourself killed for that trick some day.”
Natachee laughed, and there was a touch of scorn in his voice as he returned:
“Not by you, Hugh Edwards.”