Natachee laughed.
“I tell the officers what I know about you? I give you up for them to take you back to the penitentiary? No—no—you do not seem to have grasped the purpose of my efforts in your behalf. I shall keep you for myself. I have too much pleasure in you to permit any one to take you away from me. You shall go with me, and together we, the two outcasts, we who are outcasts because of nothing that we have done, but only because some one wished by our misfortune and suffering to gain riches, we shall enjoy life together as we can.”
The note of exaltation that was in his voice, or some hint of a sinister purpose in his manner, aroused the white man.
“You mean that you are going to help me to escape?”
“From your white man’s laws, yes. From me, no—not yet—not until I am through with you.”
“Explain yourself,” demanded the other. “What is it that you propose? I don’t understand.”
“It is this,” returned the Indian. “You cannot stay here because any day—to-morrow even—the sheriff may come for you. You cannot go from this Cañon of Gold because you would surely be caught, unless you could leave this country, and that you cannot do because you have no money. You shall come with me. With me you will be safe from the law. No one will know where you are. No one shall ever find you. I, Natachee, know these mountains as no white man can ever know them. I will hide you.”
There was something in the Indian’s face that made Hugh Edwards gaze at him in wondering silence.
The Indian continued:
“I will show you where you can dig more gold than ever you would find here. Who knows, perhaps you may even find the Mine with the Iron Door. With gold enough you could make your way to safety. You could even take the woman you love with you. And so you shall work and dream and dream—and I, Natachee—I will help you to dream. If your dream never comes true, if your labor is all in vain, if you never find the Mine with the Iron Door, or if, while you are toiling for the gold you need, the woman you love should become the wife of your friend Saint Jimmy, why, that will not be my fault. I will help you to dream. It will be for you to find the gold that will make your dream come true—if you can.”