The Mine with the Iron Door

by Harold Bell Wright

It was not a camp fire. It was too soft—too diffused. It was not like the light of that window which he had watched so many lonely hours. It was not so steady and it was nearer—much nearer. He could see the trees and bushes that fringed the top of a cliff. Why—that was it—the light was from below—there was a fire at the foot of that cliff. He could not see the fire itself because—why, of course—the cliff that was lighted from below was the other side of a narrow gorge. He was too far away, and the walls were too steep for him to see the bottom.

As quickly as possible, but with every care to make his movements noiseless, Hugh Edwards stole toward the light. In a few minutes, that seemed hours to him, he was close to the rim of the gorge. Lying flat on the ground, he crawled with even greater caution to the edge of the precipice, where through the fringe of grass and bushes he looked down.

The place was, as he had reasoned, a deep, narrow cañon with sheer walls of rock. The cliffs on the side where he lay were fully fifty feet from base to rim, and for about a hundred years they formed a half circle, giving a width to the little cañon at that point of about the same distance. At one end of this natural amphitheater, where a creek came tumbling down over granite ledges and bowlders, a man with his arms outstretched could almost touch both walls of the hall-like passage. The lower end was wider, with no rocks to obstruct the entrance. Except for the creek which ran close to the foot of the cliff opposite the semicircular side where Hugh lay, the floor was smooth and level with a number of mesquite trees and several giant cottonwoods. It was in the more open center of this arena that Hugh Edwards saw a thing that made him catch his breath with a shuddering gasp, while his heart pounded and his hand went to the gun on his hip.

On a large, altar-shaped rock that had been dislodged from the walls above by some force of nature, Natachee lay bound. The Indian was on his back with his arms and legs drawn down and tied securely to the rock, so that, save for his head, he was held immovable, but with no rope across his body.

Sonora Jack stood beside the rock giving directions to his companions, the Lizard and a Mexican, who were looking after the fire. Nearer the entrance to the amphitheater were three saddle horses. On the opposite side of the open space about the rock, and beyond the fire, the men had placed their rifles against the trunk of a cottonwood. The eyes of the man on the rim of the cañon wall had barely noted these details when Sonora Jack turned from his companions by the fire to Natachee.

“Well,” he said, and every word carried distinctly to the man above, “how about it, Indio, you got something to say, yet?”

Natachee did not speak.

“You not want to tell, heh? All right, you’re some bravo Indio, but you goin’ to beg me to let you talk ’fore I get through with you. I got nothin’ ’gainst you, but you know where that Mine with the Iron Door is an’ sure as fire is hot you’re goin’ to lead me to it. I don’t come all the way up here from Mexico City just for nothin’. You show me the old mine, an’ you can put in the rest of your years growin’ old nice an’ easy. If you don’t—“ he paused significantly, then called to his two helpers: “Put plenty mesquite on that fire, boys, we want plenty good red coals. This Indio here needs a little warmin’ up, I think.” Bending over his victim he said again: “Well, how ’bout it, you goin’ to come through?”

Save for the glittering light in the dark eyes of the red man, the outlaw might have been talking to a stone image.

Enraged by the silent strength of that opposing will, Sonora Jack went closer to the Indian’s side.