Indicating the letter in his hand, Hugh answered:
“She says here that it need make no difference. She says for me to come, as if the Mexican had died without speaking, as if you had taken nothing from Sonora Jack.”
The Indian’s eyes blazed with triumph.
“Good! That is as I, Natachee, wanted it to be. Now the way of my friend to the great desire of his heart is clear. Listen! When you left so hurriedly, after hearing the name of the girl’s father, Doctor Burton wondered at your manner. I told him that now, when the girl was known to be the daughter of a man of wealth and honorable position, you felt you could not take her for your wife.”
“That was true enough,” returned Edwards, wondering at the excitement which the Indian, with all of his assumed composure, could not hide.
“Yes, but I did not tell any one that it was the girl’s father who sent you, my friend, to prison. No one but Hugh Edwards and Natachee knows that. No one shall know until you, Donald Payne, are revenged for all that this man Clinton has made you suffer. When you have trapped this Clinton coyote—when you have made him pay for your shame—your imprisonment—your mother’s death—when he has paid for everything your heart holds against him—then I, Natachee, will have paid my debt to you.”
Hugh Edwards gazed at the Indian, bewildered, amazed, wondering.
“What on earth do you mean, Natachee?”
“Do you not understand? Listen.”
“The girl, who does not know what her father did, will go with you. Good!—Take her. Let there be a pretense of marriage. Then, when her shame is accomplished, send her to her father. Let George Clinton, who made Donald Payne a convict, beg that convict to give his daughter a name for her children. The shame that he heaped upon your name—the dishonor that he compelled you to suffer—you will give back to him through his daughter.”