It was the plan that had been arranged by Saint Jimmy when they all believed that it was unsafe for Hugh to make his real name known in the United States. For Marta’s sake, the original plan was still to be carried out. When Marta and her husband were safely out of the country and on their way abroad, Doctor Burton would give the facts to the newspapers. In a few months the sensational story would cease to be of news interest to the press and would be forgotten by the public. Then Marta would be told that her husband’s innocence had been established—that Donald Payne, no longer a fugitive from prison, was free to return again to his own country.
Saint Jimmy and his mother had said their goodbys at the little home of the old prospectors and their partnership girl.
From a rocky point on Samaniego Ridge, high above the Cañon of Gold, Natachee the Indian saw the black moving spot which was the automobile on the old trail that had been followed by so many peoples, in so many ages.
Motionless, as a figure of stone, with a face unmoved, the red man watched.
The automobile stopped.
The dark eyes of the Indian, trained to such distance, could see, as no white man could have seen, the three figures entering the machine.
The automobile moved away, winding down through the foothills, crawling cautiously over the ridges, laboring heavily across the sandy washes, growing smaller and smaller until even to the Indian’s vision it was lost in the gray-brown plain of the desert. But still Natachee’s gaze held toward the south where presently he saw a faint cloud of dust rising from the yellow threadlike line of highway. Then the cloud of dust melted into the desert air. A moment longer the Indian watched. Then slowly his gaze swept the many miles that lie between the foot of the Santa Catalinas and the far horizon.
A puff of air, fragrant with the scent of the desert, stirred the single feather that drooped from the loosely twisted folds of the Indian’s headband. In the blue depth of the sky, a wheeling eagle screamed.
Lifting his dark face toward the mountain peaks that towered above his lonely hut, Natachee the Indian—mystic guardian of the Mine with the Iron Door—smiled.
THE END