“I ain’t blind, be I?” answered Bob. “An’ why wouldn’t she take notice? My gal ain’t no wizened-up old mummy like me an’ you. Why wouldn’t she take notice of a fine, up-standin’ clean-eyed, straight-limbed, fair-spoken youngster like him, heh? It’s nateral enough—an’ right enough too, I reckon.”
Old Thad, with sudden rage, shook his long finger at his pardner and, in a voice that was high pitched and trembling with emotion, cried:
“Nateral enough, you poor old, thick-headed, ossified, wreck of manhood, you. Nateral enough! Holy Cats! It’s too nateral, that’s what I’m a meanin’, it’s too nateral—whether it’s all right or all wrong—it’s too almighty nateral—that’s what it is.”
Later, when Marta had returned to her home in the Cañon of Gold—when the sun was down and the shadow of the approaching night was deepening over desert and mesa and mountain—a cowboy on his way to the home ranch stopped to listen as the music of Saint Jimmy’s flute came soft and clear through the quiet of the evening, from that spot beneath the old cedar tree, high on the mountain side. A wandering Mexican, camped near Juniper Spring below, heard and crossed himself. Natachee the Indian who was following a faint trail toward the wild upper cañon heard and smiled. Jimmy’s mother heard, and her eyes filled with tears.
CHAPTER IX
“GOLD IS WHERE YOU FIND IT”
“As the ocean calls the water of the rivers, and the rivers call the creeks and springs, so this story, of a treasure hidden in a mine that is lost, has called many people to the Cañon of Gold.”
THE Cañon of Gold was still in the shadow of the mountains the next morning when the Pardners went to give their new neighbor his first lesson in the work that was to occupy him for months to come.
Hugh Edwards greeted them without a trace of the hesitating fear that he had shown during the first moments of their meeting, the day before. His eyes now met theirs fairly, with no hint of questioning dread. It was as if the restful peace and strengthening quiet of that retreat which was hidden so far from the overcrowded highways of life had begun already to effect, in the troubled spirit of this stranger, a magic healing.
“Well,” said Thad gruffly, “we’re here—where’s your pick an’ shovel an’ pan?”
When the younger man had produced those implements which were so new and strange to him, Bob asked kindly if he had had a good night’s sleep, if he found the cabin comfortable, and if he had fortified himself for the day’s work with a proper breakfast.