“You flatter me,” returned Natachee. “My white teachers would be proud of the honor you confer. They tried so hard, you know, to educate me.”
Edwards was amazed. He had never before heard Natachee talk in this bantering vein. With him the Indian had always spoken gravely. He had seldom smiled and had never laughed. The white man felt, too, that underlying the playfulness of the Indian’s words and the seeming pleasant humor of his mood, there was a savage interest—a cruel certainty in the final outcome of some game in which he was taking a grim part. He seemed to be playing as a cat plays with the victim of its brutal and superior cunning.
While Edwards was thinking these things and watching the red man with an odd feeling of dread which made him recall Marta’s saying that the Indian always gave her the creeps, Natachee addressed the girl with grave courtesy:
“It is really time that your teacher called upon your good neighbor, isn’t it? I was beginning to fear that our Saint was harboring some hidden grievance that provoked him to forget the social obligations of his exalted position.”
Marta made no reply save a nervous laugh of embarrassment.
Doctor Burton flushed and said hurriedly:
“I was just asking Mr. Edwards, Natachee, when you materialized so unexpectedly, how he liked living in the Cañada del Oro.”
“And I was about to reply,” said Edwards with enthusiasm, “that it is the most beautiful, the most wonderfully satisfying place, I have ever known.”
The Indian smiled, and his dark eyes glanced from Marta to Saint Jimmy, as he said:
“Our cañon is being very good to Mr. Edwards, I think. It is giving him health, gold enough for the necessities of life, and that peace which passeth all understanding, with the possibility of acquiring great wealth. It delights him with the beauty and the grandeur of nature. It bestows upon him the blessings of a charming and delightful companionship. And last, but not least, it affords him a sanctuary from his enemies—if he has any. What more could any man ask of any place?”