The Mine with the Iron Door

by Harold Bell Wright

Hugh Edwards moved uneasily.

The expression of Marta’s face was that of a wondering, half-frightened child.

Saint Jimmy looked at the Indian intently, as if he, too, had caught the feeling of a hidden, sinister meaning beneath the red man’s courteous manner and half-jesting words.

“Natachee,” he said slowly, “I have often wondered—just what does the Cañada del Oro mean to you?”

At the Doctor’s simple question or, perhaps, at the tone of his voice, the countenance of the Indian suddenly became as cold and impassive as a face of iron. Sitting there before them, clothed in the wild dress of his savage ancestors, with his dark features framed in the jet-black hair with that single drooping feather, he seemed, all at once, to have thrown off every vestige of his contact with the schools of civilization. When he had been speaking in the manner of a white man, there had been something pathetic in his appearance. Only his native dignity had saved him from being ridiculous. But now he was the living spirit of the untamed deserts and mountains that on every side shut in the Cañon of Gold. His dark eyes, filled with the brooding memories of a vanishing race, turned slowly from face to face.

The three white people waited, with a strange feeling of uneasiness, for him to speak.

“You say that I, Natachee, come and go as a ghost. Well, perhaps I am a ghost. Why not? It would not be held beyond the belief of some of your philosophers that the spirit of one who once, long ago, dwelt amid these scenes, should return again in this body that you call me, Natachee the Indian. The Cañada del Oro is peopled with ghosts. Those who, in the years that are gone, lived here in the Cañon of Gold were as the blossoms on the mountain sides in spring. In the summer months when there was no rain, the blossoms disappeared. Then the rains came—the ‘Little Spring’ is here—and look, the flowers are everywhere.

“In this Cañon from the desert below to the pines above, there are holes by the thousands where men have dug for gold. Climb the mountains and go among the cliffs and crags and there are more and more of these holes that were made by those who sought the yellow wealth. Walk the ridges and make your way into the hidden ravines and gorges—everywhere you will find them—these holes that men have dug in their search for treasure. And every hole—every stroke of a pick—every shovel of dirt—every pan of gravel—was a dream that did not come true; a hope that was not fulfilled.

“The Cañon of Gold is haunted by the ghosts of these disappointed ones. They are the shadows that move upon the mountain sides when the sun is down and the timid stars creep forth in the lonely sky. They are the lights that come and go in the cañon depths when the frightened moon tries to hide in the pines of Mount Lemmon. They are the voices that we hear in the nighttime, whispering, murmuring, moaning. Weary spirits that cannot rest, troubled souls that find no peace—the disappointed ones.

“And you who dare to dream and hope and labor here in the Cañon of Gold to-day as those thousands who dared to dream and hope and labor here before you—what are you but living ghosts among these restless spirits of the dead? What are you to-day but shadows among the shades of yesterday?