An informal dance was the order of the evening and Willa and the young engineer gravitated to a seat on the stairs after a romping fox-trot. Both were flushed and sparkling, but when they found themselves alone together a diffident silence fell upon them.
"It must seem good to you to get back," Willa ventured at last when the pause had become oppressive.
"It is." His glance rested upon her with a world of contentment. "I can't begin to tell you how wonderful it seems!"
"And your work down there?" she pursued hurriedly. "You have finished it? You will not have to return again?"
The contentment faded and in its place there came a look of bitterness and dogged determination.
"It has scarcely begun. I wonder if you ever heard an old legend around Limasito concerning the lost location of a marvelous oil well?"
Willa laughed nervously, a little taken aback by the abruptness of the question.
"One hears so many legends in every country of lost or buried or hidden treasure," she parried. "Scarcely anyone pays attention to them except the tenderfoots. You know up in the mining country one is forever hearing such tales of vast deposits of ore, but nobody can ever find the lead."
"This particular one concerns a well in a mysterious pool of water where a massacre is supposed to have taken place. It dates back to the time of the Spaniards' coming."
He paused, but Willa said nothing. She was striving to mask her thoughts in continued composure lest his quick mind grasp the significance of her interest.