“I reckon I’d have halted for a sober second thought if it hadn’t been for that other girl under the stones down there,” agreed Rhodes. “But shucks!––with all the refugees we’re feeding across the line where’s the obstacle to this one?”
The old prospector was busy with the wounded head for the Indian and had no reply ready, but shook his head ominously. Rhodes scowled and began uncoiling a reata in case it would be needed to tie Miguel in the saddle.
“We’ve got to get some hustle to this outfit,” he observed glancing at the sun. “It’s too far to take them back to Whitely’s, and water has to be had. We are really nearer to Soledad!”
The Indian girl came closer to him, speaking in a low, level manner, strange and secretive, yet not a whisper.
“He does know––and water is there at that place,” she said. “In the night I am hearing him speak all what the ancients hide. He no can walk to that place, maybe I no can walk, but go you for the gold in the hidden cañon. You are Americano,––strong,––is it not? A brave heart and much of gold of rose would bring safe again the mother of me and my sister! All this I listen to in the night. For them the gold of rose by the hidden water is to be uncovered again. But see, his hands are weak, his head is like the niño in the reed basket. A stronger heart must find the way––it is you.”
Lowly, haltingly, she kept on that level-voiced decision. It was evident that the ravings of her father through the long hours of the dreadful night had filled her mind with his one desire: to dare the very gods that the red gold might be uncovered again, and purchase freedom for the Indians on the exile road to the coast.
So low were her words that even Cap Pike, a rod away, only heard the voice, but not the subject. It was further evident that she meant but the one man to hear. Pike had white hair and to her mind was, like her father, to be protected from responsibilities, but Rhodes loomed strong and kind, and braced by youth for any task.
Rhodes looked at her pityingly, and patted her head.
“I reckon we’re all a little loco, kid,” he observed. “You’re so paralyzed with the hell you saw, and his ravings that you think his dope of the gold is all gospel, but it’s only a dream, sister,––a sick man’s fancy, though you sure had me going for a minute, plum hypnotized by the picture.”
“It is to hide always,” she said. “No man must know. No other eyes must see, only you!”