Dick loved his mother fondly, and after she died he grew more wild and daring than ever, but with the undercurrent of his nature flowed all the subtle instinct of the Indian.
Often at Fort Tejon he heard of the great world far beyond the wilderness, and he learned that gold was the talisman that opened the gates of earthly paradise. So he said in his heart, "I will have gold!"
Young as he was and wild in his nature, he saw a witching paradise in the soft blue eyes and sunny curls of the Colonel's young daughter Madeline, but no one knew that he worshiped her, no one but God and his own heart.
Among the Indian and Spanish boys Dick was chief. To the lowliest he was gentle, to the proudest, superior, and by a wonderful magnetic power in one so young he bowed them all to his will. No one among them thought to question his bidding; he was the ruler, and without a thought they obeyed him. He could ride fearlessly the wildest horse, send the truest arrow from the bow, and laughed carelessly at danger as though he bore a charmed life.
One evening he lay upon the green grass before an Indian encampment, looking dreamily up at the great golden moon as it sailed along through the clear summer sky, surrounded by the paler light of the modest stars, and thinking how Madeline was like the moon, queen of all maidens.
The rest were beautiful, but in comparison with the sweet Madeline were but attendant lights. Then he thought of the great world where one day Madeline would shine fairest of the fair, and that before he could enter the charmed circle he must win the talisman that would give him every thing, but best of all, sweet Madeline.
Near him the Indian youths and maidens had gathered round an old man of their tribe, who was telling them the legend of the "Golden Boulder."
"Yes," said the old man, "white men would risk their lives for it, if they could only find the valley, but even the Indians except one tribe who make war upon all others, have lost trace of it; but there in the center rises a great round boulder, yellow as the full moon, all gold, pure gold!"
"Where?" cried Dick, springing with one bound into the circle. Then for the first time he listened to the old tradition of the Golden Boulder in Death's Valley.