“And Villanueva himself promised he would write to me. Besides, the people, many of them, have left friends behind, relatives out in the neighbourhood of the old minera. Some of them are in Arispe every day, inquiring if there be any news of those gone north; so it’s clear they’ve had no word from them either.”
“What do you suppose can be the cause, Requeñes?”
“I’ve been trying to think. At first I fancied the great drought that’s been, with every stream and pond dried up, might have forced them out of their way for water, and so lengthened their journey. But even with that there’s been time enough for them to have reached their destination long since, and us to have heard of it. As we haven’t, I fear it’s something worse.”
“What’s your conjecture, Colonel?”
“I’m almost afraid to venture on conjectures, but they force themselves on me, Don Juliano; and in the one shape you will yourself, no doubt, be thinking of.”
“I comprehend. Los Indios!”
“Los Indios,” echoes the officer; “just that. Villanueva told me the new-discovered veta lies a long way to the north-west, beyond the headwaters of the Horcasitas. That’s all country claimed by the Apaches of different bands; as you know, every one of them determinedly hostile to the whites, especially to us Mexicans, for reasons you may have heard of.”
“I know all that; you allude to the affair of Gil Perez?”
“I do; and my fear is our friends may have encountered these red-handed savages. If so, Heaven have mercy on them, and God help them; for He only can.”
“Encountering them would mean being attacked by them?”