The Spaniard, while apparently not listening to Cuchillo, did not lose a word of what he was saying; but whether he had heard enough, or that the subject was a painful one, he suddenly interrupted the gambusino:
“And don’t you think, if this wonderful tracker and horse-breaker has been told the secret of his adopted father he might not be a dangerous rival to us?”
Cuchillo drew himself up proudly, and replied:—
“I know a man who will yield in nothing—neither at following a trail, nor taming a wild horse—to Tiburcio Arellanos; and yet this secret has been almost worthless in his keeping, since he has just sold it for the tenth part of its value!”
This last argument of Cuchillo’s was sufficiently strong to convince Don Estevan that the Golden Valley was so guarded by these fierce Indians that nothing but a strong party could reach it—in short, that he himself was the only man who could set this force afoot. For a while he remained in his silent reverie. The revelations of Cuchillo in regard to the adopted son of Marcos Arellanos had opened his mind to a new set of ideas which absorbed all others. For certain motives, which we cannot here explain, he was seeking to divine whether this Tiburcio Arellanos was not the young Fabian de Mediana!
Cuchillo on his part was reflecting on certain antecedents relative to the gambusino Arellanos and his adopted son; but for powerful reasons he did not mention his reflections to Don Estevan. There are reasons, however, why the reader should now be informed of their nature.
The outlaw, as we have said, frequently changed his name. It was by one of these aliases used up so quickly, that he had been passing, when at the Presidio Tubac he made the acquaintance of the unfortunate Arellanos. When the latter was about starting out on his second and fatal journey—before parting with his wife and the young man whom he loved as well as if he had been his own son—he confided to his wife the object of his new expedition; and also the full particulars of the route he intended to take. Cuchillo was nevertheless ignorant of this revelation. But the knowledge which the outlaw carefully concealed, was that he himself after having reached the Golden Valley guided by Arellanos, murdered his companion, in hope of having all the treasure to himself. It was true enough that the Indians appeared afterwards, and it was with difficulty that the assassin could save his own scalp. We shall now leave him to tell his own story as to how he made the acquaintance of young Arellanos, and it will be seen that this story is a mere deception practised upon Don Estevan.
“Nevertheless,” resumed Cuchillo in breaking the silence, “I was determined to free my mind from all doubt upon the subject. On my return to Arispe I repaired to the dwelling of the widow of Arellanos to inform her of the death of poor Marcos. But with the exception of the great grief which the news caused her, I observed nothing particular—nothing that could give me the least suspicion that I am not the sole possessor of the secret of the Golden Valley.”
“One easily believes what he wishes to believe,” remarked Arechiza.
“Hear me, Señor Don Estevan! There are two things on which I pride myself. One is, that I have a conscience easily alarmed; the other, that I am gifted with a perspicuity not easily deluded.”