“Why?” said the scout quietly.
The marshal tried to laugh, but failed.
“Well, Cody,” he answered, “if you want to go into the Cumbres, and up to Fire Top’s headquarters there, you’re welcome to; but not for me, or any one I could git here to trail after me. It never was done but once—by any one that came back alive; and that was when Quicksilver John blundered down there by mistake, and got out again by mistake. It wasn’t courage, but luck, that brought Quicksilver John out of there that time, I’m telling you.”
He settled back again, and tried to hide his confusion by “smoking up.”
“Maybe you don’t know about Quicksilver John and that little adventurer, Cody? You wasn’t in this section at the time, and I don’t think it has ever got into print, so you’re pardoned for not knowin’ anything about it.
“Quicksilver John was huntin’ for a cinnabar lode, as usual, and he hit into the Cumbres, takin’ nothin’ but a burro and his tools and his water bottle and grub. It’s a desert country, and he had a hard time straight from the start.
“He didn’t know anything about Fire Top nor them wicked Toltecs of his, and so wasn’t figurin’ on trouble from that quarter. He didn’t find any cinnabar, but he struck the queerest Injun town that any one ever heard of, or dreamed of; it had reg’lar houses, somewhat like them cliff dwellers’ houses you’ve seen, or maybe read about. But some was better—some was of stone. It was a bang-up place, for an Injun city, he said; and he was wonderin’ whether it could really be Injuns livin’ there, or some settlement of whites he had never heard of, when the queerest thing happened you could ever imagine. I dunno whether to believe it or not! But Quicksilver John said that while he was studyin’ them houses, a big eagle, that he hadn’t even see, flapped down out of a tree behind him and struck him between the shoulders.
“He was layin’ at the time on the edge of a precipice, lookin’ down; and the blow of the eagle knocked him over the edge, so that he began to fall. But, so he reported, the claws of the eagle had got fast in his clothes, and that kept him from dropping down like a shot; the eagle tried to fly with him, and that held him up a bit, though his weight kept pullin’ the eagle down and down. He was too heavy for the eagle to carry; but at the same time the efforts of the eagle to lift him up kept him from droppin’ swift. So together they came right down into that queer town, nighabout in the middle of it, the eagle flappin’ his wings and screechin’, and him swinging his arms and legs and yellin’. It must have been a queer sight.
“And it was that way they landed, clost by some Injuns, that wore red feathers in their hair, and was otherwise ’most naked, except for a lot of gold bracelets. When the ground was struck the eagle managed to pull its hooks out of the clothes of Quicksilver John, and to fly off; and there he was left, sprawlin’.
“Well, them red-feathered Injuns swarmed round him prompt, and whooped and hollered; and they picked him up and carried him off to some kind of a temple, where there was a great howdy-do about it. And then a priest, or a king, or somethin’, come; Quicksilver John didn’t know who, or what, for this priest, or king, or whatever, was all veiled, and wore a robe of some kind.