But the quick and eager mind of Carpentero did not suffer the article to stop with what he could find in the Star; keeping his eye still upon the paper, he continued to read, that if the captives were not delivered in so many days, there would be five millions of men thrown around the mountains inhabited by the Indians, and that they would annihilate the last one of them, if they did not give up all the white captives.
Many other things did that Star tell at that time, of a like import, but the which had got into the paper (if there at all) without editor, type, or ink.
Francisco listened with mouth, and ears, and eyes. After a short silence, he said, (in Mexican,) “I know where there is one white girl among the Mohaves; there were two, but one is dead.”
At this the generous heart of Carpentero began to swell, and the object of his anxious, disinterested sympathy for the first time began to present itself as a bright reality.
“When did you find out she was there?” said Carpentero.
F. “I have just found it out to-night.”
C. “Did you not know it before?”
F. “Well, not long; me just come in, you know. Me know now she is there among the Mohaves.”
Carpentero was not yet fully satisfied that all was right. There had been, and still was, apprehension of some trouble at the fort, from the Yumas; and Carpentero did not know but that some murderous scheme was concocted, and all this was a ruse to beguile and deceive them.
Carpentero then told Francisco to stay in his tent for the night. Francisco then told Carpentero that if Commander Burke would give him authority, he would go and bring the girl into the fort. That night Carpentero slept awake. Early in the morning they went to the commander. For some time Commander Burke was disposed to regard it as something originated by the cunning of Francisco, and did not believe he would bring the girl in. Said Francisco: “You give me four blankets and some beads, and I will bring her in just twenty days, when the sun be right over here,” pointing to about forty-five degrees above the western horizon.