Poor Stephens felt weak; he was helplessly taken aback.
And then a second old lady, the mother of Pedro the peon it was this time, who had been devoted to Manuelita for years, felt it incumbent on her also to demonstrate her gratitude to the deliverer of her darling, and she too bore down on him, and precipitated herself upon his shoulder to mingle her tears, her kisses, and her blessings with the other's.
Stephens's feelings were indescribable.
"'It never rains but it pours,'" he thought. "It's ten years since I've been kissed by a woman, and now I'm hugged by two at once." He endeavoured to extricate himself with becoming gratitude from these entangling embraces, that he might advance to receive the thanks of Don Nepomuceno's sister and her relations. Their expressions of gratitude and admiration were not less ardent than those which had already been showered upon him, but to his immense relief they took a more decorous form. He acknowledged their compliments and their thanks as gracefully as he could, longing all the time to escape from this ordeal and get away as quickly as possible in order to take in hand the matter of the burial of the dead prospector.
As soon as he could decently do so, he took the first opportunity again to call Don Nepomuceno apart. "I want to get you to lend me a spade," he said; "it will save me the journey of going back to the pueblo for one. I have a little trip to make up into the sierra to-night"; and he explained to the Mexican how he had discovered almost by chance where the bones of the nameless victim of the Navajos were lying.
Don Nepomuceno urged him to put it off. "Mañana, por la mañana; porque ahora es tarde"—"Leave it till to-morrow; it is too late now," he said. "Rest to-night; there is no hurry."
"There's a good moon," said Stephens, "and I don't want to delay about it. It's all in a day's work anyhow. But can you lend me the spade, for if not I must go home after one?"
"But certainly, my dear friend, assuredly I can. Everything I have is at your service. Let me lend you a horse too, for your mare has done her work; leave her here with me to eat corn, and to-morrow she will be fresh."
Stephens very willingly availed himself of this offer, and half an hour later the sharp eyes of Felipe, watching hungrily for his enemy, saw the figure he knew so well riding away quietly from Don Nepomuceno's house in the direction of the sierra, and he detected by the light of the moon that he carried an unusual burden in the shape of a spade across the saddle in front of him. Here in the open the boy did not see his chance to make a sudden attack and take him by surprise at close quarters as he had planned, and being puzzled by the sight of the spade, and full of wonder as to what his errand could be, he ran full speed to the storekeeper's house to inform him of it.