He rose and straightened himself up to his full height, and stretched out his arms as a relief after sitting so still. "I might as well take a look round, though," he said, "and see if that horse is all right. I don't know his tricks, and he might tangle himself up in his picket-rope." He strolled out to where he had fastened him, and made sure that he was all right. As he turned to come back again, he saw something on the ground that caught the fire-light and shone like a jewel. He stooped to pick it up. It was an obsidian arrowhead.
"Volcanic glass," said the miner,—expert as he was in minerals,—critically turning it over and over in his fingers, "and most beautifully chipped. This is a piece of real high-class ancient Indian work. Now, I wonder if that arrow belonged to one of those old Aztec pueblo folks, or if it was one shot at them by some wild Indian. The wild Indians were enemies of the house-people then, same as now."
His imagination took fire as he looked at this relic of ancient strife. The long procession of the centuries unrolled itself before his mind's eye, and he beheld the secular struggle for life of tribe against tribe. Those old pueblo builders, cultivators of corn, house-folk, had always been at odds with their nomad brethren, the hunters of the wild wood and the plains; yet generation after generation, they had gone on being born, growing up, marrying, and begetting a new generation to succeed them, and passing away either in battle for their little community or peacefully by their own hearth. This fire-blackened, clay-plastered angle of the wall, to what unending succession of house-mothers and house-fathers did it not speak? He looked at it with a sort of reverence. The flickering light of the flames, rekindled by him, alien successor as he was of those ancient folk, lit up every detail of the surface. In places the clay daubed on there so many centuries ago looked as fresh as if it had been done last year. Here and there he could see the very finger-marks of the woman who had plastered it; for among the Indians this was ever the task of the women, as he knew very well. Yes, and, by George! there in one spot, low down, was the handprint of a tiny child in the plaster; the little one had been playing beside its mother, and had stuck its hand against the wall while the clay was wet. A strange emotion struck through him at the sight. It was as if the little hand had reached out to him across the years and touched his own. The fire he had kindled on this cold hearth seemed like a sort of altar flame, in memory of the love that had once made this little abode a sacred place.
Like a flash it came across his mind that this was what he had blindly sacrificed during all these long years of his wanderings—the joys of home; the sweet domesticities of wife and child. He knew them not; aloof, solitary, self-contained, he had coldly held himself outside the circle of all that was best in life. Why? To what end? For the sake of phantom gold; for the sake of a visionary fortune which he might never touch; for the sake of being able to build, some distant day, a fancied home away back there in the States. It was all a dream. Ten of the best years of his life had gone in the vain effort. Ten more might go as easily and as futilely. And then! OLD AGE! He saw it all now; and now it was no imaginary shadow-wife—dim, vague, and unsubstantial—that his heart went out to; it was she, the real, living, breathing creature of flesh and blood that he had played with and talked to; that he had rescued in her trouble, and restored to her parents; she whose sweet eyes met his with a certain demand. With a rush it came over him that she was what he needed; that he wanted to make her happy, and that he must do it by making her his own. He was amazed at his own blindness and hardness of heart. Was he too late? Could he have missed his chance? No, no; not that! But he would lose no time. He knew now what he must say to her, and the quicker he did it the better. With a joyful sense of anticipation he saw himself already at her side, pouring into her ear the tale of his loneliness and his love. He sprang to his feet at the thought, eager to start. As he rose to his full height there was a deafening bang close to his right ear, a blinding flash, and the burning breath of gunpowder scorched his cheek. Some murderer had fired at him from a yard off!
CHAPTER XXVI THE SNAKE'S VERDICT
In that desperate moment Stephens felt that he was respited as by a miracle. The bullet had missed him. He dropped his right hand on to the wall over which the weapon had been fired, and clearing it with a mighty bound, lit right on top of someone recocking a discharged pistol. His eyes, dazzled by the fire glare, saw nothing, but he grappled him by the feel on the instant; with one powerful twist of his body he whirled his opponent off his legs and flung him to the ground, going down with him himself and falling heavily upon him. The Indian—he knew him for an Indian as he grappled with him by the blanket he wore—felt like a child in his grip. He seized him by the throat with the left hand and choked him, his right holding the left arm of the other and pinning him to the ground. What he had to fear now was that the free right arm would deal him some deadly blow with knife or pistol, and he tightened his grasp on the muscular throat to choke the life out of him. Then he suddenly realised that his foe was mastered, and he lifted his weight partly off his chest, still, however, kneeling on him with one knee and bearing him down with his hands.
And now his eyes were growing accustomed to the dark, and he could distinguish the features of the man under him. "By George!" he cried, "but it's Felipe. Why, you murderous young cub, what devilment are you up to now?"
But the Indian youth lay helpless under his knee, gasping, and made no answer. That strangling grasp on his throat had nearly finished him off.