While the workers were thus busily engaged, the cacique came forward, holding his horse by the riata of plaited buckskin. He made a deep, formal reverence before the man who had wrought what for them was nothing less than a miracle,—the man by whose superior art the solid rock had been dissipated into a shower of fragments, and who now stood quietly looking on at the scene of his triumph.
"It is truly most wonderful, this thing that you have done," began the chief, "and we will be your devoted servants for ever after this"; and he bowed himself again more deeply than before, as deeply as when he had buried the sacred feathers a few minutes earlier.
The native humour of the American asserted itself at once. "Here's the pea-green deity business on," he murmured to himself. "So far, so good; I don't mind the deity part, but I draw the line if he trots out his paint-pot; then I'll begin to kick."
"Since the days of Montezuma," continued the cacique, with an eloquent wave of his hand, "no benefactor like you has ever come to the red men; no blessing has been wrought for them such as you have done. Would that our departed ancestors had been allowed to see with their own eyes the great, the glorious manifestation of power that has been shown to us, their children—" and his mellifluous oratory rolled on in an unceasing stream of praise.
"By George!" said Stephens to himself, "I wonder if right now isn't my best time to bounce him about the silver mine. I did calculate to bring it up before the council of chiefs when I saw a favourable opportunity, but though the rest of 'em aren't here at this moment the cacique's talking so almighty grateful that perhaps I'd better strike while the iron's hot." He listened a moment to the profuse expressions of gratitude that poured from the red man's lips. "If he only means a quarter of what he's saying, I ought to have no difficulty in getting him to back me up. But perhaps I'd best tackle him alone first, and make sure of his support." He waited until the cacique had finished his peroration.
"Glad you're pleased, I'm sure," said Stephens in reply, "and here's my hand on it," and he shook the cacique's hand warmly in his. "Just let's step this way a little," he went on quietly. "I've got a word or two to say to you between ourselves," and the pair moved away side by side to a distance of a few yards from the site of the blasted rock.
"You see, working together like this, how easily we've been able to manage it," began the American diplomatically. "I'm an expert at mining, and your young men have carried out the execution of this job admirably. Now, look at here, Cacique; what I wanted to say to you was this. Why shouldn't we go in together, sort of partners like, and work your silver mine together in the same sort of way? I could make big money for both of us; there'd be plenty for me and plenty for you and for all your people, if it's only half as good as I've heard tell"; he paused, looking sideways at the Indian as he spoke to note what effect his suggestion produced on him. At the words "silver mine" the chief's face, which had been smiling and gracious in sympathy with the feelings he had been expressing in his speech, suddenly clouded over and hardened into a rigid impassibility.
"I don't know what you mean by our silver mine, Don Estevan," he answered frigidly. "There is no such thing in existence."
"Tut, tut," said Stephens, good-humouredly, "don't you go to make any mystery of the thing with me, Cacique. I'm your good friend, as you acknowledged yourself only a minute ago. I mean that old silver mine you've got up there on Rattlesnake Mountain, Cerro de las Viboras as you call it. You keep it carefully covered up, with logs and earth piled up over the mouth of it. Quite right of you, too. No use to go and let everybody see what you've got. I quite agree to that. But you needn't make any bones about it with me who am your friend, and well posted about the whole thing to boot."
In reality Stephens was retailing to the Indian the story of the mine as far as he had been able to trace it among the Mexicans. This was the first time that he had even hinted to any of the Santiago people that he knew anything at all about it, or had any curiosity on the subject. Salvador maintained his attitude of impassibility.