He turned to his old men and gave an order. Immediately the whole village became the scene of busy preparations for the march. Sid watched them with tears in his eyes, while Scotty protested vainly to Honanta. Where could they go? To Tinajas Atlas, perhaps, there to hide in some rocky fastness of the desert, forced to fetch water from long distances and sooner or later to be discovered at the tank by our border rangers, rounded up and sent back to the reservation.
It must not be! He and Scotty had brought all this upon them; it was their responsibility to see to it that another and a better home should be found for them. Perhaps Scotty was right, in the long run. If they could retain control of this mine and operate it successfully, there would be money enough to repay Honanta forever.
By noon the village reported ready for the march. Men, women, and children, they would go forth on foot into the pitiless desert, and somehow, through untold sufferings, incredible endurance, would make that march to a new home—but it could never, never, approach the freedom and peace of this spot, the Arms of the Great Mystery!
Towards its high red walls Honanta now raised his hands in silent prayer and farewell. Soon it would become a sun-baked, scorched, arid ruin, the home of saguarro and choya, a place that no one but white men would want. With its empty, bare and mud-caked basin, that once held smiling and life-giving water—Red Mesa was dead.
Sid looked on, so overcome with sympathy that he had not given their own problems a thought. Yet, with the last of the water, they too would face the pitiless scourge of thirst. Big John would have to be moved to Papago Tanks, somehow. But all that could wait.
“Good-by, white boy!” said Honanta, coming up to grip his hand strongly. “Tell your father that, some day, I will visit him—when my people are provided for.”
He turned to give the order to march.
Who sneers at coincidences? They happen to us daily, in those abrupt meetings of chance whose obscure workings of cause and effect we know nothing of, nor can trace. One happened now; for, as Honanta had raised his head to give the order, at that instant there came a hail from Big John on his cot on the apron brink.
“Hi, Sid!—Say!—Hyar comes yore daddy!—An’ that Apache feller!” he sang out. For a moment Sid stood looking at him in sheer amazement. Had Big John gone delirious? How and why had Colonel Colvin come here? But if it was really, truly so——
“Wait, Honanta! Wait!—You shall see my father, and your own son, sooner than any of us expected!—Wait!” cried Sid, running after the chief to seize his arm.