Steadily, from step to step, the colonel told the story of his raid into Mexico. Not a word was uttered by anybody else until he came to the description of the cavern.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Castro. "Heap bad medicine. Now Travis go under. Crockett lose hair."
He evidently did not wish to hear any more himself, but curiosity is a strong tether, and, after all, he was an Indian, and upon him the mysterious peril might not have so much power. Red Wolf knew the secret already, and nothing evil had as yet happened to him. The chief remained, therefore, in silence, while Bowie told of the human sacrifices, the fate of Tetzcatl, and the heaps of ingots, tons and tons of them.
"Go for it?" shouted Travis. "Of course we will. As soon as we've beaten the Greasers I'll raise the men that can ride across Mexico to get the stuff out of that cave. It's a wonderful thing to know, but when you come to think of it, it's the most natural thing in the world. Montezuma and Guatamoczin did exactly what you and I would have done, both before Cortez came and afterwards. We wouldn't have given it up neither, and they didn't."
"Thar's heaps of human natur' in this world," remarked Crockett. "I'd ha' bet they'd ha' done just exactly what they did do. There's nothing curious about it."
"No more there is about their idols," added Travis. "They kept them just as all the other heathen do in Asia and Africa. Hundreds of millions of idol-worshippers go it right along, with the missionaries among 'em. They kill the missionaries, too, now and then. Some eat 'em, and these fellows cut their throats and pitch 'em into a hole."
It seemed as if every trace of anything mysterious or improbable departed from the old legend of the Aztec gold and silver the moment the truth concerning it came out to be studied by such matter-of-fact men as these. Their hard common sense took it like any other business affair, and they were almost ready to name beforehand the men they meant to take with them on the expedition they planned to secure the treasure.
After telling the story, however, Bowie grew silent and moody. He looked around him upon the bare walls of the room. He passed a hand over the low couch upon which he was sitting. He hardly seemed to listen to what the others were saying. When at last there was a pause and a silence, he arose to his feet, and a shadow, darker than usual, was on his face.
"Travis," he said, "I want to get out of this room. It's close and hot. I somehow don't like it. It keeps me thinking of Tetzcatl, too, and of all he said when we talked with him here. He was a kind of devil, he was. I'm glad he went down into that chasm. If it's good and deep he 'll stay there."
He strode rapidly out of the room, and they heard Castro mutter,—