“Some rich,” he said. “Now, Bill, what’ve we got here, say, offhand?”
“Oh, Lord, Danny! I’m afraid to say. Look, Miss Majesty, jest look at the gold. I’ve lived among prospectors an’ gold-mines fer thirty years, an’ I never seen the beat of this.”
“The Lost Mine of the Padres!” cried Danny, in stentorian voice. “An’ it belongs to me!”
Stillwell made some incoherent sound as he sat up fascinated, quite beside himself.
“Bill, it was some long time ago since you saw me,” said Danny. “Fact is, I know how you felt, because Gene kept me posted. I happened to run across Bonita, an’ I wasn’t goin’ to let her ride away alone, when she told me she was in trouble. We hit the trail for the Peloncillos. Bonita had Gene’s horse, an’ she was to meet him up on the trail. We got to the mountains all right, an’ nearly starved for a few days till Gene found us. He had got in trouble himself an’ couldn’t fetch much with him.
“We made for the crags an’ built a cabin. I come down that day Gene sent his horse Majesty to you. Never saw Gene so broken-hearted. Well, after he sloped for the border Bonita an’ I were hard put to it to keep alive. But we got along, an’ I think it was then she began to care a little for me. Because I was decent. I killed cougars an’ went down to Rodeo to get bounties for the skins, an’ bought grub an’ supplies I needed. Once I went to El Cajon an’ run plumb into Gene. He was back from the revolution an’ cuttin’ up some. But I got away from him after doin’ all I could to drag him out of town. A long time after that Gene trailed up to the crags an’ found us. Gene had stopped drinkin’, he’d changed wonderful, was fine an’ dandy. It was then he began to pester the life out of me to make me marry Bonita. I was happy, so was she, an’ I was some scared of spoilin’ it. Bonita had been a little flirt, an’ I was afraid she’d get shy of a halter, so I bucked against Gene. But I was all locoed, as it turned out. Gene would come up occasionally, packin’ supplies for us, an’ always he’d get after me to do the right thing by Bonita. Gene’s so dog-gone hard to buck against! I had to give in, an’ I asked Bonita to marry me. Well, she wouldn’t at first—said she wasn’t good enough for me. But I saw the marriage idea was workin’ deep, an’ I just kept on bein’ as decent as I knew how. So it was my wantin’ to marry Bonita—my bein’ glad to marry her—that made her grow soft an’ sweet an’ pretty as—as a mountain quail. Gene fetched up Padre Marcos, an’ he married us.”
Danny paused in his narrative, breathing hard, as if the memory of the incident described had stirred strong and thrilling feeling in him. Stillwell’s smile was rapturous. Madeline leaned toward Danny with her eyes shining.
“Miss Hammond, an’ you, Bill Stillwell, now listen, for this is strange I’ve got to tell you. The afternoon Bonita an’ I were married, when Gene an’ the padre had gone, I was happy one minute an’ low-hearted the next. I was miserable because I had a bad name. I couldn’t buy even a decent dress for my pretty wife. Bonita heard me, an’ she was some mysterious. She told me the story of the lost mine of the padres, an’ she kissed me an made joyful over me in the strangest way. I knew marriage went to women’s heads, an’ I thought even Bonita had a spell.
“Well, she left me for a little, an’ when she came back she wore some pretty yellow flowers in her hair. Her eyes were big an’ black an’ beautiful. She said some queer things about spirits rollin’ rocks down the canyon. Then she said she wanted to show me where she always sat an’ waited an’ watched for me when I was away.
“She led me around under the crags to a long slope. It was some pretty there—clear an’ open, with a long sweep, an’ the desert yawnin’ deep an’ red. There were yellow flowers on that slope, the same kind she had in her hair—the same kind that Apache girl wore hundreds of years ago when she led the padre to the gold-mine.