Genie burst into a trill of laughter.
“You funny old people! You make me feel old, too,” she protested, and she ran away.
Charley Jim’s somber eyes followed her, then returned to question Adam.
“She same girl here—long time—sick man’s girl?” And he made signs to show the height of a child and the weakness of a man’s lungs.
“Yes, chief. He her father. Dead. Mother dead, too,” replied Adam, and he pointed to the two green graves across the stream.
“Ugh! No live good. No get well.... Eagle, sick man have brother—him dead. Jim find ’um. Him dig gold—no water—dead.... Jim find ’um heap bones.”
It was thus Adam heard the story of the tragedy of Genie’s uncle. Charley Jim told it more clearly, though just as briefly, in his own tongue. Moons before he had found a prospector’s pack and then a pile of rags and bones half buried in the sand over in a valley beyond the Cottonwood Mountains. He recognized the man’s pack as belonging to the brother of the sick man, Linwood, both of whom he knew. Adam could trust an Indian’s memory. Genie’s uncle had come to the not rare end of a wandering prospector’s life. The old desert tragedy—thirst! All at once Adam’s eyes seemed to burn blind with a red dim veil, and his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and through his body passed a cold shudder, and he had strange vision of himself staggering blindly in a circle, plunging madly for the false mirage. The haunting plague passed away. Adam turned to examine the few pack articles Charley Jim had brought for possible identification of the dead. One of these, a silver belt buckle of odd design, oxidized and tarnished, might possibly be remembered by Genie. Adam called her, placed it in her hands.
“Genie, did you ever see that?” he asked.
“Yes,” she replied, with a start of recognition. “It was my father’s. He gave it to my uncle.”
Adam nodded to the Indian. “Chief, you were right.”