  At their camp by the Eagle Tail mine, even though they held it still and were heirs to half its gold, the two pardners were glum and sorrowful. The treacheries which Bud had forgiven in a moment of exaltation came back to him now as he brooded; and he eyed his friend askance, as if wondering what he would do next. He recalled all the circumstances of their quest—the meeting with Kruger, Phil's insistence on the adventure, the oath of loyalty which they had sworn; and then the gradual breaking down of their brotherly devotion until now they were strangers at heart. Phil sat by himself, keeping his thoughts to himself, and he stood aloof while he waited for the worst to happen. From the first day of their undertaking Hooker had felt that it was unlucky, and now he knew that the end was coming. His friend was lost to him, lost alike to a sense of loyalty and honor; he gloomed by himself and thought only of Gracia Aragon. The oath which Phil himself had forced upon Bud was broken and forgotten; but Bud, by a sterner standard, felt bound to keep his part. One thing alone could make him break it—his word to Henry Kruger. The Eagle Tail mine he held in trust, and half of it was Kruger's. "Phil," he said at last, when his mind was weary of the ceaseless grind of thoughts, "I believe that mineral agent is holding back our papers. I believe old Aragon has passed him a hundred or so and they're in cahoots to rob us. But I'll tell you what I'll do—you give me a power of attorney to receive those papers for you, and I'll go in and talk Dutch to the whole outfit." "What do you want to do that for?" demanded De Lancey querulously. "Why can't you wait a while? Those papers have to go to Moctezuma and Hermosillo and all over the City of Mexico and back, and it takes time. What do you want to make trouble for?" "Well, I'll tell you, Phil," answered Bud honestly. "I've got a hunch if we don't grab them papers soon we won't get 'em at all. Here these rebels are working closer all the time, and Aragon is crowding us. I want to get title and turn it over to Kruger, before we lose out somewhere." "What's the matter with me going in and talking to the agent?" suggested Phil. Then, as he saw his pardner's face, he paused and laughed bitterly. "You don't trust me any more, do you, Bud?" he said. "Well, it ain't that so much," evaded Hooker; "but I sure don't trust that Manuel del Rey. The first time you go into town he's going to pinch you, and I know it." "I'm going to go in all the same," declared De Lancey, "and if the little squirt tries to stop me—" "Aw, Phil," entreated Bud, "be reasonable, can't ye? You got no call to go up against that little feller. He's a bad actor, I can see that, and I believe he'd kill you if he got the chance. But wait a little while—maybe he'll get took off in the fights this summer!" "No, he's too cursed mean for that!" muttered De Lancey, but he seemed to take some comfort in the thought. As for Bud, he loafed around for a while, cleaning up camp, making smoke for the absent Yaqui, and looking over the deserted mine, but something in the changed atmosphere made him restless and uneasy. "I wonder where that dogged Indian went to?" he said for the hundredth time, as the deep shadows gathered in the valley. "By Joe, Phil, if Amigo comes back I'm going to go ahead on that mine! I want to keep him around here, and we might as well get out some ore, if it's only for a grub-stake. Come on—what do you say? We'll open her up—there's nothing to hide now. Well, I'll do it myself, then—this setting around is getting on my nerves." His far-seeing eyes, trained from his boyhood to search the hills for cattle, scanned the tops of the ridges as he spoke; and while he sat and pondered they noted every rock. Then at last he rose up slowly and gazed at a certain spot. He waved his arm, beckoning the distant point of blackness to come in, and soon from around a point in the caÑon the Yaqui appeared, bearing a heavy Mauser rifle on his arm. Across his broad breast hung the same familiar cartridge-belt, two more encircled his hips, and he walked with his head held high, like the warrior that he was. Evidently his flight had led to the place where his arms had been hid, for he wore the regulation knife bayonet at his hip and around his hat was the red ribbon of his people, but Bud was too polite to ask him about his journey. Since his coming the Yaqui had always maintained a certain mystery, and now, though his eyes were big with portent and he smiled at the jests about his gun, he simply waved his hand to the south and east and murmured: "Muchos revoltosos!" "Seguro!" answered Bud jokingly. "But have you killed any?" "Not yet!" returned the Indian, and he did not smile at that. "I wonder what that Indian is waiting around here for?" remarked Phil in English. "He must have his eye on somebody." "Yeah, I bet," agreed Bud, regarding his savage friend with a speculative interest. "Most of them Yaqui soldiers was farm-hands in this country before they rounded them up. I reckon he's looking for the man that had him deported. "Tired, Amigo?" he inquired in Spanish, and Ignacio gravely acknowledged that he was, a little. "Then drink plenty coffee," went on Hooker. "Eat lots—to-morrow we go to work in the mine." "Tomorrow?" repeated the Indian, as if considering his other engagements. "Good!" He nodded a smiling assent. After a month and more of idleness Bud and Amigo performed prodigies of labor in the cut, rolling down boulders, lifting them up on the tram, and clearing away the face of the cliff. Their tram was ramshackle, their track the abandoned rails from older workings, and their tools little more than their hands, but by noon the last broken fragments were heaved aside and the shattered ledge revealed. A low cry of wonder escaped the Yaqui as he gazed at the rich vein of ore, and as he saw the grim smile on Bud's rugged countenance he showed his white teeth in sympathy. "Que bueno!" he murmured. "How good!" gathering the precious fragments in his handkerchief. At the camp they crushed the picked ore in a mortar and panned it in the creek, and for the moment De Lancey dropped his air of preoccupancy as he stared at the streak of pure gold. Like a yellow film it lay along the edge of the last fine tailings, and when skilful washing had left it bare, it gleamed like a jewel in the pan. "By Jove, Bud!" he cried, "that's the real stuff—and it goes a dollar to the pan easy!" "Sure thing!" assented Bud. "Let's pound a lot of it and wash it as we go—then we'll have some getaway money when things break loose here!" "I'll go you!" answered Phil, and Bud's heart warmed toward him as he watched him pound up a piece of ore and go to swirling the dirt in the pan. But alas for the fond hopes he cherished! Even as he washed out the gold Phil's mind wandered far away, back to the hotel where Gracia Aragon sat watching by the window. Her hair was the color of gold, spun fine and refined again; yes, it was worth more than this golden dross that he caught in the bottom of his pan. And what was gold if he could not have her? He paused in his labor and a dreamy smile parted his lips—then he broke into a song: "Sweet honey-bee, be sweet to me, Once more he returned to his work, humming now the dulcet strains of "The Merry Widow," and when Bud came back from the cut it was to hear a coon song: "'Cos I want yer, ma honey, yes, I want yer, want yer, want yer; So he labored and sang, until finally the labor ceased, and then the song. He went about other things, and other thoughts, not so cheerful, filled his mind. Bud returned sadly to the company of the Yaqui and gave it up. Perhaps his pardner had been right when, riding out of Agua Negra, he had enlarged upon the dangers of Old Mexico, "the land of maÑana and broken promises." Certainly his speech had been prophetic in regard to dark-eyed women; for, even as he had said, nothing seemed to please them better than to come between man and man. It was a madness, he felt sure—the spell of the hot country, where the women look out from behind barred windows and men sing beneath their balconies at midnight. Already it had cost him his pardner—would it conquer his will as well and make him forget his trust? In his impotence the idea of some perverse fate—some malign influence over which he had no control—was strong with Hooker; yet when the blow fell he was not prepared for it. It was the third day of their mining and, with Amigo, he had been driving into the face of the cliff. Already their round of holes was drilled, the fuses cut, the charges set, and as he retreated before the blast he noticed absently that Cruz Mendez was in camp. The shots followed one after another, and he counted them to make sure there was no miss-fire—then he looked around and discovered that Phil was gone. "Where is Don Felipe?" he inquired of Mendez, and that low-browed brother of the burro bowed fawningly before he replied. "He has gone to Fortuna," he said, wiping his face with the bath-towel which he wore about his neck. "And what for?" demanded Bud imperatively. "I don't know, seÑor," writhed Mendez. "I brought him a letter." "From whom?" "I don't know—it was given to me by Juana, the servant of the SeÑorita Aragon." "Ah!" breathed Bud, and pretended not to be surprised. "Well, let 'im go!" he said to himself, and went back into the mine. It was what he had expected in a way, and his code bade him keep his hands off. But the next morning, when the evil was either avoided or done, he thrust his rifle into its sling and started for the town. At the jail he halted and gazed in through the windows—then he rode up to the hotel and asked for Phil. "What? Have you not heard?" clamored Don Juan. "Ah, it is most unfortunate—I would not have had it happen for the world!" "What?" inquired Bud succinctly. "Why, the quarrel—the encounter with Capitan del Rey! I did my best, I assure you, to prevent it, for the town has been put under martial law and the captain is in full charge. They quarreled over the favor of a lady, and now your friend is in jail." "I didn't see him when I come by," observed Hooker. "Ah, no—not in the cÁrcel—in the cuartel, the guard-house of the rurales!" "Much obliged!" nodded Bud, and rode on through the town. The street of the Mexican quarter was filled with strange people hurrying to and fro; long pack-trains loaded with trunks and curious bundles came swinging up from below; and a pair of rurales, looking fierce under their huge sombreros stood guard by the cuartel door. "Where is the capitan?" demanded Hooker. After requesting him to hang his pistol-belt on his saddle-horn, a sergeant showed him in to the chief. Manuel del Rey was very busy with papers and orders, but as the American appeared in the doorway he rose and greeted him with a bow. "Ah, good morning, seÑor," he said, with one swift glance to read his mood. "You are in search of your friend—no?" "SÍ, seÑor," answered Hooker, but with none of the animosity which the captain had expected. "Where is he?" "I regret very much," began the officer, speaking with military formality, "but it is my duty to inform you that the SeÑor De Lancey has left Fortuna. Last night he did me the honor to enlist in my company of rurales—he is now on his way to the north to assist in guarding the railroad." "What?" shouted Bud, hardly able to believe his ears. But when the captain repeated it he no longer doubted his Spanish. "But why?" he cried. "Why did he join the rurales?" "Ah, seÑor," shrugged Del Rey, "was he not a Mexican citizen? Very well, then; he could be summoned for military service. But the circumstances were these: Your friend came yesterday to this town, where I am at present military commander, and made an unprovoked assault upon my person. For this, according to law, he should have been shot at sunrise. But, not wishing to occasion unpleasantness with the Americans now residing here, I offered him the alternative of military service. He is now enlisted as a rural for a term of five years." "Five years!" exclaimed Hooker; and then, instead of starting the expected rough-house—upon which the rural guards were prepared to jump on his back—he simply threw down his hat and cursed—not anyone in particular, but everything in general; and at the end of it he turned once more upon the watchful captain. "Dispenseme, seÑor," he said, "this is the truth, is it?" "SÍ, seÑor," returned Captain Del Rey. "But before leaving with his detachment your friend wrote this letter, which he requested me to deliver to you." He offered with a flourish a sealed envelope, from which Bud extracted a short note.
Bud read it through again and meditated ponderously. Then he folded it up and thrust it into his pocket. "Muchas gracias, SeÑor Capitan," he said, saluting and turning upon his heel; and while all the Mexicans marveled at the inscrutable ways of Americanos, he mounted and rode away. |
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