CHAPTER XXI

THE WAY OF A RED MAN

“The dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all the stars in the red man’s sky.”

The weeks of the “Little Spring” passed. The blossoms vanished from mountain and foothill and mesa and desert. The air grew crisp with the tang of frost. On the higher elevations the cold winds moaned through the junipers and cedars--wailed among the peaks and shrieked about the cliffs and crags. Again on Mount Lemmon the snow gleamed, white and cold, among the somber pines.

In the wild remote region of the upper Cañada del Oro the man, known to his friends in the Cañon of Gold as Hugh Edwards, lived with his captor, Natachee the Indian.

The white man was not a prisoner of force--rather was he a captive of circumstance. But captive and prisoner he was, none the less. He was held by the red man’s threat to reveal his real name and identity as the convict who had escaped from San Quentin, together with that hope so cunningly offered by the Indian--the hope of finding the gold that would bring him freedom and the woman he loved.

Every day the white man toiled with pick and shovel in a hidden gulch where the Indian had shown to him a little gold in the sand and gravel. Every night before the fire in the Indian’s hut he brooded over his memories, dreamed dreams of freedom and love, or sat despondent with the meager returns of his day’s labor. And always the Indian held out to him the possibilities of to-morrow. To-morrow he might, at one stroke of his pick, open a golden vein of such magnitude that the realization of all his dreams would be assured--to-morrow--to-morrow.

His small hoard of gold increased so slowly that, unless he should strike a rich pocket, it would be years before he could accumulate enough to win his freedom and his happiness. But gold was his only hope. And every day he found enough to justify the belief that all he needed was near to his hand if only he could find it. He was held by that chain of to-morrows.

In the meantime, what of Marta? Would her love endure? With no explanation of his sudden disappearance--with no word of love from him--no promise of his return--no message to bid her hope--would she wait for him? Was her faith in him strong enough to stand under such a cruel test?

Many times during the first weeks of his strange captivity he begged the Indian for permission to send some word to the woman he loved. But the red man invariably answered, “No,” with the cold warning that if he made any attempt to communicate with any one he should be returned to prison. When the white man realized that his importunities only served to give the Indian a cruel pleasure, he ceased to plead.

Then one evening just at dusk the red man said:

“Come, my friend, this will not do at all. You are not nearly so entertaining as you were. You need inspiration--come with me.”

He led the way to a point on the mountain ridge not far above the hut. The colors of the sunset were still bright in the western sky and behind them the higher peaks and crags were glowing in the light, but far below in the Cañon of Gold and over the desert beyond, the deepening dusk lay like a shadowy sea.

“Look!” said the Indian, pointing into the gloomy depths. “Do you see it--down there directly under that lone bright star? Almost as if it were a reflection of the star, only not so cold?”

“Do you mean that light?”

“Yes, you have good eyes for a white man,” answered the Indian. “I am glad. I feared you might not be able to see it.”

He paused and the other, watching the tiny red point in the darkness so far below, waited.

“That light is in the home of your friends, the Pardners and their daughter.”

The Indian’s victim muttered an exclamation.

“In fact,” continued Natachee slowly as if to make every word effective, “it shines through the window of Miss Hillgrove’s room.”

The white man stood with his eyes fixed on that distant light, as one under a spell, then suddenly he whirled about, cursing his tormentor for bringing him there.

The Indian smiled, as in the old days one of his savage ancestors might have smiled in triumph, at a cry of pain successfully wrung from a victim of the torture. Then he said with stern but melancholy dignity:

“I, Natachee, often come here to sit on this spot from which one may look so far over the homeland of my Indian fathers. But for Natachee there is no light in the window of love. Where you, a white man, see the light, the red man sees only darkness. For Natachee the Indian there is no soft fire of a woman’s love and home and happy children. Where the fires of the Indian’s home life and love once burned, there are now only cold ashes and blackened embers. I shall often see you up here watching your star that is so near. But for me, Natachee, there is no star. The dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all the stars in the red man’s sky.”

In spite of his own suffering, Hugh Edwards was moved to pity.

On another occasion the Indian told his victim of Marta’s visit to his hut that night of the storm. He called attention to the fact that the very chair in which Hugh was sitting was the chair in which she had sat before the fire. The couch upon which Hugh slept was the couch upon which she had slept. Hugh’s place at the table had been her place.

Invariably, when he saw that the white man was nearing the limit of his endurance, the Indian would hold before him the promise of the future--the love and happiness that would be his when he should find the gold--the gold that he would perhaps strike--to-morrow.

At times the Indian would be gone for two or three days. Always he left with no word or hint that he was going. The white man would awaken in the morning to find himself alone in the hut, or perhaps the Indian would disappear at a moment when Hugh’s back was turned, or again Edwards, upon returning from his work in the evening, would find that Natachee had left the place sometime during his absence. Invariably, when the red man reappeared, he came in the same unexpected and unannounced manner. The white man never knew when to look for him, nor where. Often the captive would look up from his work to find the Indian only a few feet away, watching him.

At times, when Natachee returned from an absence of a day or more, he would tell his victim of Marta--how he had seen and talked with her--how she looked--what she was doing--painting such true and vivid pictures of the girl that the captive’s heart would ache with longing. Then the Indian, watching with devilish cunning the effect of his words, would assure his victim that the girl loved him but that she believed he had left her because he did not care for her, and that the grief of her disappointment and loneliness was seriously affecting her health.

“What a pity,” the Indian would say mockingly, “that you cannot find the gold!” And then he would picture the happiness that would come to this man and woman--how they would go together to a place of peace and security--how, in the fullness of their love and in the joys of their companionship, the pain and suffering would all be forgotten. “If,” he always added, “you could only find the gold.”

Again the red man, with fiendish skill, would tell how he had seen Saint Jimmy and Marta together. He would talk of Saint Jimmy’s love for her--of his tender devotion and care, and of the girl’s affection for her teacher. He would relate how they spent hours together--how, in her grief, Marta had sought the comforting companionship of her gentle friend.

“I fear,” Natachee would say, “that if you do not find the gold soon it will be too late. What a tragedy it would be for you, for Doctor Burton, and for the girl, if, when you are able to go to her, you should find her the wife of your friend. But to-morrow, perhaps, you will find the gold.”

Every evening at sunset, when he thought that the Indian was away somewhere in the mountains, Hugh Edwards would climb to that place on the ridge from which he could see that tiny point of red light so far below in the dark depth of the Cañon of Gold. And not infrequently, when the light had at last gone out, he would return to the hut to learn that the red man had been watching him.

When, under the torment of the Indian’s cruel art, the victim would rebel, Natachee talked of the prison--of the future of shame and horror that awaited the returned convict if he should again fall into the clutches of the law. Reminded thus that his only chance was in finding gold the man would return to his labor with exhausting energy.

And Hugh Edwards, with his lack of experience in such things, never once dreamed that all the gold he dug in that hidden gulch was put there by the crafty Indian. Night after night when the white man was sleeping, Natachee stole from the hut to the place where his victim toiled, and there “salted” the sand and gravel with a small quantity of the precious metal.

In her home in the Cañon of Gold, Marta waited, as so many women have waited while their men toiled for the yellow treasure that meant happiness. She could not understand. But neither could she doubt Hugh Edwards’ love. She only knew that some day he would come again. With Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton to help her, she would be patient.

More than ever, in those days of her waiting, the Pardner’s girl depended for strength and courage and guidance upon her two friends in the little white house on the mountain side. More than ever, they were dear to her.

The Pardners too had faith that their neighbor would return.

“An’ when he comes,” said old Bob, “you can bet your pile he’s comin’ with bells on. We don’t know what it is that has took him away so suddenlike, but whatever it is, it ain’t nothin’ that we’ll be ashamed of when we know.”

And Thad, with characteristic fervor, added:

“Well, Holy Cats, there ain’t no law, leastwise in this here Cañada del Oro, that says a man has got to advertise every time he makes a move. You’re tootin’--the boy’ll come back, an’ he’ll come with head up an’ steppin’ high--that’s what I’m meanin’.”

* * * * *

It was on one of these occasions, when the Indian was taunting his victim with the assurance that more gold than he needed was within his reach if only he knew where to look, that the white man turned on his tormentor with a contemptuous laugh.

“Do you think that I am fool enough to believe that you actually know of any such rich deposit near here?”

The words seemed to have a marked effect upon the Indian. Hugh saw, with a thrill of satisfaction and not a little wonder, that he had by chance broken through the red man’s armor of stoical composure.

Natachee threw up his head and held himself stiffly erect with the pride of a savage conqueror, while his eyes were gleaming with intense mental excitement, and his voice rang with challenging force, as he said:

“You think that I, Natachee, am lying when I say that I know where there is gold beyond even a white man’s dream of wealth?”

“I know you are lying,” returned Hugh coldly. “Your talk of great wealth so near when I am finding so little is pure fiction. Because you know that I would almost give my soul to find a reasonably rich pocket, even, you have invented the story of this marvelously rich deposit, to torture me. If I believed it were true, I might, under the circumstances, feel worked up over it, but as it is you may as well save your breath. You are not worrying me in the least.”

“Good!” said Natachee, “the night is very dark. If the white man is not a coward he will come with me.”

“Go with you?” exclaimed the other. “Where?”

“You shall never know _where_,” replied the Indian. “But you shall see that I, Natachee, do not lie.”

From a peg in the wall he took a short rope and from the cupboard drawer a cloth and two candles. One of the candles he offered to Hugh with an insolent smile.

“If you are not afraid of the ghosts that, in the night and the darkness, haunt the Cañon of Gold.”

The amazed white man, snatching the candle, motioned impatiently for the Indian to proceed.