CHAPTER XXXI

THE MEXICAN’S CONFESSION

It was well that no one in the room, save Natachee and the Mexican, could at that moment see Saint Jimmy’s face.

Slowly the eyes of the Mexican turned from face to face of the silent group. But it was upon Saint Jimmy’s face that his gaze finally rested, and it was to Saint Jimmy that he addressed himself. The Indian, as coldly impersonal and impassive as a mechanical instrument, translated:

“He says that you, Doctor Burton, are a man who lives very close to God. When you are near him, he can feel God.”

“God is never far from any man,” returned Saint Jimmy.

Natachee translated the Doctor’s words, and the Mexican replied in his mother tongue, which the Indian rendered in English.

“He says, yes, sir, that is true, but some men keep their backs toward God and refuse to see or listen to Him. He says he is one who has lived with his face away from God.”

“Tell him, then, to turn around.”

Again the Indian translated Saint Jimmy’s words and received the Mexican’s answer.

“He says he sees God when he looks at you--that if you will remain with him when he dies he can go with his face toward God.”

“I will not leave him,” returned Saint Jimmy. “Tell him not to fear.”

When he received this message from the Indian, the man smiled and made the sign of the cross. Then he spoke again and Natachee translated:

“He says to thank you, and that now he will tell you all he knows about the girl you love.”

It was well that no one in the room, save Natachee and the Mexican, could at that moment see Saint Jimmy’s face.

“Tell him that we are listening.”

With frequent pauses to gather strength or to shape the things he would say, the Mexican told his story. In those intervals Natachee’s deep voice, without a trace of feeling, made the message clear to the little company.

“His name is Chico Alvarez. He was a member of Sonora Jack’s band of outlaws in the years when they were active here in this part of Arizona.

“About twenty years ago they held up a man and woman who were driving in a covered wagon on the road from Tucson to Yuma and California. The man and woman were killed. There was a little girl hiding in the bottom of the wagon. They did not know the baby was there when they shot the man and woman.

“When Sonora Jack was searching the outfit for money and valuables, he found papers and letters that told him about the little girl. She was not the child of the people who were killed. They had stolen her, when she was a little baby, from her real parents who lived in the east.

“Sonora Jack saved all the papers and letters that told about the child, but burned everything else in the outfit so that no one would know there had been a child with the man and woman. He took the baby with him. He said her parents were very rich and would pay much money to have their little girl again.

“The officers were close after the outlaws who were escaping to their place across the border, and Sonora Jack left the little girl with his mother, who was Mexican and lived with her man, not Jack’s father, on a little ranch near the border. When Sonora Jack went back to his mother for the child, after the sheriff and his men had given up trying to catch him that time, he found that two prospectors had taken the little girl away.

“Sonora Jack dared not come again into the United States because of the reward that was offered for him, so he could not follow the prospectors, and the little girl was lost to him. Sonora Jack went south in Mexico and stayed there where he was safe.

“Last year a man showed him an old Spanish map of the Cañada del Oro and the Mine with the Iron Door. Sonora Jack and this man, Chico, came to find the mine. They did not find the mine but they found again the little girl, whose people would pay so much money to have her back. Sonora Jack planned to steal the girl. He said they would take her into Mexico and keep her until her people paid much money. If it should be that her people were dead, then he and Chico would make from her enough money in another way to pay them for their trouble. That is all.”

The Mexican closed his eyes wearily.

Saint Jimmy spoke quickly:

“Ask him what became of the things that told about the little girl’s parents, and how she was stolen from them.”

The Indian spoke to the man and received his reply.

“He says, ‘I do not know. Sonora Jack he always keep those things for himself.’”

Hugh Edwards cried hoarsely:

“But the name, Natachee, ask him the name.”

The dying Mexican opened his eyes as the Indian, bending over him, repeated the question. He answered:

“Eso nunca me dijo Sonora Jack,” and with a look toward Saint Jimmy, sank into unconsciousness.

Natachee faced toward that little company of agitated listeners.

“He says, ‘Sonora Jack never did tell me that.’”

Mother Burton led Marta from the room. Old Thad, muttering to himself, followed.

Doctor Burton turned from the bedside, saying quietly:

“It is all over. He is gone.”

Natachee spoke:

“You, Doctor Burton--and you, Hugh Edwards, wait here for me. The others will not come again into this room for a little while. Wait, I will come back in a moment.”

The Indian left the room.

Hugh Edwards and Saint Jimmy looked at each other in wondering silence.

When Natachee returned, he held in his hand a flat package, some six inches wide by eight inches long and about an inch in thickness. The envelope was of leather, laced securely, and there were straps attached. The straps had been cut.

The Indian addressed Hugh:

“As I fought with Sonora Jack, did you see that when I struck his breast my knife drew no blood?”

“Yes,” returned Edwards, “I saw it and wondered about it at the time. But what happened immediately after made me forget. Now that you mention it, I remember distinctly.”

“Good! When you had gone back to Miss Hillgrove, I looked to see why my knife had refused to touch the snake’s heart until I found the way between his shoulders. This package was fastened to Sonora Jack’s breast under his shirt. This strap was over his shoulder to support it. This other strap was around his chest to hold the packet in place. Look, there are the marks of my knife. Three times I struck--there and there and there.”

The two white men exclaimed with amazement at the Indian’s statement.

“I think,” said Natachee slowly, “that you would do well to see what this thing is, that the stealer of little girls hid so carefully under his clothing and fastened so securely to his body.”

Hugh Edwards drew back with an appealing look at Saint Jimmy, who took the packet from the Indian.

“Must this thing be opened?” said Edwards.

“Yes, Hugh, I think so,” returned the Doctor gently. “Anything else would hardly be fair to Marta, would it?”

“No, I suppose not,” answered Edwards with a groan. “All right, go ahead. You can tell me when you have finished.”

He turned away and went to the window where he sat with his back toward Saint Jimmy, who seated himself at the table. Natachee stood near the door with his arms folded, as motionless as a statue.

Undoing the lacing of the leather envelope, Saint Jimmy found a number of newspaper clippings, so cut as to preserve the name and date line of the paper--several letters--and a diary, with various entries under different dates, rather poorly written but legible.

Swiftly he scanned the printed articles. The diary and the letters he read with more care.

Hugh Edwards was like a man condemned already in his own mind, awaiting the formality of the verdict.

When Marta’s birth and the character of her parents had been under a cloud, the man who was branded before the world a criminal had felt that their love was right and that there was no obstacle to their marriage. He had reasoned, indeed, that their happiness would in a measure lighten the shadow that lay over the girl’s life, and in a degree would atone for the injustice under which he himself had suffered. The unjust shame and humiliation that the girl had felt so keenly--the dishonor and shame that injustice had brought upon him, had been to them a common bond; while the knowledge of what each had innocently suffered and the sympathy of each for the other had deepened and strengthened their love.

But as he listened to the dying Mexican’s story, he saw the barrier that was being raised to his happiness with the girl he loved. Marta’s birth and parentage were not, after all, what the old prospectors, Saint Jimmy, and Marta herself had believed. What, then, was left to justify him in asking her to become the wife of a convict? If, indeed, her birth and name were without a shadow, how could he ask her to accept his name--dishonored as it was? And if it should be shown that her people were living--if they were people of importance and honor, how then could the convict who loved her ask her to share his life of dishonor?

When the Mexican had been unable to give the name, hope had again risen in Edwards’ heart. But when Natachee brought the packet which Sonora Jack had treasured with such care, Hugh Edwards knew that it was only a matter of minutes until the identity of the woman he loved would be established, which meant that now he could never ask her to be his wife.

Saint Jimmy finished reading the papers and carefully placed them again in the leather envelope. To the watching Indian, he seemed undecided. He had the air of one not quite sure of his hand.

At last, looking up, he said slowly:

“You are right, Natachee, this envelope completes the Mexican’s story and establishes the identity of the girl we have always known as Marta Hillgrove.”