"It looked to me as though the place had been made to hide in. The mountain dropped away below us, straight down about a hundred feet, a smooth rock wall. Another wall of rock joined it on the right, making a big L. There was a level that began at the two walls and extended both ways for probably half a mile, until it met the slope of the other side of the mountain. It was nothing but two shoulders, joined, on the top of the mountain.

"Just below us there was a break in the level--a wide gash about fifty feet across, so deep that we couldn't see the bottom. There was a ledge on our side about three or four feet wide, and a bridge stretched from it across the canyon. We decided that the bridge was the one Queza had told the boys about--it led to the cave where the treasure was kept. We laid there for an hour, watching. The buildings were all huddled together--a lot of flat, brown adobe houses. We could see the natives moving down among them, but none of us noticed anything unusual going on until Taggart calls our attention.

"'Did you notice?' he said.

"'Notice what?' we all answered.

"'That they're all women down there--I ain't seen a man!'

"That was a fact. There didn't seem to be a man anywhere about. We talked it over and concluded that we'd got there at a most advantageous time. We decided that the men were away, on a hunt, most probably, and after we'd watched a while longer we decided that we'd sneak down some way and go after the treasure about midnight. We figured they'd all be sleeping about that time. After dark they lit fires and sat around them.

"We watched until about eleven--until we saw that nearly all the fires had gone out--and then we sneaked down the slope of the mountain. We didn't make any noise; we were silent and slippery as ghosts as we made our way through the timber on the slope. It was slow work, though; the woods were full of tangled vines and p.r.i.c.kly bushes, and we got clawed up considerable and had all we could do to keep from cussing out loud when a thorn or something would rip a cheek open. It was blacker than any night I've ever seen before or since; we couldn't see a foot ahead, and the sounds we heard in the woods didn't make us feel any too comfortable, for all we'd got used to living in the open. We knew, of course, that the sounds came from birds and bats and moths and such, but when a man is out on a job like that his nerves are not what they are at other times--every sound seems unusual and magnified. I didn't like so much silence from the village down below us--it seemed too quiet; and it appeared to me that the noises we heard in the woods were most too continuous to be caused by only us four. We went in single file, one man almost touching the other, to be sure we'd all stay together. I'd hear a bird go whizzing away at a distance, and it appeared to me that there was no call for it to light out with us two or three hundred feet away from it; and then there were queer noises which I couldn't just place as coming from birds. I don't know why I noticed these things, but I did, just the same, though I didn't say anything to the other boys, because they'd probably thought I was losing my nerve. And, besides, there wasn't time to talk.

"It took us more than an hour to reach the level where the village was, and it was long after midnight when we, keeping in the shadow of the cliff, started toward the bridge over the canyon, which led to the cave where we thought we'd find the treasure.

"We'd got pretty near the bridge, Taggart and me in the lead, Nebraska and Taylor stringing along behind, when I heard a sudden scuffling and looked around. It wasn't so dark on the level as it had been in the woods, and I saw a dozen dark figures grouped around Nebraska and Taylor. The dark figures were all about us, and more were coming from the huts, all yelling like devils. And they were men, too; they'd been hiding in the huts; they'd discovered us the day before and suspected what we came for. I found that out later.

"Well, for a few minutes there was plenty of excitement. Taylor and Nebraska had got pretty well behind us, and the Toltecs had cut them off. Taggart showed yellow. I started back to help Nebraska and Taylor, who had their knives out--I could see them shining--when Taggart grabbed me.

"'Let's run for the bridge, you fool!' he said. 'It's every man for himself now!'

"While I was scuffling with Taggart, trying to get away from him and get back to the boys, a figure detached itself from the bunch around them and came flying toward us. It was a woman, I could see that in an instant. Taggart saw her coming, too; he must have known it was a woman, but he pulled out his knife, and when she came close enough to us he drove at her with it. He missed her because I shoved him away.

He fell, and, while he was on the ground, the woman--or girl, because she wasn't more than eighteen or nineteen--grabbed me by the arm and jabbered to me in Spanish, of which I'd learned a little.

"'They're going to kill all of you!' she said. 'They've been watching you for two days. They left me to watch you yesterday. I don't want them to kill you--I like you! Come!'

"She pulled at me, trying to drag me toward the bridge. I didn't have any objections to her liking me as much as she pleased, for she was a beauty--I found that out afterward, of course; but though I couldn't see her face very well just them, I liked her voice and knew she must be good to look at. But I didn't like the idea of leaving the other boys, and told her so.

"'You'll all be killed, anyway,' she said, all excited. 'They might as well die now as later. They'll kill you, too, if you go back!'

"That was logic, all right, but I'd have gone back anyway if I hadn't heard Nebraska and Taylor working their guns just then. The Toltecs broke and scattered--some of them. Three or four of them couldn't after the boys began to shoot. Soon as the Toltecs broke away a little, Nebraska and Taylor made for where we stood. I saw them coming and told the girl to lead us. The three of us--the girl, Taggart, and me--got to the bridge, which was a light, flimsy, narrow affair made of two long, straight saplings lashed together with vines, with a couple of strips of bark for a bottom--and crossed it. Then we stood on the ledge in front of the mouth of the cave, watching Nebraska and Taylor.

They were coming for all they were worth, shooting as they ran and keeping the bunch of Toltecs at a respectable distance, though the Toltecs were running parallel with them, trying to bring them down with arrows.

"Nebraska and Taylor made the bridge. They had got about half way over when a dozen or so of the Toltecs threw themselves at the end of the bridge which rested on the village side of the canyon, grabbed hold of it, and pulled it off the ledge on our side. I yelled to the boys and jumped for the end of the bridge. But I was too late. The bridge balanced for an instant, and then the end on which the boys were standing started to sink. Nebraska saw what was coming, off and jumped for the ledge on which we were standing. He missed it by five feet.

There wasn't a sound from his lips as he shot down into the awful blackness of the canyon. I got sick and dizzy, but not so sick that I couldn't see what was happening to Taylor. Taylor didn't jump for the ledge. He turned like a cat and grabbed a rail of the bridge, trying to climb back to the level. He'd have made it, too, but the Toltecs wouldn't let him. They jabbed at him with their spears and arrows and threw knives at him. One of the knives struck him in the shoulder, and when I heard him scream I pulled my guns and began to shoot across the canyon. I hadn't thought of it before; there are times when a man's brain refuses to work like he'd like to have it. But the Toltecs didn't mind the shooting a little bit.

"Three or four of them got hit and backed away from the edge of the canyon, but there were enough others to do what they were trying to do, and they did it. I stood there, helpless, and saw them shove Taylor off the bridge with their spears. When he finally let go and went turning over and over down into the black hole, my whole insides fanned up into my throat. That sensation has never left me; I wake up nights seeing Taylor as he let go of the bridge, watching him sink, tumbling over and over into that black gash, and I get sick and dizzy just as I did that night.

"But just then I didn't have much of a chance to be sick long. While I was standing there wondering what to do I saw a Toltec priest come out of the cave. He had a spear in his hand and was sneaking up on Taggart--who stood there almost fainting from fright. There was murder in the priest's eyes; I saw it and bent my gun on him. The trigger snapped on dead cartridges, and I yanked out my knife. I'd have been too late, at that. But the girl saw the priest, and she dodged behind him and gave him a shove. He pitched out and went head first down into the canyon.

"The Toltecs on the other side were watching, and they saw the priest go. Until now they hadn't shot at us, probably afraid of hitting the girl, but when they saw her push the priest over the edge of the canyon they saw that her sympathies were with us, and they let drive at us with their arrows. We were all slightly wounded--not enough to mention--and we got back into the cave where their arrows couldn't reach us. Three or four times the Toltecs tried to swing the bridge back into position, but they couldn't make it because there was no one on our side to help them, and Taggart and me made things mighty unpleasant for them with our sixes. They finally went away and held a council of war, which seemed to leave them undecided. They evidently hadn't figured on the girl turning traitor. If she hadn't they'd have got me and Taggart in short order.

"We'd got where the treasure was, all right, but it was a mighty bad outlook for us. We were kind of anxious about the bridge, being afraid the Toltecs would get it back into place; but the girl, who called herself Ezela, showed us that getting the bridge back wasn't possible without help from our side. She said that the priest she'd dumped down into the canyon was the only one with the tribe at the time; the others had gone to a distant village. She said, too, that there was a secret pa.s.sage from the cave; she'd discovered it, and no one but her and the priests knew anything about it, but that the Toltecs would send runners for the priests and we'd have to get out before they came, or they'd lay for us at the outlet.

"Well, we hustled. We felt bad about Nebraska and Taylor, and were determined not to leave without some of the treasure, and after Ezela showed us where it was I kept her busy talking while Taggart got about as much as he could carry. Ezela offered no objections; on the other hand, when Taggart came back she told me to get some of the treasure too. Taggart hadn't taken enough to miss; there were millions of dollars' worth of gold and diamonds in the room, where they'd raised a kind of an altar, and I had my choice.

"I took some of the gold, but what attracted me--not because it was pretty, but because I saw in a minute that it was valuable--was a hideous image about six inches high. I had had an idea all along that Queza had been lying about the diamonds, but when I saw the image I knew he'd told the truth. There were about a hundred diamonds on the image, stuck all around it, the image itself being gold. The diamonds ran from a carat to seven or eight carats, and there was no question about them being the real thing. I stuck the thing into a hip pocket, figuring that with the few other ornaments I had I would have plenty to carry. Then I went back to where Ezela and Taggart were waiting for me.

"Ezela led us through a long, narrow pa.s.sage, down some steps to another pa.s.sage, and pretty soon we were sneaking along this and I began to get a whiff of fresh air. In a little while we found ourselves on a narrow ledge in the canyon, about thirty or forty feet below the level where the bridge had been, and it was so dark down there that we couldn't see one another.

"Ezela whispered to us to follow her, and to be careful. We had to be careful, and after what had happened, crawling along that ledge wasn't the most cheerful job in the world. It would have been a ticklish thing to do in the daytime, but at night it was a thousand times worse.

I kept thinking about poor Taylor and Nebraska, and there were times when I felt that I just had to yell and jump out into the black hole around us. Taggart showed it worse than me. It took us an hour to traverse that ledge. We'd strike a short turn where there wouldn't be more than six or eight inches of ledge between us and eternity, and we couldn't see a thing--I've thought since that maybe it was a good thing we couldn't. But we could feel the width of the ledge with our feet, and there were times when my legs shook under me like I had the ague.

Taggart was pretty near collapse all the time. He kept mumbling to himself, making queer little throaty noises and grabbing at me. Two or three times I had to turn and talk to him, or he'd have let go all holds and jumped.

"We finally made solid ground, and it was a full hour before me or Taggart could get up after we'd sat down, we were that tuckered out.

The girl didn't seem to mind it a bit; she told me she'd discovered the secret pa.s.sage that way. She'd been nosing around the mountain one day and had crept along the edge, finding that it led to the treasure cave.

"There wasn't any time lost by us in getting away from that place.

Ezela told us there wasn't any use hoping that Nebraska and Taylor were alive, because the canyon was over a thousand feet deep and there was a roaring river at the bottom. I don't like to think of that fall.

"Taggart objected to Ezela going with us, but I couldn't think of letting her stay to be punished by her tribe for what she'd done--they'd have burned her, sure, she said. Besides, I may as well tell the truth, I'd got to liking Ezela a good bit by this time. She was good to look at, and she'd been hanging around me, telling me that she wanted to go with us, and that she'd done what she had for my sake, because she liked me. All that sort of stuff plays on a man's vanity when it comes from a pretty girl, and it didn't take me long to decide that I was in love with her and that, aside from humane reasons, I ought to take her with me. So I took her.

"We reached the boat after a week of heart-breaking travel, and we hadn't got over two miles out in the bay when we saw that we hadn't left any too soon. A hundred or so Toltecs were on the beach, doing a war dance and waving their spears at us. We had a pretty close call of it for grub, but we made a little town on the gulf and stocked up, and then we headed for the mouth of the Rio Grande. We camped one night a week later on United States soil, and that night while I was asleep Taggart tried to knife me. I'd showed Taggart the diamond image one day while Ezela was asleep in the boat, and he'd got greedy for it.

Ezela screamed when she saw him getting close to me with the knife, and I woke in time to grab him before he got a chance to get the knife into me. He finally broke away, leaving all the treasure he'd brought except a little that he had in his pockets--he'd had a bundle of it strapped to his belt besides that--and I didn't see him again for four years.

"I took Ezela up the Pecos to the Connors', where I'd left you, bought a wagon and horses and a few things--bedding and grub and such stuff--and lit out for New Mexico. I figured that I had enough of the kind of friends I'd been keeping, and I didn't want to be ridiculed for tying up to an Indian girl--white folks don't like to see that. I came here and took up this land, figuring that I wouldn't be disturbed. I'd been here four years when Taggart came. I'd sold some of the treasure, but, for some reason which I've never been able to figure out, I kept the idol. I think I was afraid to try to sell it on account of the big diamonds in it.

"I gave Taggart the treasure he'd left behind the night he tried to knife me, but he wasn't satisfied; he wanted more, wanted me to sell the Toltec image and split with him. Of course I wouldn't do that because of the way he'd acted, and he swore to get it some day.

"He took up some land about fifteen miles down the river, and he's stayed there ever since. I've been afraid to go anywhere with the idol for fear he'd waylay me and get it. One day while I was away somewhere he came here and told Ezela about me having the idol. From that time on I led a life of h.e.l.l. Ezela turned on me. She said I'd desecrated the altars of her tribe, and she kept harping to me about it until I got so I couldn't bear the sight of her.

"I discovered soon after we came here that I had been mistaken in thinking I had loved her--what I had thought was love was merely grat.i.tude. My grat.i.tude didn't last, of course, with her hounding me continually about the idol. Finally I discovered that she and Taggart were plotting against me. Of course, Taggart was after the image himself. He didn't care anything about her religious scruples, but he made her believe he sympathized with her, and made a fool of her. I tried to kill Taggart the day I found that out, but he got away, and after that he never traveled alone and I didn't get another chance. I ordered Ezela away, but she said she wouldn't go until she got the image. Many times I debated the idea of putting her out of the way, but there was always the knowledge in my mind that she had saved my life, and I hadn't the heart to do it.

"You know how we lived. My life was constantly in danger, and I became hardened, suspicious, brutal. You got the whole acc.u.mulation. Taggart and Ezela bribed my men to watch me. I had to discharge them. After Ezela died I thought Taggart would leave me alone. But he didn't--he wanted the image. One day he and his boy Neal came over and ambushed me. They shot me in the shoulder. I was in the house, defending myself as best I could, when Malcolm Clayton came. By this time Betty has told you the rest and you know just what you can expect from the Taggarts.

"That is the whole history of the Toltec idol. I am not proud of my part in the affair, but Tom Taggart must never have the idol. Remember that! I don't want him to have it! Neither do I want you to have it, or the money I leave, unless you can show that you forgive me. As I have said, I don't take your word for it--you must prove it.

"I know you are coming home, and I wish I could live to see you. But I know I won't. Don't be too hard on me. Your father,

"JAMES MARSTON."

CHAPTER IX

RESPONSIBILITY

For a long time after he had completed the reading of the letter, Calumet was silent, staring straight ahead of him. The information contained in the account of his father's adventures was soothing--the termagant who had presided over his boyhood destinies had not been his real mother, and his father had left him a score to settle. He already hated the Taggarts, not particularly because they were his father's enemies, but rather because Tom Taggart had been a traitor. He felt a contempt for him. He himself was mean and vicious--he knew that. But he had never betrayed a friend. It was better to have no friend than to have one and betray him. He looked around to see that Betty was still apparently absorbed in her book.

"Do you know what is in this letter?" he said.

She laid the book in her lap and nodded affirmatively.

"You opened it, I suppose?" he sneered.

"No," she returned, unmoved. "Your father read it to me."