"I reckon I'd have halted for a sober second thought if it hadn't been for that other girl under the stones down there," agreed Rhodes. "But shucks!--with all the refugees we're feeding across the line where's the obstacle to this one?"

The old prospector was busy with the wounded head for the Indian and had no reply ready, but shook his head ominously. Rhodes scowled and began uncoiling a _reata_ in case it would be needed to tie Miguel in the saddle.

"We've got to get some hustle to this outfit," he observed glancing at the sun. "It's too far to take them back to Whitely's, and water has to be had. We are really nearer to Soledad!"

The Indian girl came closer to him, speaking in a low, level manner, strange and secretive, yet not a whisper.

"He does know--and water is there at that place," she said. "In the night I am hearing him speak all what the ancients hide. He no can walk to that place, maybe I no can walk, but go you for the gold in the hidden canon. You are Americano,--strong,--is it not? A brave heart and much of gold of rose would bring safe again the mother of me and my sister! All this I listen to in the night. For them the gold of rose by the hidden water is to be uncovered again. But see, his hands are weak, his head is like the _nino_ in the reed basket. A stronger heart must find the way--it is you."

Lowly, haltingly, she kept on that level-voiced decision. It was evident that the ravings of her father through the long hours of the dreadful night had filled her mind with his one desire: to dare the very G.o.ds that the red gold might be uncovered again, and purchase freedom for the Indians on the exile road to the coast.

So low were her words that even Cap Pike, a rod away, only heard the voice, but not the subject. It was further evident that she meant but the one man to hear. Pike had white hair and to her mind was, like her father, to be protected from responsibilities, but Rhodes loomed strong and kind, and braced by youth for any task.

Rhodes looked at her pityingly, and patted her head.

"I reckon we're all a little loco, kid," he observed. "You're so paralyzed with the h.e.l.l you saw, and his ravings that you think his dope of the gold is all gospel, but it's only a dream, sister,--a sick man's fancy, though you sure had me going for a minute, plum hypnotized by the picture."

"It is to hide always," she said. "No man must know. No other eyes must see, only you!"

"Sure," he agreed.

"You promising all?"

"Sure again! Just to comfort you I promise that when I find the gold of El Alisal I will use it to help get your people."

"Half," she decided. "Half to you."

"Half it is! You're a great little planner for your size, kid. Too bad it's only a dream."

Cap Pike rose to his feet, and gave a hand to Miguel, who reeled, and then steadied himself gradually.

"Most thanks, senor," he whispered, "and when we reach the water----"

They helped him into the saddle, and Rhodes walked beside, holding him as he swayed.

They pa.s.sed the new-made grave in the sand, and Rhodes turned to the girl. "Sister," he said, "lift two stones and add to that pile there, one for you and one for your father. Also look around and remember this place."

"I am no forgetting it," she said as she lifted a stone and placed it as he told her. "It is here the exile trail. I mark the place where you take for me the Americano road, and not the south road of the lost. So it is,--these stone make witness."

"I'll be shot if I don't believe you _are_ old Cajames stock," said Cap Pike staring at her, and then meeting the gaze of Rhodes in wonder at her clear-cut summing up of the situation. "But he was a handful for the government in his day, Bub, and I'm hornswaggled if I'd pick out his breed for a kindergarten."

The girl heard and understood at least the jocular tenor of his meaning, but no glance in his direction indicated it. She placed the second stone, and then in obedience to Rhodes she looked back the way she had come where the desert growth crisped in the waves of heat. On one side lay the low, cactus-dotted hillocks, and on the other the sage green and dull yellow faded into the blue mists of the eastern range.

"I am no forgetting it, this place ever," she said and then lifted her water bottle and trudged on beside Rhodes. "It is where my trail begins, with you."

Cape Pike grinned at the joke on the boy, for it looked as if the Yaqui girl were adopting _him_!

CHAPTER IX

A MEETING AT YAQUI WELL

Good luck was with them, for the water hole in Yaqui canon had not been either muddied or exhausted, evidence that the raiders had not ranged that way. The sorry looking quartette fairly staggered into the little canon, and the animals were frantic with desire to drink their fill.

"I was so near fried that the first gallon fairly sizzled down my gullet," confessed Cap Pike after a long glorious hour of rest under the alamos with saturated handkerchief over his burning eyes. "That last three mile stretch was h.e.l.l's back yard for me. How you reckon the little trick over there ever stood it?"

The Indian girl was resting near her father, and every little while putting water on his face and hands. When she heard the voice of Pike she sat up, and then started quietly to pick up dry yucca stalks and bits of brushwood for a fire.

"Look at that, would you, Bub," commented Pike, "the minute she sees you commence to open the cook kit she is rustling for firewood. That little devil is made of whalebone for toughness. Why, even the burros are played out, but she is fresh as a daisy after a half hour's rest!"

Rhodes noted that the excitement by which she had been swayed to confidence in the morning had apparently burned out on the trail, for she spoke no more, only served silently as generations of her mothers of the desert had done, and waited, crouched back of her father, while the men ate the slender meal of _carne seco_, _atole_, and coffee.

Cap Pike suggested that she join them, but it was her adopted guardian who protested.

"We won't change their ways of women," he decided. "I notice that when white folks try to they are seldom understood. How do we know whether that att.i.tude is an humble effacement, or whether the rank of that martyred ancester exalts her too greatly to allow equality with white stragglers of the range?"

Cap Pike snorted disdain.

"You'll be making a Pocahontas of her if you keep on that 'n.o.ble Injun' strain," he remarked.

"Far be it from me! Pocahontas was a gay little hanger-on of the camps,--not like this silent owl! Her mind seems older than her years, and just notice her care of him, will you? I reckon he'd have wandered away and died but for her grip on him through the night."

Miguel sank into sleep almost at once after eating, and the girl waved over him an alamo branch as a fan with one hand, and ate with the other, while Rhodes looked over the scant commissary outfit, reckoning mouths to feed and distance to supplies. The moon was at full, and night travel would save the stock considerably. By the following noon they could reach ranches either west or north. He was conscious of the eyes of the girl ever on his face in mute question, and while Pike bathed the backs of the animals, and led each to stand in the oozy drainage of the meager well, she came close to Kit and spoke.

"You say it is a dream, senor, and you laugh, but the red gold of El Alisal is no dream. He, my father has said it, and after that, I, Tula, may show it to you. Even my mother does not know, but I know. I am of the blood to know. You will take him there, for it is a medicine place, much medicine! He has said it to you, senor, and that gift is great. You will come, alone,--with us, senor?"

Kit smiled at her entreaty, patted her hair, and dug out a worn deck of cards and shuffled them, slowly regarding the sleeping Indian the while.

"What's on your mind?" demanded Cap Pike, returning with his white locks dripping from a skimpy bath. "Our grub stake is about gone, and you've doubled the outfit. What's the next move?"

"I'm playing a game in futures with Miguel," stated Kit, shuffling the cards industriously.

"Sounds loco to me, Bub," observed the veteran. "Present indications are not encouraging as to futures there. Can't you see that he's got a jar from which his mind isn't likely to recover? Not crazy, you know, not a lunatic or dangerous, but just jarred from Pima man back to Yaqui child. That's about the way I reckon it."

"You reckon right, and it's the Yaqui child mind I'm throwing the cards for. Best two out of three wins."

"What the----"

"Highest cards for K. Rhodes, and I hike across the border with our outfit; highest cards for Miguel and my trail is blazed for the red gold of Alisal. This is Miguel's hand--ace high for Miguel!"

Again he shuffled and cut.

"A saucy queen, and red at that! Oh, you charmer!"

"You got to hustle to beat that, Bub. Go on, don't be stingy."