IN the early morning Gale, seeking solitude where he could brood over
his trouble, wandered alone. It was not easy for him to elude the
Yaqui, and just at the moment when he had cast himself down in a
secluded shady corner the Indian appeared, noiseless, shadowy,
mysterious as always.
"Malo," he said, in his deep voice.
"Yes, Yaqui, it's bad--very bad," replied Gale.
The Indian had been told of the losses sustained by Belding and his
rangers.
"Go--me!" said Yaqui, with an impressive gesture toward the lofty
lilac-colored steps of No Name Mountains.
He seemed the same as usual, but a glance on Gale's part, a moment's
attention, made him conscious of the old strange force in the Yaqui.
"Why does my brother want me to climb the nameless mountains with him?"
asked Gale.
"Lluvia d'oro," replied Yaqui, and he made motions that Gale found
difficult of interpretation.
"Shower of Gold," translated Gale. That was the Yaqui's name for Nell.
What did he mean by using it in connection with a climb into the
mountains? Were his motions intended to convey an idea of a shower of
golden blossoms from that rare and beautiful tree, or a golden rain?
Gale's listlessness vanished in a flash of thought. The Yaqui meant
gold. Gold! He meant he could retrieve the fallen fortunes of the
white brother who had saved his life that evil day at the Papago Well.
Gale thrilled as he gazed piercingly into the wonderful eyes of this
Indian. Would Yaqui never consider his debt paid?
"Go--me?" repeat the Indian, pointing with the singular directness that
always made this action remarkable in him.
"Yes, Yaqui."
Gale ran to his room, put on hobnailed boots, filled a canteen, and
hurried back to the corral. Yaqui awaited him. The Indian carried a
coiled lasso and a short stout stick. Without a word he led the way
down the lane, turned up the river toward the mountains. None of
Belding's household saw their departure.
What had once been only a narrow mesquite-bordered trail was now a
well-trodden road. A deep irrigation ditch, full of flowing muddy
water, ran parallel with the road. Gale had been curious about the
operations of the Chases, but bitterness he could not help had kept him
from going out to see the work. He was not surprised to find that the
engineers who had constructed the ditches and dam had anticipated him
in every particular. The dammed-up gulch made a magnificent reservoir,
and Gale could not look upon the long narrow lake without a feeling of
gladness. The dreaded ano seco of the Mexicans might come again and
would come, but never to the inhabitants of Forlorn River. That
stone-walled, stone-floored gulch would never leak, and already it
contained water enough to irrigate the whole Altar Valley for two dry
seasons.
Yaqui led swiftly along the lake to the upper end, where the stream
roared down over unscalable walls. This point was the farthest Gale
had ever penetrated into the rough foothills, and he had Belding's word
for it that no white man had ever climbed No Name Mountains from the
west.
But a white man was not an Indian. The former might have stolen the
range and valley and mountain, even the desert, but his possessions
would ever remain mysteries. Gale had scarcely faced the great gray
ponderous wall of cliff before the old strange interest in the Yaqui
seized him again. It recalled the tie that existed between them, a tie
almost as close as blood. Then he was eager and curious to see how the
Indian would conquer those seemingly insurmountable steps of stone.
Yaqui left the gulch and clambered up over a jumble of weathered slides
and traced a slow course along the base of the giant wall. He looked up
and seemed to select a point for ascent. It was the last place in that
mountainside where Gale would have thought climbing possible. Before
him the wall rose, leaning over him, shutting out the light, a dark
mighty mountain mass. Innumerable cracks and crevices and caves
roughened the bulging sides of dark rock.
Yaqui tied one end of his lasso to the short, stout stick and,
carefully disentangling the coils, he whirled the stick round and round
and threw it almost over the first rim of the shelf, perhaps thirty
feet up. The stick did not lodge. Yaqui tried again. This time it
caught in a crack. He pulled hard. Then, holding to the lasso, he
walked up the steep slant, hand over hand on the rope. When he reached
the shelf he motioned for Gale to follow. Gale found that method of
scaling a wall both quick and easy. Yaqui pulled up the lasso, and
threw the stick aloft into another crack. He climbed to another shelf,
and Gale followed him. The third effort brought them to a more rugged
bench a hundred feet above the slides. The Yaqui worked round to the
left, and turned into a dark fissure. Gale kept close to his heels.
They came out presently into lighter space, yet one that restricted any
extended view. Broken sections of cliff were on all sides.
Here the ascent became toil. Gale could distance Yaqui going downhill;
on the climb, however, he was hard put to it to keep the Indian in
sight. It was not a question of strength or lightness of foot. These
Gale had beyond the share of most men. It was a matter of lung power,
and the Yaqui's life had been spent scaling the desert heights.
Moreover, the climbing was infinitely slow, tedious, dangerous. On the
way up several times Gale imagined he heard a dull roar of falling
water. The sound seemed to be under him, over him to this side and to
that. When he was certain he could locate the direction from which it
came then he heard it no more until he had gone on. Gradually he
forgot it in the physical sensations of the climb. He burned his hands
and knees. He grew hot and wet and winded. His heart thumped so that
it hurt, and there were instants when his sight was blurred. When at
last he had toiled to where the Yaqui sat awaiting him upon the rim of
that great wall, it was none too soon.
Gale lay back and rested for a while without note of anything except
the blue sky. Then he sat up. He was amazed to find that after that
wonderful climb he was only a thousand feet or so above the valley.
Judged by the nature of his effort, he would have said he had climbed a
mile. The village lay beneath him, with its new adobe structures and
tents and buildings in bright contrast with the older habitations. He
saw the green alfalfa fields, and Belding's white horses, looking very
small and motionless. He pleased himself by imagining he could pick
out Blanco Sol. Then his gaze swept on to the river.
Indeed, he realized now why some one had named it Forlorn River. Even
at this season when it was full of water it had a forlorn aspect. It
was doomed to fail out there on the desert--doomed never to mingle with
the waters of the Gulf. It wound away down the valley, growing wider
and shallower, encroaching more and more on the gray flats, until it
disappeared on its sad journey toward Sonoyta. That vast shimmering,
sun-governed waste recognized its life only at this flood season, and
was already with parched tongue and insatiate fire licking and burning
up its futile waters.
Yaqui put a hand on Gale's knee. It was a bronzed, scarred, powerful
hand, always eloquent of meaning. The Indian was listening. His bent
head, his strange dilating eyes, his rigid form, and that
close-pressing hand, how these brought back to Gale the terrible lonely
night hours on the lava!
"What do you hear, Yaqui?" asked Gale. He laughed a little at the mood
that had come over him. But the sound of his voice did not break the
spell. He did not want to speak again. He yielded to Yaqui's subtle
nameless influence. He listened himself, heard nothing but the scream
of an eagle. Often he wondered if the Indian could hear things that
made no sound. Yaqui was beyond understanding.
Whatever the Indian had listened to or for, presently he satisfied
himself, and, with a grunt that might mean anything, he rose and turned
away from the rim. Gale followed, rested now and eager to go on. He
saw that the great cliff they had climbed was only a stairway up to the
huge looming dark bulk of the plateau above.
Suddenly he again heard the dull roar of falling water. It seemed to
have cleared itself of muffled vibrations. Yaqui mounted a little
ridge and halted. The next instant Gale stood above a bottomless cleft
into which a white stream leaped. His astounded gaze swept backward
along this narrow swift stream to its end in a dark, round, boiling
pool. It was a huge spring, a bubbling well, the outcropping of an
underground river coming down from the vast plateau above.
Yaqui had brought Gale to the source of Forlorn River.
Flashing thoughts in Gale's mind were no swifter than the thrills that
ran over him. He would stake out a claim here and never be cheated out
of it. Ditches on the benches and troughs on the steep walls would
carry water down to the valley. Ben Chase had build a great dam which
would be useless if Gale chose to turn Forlorn River from its natural
course. The fountain head of that mysterious desert river belonged to
him.
His eagerness, his mounting passion, was checked by Yaqui's unusual
action. The Indian showed wonder, hesitation, even reluctance. His
strange eyes surveyed this boiling well as if they could not believe
the sight they saw. Gale divined instantly that Yaqui had never before
seen the source of Forlorn River. If he had ever ascended to this
plateau, probably it had been to some other part, for the water was new
to him. He stood gazing aloft at peaks, at lower ramparts of the
mountain, and at nearer landmarks of prominence. Yaqui seemed at
fault. He was not sure of his location.
Then he strode past the swirling pool of dark water and began to ascend
a little slope that led up to a shelving cliff. Another object halted
the Indian. It was a pile of stones, weathered, crumbled, fallen into
ruin, but still retaining shape enough to prove it had been built there
by the hands of men. Round and round this the Yaqui stalked, and his
curiosity attested a further uncertainty. It was as if he had come
upon something surprising. Gale wondered about the pile of stones. Had
it once been a prospector's claim?
"Ugh!" grunted the Indian; and, though his exclamation expressed no
satisfaction, it surely put an end to doubt. He pointed up to the roof
of the sloping yellow shelf of stone. Faintly outlined there in red
were the imprints of many human hands with fingers spread wide. Gale
had often seen such paintings on the walls of the desert caverns.
Manifestly these told Yaqui he had come to the spot for which he had
aimed.
Then his actions became swift--and Yaqui seldom moved swiftly. The fact
impressed Gale. The Indian searched the level floor under the shelf.
He gathered up handfuls of small black stones, and thrust them at Gale.
Their weight made Gale start, and then he trembled. The Indian's next
move was to pick up a piece of weathered rock and throw it against the
wall. It broke. He snatched up parts, and showed the broken edges to
Gale. They contained yellow steaks, dull glints, faint tracings of
green. It was gold.
Gale found his legs shaking under him; and he sat down, trying to take
all the bits of stone into his lap. His fingers were all thumbs as
with knife blade he dug into the black pieces of rock. He found gold.
Then he stared down the slope, down into the valley with its river
winding forlornly away into the desert. But he did not see any of
that. Here was reality as sweet, as wonderful, as saving as a dream
come true. Yaqui had led him to a ledge of gold. Gale had learned
enough about mineral to know that this was a rich strike. All in a
second he was speechless with the joy of it. But his mind whirled in
thought about this strange and noble Indian, who seemed never to be
able to pay a debt. Belding and the poverty that had come to him!
Nell, who had wept over the loss of a spring! Laddy, who never could
ride again! Jim Lash, who swore he would always look after his friend!
Thorne and Mercedes! All these people, who had been good to him and
whom he loved, were poor. But now they would be rich. They would one
and all be his partners. He had discovered the source of Forlorn
River, and was rich in water. Yaqui had made him rich in gold. Gale
wanted to rush down the slope, down into the valley, and tell his
wonderful news.
Suddenly his eyes cleared and he saw the pile of stones. His blood
turned to ice, then to fire. That was the mark of a prospector's
claim. But it was old, very old. The ledge had never been worked, the
slope was wild. There was not another single indication that a
prospector had ever been there. Where, then, was he who had first
staked this claim? Gale wondered with growing hope, with the fire
easing, with the cold passing.
The Yaqui uttered the low, strange, involuntary cry so rare with him, a
cry somehow always associated with death. Gale shuddered.
The Indian was digging in the sand and dust under the shelving wall. He
threw out an object that rang against the stone. It was a belt buckle.
He threw out old shrunken, withered boots. He came upon other things,
and then he ceased to dig.
The grave of desert prospectors! Gale had seen more than one. Ladd had
told him many a story of such gruesome finds. It was grim, hard fact.
Then the keen-eyed Yaqui reached up to a little projecting shelf of
rock and took from it a small object. He showed no curiosity and gave
the thing to Gale.
How strangely Gale felt when he received into his hands a flat oblong
box! Was it only the influence of the Yaqui, or was there a nameless
and unseen presence beside that grave? Gale could not be sure. But he
knew he had gone back to the old desert mood. He knew something hung
in the balance. No accident, no luck, no debt-paying Indian could
account wholly for that moment. Gale knew he held in his hands more
than gold.
The box was a tin one, and not all rusty. Gale pried open the
reluctant lid. A faint old musty odor penetrated his nostrils. Inside
the box lay a packet wrapped in what once might have been oilskin. He
took it out and removed this covering. A folded paper remained in his
hands.
It was growing yellow with age. But he descried a dim tracery of
words. A crabbed scrawl, written in blood, hard to read! He held it
more to the light, and slowly he deciphered its content.
"We, Robert Burton and Jonas Warren, give half of this gold claim to
the man who finds it and half to Nell Burton, daughter and
granddaughter."
Gasping, with a bursting heart, overwhelmed by an unutterable joy of
divination, Gale fumbled with the paper until he got it open.
It was a certificate twenty-one years old, and recorded the marriage of
Robert Burton and Nellie Warren.