"TALK ABOUT LUCK!"
"No hurt Havasupai!" was what he managed to say, hoarsely.
"We're not going to hurt you, old man," remarked Frank; for he had seen
that the Indian was no stripling. "What we want to know is, how you came
to get so close to the heels of my horse as to be kicked? Tell us that,
Havasupai, if you please."
There was no answer, although twice the exhausted red man opened his
lips as if to speak.
"That knocks the props out from under him, Frank," remarked Bob;
"because he was bent on getting away with one or both mounts."
"How about that, Havasupai; weren't you thinking of stealing a horse,
when that animal just keeled you over so neatly?" Frank demanded.
The Indian was sitting up now. His head was hanging low on his chest.
Perhaps it was shame that caused this: or it might have been a desire to
keep his face hidden from the searching eyes of the white boys.
Then, as though realizing the utter folly of denying what must appear so
evident, he nodded his head slowly.
"It is true, white boy," he muttered, in fair English. "Havasupai meant
to take a horse. He had looked upon the man who beckons, and he was
afraid, because he had trouble at his village. He believed every man's
hand was against him. And so he would flee to the desert where the white
man's big medicine would not find him. There he might die with the
poison snakes and the whooping birds."
Bob was of course puzzled by some of the things the Indian said.
"What does he mean, Frank?" he asked.
"I take it the warrior has been in some sort of fuss at his village,"
the other replied. "Perhaps he even struck his chief in anger, and that
made an offense punishable with death. These Moqui Indians are a queer
lot, anyhow, I've heard. Then he must have skipped out, and by accident
seeing our friend, Sheriff Stanwix, known to him as the 'man who
beckons,' he just imagined they were looking for him."
"And that locoed him so much that he just couldn't stand it any longer,"
Bob said. "Discovering our camp he got the notion in his head that a
horse might take him out of the danger zone. So he was in the act of
jumping on one of our mounts when your clever little beast took a hand,
or rather a hoof, in the matter. But do you know what he means by
whooping birds?"
"Well, I can give a guess," replied Frank. "That must mean the little
owl that lives with the prairie dogs in their holes, along with the
poison snake, otherwise the rattler."
"Looks like we've just got our hands full to-night, Frank!"
"You're right, Bob. First we feed two hungry sheriffs, and pick up quite
a little news about the bad men they're looking for. Next, along comes
this Moqui, Havasupai he says his name is, and he gets in a bad fix by
trying to run off our horses; and feeling sorry for the old chap we lug
him to our tent, and look him over, ready to even bind up his wounds, if
he has any."
"Getting to be a habit, isn't it, Frank?"
"Seems like it," returned the taller boy, as he once more turned toward
the seated Indian. "Here, can you tell us where my horse kicked you?"
"It matters not much. Havasupai get what he needs because he try to
steal horse from good white boys," came the humble reply.
"One thing sure," remarked Frank aside to his chum, "he's been in touch
with the whites a heap, or he wouldn't know how to talk as he does. But
then, that isn't so queer. You know that these Moquis pick up a lot of
good coin from the travelers who come and go at the Grand Canyon."
"Why, yes," Bob went on to say, "I've always heard that one of the
sights of this wonderland was the snake dance of the Moquis. I read an
account of it in a magazine once. It said that hundreds of people
gathered from many quarters to be on hand and see it, because it occurs
only once a year. Some of them were big guns in science, too."
"They're getting more and more interested in these Indians of the
Southwest," Frank continued; "and trying all the time to find out just
where they fit in the long-ago past. That's what made old Uncle Felix,
who had already made a name for himself, give up his happy home, and
hide all these months down here. He wants to learn the long-buried
secrets of the past history of the Zunis, the Moquis, and other tribes
that might have sprung from the old cliff builders."
"But what can we do with this fellow, Frank?"
"Oh! well, nothing much, I reckon," the other answered, carelessly. "He
must have been plum locoed at seeing the sheriff, and hardly knew what
he was doing when he set out to grab Buckskin. We'll just have to let
him sleep here till morning, and then give him a bite of breakfast."
"Just as you say, Frank; you ought to know what's best," Bob hastened to
declare. "Now I wonder what'll be the next thing on the programme? I
hope we don't have the two men the sheriff is hunting, drop in to make
us a call."
"Little danger of that now," Frank remarked reassuringly. "By this time
they're well on their way to Flagstaff. Here, Havasupai, as you call
yourself; we don't mean to do you any harm, even if you did play us a
mean trick when you tried to steal a mount. Understand?"
The old Indian looked up at Frank through his masses of coarse black
hair, just beginning to be streaked with gray.
"Not do any harm," he repeated, as though hardly able to grasp the
meaning of the words Frank spoke; then his brown face lighted up with a
grim smile. "White boys good; Havasupai glad him not take horse. Bad
Indian! But not always that way; him carry speaking paper tell how make
good," and he thumped his breast as he said this.
Again did Bob's eyes seek the face of his chum in a questioning manner.
Frank, having been raised amid such scenes, could more readily
understand what the Moqui meant when he referred to certain things which
Bob had never heard mentioned before.
"He means that he's got a letter of recommendation along with him,
written by some tourist, I reckon. Perhaps this old fellow may have
found a chance to do some one a good turn. He may have run across a
greenhorn wandering on the desert; saved a fellow who had been stabbed
by the fangs of a viper from the Gila; or helped him to camp when he
broke a leg in climbing around the Grand Canyon."
"Oh! I see what you mean, Frank; that this party wrote out a
recommendation to all concerned, stating that in his opinion Havasupai
was a fine fellow, and worth trusting. But then that was before he got
into this trouble at this village. If he's a fugitive from justice at
the hands of his own tribe, such a paper isn't worth much, I guess."
"No more it isn't," agreed Frank.
"But all the same he means to stick us with it," chuckled Bob; "for you
can see he's got his hand in his shirt right now, as if searching for
something so valuable that he won't even carry it in his ditty bag."
"That's right, Bob."
"And now he's got in touch with that old letter," grunted Bob. "I
suppose we'll just have to read it to please him."
"You can if you care to," remarked Frank. "As for me, I'm that sleepy I
only want a chance to crawl back into the tent, and take up my
interrupted nap where it broke off."
"But good gracious! do you really mean it?" exclaimed the puzzled Bob.
"Why not?" demanded his chum.
"And leave him loose here, with the horses close by?" Bob went on,
aghast.
At that Frank laughed a little.
"Well," he said, drily; "so far as the horses are concerned, I reckon
our old friend Havasupai will go a long way on foot before he ever tries
to steal a promising looking pony again. As long as he lives he'll
remember how it feels to get a pair of hoofs fairly planted against his
back. So long, Bob. Tell the old fraud he can lie down anywhere he
pleases, and share our breakfast in the morning."
"That's the way you rub it in, Frank; returning evil with good," the
Kentucky boy remarked. "But since you want me to take him in hand, I'll
be the victim, and read his letter of recommendation, though I can
already guess what it will say."
The old Moqui had meanwhile succeeded in getting out the paper which he
seemed to set so much store by. Looking up, and seeing that Frank had
turned away, he offered it to Bob, who took it gravely, and proceeded to
hold it so that the light of the little fire would fall upon the
writing.
Frank was half way in the tent when he heard his chum give utterance to
a shout. He backed out again, and turning, looked hastily, half
expecting to see Bob engaged in a tussle with the old Indian.
Nothing of the sort met his gaze. The Moqui was sitting there, staring
at Bob, who had straightened up, and was starting to dance around,
holding the paper in his extended hand.
"What ails you, Bob?" demanded the other. "Haven't been taken with a
sudden pain, after all that venison you stowed away, I hope."
"Come out here, Frank!" called the lad by the fire. "Of all the luck! to
think we'd strike such a piece as this! It's rich! It's the finest ever!
We go to hunt for clues, and here they come straight to us. Talk to me
about the favors of fortune, why, we're in it up to the neck!"
"You seem to be tickled about something, Bob; has that paper any
connection with it?" demanded Frank.
"Well I should say, yes, by a big jugfull," replied the Kentucky boy.
"And you'll agree with me when I tell you it's signed by Professor Felix
Oswald, the very man we're going to search the Grand Canyon up and down
to find!"