THE WAY OF A RED MAN
“The dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all
the stars in the red man’s sky.”
The weeks of the “Little Spring” passed. The blossoms vanished from
mountain and foothill and mesa and desert. The air grew crisp with the
tang of frost. On the higher elevations the cold winds moaned through
the junipers and cedars--wailed among the peaks and shrieked about the
cliffs and crags. Again on Mount Lemmon the snow gleamed, white and
cold, among the somber pines.
In the wild remote region of the upper Cañada del Oro the man, known to
his friends in the Cañon of Gold as Hugh Edwards, lived with his captor,
Natachee the Indian.
The white man was not a prisoner of force--rather was he a captive of
circumstance. But captive and prisoner he was, none the less. He was
held by the red man’s threat to reveal his real name and identity as the
convict who had escaped from San Quentin, together with that hope so
cunningly offered by the Indian--the hope of finding the gold that would
bring him freedom and the woman he loved.
Every day the white man toiled with pick and shovel in a hidden gulch
where the Indian had shown to him a little gold in the sand and gravel.
Every night before the fire in the Indian’s hut he brooded over his
memories, dreamed dreams of freedom and love, or sat despondent with the
meager returns of his day’s labor. And always the Indian held out to him
the possibilities of to-morrow. To-morrow he might, at one stroke of his
pick, open a golden vein of such magnitude that the realization of all
his dreams would be assured--to-morrow--to-morrow.
His small hoard of gold increased so slowly that, unless he should
strike a rich pocket, it would be years before he could accumulate
enough to win his freedom and his happiness. But gold was his only hope.
And every day he found enough to justify the belief that all he needed
was near to his hand if only he could find it. He was held by that chain
of to-morrows.
In the meantime, what of Marta? Would her love endure? With no
explanation of his sudden disappearance--with no word of love from
him--no promise of his return--no message to bid her hope--would she
wait for him? Was her faith in him strong enough to stand under such a
cruel test?
Many times during the first weeks of his strange captivity he begged the
Indian for permission to send some word to the woman he loved. But the
red man invariably answered, “No,” with the cold warning that if he made
any attempt to communicate with any one he should be returned to
prison. When the white man realized that his importunities only served
to give the Indian a cruel pleasure, he ceased to plead.
Then one evening just at dusk the red man said:
“Come, my friend, this will not do at all. You are not nearly so
entertaining as you were. You need inspiration--come with me.”
He led the way to a point on the mountain ridge not far above the hut.
The colors of the sunset were still bright in the western sky and behind
them the higher peaks and crags were glowing in the light, but far below
in the Cañon of Gold and over the desert beyond, the deepening dusk lay
like a shadowy sea.
“Look!” said the Indian, pointing into the gloomy depths. “Do you see
it--down there directly under that lone bright star? Almost as if it
were a reflection of the star, only not so cold?”
“Do you mean that light?”
“Yes, you have good eyes for a white man,” answered the Indian. “I am
glad. I feared you might not be able to see it.”
He paused and the other, watching the tiny red point in the darkness so
far below, waited.
“That light is in the home of your friends, the Pardners and their
daughter.”
The Indian’s victim muttered an exclamation.
“In fact,” continued Natachee slowly as if to make every word effective,
“it shines through the window of Miss Hillgrove’s room.”
The white man stood with his eyes fixed on that distant light, as one
under a spell, then suddenly he whirled about, cursing his tormentor for
bringing him there.
The Indian smiled, as in the old days one of his savage ancestors might
have smiled in triumph, at a cry of pain successfully wrung from a
victim of the torture. Then he said with stern but melancholy dignity:
“I, Natachee, often come here to sit on this spot from which one may
look so far over the homeland of my Indian fathers. But for Natachee
there is no light in the window of love. Where you, a white man, see the
light, the red man sees only darkness. For Natachee the Indian there is
no soft fire of a woman’s love and home and happy children. Where the
fires of the Indian’s home life and love once burned, there are now only
cold ashes and blackened embers. I shall often see you up here watching
your star that is so near. But for me, Natachee, there is no star. The
dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all the stars
in the red man’s sky.”
In spite of his own suffering, Hugh Edwards was moved to pity.
On another occasion the Indian told his victim of Marta’s visit to his
hut that night of the storm. He called attention to the fact that the
very chair in which Hugh was sitting was the chair in which she had sat
before the fire. The couch upon which Hugh slept was the couch upon
which she had slept. Hugh’s place at the table had been her place.
Invariably, when he saw that the white man was nearing the limit of his
endurance, the Indian would hold before him the promise of the
future--the love and happiness that would be his when he should find the
gold--the gold that he would perhaps strike--to-morrow.
At times the Indian would be gone for two or three days. Always he left
with no word or hint that he was going. The white man would awaken in
the morning to find himself alone in the hut, or perhaps the Indian
would disappear at a moment when Hugh’s back was turned, or again
Edwards, upon returning from his work in the evening, would find that
Natachee had left the place sometime during his absence. Invariably,
when the red man reappeared, he came in the same unexpected and
unannounced manner. The white man never knew when to look for him, nor
where. Often the captive would look up from his work to find the Indian
only a few feet away, watching him.
At times, when Natachee returned from an absence of a day or more, he
would tell his victim of Marta--how he had seen and talked with her--how
she looked--what she was doing--painting such true and vivid pictures of
the girl that the captive’s heart would ache with longing. Then the
Indian, watching with devilish cunning the effect of his words, would
assure his victim that the girl loved him but that she believed he had
left her because he did not care for her, and that the grief of her
disappointment and loneliness was seriously affecting her health.
“What a pity,” the Indian would say mockingly, “that you cannot find the
gold!” And then he would picture the happiness that would come to this
man and woman--how they would go together to a place of peace and
security--how, in the fullness of their love and in the joys of their
companionship, the pain and suffering would all be forgotten. “If,” he
always added, “you could only find the gold.”
Again the red man, with fiendish skill, would tell how he had seen Saint
Jimmy and Marta together. He would talk of Saint Jimmy’s love for
her--of his tender devotion and care, and of the girl’s affection for
her teacher. He would relate how they spent hours together--how, in her
grief, Marta had sought the comforting companionship of her gentle
friend.
“I fear,” Natachee would say, “that if you do not find the gold soon it
will be too late. What a tragedy it would be for you, for Doctor Burton,
and for the girl, if, when you are able to go to her, you should find
her the wife of your friend. But to-morrow, perhaps, you will find the
gold.”
Every evening at sunset, when he thought that the Indian was away
somewhere in the mountains, Hugh Edwards would climb to that place on
the ridge from which he could see that tiny point of red light so far
below in the dark depth of the Cañon of Gold. And not infrequently, when
the light had at last gone out, he would return to the hut to learn that
the red man had been watching him.
When, under the torment of the Indian’s cruel art, the victim would
rebel, Natachee talked of the prison--of the future of shame and horror
that awaited the returned convict if he should again fall into the
clutches of the law. Reminded thus that his only chance was in finding
gold the man would return to his labor with exhausting energy.
And Hugh Edwards, with his lack of experience in such things, never once
dreamed that all the gold he dug in that hidden gulch was put there by
the crafty Indian. Night after night when the white man was sleeping,
Natachee stole from the hut to the place where his victim toiled, and
there “salted” the sand and gravel with a small quantity of the precious
metal.
In her home in the Cañon of Gold, Marta waited, as so many women have
waited while their men toiled for the yellow treasure that meant
happiness. She could not understand. But neither could she doubt Hugh
Edwards’ love. She only knew that some day he would come again. With
Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton to help her, she would be patient.
More than ever, in those days of her waiting, the Pardner’s girl
depended for strength and courage and guidance upon her two friends in
the little white house on the mountain side. More than ever, they were
dear to her.
The Pardners too had faith that their neighbor would return.
“An’ when he comes,” said old Bob, “you can bet your pile he’s comin’
with bells on. We don’t know what it is that has took him away so
suddenlike, but whatever it is, it ain’t nothin’ that we’ll be ashamed
of when we know.”
And Thad, with characteristic fervor, added:
“Well, Holy Cats, there ain’t no law, leastwise in this here Cañada del
Oro, that says a man has got to advertise every time he makes a move.
You’re tootin’--the boy’ll come back, an’ he’ll come with head up an’
steppin’ high--that’s what I’m meanin’.”
* * * * *
It was on one of these occasions, when the Indian was taunting his
victim with the assurance that more gold than he needed was within his
reach if only he knew where to look, that the white man turned on his
tormentor with a contemptuous laugh.
“Do you think that I am fool enough to believe that you actually know of
any such rich deposit near here?”
The words seemed to have a marked effect upon the Indian. Hugh saw, with
a thrill of satisfaction and not a little wonder, that he had by chance
broken through the red man’s armor of stoical composure.
Natachee threw up his head and held himself stiffly erect with the pride
of a savage conqueror, while his eyes were gleaming with intense mental
excitement, and his voice rang with challenging force, as he said:
“You think that I, Natachee, am lying when I say that I know where there
is gold beyond even a white man’s dream of wealth?”
“I know you are lying,” returned Hugh coldly. “Your talk of great
wealth so near when I am finding so little is pure fiction. Because you
know that I would almost give my soul to find a reasonably rich pocket,
even, you have invented the story of this marvelously rich deposit, to
torture me. If I believed it were true, I might, under the
circumstances, feel worked up over it, but as it is you may as well save
your breath. You are not worrying me in the least.”
“Good!” said Natachee, “the night is very dark. If the white man is not
a coward he will come with me.”
“Go with you?” exclaimed the other. “Where?”
“You shall never know _where_,” replied the Indian. “But you shall see
that I, Natachee, do not lie.”
From a peg in the wall he took a short rope and from the cupboard drawer
a cloth and two candles. One of the candles he offered to Hugh with an
insolent smile.
“If you are not afraid of the ghosts that, in the night and the
darkness, haunt the Cañon of Gold.”
The amazed white man, snatching the candle, motioned impatiently for the
Indian to proceed.