THE LOST MINE
“The hope that brought the first white man to the Cañada del Oro is
your only hope. You shall labor--you shall find your gold--if you
can.”
From the door of the hut the Indian led the way into the darkness.
There was no friendly moon. The sky was overcast with lowering clouds
that shut out the light of the stars. From the thick blackness of the
cañon far below, the sullen murmur of the creek came up like the growl
of angry voices from the depth of some black pit. The mountains seemed
to breathe like gigantic monsters in a weird, dream world. The very air
was heavy with the mystery of the night.
They had not gone a hundred yards before the white man lost all sense of
direction. As they made their way down the steep side of the mountain he
could scarcely distinguish the form of the Indian who was within reach
of his hand.
Presently Natachee stopped, and, lighting the candle he carried, said:
“See, there is your pick and shovel. Are you satisfied that this is the
place where you work?”
“Certainly, I can see that,” returned the other wonderingly.
“Good!” returned the Indian. “Now we will go only a little way from this
place.”
He extinguished the candlelight, and the inky darkness enveloped them
like a blanket.
“But,” he added, “I must first make sure of your never again going as we
shall go. I will blindfold you and you will follow me by holding fast to
this rope. Are you willing?”
There was a taunting sneer in his tone that would have goaded the white
man into any reckless adventure.
“As you like,” he said shortly.
When the cloth was bound securely about Hugh’s eyes, the Indian caught
him by the arms and whirled him about until he was completely
bewildered. Then he felt one end of the rope thrust into his hand.
“Come,” said the Indian, and gave a slight pull on the rope.
It was impossible for the white man to form any idea as to their course.
At times they climbed upward, then again they descended as rapidly. At
other times they made their way along some steep slope. Now and then the
Indian bade him go on hands and knees, or warned him to move with care
and to hold fast to the shrubs and bushes. At last Hugh Edwards knew
that they were entering a cavern by an opening barely large enough for
them to crawl through. He could not even guess the dimensions of this
underground chamber, but he imagined that it was a passage or tunnel,
for as they went on he touched a wall on his right and the Indian
cautioned him to keep his head down.
For some distance they walked in this fashion, then Natachee stopped,
and the white man heard him strike a match. A moment later his blindfold
was removed.
“Your candle,” said Natachee sharply, and lighted it from the one he
himself held.
The white man gazed curiously about him.
“Look!” cried the Indian. “Look and say if I, Natachee, lied when I told
you of the gold that is so near the place where you work--if only you
knew where to find it.”
Natachee the Indian had not lied. Thousands upon thousands of dollars in
golden value lay within the circle of the candlelight.
Hugh Edwards stood amazed. He could not know the full extent of the
vein, but a fortune of staggering proportions was within sight. The
farther end of the chamber was an irregular mass of rocks and earth that
had quite evidently fallen and slid from above; but the remaining walls
and ceiling were as obviously cut by human hands.
The white man looked at his companion inquiringly.
“An old mine?”
The Indian, with an air of triumph, answered:
“The Mine with the Iron Door.”
As one half dreaming feels for something real and tangible, Hugh Edwards
said hesitatingly:
“But why, knowing this, have you not made use of it--why do you leave
such wealth buried here?”
“You forget that I am an Indian,” the red man answered. “If I, Natachee,
were to tell the secret of the Mine with the Iron Door, would the white
men permit me to retain this treasure or to use it for my people? When
has your race ever permitted an Indian to have anything that a white man
wanted for himself? Suppose it were possible for me to take this
treasure without revealing the secret of the mine--of what use would its
gold be to me? Could I, an Indian, use such wealth without bringing upon
myself and my people, envy, hatred and persecution from those who say
that this is a white man’s country?
“And suppose I could use this gold? What would an Indian do with gold?
The things that the white man buys with gold mean nothing to an Indian.
We do not want the white man’s things. We do not want your factories and
railroads and ships and banks and churches. We do not want your music,
your art, your libraries and schools. An Indian does not want any of the
things that this yellow stuff means to the white man.
“Could I, with this gold, restore to my people the homeland of their
fathers? Could I destroy your cities, your government, your laws and all
the institutions of your civilization that you have built up in this,
the land that you have taken by force and treachery from my people?
Could I, Natachee, with this gold bring back the forests you have cut
down, the streams you have dried up or poisoned, the lands you have made
desolate? Could I bring back the antelope, the deer and all the life
that the white man has destroyed?”
Stooping, he caught up a piece of the quartz that was heavy with the
gold it carried. Holding it in the light of the candle, he said:
“Before the white man came, this, to the Indians, was only a pretty
stone, of no more value than any other bright-colored pebble. If the red
man used it at all it was as an ornament of trivial significance--of no
real worth. But to the white man, this is everything. It is honor and
renown--it is achievement and success--it is the beginning and the end
of life--it is sacrifice and hardship--it is luxury and want--it is
bloody war with its murdered millions--it is government--it is law--it
is religion--it is love. And it was this--this bit of worthless yellow
dirt--that brought the first white man to the Indians. For gold, the
white adventurers braved the dangers of an unknown ocean and forced
their way into an unknown land. For gold, they have robbed and killed
the people whose homeland they invaded, until to-day we are as dead
grass and withered leaves in the pathway of the fire of the white man’s
greed. We are as a handful of desert dust in the whirlwind of your
civilization.”
He threw the piece of quartz aside with a gesture of loathing, and stood
for a moment with his head lowered in sorrow.
And once again Hugh Edwards, in spite of the cruel torture to which the
Indian had subjected him, felt a thrill of pity for his tormentor.
But before the white man could find words to express his emotions,
Natachee suddenly lifted his head, and with the cruel light of savage
exultation blazing in his eyes, went a step toward his startled
companion.
“Do you understand now why I have brought you here? Do you understand my
purpose in permitting you to see, with your own eyes, the gold of the
Mine with the Iron Door?
“Your only hope of freedom, from the hell to which you have been
condemned through a white man’s trickery and by your white man’s laws,
is in gold. Only through the possession of gold can you hope to win the
woman you love and who loves you.
“You say you would give your soul for the gold which means so much to
you. Good! I believe you. I am glad. Here is the gold--look at
it--handle it--dream of all that it would bring you. Here is freedom
from your hell--here is love--here is happiness--here is the woman you
love. It is all here, within reach of your hand, and you shall never
touch one grain of it. If you had a hundred souls to offer in exchange,
you should not touch one grain of it. Because you are a white man, and
because I am an Indian.
“I, Natachee, have spoken.”
The meaning of the Indian’s words burned in the white man’s brain.
Slowly he looked about that treasure chamber as if summing up in his
mind all that it might mean to him. His nerves and muscles were tense
with agony. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was
twisted in a grimace of pain. And in the agony of his torture a dreadful
purpose came.
The watching Indian saw, and his sinewy hand loosed the knife in his
belt, as his deep voice broke the silence of the old mine.
“No, you will not try that. You are unarmed. I would kill you before you
could strike a blow. There is no hope for you there. Your one chance is
to dig for the gold you need. You might strike it rich, you know. Who
can say--to-morrow--another stroke of your pick. The hope that brought
the first white man to the Cañada del Oro is your only hope. As so many
of your race have labored in the Cañon of Gold you shall labor--you
shall find your gold--if you can.”
The white man bowed his head.
Natachee went to him with the cloth to bind his eyes.
Quietly Hugh Edwards submitted to the bandage. The Indian extinguished
the light of the candle and thrust the end of the rope into his victim’s
unresisting hand.
“The white man is wise to take the one chance that is his,” said the
Indian. “Come. To-morrow, perhaps, you will find gold.”
Through the remaining weeks of the winter Hugh Edwards toiled with all
his strength for the grains of yellow metal that the Indian secretly
permitted him to find. Day and night the knowledge of the Mine with the
Iron Door tortured him. Many times he was tempted to abandon all hope,
and, by surrendering himself to the officers of the law, escape at least
the torment of his strange situation. But always he was held by the one
chance--to-morrow he might find the gold that meant freedom and Marta
and love.
And at last, one day in spring, when the mountain slopes again were
bright with blossoms--when the gold of the buckbean shone in the glades,
and whispering bells were nodding in the shadows of the cañon
walls--when the glory of the ocotillo, the flaming sword, was on the
foothills, and “our Lord’s candles” again fit the mesas with their
torches of white, Hugh Edwards looked up from his work in the gulch to
see a stranger.