DANGER
Brad did not know whether or not the old Indian actually saw them in the
darkness. But he decided to take no chance of being mistaken for an
enemy.
“Hello,” he said, and his voice echoed weirdly in the cavern, “cooking
your dinner?”
With a show of friendliness, he stepped out into the glare of the fire.
Dan and Red followed his example, though not without misgiving. Would the
old cave dweller accept them as friends? Or would he be hostile? In the
darkness they could not see whether or not he wore a knife at his belt.
For a full minute, the old Indian stood tense on the rock floor, staring
at the three Cubs. In the glare of the fire they saw that he was gaunt
and lean, with a bony, unwrinkled face. Prominent cheek bones pulled the
skin tightly.
“Good morning,” Brad said, gaining confidence as the Indian made no
hostile move. “Cooking a rabbit, I see.”
The stranger replied with a deep-throated grunt which the Cubs took for
assent. He did not seem unfriendly, however, only guarded and a trifle
dazed.
Oddly enough, the old Indian did not question the boys as to their
unexpected presence in the cave. Apparently accepting them as friends, he
motioned for them to share the warmth of his fire.
The Cubs squatted around it, watching the old fellow rotate the cooking
rabbit on a crudely fashioned spit.
Without saying anything, Dan nudged Red to direct his attention toward
the wall behind them. Not far from the pile of balsam boughs lay the
Navajo blanket which had disappeared from the Cub camp a few days
earlier!
Brad cleared his throat and after telling his name, tried to draw the old
Indian into conversation. Aside from learning that the other’s name was
Miquel and that he was a Navajo of the Beebitchni clan, he made little
headway.
Paying scant heed to the Cubs, old Miquel carried on a sing-sing
monologue in a tongue the boys could not understand.
At intervals he broke into English, but the words made no sense to the
three listeners.
“Turquoise Mountain, king of mountains, everlastingly beautiful,” the old
Indian muttered.
“So what?” Red mumbled into Dan’s ear. “What sort of jargon is this?”
Old Miquel did not appear to hear Red’s remark.
“It does me no harm, no harm,” he rambled on, “for I am Holy with the
Fire.”
“He’s out of his head,” Red whispered to Dan. “He’s completely lost his
buttons!”
The old Indian had arisen from the fire, turning dramatically toward the
east. He made a picture as he stood there in the flickering firelight,
his calico shirt open at the throat. In one ear he wore a single
turquoise ornament.
“The male porcupine eats gum,” he entoned. “I do it in a Holy way.”
“He’s reciting parts of a chant, I think,” Brad volunteered his opinion.
“Miquel hardly knows we’re here. Do you Miquel?”
The Indian went on with his chant, not even glancing at Brad or giving
any indication that he had heard.
“He’s in a mental fog, all right,” Red insisted. “I’ll bet though, that
he’s that old medicine man White Nose and Eagle Feather are after!”
Hearing the two names spoken, Miquel paused in his weird, meaningless
chanting to stare at Red. But a responsive thought chain almost
immediately was broken. He seemed to forget the two familiar names as
quickly as he heard them and went on with his prattle:
“I am thinking of crossing the river.... I am thinking of going home.”
“If White Nose and Eagle Feather jump him for stealing, he won’t go
anywhere!” Red remarked uneasily. “Brad, tell him why we came.”
“I’ll try. I don’t know whether or not I can get it across to him.”
The Den Chief began very patiently, attempting to make Miquel understand
that if he remained in the cave he might be in grave danger.
“White Nose and Eagle Feather are looking for you,” he tried to explain.
“They’re hunting for the entrance to this cave right now. We came here to
warn you.”
“That’s right,” chimed in Dan, trying to drive home the point. “We don’t
know what you’ve done, but White Nose and Eagle Feather are out for
revenge. Unless you want to get into trouble with them, you’d better move
on to another hiding place.”
Old Miquel had listened attentively to the two Cubs. They were hopeful
that he had understood at least part of what they had said. But when he
spoke, they knew they had completely failed.
“Rabbit almost done now,” he said cheerfully. “We eat.”
Removing the meat from the spit, he divided it into four equal parts.
Brad and Red refused a share. Old Miquel’s hurt was so apparent that Dan
accepted his share. However, he only made a pretense of eating, as he
watched the old Indian ravenously devour the remainder of the food.
“He’s half starved,” Brad observed in deep concern. “We’ve got to get him
out of here.”
“How?” Dan asked. “He hasn’t seemed to understand anything we’ve said to
him.”
Brad waited until Miquel had nearly finished eating. Then he touched him
on the shoulder, saying in a friendly way:
“Come with us, Miquel, to our camp. We’re friends.”
“Friends,” the old fellow echoed in a child-like way.
But when Brad and Dan attempted to lead him away from the fire, he pulled
away from them.
“He won’t leave here,” Red muttered. “What’s the use trying to help him?”
“We have to,” Brad said firmly. “You can see he’s half starved. If those
two Indians should come upon him here, there’s no telling what might
happen.”
“Brad’s right,” Dan agreed. “We ought to get him out of here. But how to
do it?”
The Cubs took turns trying to make the old Indian understand. It was so
much breath wasted.
“He acts like a sleep walker,” Brad remarked in perplexity. “Never ran
into anything like it before in all my life.”
“Do you suppose he suffered an injury?” Dan speculated. “He doesn’t seem
to have much of any memory of the past. He just keeps mumbling those
chants.”
The Cubs did not know what to do. From Old Miquel’s appearance and
actions, they were satisfied that he was the medicine man for whom White
Nose and Eagle Feather searched so ruthlessly. They suspected too that he
was the one who had carved the remarkable face on the wall of the ravine.
Likewise, he was the one who had taken their Navajo blanket and possibly
food from the camp.
Had he also completed so expertly the sand painting after perhaps
destroying Dan’s picture?
In the cave there was considerable evidence that Miquel was indeed a man
of many talents. On one of the walls, he had marked a strange design with
charcoal. In another place, he had drawn characters not unlike those
which appeared on the completed sand painting.
“We’re wasting our time trying to make him understand,” Brad finally
said. “We can’t persuade him to leave, that’s certain. Now what’ll we
do?”
“Leave him here,” Red suggested. “He’ll get along all right until we can
get back to camp and tell Mr. Hatfield.”
“He’ll be safe providing White Nose and Eagle Feather don’t come along.
But if they should find the entrance to this cave—wow!”
“Why borrow trouble?” shrugged Red, always inclined to take the
optimistic view. “They were a long distance down stream when we saw ’em
last.”
“But they may return.”
“And if they do, they’ll notice smoke coming out of the cave entrance,”
Dan predicted. “I guess we’ll have to take that chance though.”
Brad nodded and warned: “We can’t stay here much longer, unless we want
to miss the Pack pow-wow. We’ve done our best to tip him off.”
“It’s getting late,” Dan said uneasily. “You know it took quite awhile to
get to the cave.”
“And no one knows we’re here,” Brad agreed. “We’ll have to go. Right
now.”
The Cubs were reluctant to leave Old Miquel alone, for he appeared in a
half-dazed condition. They were certain that he needed not only food and
better living quarters, but medical attention.
Nevertheless, it seemed hopeless to try to persuade him to leave with
them. Their best bet, they thought, would be to go for assistance and
return as quickly as they could.
The three Cubs tried to tell Miquel of their intention. It was obvious,
however, that he did not comprehend.
They were ready to leave when Dan’s keen ears detected an unusual sound
in the cavern.
“Listen!” he whispered.
Brad and Red already were aware of the sound at the entranceway to the
cavern. They distinctly could hear splashing as if more than one person
were wading along the passageway.
“Someone’s coming!” Dan warned.
“Those Indians probably,” Brad whispered back. “They’ve found the
entranceway! Now we’re in for it.”
Old Miquel also had heard the sound, for he listened attentively, though
without undue interest. After a moment, he went on eating his meal with
complete unconcern.
“The goof doesn’t even know he may be in danger,” Red muttered. “What are
we going to do? Those guys may prove nasty.”
Brad was worried. Plainly the men were moving closer, for the splashing
noises now could be heard distinctly. They knew one of the men had
stumbled over a rock, for they heard him grunt as he picked himself up
from the water.
The boys looked about for a hiding place.
Their only chance of avoiding detection was to step far back against the
cave wall, away from the glare of the firelight.
“Quick!” Brad warned.
To try to take Old Miquel with them was out of the question. Retreating,
the three Cubs sought the innermost recess of the cave. Flattening
themselves against the moist wall, they breathlessly waited.