A ROYAL GIFT
Wolfgang took the bit of stone in his own fingers and examined it
critically. Always deliberate in his words and actions, he was now
doubly so, and Mrs. Trent grew impatient of a situation which seemed
unimportant, and that delayed for others, as well as herself, a much
needed supper.
But Pedro was not impatient. He stood with folded arms and triumphant
bearing, ready for the miner's reply, whether it came soon or late;
also, quite ready to disregard it should it be different from that
expected.
"Well, Wolfgang?" asked the ranch mistress.
The miner heaved a prodigious sigh, and returned the ambiguous
answer:
"That is what I have thought already, is it not?"
"What have you thought, good Wolfgang?" demanded the lady, looking
toward the Indian's glowing eyes.
"Copper. Copper, without alloy."
"Ugh!" grunted Pedro, with satisfaction, and taking the metal again in
his hand bowed low and gravely presented it to his mistress.
She received it without enthusiasm, wondering what significance could
attach to a bit of stone that might have been picked up anywhere. Her
husband had believed that everything valuable would, sooner or later,
be unearthed from the mountains of the State he so loyally loved, but
her own interest in the subject was slight. However, she must say
something grateful or again offend the dignity of her venerable
servitor.
"Thank you, Pedro. It is very pretty. I will add it to the case of
minerals that your master arranged yonder."
The shepherd cast one contemptuous glance toward the shelves she
indicated, and straightened himself indignantly. He had loved and
revered her, ever since she came a bride to Sobrante, and had tended
him through a scourge of smallpox, unafraid and unscathed. Though she
was a woman, the sex of whose intelligence he had small opinion, he
had regarded her as an exception, and his disappointment was great.
"Is it but a 'thank you,' si? Does not the senorita know what this
gift means?"
"I confess that I do not, Pedro. Please explain."
"Were the old padres wise, mistress?"
"So I have always understood."
"Listen. From them it came; from the last who left the mission here
for another--to me, his son and friend. Into the heart of the world we
went, and he showed me. Down low, so low none dream of it, lies that
will make you rich. Will there be anybody anywhere so rich as the
senorita and her little ones? No. But no, not one. This I give you. It
is for the Navidad, the last old Pedro will ever see. And the senorita
answers, 'thank you'!"
He was deeply hurt, and his manner was now full of an eloquent scorn.
He was returning the stone to his breast, when she asked for it
again, saying, gently:
"You are so old and wise, good Pedro, you must bear with my ignorance
and teach me. This is copper, you say. It is very pretty, but how can
it make me rich? I do not understand."
Wolfgang answered for the other, and his phlegmatic face had lost its
ordinary expression for one of keen delight.
"It is true, what the old man tells you, mistress. He means--he must
mean--somewhere on your property lies a vein of this metal. The dead
master thought the coal was fine already. Ay, so, so. But copper!
Mistress Trent, when this vein is mined, what Pedro says--yes, yes. In
all this big country is not one so rich as he who owns a copper mine.
Ach, himmel! It is a queen he has made you, and you say, 'Thank
you!'"
He had fully caught the shepherd's enthusiasm and feeling, and for the
first time in his life looked upon the lady of Sobrante as a
dull-witted person.
But she was no longer dull. Even if it seemed an impossibility that
even this "vein" could be mined, since she had no money to waste in an
experiment so costly, still she realized, at last, what Pedro's will
had been. Catching his hand between her own soft palms, she pressed it
gratefully, and beamed upon him till he smiled again.
"Whatever comes of it. Pedro, you have given us a royal aguinaldo[B],
and I do appreciate it. Come now, and share our rejoicing over that
greater good that you have brought to Sobrante--the salvation of its
little captain. For that--for that--I have not even the 'thank you';
my feeling is too deep."
Though he showed it little, the old man was almost as moved as she,
and he followed her as proudly as if he were the "king" his fellow
ranchmen called him. Yet even pride did not prevent his being cautious
still, and he carried the basket and staff away with him, though
Wolfgang protested, and asked, angrily now:
"The money? Is it not my Elsa's, yes? Would you break her heart
already, and the little one so needing it?"
Mrs. Trent laughed. She, too, wondered that the Indian had not at once
surrendered the other's property, but understood that he could not be
hurried. So she merely suggested that Wolfgang bring his family around
to the living room immediately after sunset, when, doubtless, he would
receive his own again.
At that time, also, she meant to have John Benton present, to hear
what Pedro had to say about this copper find, and to comfort him in
his disappointment, for between these two there had always been close
friendship.
However, to her surprise, John attempted no comfort. He was instantly
and heartily on the shepherd's side, and demanded, excitedly:
"Begging pardon for plain words, as you are a woman with growing
children, can you sit there calm as molasses and say 'you wish you
could do something about it,' yet say no more. 'Wish!' Why, land of
Goshen! this ain't a wishin' sort of business, this ain't! It's
'Hurray for old Sobrante! Hurray, hurray, hurray!' Call 'em in,
captain, dearie! Call in the whole crowd! That was the luckiest
gettin' lost anybody ever had! Oh, won't somebody call 'em in?"
To the group about the table it seemed that the sensible carpenter had
suddenly gone mad. Nobody had ever heard him so address the mistress
whom he loved, and his excited prancing around the room, alternately
hugging and examining the mineral in his hand, added to the
impression. While the captain departed to summon the other "boys,"
Aunt Sally attempted to reduce her hilarious son to sanity by a sharp
box on the ear, and the sharper reprimand:
"You, John Benton! Do you mean to bring my gray hairs with sorrer to
the grave? What's the reason of these goings on, I'd like to know? I
never was so disgraced in all my life, never. Now, quit! Quit to once,
or----"
He paid no heed to her, but laid his hand on Pedro's shoulder and
shook it vigorously, demanding:
"What kind of a feller are you, anyway? Why in the name of sense
didn't you tell this thing while the boss was alive? Shucks! Half of
you is Indian, and that means dirt. Known it all this time, and kept
it hid! You'd ought to be drawn and quartered, that's what you had!"
Mrs. Benton advanced with threatening hand, and from force of habit he
retreated before her, and sank into the nearest chair; so that, when
his mates entered, they found him sitting with bent head and
down-hanging hands, as limp and inert as if his vitality had been
sapped by the news he had heard.
"What's up?" asked "Marty," making his respectful salutation to the
mistress, but looking past her toward the carpenter, who, with another
change of mood, sprang again to his feet and waved the fragment of
mineral overhead, exclaiming:
"This is 'up'! Copper's 'up'! Sobrante's 'up'! And lucky the men that
belong to it. Only--that old villain, yonder, has known it even since
forever, and was mean enough to keep his secret. That's what he is,
that Pedro, yonder!"
Yet, with another whimsical change, he seized the shepherd's hand and
wrung it till even that hardened member ached. But the Indian remained
as calm and undisturbed, amid the torrent of blame or praise, as if he
had been sitting alone at his weaving on the mesa. His soul was
satisfied at last. He had done that which he had pondered doing for
many years, without being able, heretofore, to bring his thought to
action. Surely he had known that, locked within his own breast, his
"secret" was worthless; yet he had clung to it tenaciously. Now he had
imparted it to others, and behold! all the world knew it, even so
soon. Well, that did not matter. It was no longer his. His part was
ended. Meanwhile, on his beloved upland, there was a faithful collie
watching for his return, and lambs bleating, needing his care.
Suddenly he rose, placed his cherished staff in Mrs. Trent's hands,
and bowing low, said:
"Keep this, as I have kept it, where none but you may find. At the
Navidad I come once more, the last. Adios."
His departure was so unexpected that, at first, they did not try to
prevent it, but Jessica was swift to follow and protest:
"Not to-night, dear Pedro! Please not to-night. You have been so good
to me, you must stay and be glad with us this one night. In the
morning----"
"In the morning the sheep will need new pasture. Adios, nina."
"Then, if go you must, it shall not be on foot. Wait! I know! Prince,
Mr. Hale's horse, that he left with you on the mesa. It is here. The
naughty children painted him, but I saw him in the corral, just now,
and you shall ride him home. That is if you will not stay, even for
me."
"The Navidad. Till then, adios."
She had never heard him talk so much nor so well as since these few
hours among his friends. He seemed to be almost another Pedro than the
silent shepherd of the mesa, and as she followed him, taking his
direct way to the paddock, she wondered at the uprightness of his
bearing and the unconscious dignity which clothed him like a garment.
Then she remembered something else--his blanket, and sprang to his
side again, entreating:
"Just one five minutes more, Pedro. Your blanket. You must have a new
one."
He hesitated and sighed. Then shook his head sadly. That which he had
torn, to bind the dwarf, had been a Navajo weave, so fine and
faultless that even he, the wonderful weaver, knew it for a marvel.
There could not be its mate in all that country, nor had been since
the old padres went and took with them, as he believed, all the wisdom
of the world.
Before he had caught and bridled the horse, Jessica was back, and
playfully enveloped in a wonderful piece of cloth that made the Indian
stare. If it were not the mate to his lost treasure, it was quite as
fine and soft, as generous in size, and far cleaner.
"See, dear old fellow. This was my father's. My mother sends it to you
with her love. Put it on, so I may see how fine you look. Oh, grand!
When the children play 'Indian' why can't they copy you, and not
those dirty Diggers, that Ferd teaches them to be like! Pedro, you are
splendid, and--I love you! I love you!"
All at once, as she gazed upon him, there returned to her a memory of
that dark time in the cavern's pit, where he had found her, and which,
in the general rejoicing over her safety she had, for the present,
almost forgotten. By now, save for this old man, she might have been
dead.
He received the onslaught of her embrace exactly as he had accepted
the gift of the blanket--in silence. There was a momentary lighting of
his somber eyes, but no word, as, putting her quietly down upon the
ground, he mounted the barebacked Prince and loped swiftly away into
the darkness and solitude.
Brighter by contrast was the room to which the little captain
returned, after Prince and his rider had vanished into the night, and
the circle of lamp-lighted faces gleamed with excitement. Everybody
seemed trying to outtalk his neighbor, and only one glowering
countenance showed dark by contrast; the face of Elsa Winkler, with
its eyes angrily fixed upon the basket which Mrs. Trent held on her
lap, quite forgetting what it contained in her listening to the
others' words.
Suddenly, Samson brought his fist down upon the table, enforcing a
brief silence, while demanding:
"What's amiss with using the capital on hand? There sits our
'admiral,' with money enough in that basket to start the whole
business. Set Wolfgang to manage, and the rest of us to dig and
delve. More'n one here has tried mining for a yellower metal than
this"--holding up the bit of copper--"'twould do us proud to give
the first pick to Sobrante's fortune! Lads, what say?"
"Ay, and right off! That's what we say!" cried somebody, but Mrs.
Trent lifted her hand, and they were silent.
She had become as interested now as any of the others; far more,
indeed, since if this amazing tale of Pedro's proved true she would be
able, at last, to fulfill her husband's interrupted life-work, and
make Sobrante a power for good in the world.
"What does Elsa say? Will she lend us this money?"
[B] Christmas box or gift.