The Treasure Trail Part 17

He found instead an Indian he knew, one whose gray hair was matted with blood and who stood as if dazed by terror at sound of hoofs. It was Miguel, the Pima head man of Mesa Blanca.

"Why, Miguel, don't you know me?" asked Kit.

The eyes of the man had a strange look, and he did not answer. But he did move hesitatingly to the horse and stroked it.

"_Caballo_," he said. "_Muy bueno, caballo._"

"Yes," agreed Pardner's rider, "very good always."

"_Si_ senor, always."

Kit swung from the saddle, and patted the old man's shoulder. He was plainly dazed from either a hurt, or shock, and would without doubt die if left alone.

"Come, you ride, and we'll go to camp, then find water," suggested Kit. "Camp here no good. Come help me find water."

That appeal penetrated the man's mind more clearly. Miguel had been the well-trusted one of the Indian vaqueros, used to a certain dependence put upon him, and he straightened his shoulders for a task.

"_Si_ senor, a good padrone are you, and water it will be found for you." He was about to mount when he halted, bewildered, and looked about him as if in search.

"All--my people--" he said brokenly. "My children of me--my child!"

Kit knew that his most winning child lay newly covered under the sand and stones he had gathered by moonlight to protect the grave from coyotes.

But there was a rustle back of him and a black-eyed elf, little more than a child, was standing close, shaking the sand from her hair.

"I am hearing you speak. I know it is you, and I come," she said.

It was Tula, the younger daughter of Miguel,--one who had carried them water from the well on her steady head, and played with the babies on the earthen floors at the pueblo of Palomitas.

But the childish humors were gone, and her face wore the Indian mask of any age.

"Tell me," said Kit.

"It is at Palomitas. I was in the willows by the well when they came, Juan Gonsalvo and El Aleman, and strange soldiers. All the women scream and make battle, also the men, and that is when my father is hurt in the head, that is when they are taking my mother, and Anita, my sister. Some are hiding. And El Aleman and Juan Gonsalvo make the count, and sent the men for search. That is how it was."

"Why do you say El Aleman?" asked Rhodes.

"I seeing him other time with Don Jose, and hearing how he talk. Also Anita knowing him, and scream his name--'Don Adolf!'--when he catch her. Juan Gonsalvo has a scarf tied over the face--all but the eyes, but the Don Adolf has the face now covered with hairs and I seeing him. They take all the people. My father is hurt, but lives. He tries to follow and is much sick. My mother is there, and Anita, my sister, is there. He thinks it better to find them--it is his head is sick. He walks far beside me, and does not know me."

"You are hungry?"

She showed him a few grains of parched corn tied up in the corner of her _manta_. "Water I have, and roots of the sand."

"Water," repeated Miguel mechanically. "Yes, I am the one who knows where it comes. I am the one to show you."

The eyes of the girl met Kit's gaze of understanding.

"The hurt is of his head," she stated again. "In the night he made speech of strange old-time things, secret things, and of fear."

"So? Well, it was a bad night for old men and Indian girls in the desert. Let's be moving."

Tula picked up her hidden wicker water bottle and trudged on sandaled feet beside Kit. Miguel went into a heap in the saddle, dazed, muttering disjointed Indian words, only one was repeated often enough to make an impression,--it was Cajame.

"What is Cajame?" he asked the girl, and she gave him a look of tolerance.

"He was of chiefs the most great. He was killed for his people. He was the father of my father."

Kit tried to recall where he had heard the name, but failed. No one had chanced to mention that Miguel, the peaceful Piman, had any claims on famous antecedents. He had always seemed a grave, silent man, intent only on herding the stock and caring for the family, at the little cl.u.s.ter of adobes by the well of Palomitas. It was about two miles from the ranch house, but out of sight. An ancient river hill terminated in a tall white b.u.t.te at the junction of two arroyas, and the springs feeding them were the deciding influence regarding location of dwellings. Rhodes could quickly perceive how a raid could be made on Palomitas and, if no shots were fired, not be suspected at the ranch house of Mesa Blanca.

The vague sentences of Miguel were becoming more connected, and Kit, holding him in the saddle, was much puzzled by some of them.

"It is so, and we are yet dying," he muttered as he swayed in the saddle. "We, the Yaqui, are yet dumb as our fathers bade. But it is the end, senor, and the red gold of Alisal is our own, and----"

Then his voice dwindled away in mutterings and Rhodes saw that the Indian girl was very alert, but watching him rather than her father as she padded along beside him.

"Where is it--Alisal?" he asked carelessly, and her velvet-black eyes narrowed.

"I think not anyone is knowing. It is also evil to speak of that place," she said.

"What makes the evil?"

"Maybe so the padres. I no knowing, what you think?"

But they had reached the place of camp where Cap Pike had the packs on the animals, waiting and restless.

"Well, you're a great little collector, Bub," he observed. "You start out on the bare sand and gravel and raise a right pert family. Who's your friend?"

Despite his cynical comment, he was brisk enough with help when Miguel slid to the ground, ashen gray, and senseless.

"Now we are up against trouble, with an old cripple and a petticoat to tote, and water the other side of the range."

But he poured a little of the precious fluid down the throat of the Indian, who recovered, but stared about vacantly.

"Yes, senor," he said nodding his head when his eyes rested on Rhodes, "as you say--it is for the water--as you say--it is the end--for the Yaqui. Dead is Cajame--die all we by the Mexican! To you, senor, my child, and El Alisal of the gold of the rose. So it will be, senor. It is the end--the water is there, senor. It is to you."

"That's funny," remarked Pike, "he's gone loony and talking of old chief Cajame of the Yaquis. He was hanged by the Mexican government for protesting against loot by the officials. A big man he was, nothing trifling about Cajame! That old Indian had eighty thousand in gold in a government bank. Naturally the Christian rulers couldn't stand for that sort of s.h.i.+ftlessness in a heathen! Years ago it was they burned him out, destroyed his house and family;--the whole thing was h.e.l.lish."

The girl squatting in the sand, never took her eyes off Pike's face.

It was not so much the words, but the tone and expression she gave note to, and then she arose and moved over beside her father.

"No," she said stolidly, "it is his families here, Yaqui me--no Pima!

Hiding he was when young, hiding with Pima men all safe. The padre of me is son to Cajame,--only to you it is told, you Americano!"

Her eyes were pitiful in their strained eagerness, striving with all her shocked troubled soul to read the faces of the two men, and staking all her hopes of safety in her trust.

"You bet we're Americano, Tula, and so will you be when we get you over the border," stated Rhodes recklessly. "I don't know how we are going to do it, Cap, but I swear I'm not going to let a plucky little girl like that go adrift to be lifted by the next gang of raiders. We need a mascot anyway, and she is going to be it."

"You're a nice sort of seasoned veteran, Bub," admitted Pike dryly, "but in adopting a family it might be as well to begin with a he mascot instead of what you've picked. A young filly like that might turn hoodoo."