The Treasure Trail Part 20

"I not so much think, I am only remembering what the fathers say and the mothers. Their word is that he will be the man, if--if----"

"Well, if what?" he asked as she crossed herself, and dropped her head.

"I am not wanting to say that thing. It is a scare on the heart when it is said."

"I'd rather be prepared for the scare if it strikes me," he announced, and after a thoughtful silence while she padded along beside him, she lowered her voice as though to hide her words from the evil fates.

"Then will I tell it you:--a knife in the back is what they fear for him, or poison in his cup. He is hated by strong haters, also he makes them know fear. I hearing all that in the patio at Palomitas, and old Tio Polonio is often saying all saviors are crucified. How you think?"

Rhodes replied vaguely as to the wisdom of Tio Polonio, for the girl was giving him the point of view of the peon, longing for freedom, yet fatalistic as the desert born ever are. And she had known the rebel leader, Ramon Rotil, all the time!

He had no doubt but that she was right. Her statement explained the familiar appearance of the man he had not met before, though he had seen pictures in newspapers or magazines. Then he fell to wondering what Ramon Rotil was doing in a territory so far from the troops, and----

"Don Jose is one of the strong men who are hating him much," confided the child. "Also Don Jose comes not north alone ever anymore, always the soldiers are his guard. Tio Polonio tells things of these soldiers."

"What kind of things?"

"They are killing boys like rabbits in Canannea,--pacifico boys who could grow to Calendrista soldiers. Such is done by the guard of Don Jose and all the friends of the Deliverer are killed with a quickness.

That is how the men of Don Jose Perez please him most, and in the south there are great generals who work also with him, and his hand is made strong, also heavy, and that is what Tio Polonio is telling us often."

When they reached the mouth of the little canon of the Yaqui well where the trails divide, Pike shook hands and climbed into the saddle of Pardner.

"It's the first time I ever took the easy way out, and left the fight alone to a chum,--but I'll do it, Bub, because you could not make a quick get-away with me tagging along. Things look murkier in this territory every minute. You'll either have the time of your life, or a headstone early in the game. Billie and I will put it up though we won't know where you're planted. I don't like it, but the minutes and water for the trail are both precious. Come out quick as you can. So long!"

Pardner, refreshed by cooling drink and an hour's standing in wet mud of the well drainage, stepped off briskly toward the north, while Rhodes lifted Tula to the back of the pack mule, and Miguel unheeding all plans or changes, drooped with closed eyes on the back of the little burro. The manager of the reorganized gold-search syndicate strode along in the blinding glare of the high sun, herding them ahead of him, and as Pike turned for a last look backward at a bend of the trail, the words of the old darkey chant came to him on the desert air:

_Oh, there was a frog lived in the spring!_

CHAPTER X

A MEXICAN EAGLET

The silver wheel of the moon was rolling into the west when the Indian girl urged the mule forward, and caught the bridle of the burro.

"What is it, Tula?" asked Rhodes, "we are doing well on the trail to Mesa Blanca; why stop here?"

"Look," she said. "See you anything? Know you this place in the road?"

He looked over the sand dunes and scrubby desert growths stretching far and misty under the moon, and, then to the rugged gray range of the mountain spur rising to the south. They were skirting the very edge of it where it rose abruptly from the plain; a very great gray upthrust of granite wall beside them was like a gray blade slanted out of the plain. He had noticed it as one of the landmarks on the road to Mesa Blanca, and on its face were a few curious scratchings or peckings, one a rude sun symbol, and others of stars and waves of water. He recalled remarking to Pike that it must have been a prayer place for some of the old tribes.

"Yes, I know the place, when we reach this big rock it means that we are nearing the border of the ranch, this rock wall tells me that. We can be at Palomitas before noon."

"No," she said, and got down from the mule, "not to Palomitas now.

Here we carry the food, and here we hide the saddles, and the mule go free. The burro we take, nothing else."

"Where is a place to hide saddles here?" and he made gesture toward the great granite plane glistening in the moonlight.

"A place is found," she returned, "it is better we ride off the trail at this place."

She did so, circling back the way they had come until they were opposite a more broken part of the mountain side, then she began deftly to help unsaddle.

"Break no brush and make all tracks like an Apache on the trail," she said.

Miguel sat silent on the burro as if asleep. He had never once roused to give heed to the words or the trail through the long ride. At times where the way was rough he would mutter thanks at the help of Kit and sink again into stupor.

"I can't spare that mule," protested Kit, but she nodded her head as if that had been all thought out.

"He will maybe not go far, there is gra.s.s and a very little spring below. Come now, I show you that hidden trail."

She picked up one of the packs and led the burro.

"But we can't pack all this at once," decided Kit, who was beginning to feel like the working partner in a nightmare.

"Two times," said Tula, holding up her fingers, "I show you."

She led the way, nervous, silent and in haste, as though in fear of unseen enemies. Rhodes looked after her irritably. He was f.a.gged and worn out by one of the hardest trails he had ever covered, and was in no condition to solve the curious problems of the Indian mind, but the girl had proven a good soldier of the desert, and was, for the first time, betraying anxiety, so as the burro disappeared in the blue mist, and only the faint patter of his hoofs told the way he had gone, Kit picked up the saddle and followed.

The way was rough and there was no trail, simply stumbling between great jagged slabs hewn and tossed recklessly by some convulsion of nature. Occasionally dwarfed and stunted brush, odorous with the faint dew of night, reached out and touched his face as he followed up and up with ever the forbidding lances of granite sharp edged against the sky. From the plain below there was not even an indication that progress would be possible for any human being over the range of shattered rock, and he was surprised to turn a corner and find Tula helping Miguel from the saddle in a little nook where scant herbage grew.

"No, not in this place we camp," she said. "It is good only to hide saddles and rest for my father. Dawn is on the trail, and the other packs must come."

He would have remonstrated about a return trip, but she held up her hand.

"It must be, if you would live," she said. "The eyes of you have not yet seen what they are to see, it is not to be told. All hiding must be with care, or----"

She made swift pantomime of sighting along a gun barrel at him, and even in the shadows he could fancy the deadly half closing of her ungirlish eyes. Tula did not play gaily.

Tired as he was, Kit grinned.

"You win," he said. "Let's. .h.i.t what would be the breeze if this fried land could stir one up."

They plodded back without further converse, secured the packs, and this time it was Rhodes who led, as there appeared no possible way but the one they had covered. Only once did he make a wrong turn and a sharp "s-st" from the girl warned him of the mistake.

They found Miguel asleep, and Kit Rhodes would willingly have sunk down beside him and achingly striven for the same forgetfulness, but Tula relentlessly shook Miguel awake, got him on the burro, unerringly designated the food bag in the dark, and started again in the lead.

"I reckon you're some sort of Indian devil," decided Kit, shouldering the bag. "No mere mortal ever made this trail or kept it open."

Several times the towering walls suggested the bottom of a well, and as another and another loomed up ahead, he gloomily prophesied an ultimate wall, and the need of wings.

Then, just as the first faint light began in the eastern heavens, he was aware that the uneven trail was going down and down, zig-zagging into a ravine like a great gray bowl, and the bottom of it filled with shadows of night.

The girl was staggering now with exhaustion though she would not confess it. Once she fell, and he lifted her thinking she was hurt, but she clung to him, shaking from weakness, but whispering, "_p.r.o.nto, p.r.o.nto!_"

"Sure!" he agreed, "all the swiftness the outfit can muster."