The Desert Trail

He smiled meaningly at this, but Bud was swift to defend his Yaqui.

"No, señor," he replied, "I have no such criminal. I have a Mexican working for me who is one of the best miners in Sonora, and that is all I know about him."

"A Mexican?" repeated Del Rey, arching his eyebrows. "Excuse me, sir, but it is my business to know every man in this district, and he is no Mexican, but a Yaqui. Moreover, he is a fugitive and an outlaw, and if he had not been enlisted with the Federals I should have arrested him when he passed through Fortuna. So I warn you, sir, not to hide him, or you will be liable to the law."

"I'm not hiding him," protested Hooker scornfully. "I'm just hiring him as a miner, and any time you want him you can come and get him. He's up in the rocks there somewhere now."

"So!" exclaimed the captain, glancing uneasily at the hillside. "I did not think – but many thanks, señor, another time will do as well."

He reined his horse away as he spoke and, with a jerk of the head to Aragon, rode rapidly down the cañon. Aragon lingered to retrieve his fallen gun-belt and then, seeming to think better of his desire to speak, he made a single vindictive gesture and set spurs to his champing horse.

It was merely a fling of the hand, as spontaneous as a sigh or a frown, but in it Hooker read the last exasperation of the Spaniard and his declaration of war to the knife. He bared his strong teeth in reply and hissed out a blighting curse, and then Aragon was gone.

That evening, as the darkness came on and the cañon became hushed and still, Bud built a big fire and stood before it, his rugged form silhouetted against the flames. And soon, as quiet as a fox, the Yaqui appeared from the gloom.

"Did he come for me," he asked, advancing warily into the firelight, "that capitan?"

"Yes," answered Bud, "and for me, too. But you must have known him before, Amigo – he seems to be afraid of you."

A smile of satisfaction passed over the swarthy face of the Indian at this, and then the lines became grim again. His eyes glowed with the light of some great purpose, and for the first time since he had been with Bud he drew aside the veil from his past.

"Yes," he said, nodding significantly, "the rural is afraid. He knows I have come to kill him."

He squatted by the fire and poured out a cup of coffee, still brooding over his thoughts – then, with a swift gesture, he laid open his shirt and pointed to a scar along the ribs.

"He shot me there," he said.

"And so you have come to kill him?"

"Yes," answered Amigo; "but not now. Tomorrow I go to my people – I must take them my money first."

"Have you got a wife?" asked Hooker, forgetting for once his accustomed reserve.

"No," grumbled Amigo, shaking his head sadly, "no wife."

"Oh, you take your money to your father and mother."

"No. No father – no mother —nadie!"

He threw up his open hands to signify that all were gone, and Hooker said no more. For three months and more he had worked alongside this giant, silent Yaqui and only once had he sensed his past. That was when Amigo had torn his shirt in lifting, and across the rippling muscles of his back there had shown the long white wale of a whip.

It was the mark of his former slavery when, with the rest of his people, he had been deported to the henequen-fields of Yucatan and flogged by the overseer's lash – and Amigo was ashamed of it. But now that he was about to go, Bud made bold to ask him one more question, to set his mind at rest.

"Perhaps this captain killed your people?"

"No, señor," answered Amigo quietly; "they died."

He spoke the words simply, but there was something in his voice that brought up images of the past – of peaceful Yaquis, seized at every ranch in Sonora on a certain night; of long marches overland, prodded on by rurales and guards; of the crowded prison-ships from which the most anguished hurled themselves into the sea; and then the awful years of slavery in the poisoned tropics, until only the hardiest were left.

Amigo had seen it all, as the scars on his broad back proved – but he withdrew now into silence and left his thoughts unsaid. As he sat there by the fire, one long, black hand held out to keep the gleam from his eyes, he made a noble figure, but the Yaqui songs which he had crooned on other nights were forgotten, and he held himself tense and still. Then at last he rose and gazed at Bud.

"You pay me my money," he said. "I go now."

"Sure," answered Bud, and after he had weighed out the equivalent in gold on his scales he flipped in some more for luck and gave him a sack to hold it.

"What you buy with all that," he inquired with a friendly grin; "grub?"

"No, señor," answered Amigo, knotting the precious gold in a handkerchief; "cartridges!"

"What for?" queried Bud, and then it was Amigo who smiled.

"To kill Mexicans with!" he replied, and in those words Hooker read the secret of his thrift.

While his wild brethren fought in the hills or prepared for the battles to come, it was his part to earn the money that should keep them in ammunition. It was for that, in fact, that Porfirio Diaz had seized all the peaceful Yaquis in a night and shipped them to Yucatan – for he saw that while they were working the wild Yaquis would never lack.

All the time that Amigo had been doing two men's work and saving on the price of a shirt he had held that cheerful dream in his mind – to kill more Mexicans!

Yet, despite the savagery in him, Hooker had come to like the Yaqui, and he liked him still. With the rurales on his trail it was better that he should go, but Bud wanted him to return. So, knowing the simple honesty of Indians, he brought out his own spare pistol and placed it in Amigo's hands. Often he had seen him gazing at it longingly, for it was lighter than his heavy Mauser and better for the journey.

"Here," he said, "I will lend you my pistol – and you can give it to me when you come back."

"Sure!" answered the Indian, hanging it on his hip. "Adios!"

They shook hands then, and the Yaqui disappeared in the darkness. In the morning, when a squad of rurales closed in on the camp, they found nothing but his great tracks in the dust.

XIX

It was June and the wind-storms which had swept in from the southeast died away. No more, as in the months that had passed, did the dust-pillar rise from the dump of the Fortuna mill and go swirling up the cañon.

A great calm and heat settled over the harassed land, and above the far blue wall of the Sierras the first thunder-caps of the rainy season rose up till they obscured the sky. Then, with a rush of conflicting winds, a leaden silence, and a crash of flickering light, the storm burst in tropic fury and was gone as quickly as it had come.

So, while the rich landowners of the hot country sat idle and watched it grow, another storm gathered behind the distant Sierras; and, as empty rumors lulled them to a false security, suddenly from the north came the news of dashing raids, of railroads cut, troops routed, and the whole border occupied by swarming rebels.

In a day the southern country was isolated and cut off from escape and, while the hordes of Chihuahua insurrectos laid siege to Agua Negra, the belated Spanish haciendados came scuttling once more to Fortuna. There, at least, was an American town where the courage of the Anglo-Saxon would protect their women in extremity. And, if worst came to worst, it was better to pay ransom to red-flag generals than to fall victims to bandits and looters.

As the bass roar of the great whistle reverberated over the hills Bud Hooker left his lonely camp almost gladly, and with his hard-won gold-dust safe beneath his belt, went galloping into town.

Not for three weeks – not since he received the wire from Phil and located the Eagle Tail mine – had he dared to leave his claim. Rurales, outlaws, and Mexican patriots had dropped in from day to day and eaten up most of his food, but none of them had caught him napping, and he had no intention that they should.

A conspiracy had sprung up to get rid of him, to harry him out of the country, and behind it was Aragon. But now, with the big whistle blowing, Aragon would have other concerns.

He had his wife and daughter, the beautiful Gracia, to hurry to the town, and perhaps the thought of being caught and held for ransom would deter him from stealing mines. So reasoned Bud, and, dragging a reluctant pack-animal behind him, he came riding in for supplies.

At the store he bought flour and coffee and the other things which he needed most. As he was passing by the hotel Don Juan de Dios halted him for a moment, rushing out and thrusting a bundle of letters into his hands and hurrying back into the house, as if fearful of being detected in such an act of friendship.

Long before he had lost his pardner Bud had decided that Don Juan was a trimmer, a man who tried to be all things to all people – as a good hotel-keeper should – but now he altered his opinion a little, for the letters were from Phil. He read them over in the crowded plaza, into which the first refugees were just beginning to pour, and frowned as he skimmed through the last.

Of Gracia and vain protestations of devotion there was enough and to spare, but nothing about the mine. Only in the first one, written on the very day he had deserted, did he so much as attempt an excuse for so precipitately abandoning their claim and his Mexican citizenship. Phil wrote: