Part 26 (1/2)

. . . And I had no business to be frightened, since you were there and you had promised to save me. Oh, Simon, how grateful I am to you!”

”I have done what any one would have done in my place, Dolores. Don't thank me.”

He tried to free himself, but she held him and, after a moment's silence, said:

”She whom the chief calls the fair Indian had a name by which she was known in her own country. Shall I tell you what it was?”

”What was it, Dolores?”

In a low voice, without taking her eyes from his, she replied:

”The Chief's Reward!”

He had felt, in his inner consciousness, that this magnificent creature deserved some such name, that she was truly the prey which men seek to ravish, the captive to be saved at any cost, and that she did indeed offer, with her red lips and her brown shoulders, the most wonderful of rewards.

She had flung her arms about his neck; he was conscious of their caress; and for a moment they stood like that, motionless, uncertain of what was coming. But Isabel's image flashed across his mind and he remembered the oath which she had required of him:

”Not a moment's weakness, Simon. I should never forgive that.”

He pulled himself together and said:

”Get some rest, Dolores. We have still a long way to go.”

She also recovered herself and went down to the river, where she bathed her face in the cool water. Then, getting to work immediately, she collected all the provisions and ammunition that she could find on the wounded men.

”There!” she said, when everything was ready for their departure.

”Mazzani and Forsetta won't die, but we have nothing more to fear from them. We will leave them in the charge of the two tramps. The four of them will be able to defend themselves.”

They exchanged no more words. They went up the river for another hour and reached the wide bend of which the people from Cayeux had told them. At the very beginning of this bend, which brought the waters of the Somme direct from France, they picked up Rolleston's trail on a tract of muddy sand. The trail led straight on, leaving the course of the river and running north.

”The fountains of gold lie in this direction evidently,” Simon inferred. ”Rolleston must be at least a day's journey ahead of us.”

”Yes,” said Dolores, ”but his party is a large one, they have no horses left and their two prisoners are delaying their progress.”

They met several wanderers, all of whom had heard the strange rumour which had spread from one end of the prairie to the other and all of whom were hunting for the fountain of gold. No one could give the least information.

But a sort of old crone came hobbling along, leaning on a stick and carrying a carpet-bag with the head of a little dog sticking out of it.

The dog was barking like mad. The old crone was humming a tune, in a faint, high-pitched voice.

Dolores questioned her. She replied, in short, sing-song sentences, which seemed a continuation of her ditty, that she had been walking for three days, never stopping . . . that she had worn out her shoes . . . and that when she was tired . . . she got her dog to carry her:

”Yes, my dog carries me,” she repeated. ”Don't you, d.i.c.k?”

”She's mad,” Simon muttered.

The old woman nodded in a.s.sent and addressed them in a confidential tone:

”Yes, I'm mad. . . . I used not to be, but it's the gold . . . the rain of gold that has made me mad. . . . It shoots into the air like a fountain . . . and the gold coins and the bright pebbles . . . fall in a shower. . . . So you hold out your hat or your bag and the gold comes pouring into it. . . . My bag is full. . . . Would you like to see?”

She laughed quietly and, beckoning to Simon and Dolores, took her dog by the scruff of the neck, dropped him on the ground and half-opened her bag. Then, again in her sing-song voice: