Part 23 (2/2)
Impelled by curiosity he thrust the torch between the logs and removed the earth, and found a huge bin of hewn logs carefully fitted and smoothed on the inside. The cover was not fastened, but only held in place by the weight of stones and earth piled above it. This bin was half filled with finely broken ore, and as he lifted it in his hands yellow dust sifted through his fingers.
Quivering with a strange excitement he delved deeper, lifting the precious particles by handfuls, feeling of it, sifting it between his fingers, and holding the torch close to the ma.s.s to catch the dull glow of it. For a long time he knelt there, wondering at it, dreaming over it, and feeling of it. Then he covered it all as he had found it, and taking the wood for which he had come, he replenished the fire and laid himself down to sleep.
What was gold to him? What were all the riches of the earth and of the caves of the earth? Only one thought absorbed him,--the woman whom he had left waiting for him on the burning plain, and a haunting memory that would never leave him--never be stilled.
CHAPTER XV
THE BIG MAN'S RETURN
The night was bitter cold after a day of fierce heat. Three people climbed the long winding trail from the plains beneath, slowly, carefully, and silently. A huge mountaineer walked ahead, leading a lean brown horse. Seated on the horse was a woman with long, pale face, and deeply sunken dark eyes that looked out from under arched, dark brows with a steady gaze that never wandered from some point just ahead of her, not as if they perceived anything beyond, but more as if they looked backward upon some terror.
Behind them on a sorrel horse--a horse slenderer and evidently of better stock than the brown--rode another woman, also with dark eyes, now heavy lidded from weariness, and pale skin, but younger and stronger and more alert to the way they were taking. Her face was built on different lines: a smooth, delicately modeled oval, wide at the temples and level of brow, with heavy dark hair growing low over the sides of the forehead, leaving the center high, and the arch of the head perfect. Trailing along in the rear a small mule followed, bearing a pack.
Sometimes the big man walking in front looked back and spoke a word of encouragement, to which the younger of the two women replied in low tones, as if the words were spoken under her breath.
”We'll stop and rest awhile now,” he said at last, and led the horse to one side, where a level s.p.a.ce made it possible for them to dismount and stretch themselves on the ground to give their weary limbs the needed relaxation.
The younger woman slipped to the ground and led her horse forward to where the elder sat rigidly stiff, declining to move.
”It is better we rest, mother. The kind man asks us.”
”Non, Amalia, non. We go on. It is best that we not wait.”
Then the daughter spoke rapidly in their own tongue, and the mother bowed her head and allowed herself to be lifted from the saddle. Her daughter then unrolled her blanket and, speaking still in her own tongue, with difficulty persuaded her mother to lie down on the mountain side, as they were directed, and the girl lay beside her, covering her tenderly and pillowing her mother's head on her arm. The big man led the animals farther on and sat down with his back against a great rock, and waited.
They lay thus until the mother slept the sleep of exhaustion; then Amalia rose cautiously, not to awaken her, and went over to him. Her teeth chattered with the cold, and she drew a little shawl closer across her chest.
”This is a very hard way--so warm in the day and so cold in the night.
It is not possible that I sleep. The cold drives me to move.”
”You ought to have put part of that blanket over yourself. It's going to be a long pull up the mountain, and you ought to sleep a little.
Walk about a bit to warm yourself and then try again to sleep.”
”Yes. I try.”
She turned docilely and walked back and forth, then very quietly crept under the blanket beside her mother. He watched them a while, and when he deemed she also must be sleeping, he removed his coat and gently laid it over the girl. By that time darkness had settled heavily over the mountain. The horses ceased browsing among the chaparral and lay down, and the big man stretched himself for warmth close beside his sorrel horse, on the stony ground. Thus in the stillness they all slept; at last, over the mountain top the moon rose.
Higher and higher it crept up in the sky, and the stars waned before its brilliant whiteness. The big man roused himself then, and looked at the blanket under which the two women slept, and with a muttered word of pity began gathering weeds and brush with which to build a fire. It should be a very small fire, hidden by chaparral from the plains below, and would be well stamped out and the charred place covered with stones and brush when they left it. Soon he had steeped a pot of coffee and fried some bacon, then he quickly put out his fire and woke the two women. The younger sprang up, and, finding his coat over her, took it to him and thanked him with rapid utterance.
”Oh, you are too kind. I am sorry you have deprive yourself of your coat to put it over me. That is why I have been so warm.”
The mother rose and shook out her skirt and glanced furtively about her. ”It is not the morning? It is the moon. That is well we go early.” She drank the coffee hurriedly and scarcely tasted the bacon and hard biscuit. ”It is no toilet we have here to make. So we go more quickly. So is good.”
”But you must eat the food, mother. You will be stronger for the long, hard ride. You have not here to hurry. No one follows us here.”
”Your father may be already by the camp, Amalia--to bring us help--yes. But of those men 'rouge'--if they follow and rob us--”
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