The Mine with the Iron Door

AS Marta ran to meet him, Hugh Edwards could not but see that she was elated and happy. Not since that morning before the storm had she been in such a joyous mood. The depression, that since her meeting with the Lizard had been so marked, was gone. She was again her own frank, radiant self. But Edwards did not respond to the girl’s happiness. When she would have spoken of the sheriff and the escaped convict he coldly prevented her. Concealing every hint of emotion under a mask of formal politeness, he repelled every advance and received her loving overtures of sympathy and loyal comradeship in silence.

In those months when his friendship for Marta had ripened into love it had not been easy for Hugh Edwards to deny himself the happiness which the girl in her love had so innocently offered. With all the strength of his will he had fought to do the thing that he knew to be right. A thousand times he had told himself that to speak the words that would make her share the black shame of the fate that hung over him would be the part of a selfish coward. He must protect her from himself. When he had won gold enough to insure his freedom from the life of a convict, then he would tell her everything. With gold enough he could escape to a foreign land and Marta, when she knew his story, would go with him. But until he could assure himself that complete and final safety from the prison that threatened was within his reach, both for his own sake and for hers, he would not speak of his love.

And now suddenly the girl had learned a part of the truth. And it had only made her love for him more evident. At the same time the incident that had revealed to her his real purpose in coming to the Cañada del Oro had shown him that his fancied security in the Cañon of Gold was fancy indeed. Any day, any hour, any moment, the officers might come for him. The Lizard, the Indian, a chance unguarded word of the Pardners, any one of a hundred things might happen to put the men of the law upon his track. He must not—he must not—say the word that would bring upon the girl he loved the shame and misery that so surely awaited him if the sheriff should find him. More than ever now he was determined to save Marta from himself. But it was not easy. It had been hard before Marta knew what Sheriff Burks’ visit had revealed to her—it was harder now. If only he could find the gold.

But nothing could dampen the girl’s spirit. She was as sure of Hugh Edwards’ love as if he had spoken. When she had believed that her own nameless and questionable birth was the reason for his refusal to declare his love, she had been miserable. But now that his own disgrace had been revealed she felt that the shame of her unknown parentage need be no longer a barrier between them. She did not know what it was that had made the man she loved a fugitive from the law. She did not care. She was glad—glad—because now her dream of happiness with him was possible. She saw now that the thing which had kept him from telling his love was not her lack of an honorable name but the dishonor of his own. He had been shielding her from himself. His silence had not been to save himself from the shame that she might bring to him, but rather to save her from the shame that was already his and which an avowal of his love would have led her to share.

And so she tried in every way to win through the guard he had set against her and to restore the dear comradeship which had been broken—first by the Lizard, and now through the visit of Sheriff Burks. With every wile of her womanhood—with every art of her sex—with all the frankness of her unspoiled nature—she offered herself. Secure in the confidence of his love, she tempted him to break the silence which he had with such fortitude imposed upon himself. And while her loving, generous heart was wrung with pity for his suffering, she gloried in the strength that enabled him to endure against her, and rejoiced in the knowledge that his self-imposed torture was for love of her.

When she tried to make him talk to her of his past, he was silent. When she told him of her own history, he answered, bitterly, that she was fortunate in having no parents to disgrace, no name to dishonor. When she asserted her belief in him no matter what he was in the eyes of the law, he smiled grimly and remarked that, while he appreciated and was grateful for her confidence, her opinion could in no way alter the hard facts of the case. And every day, from the first light of the morning until it was so dark that he could no longer see, he toiled with desperate strength for the gold that would enable him to escape and, by insuring his freedom, make it possible for him to ask Marta to share his future.

He no longer saw the beauty and the grandeur of the mountains. The flowers no longer bloomed for him. He did not hear the birds that filled the Cañon of Gold with music. He did not now glory in the vigorous freshness of the morning. He no longer knew the peace of the restful nights. His every thought was of gold, gold, gold, because gold to him meant Marta. As so many men in the Cañon of Gold had whispered in the night, after a day of heavy fruitless toil: “To-morrow, perhaps,” this man in the night whispered to himself: “To-morrow, perhaps.”

Then came that night when Hugh Edwards was startled out of his dream of the golden possibilities of to-morrow by a sound at his cabin door.

Springing to his feet he stood trembling with fear and dread—had the officers come?

Again came the sound of some one knocking lightly on the door.

With white lips he whispered to himself:

“It’s only Thad or Bob or Marta, it’s not late yet.”

But he knew that it was late. He had seen the light in Marta’s window go out two hours ago.

Again the knocking sounded.

In desperation he threw open the door.

It was Natachee.

CHAPTER XX

THE ONLY CHANCE

“I have something to tell you—something which I think will be of interest.”

Edwards nervously offered a chair.

When they were seated, the Indian said:

“Perhaps I should tell you that I went to Tucson in your interest.” He smiled as he added: “In your interest—and for my pleasure.”

“I can’t see how my interests have anything to do with your pleasure,” returned the white man, stung by the touch of mockery in the Indian’s tone.

“No? I suppose you can’t. But you will understand presently,” said the other, as if he enjoyed the situation and would prolong the pleasure it afforded him to witness the white man’s uneasy fears.

“Suppose you explain yourself and be done with it,” said Edwards shortly.

“You white men are all so impatient,” murmured Natachee with taunting deliberation. “Really, you should learn a lesson of patience from the Indians. An Indian has need to be patient. He must wait and watch, long and untiringly, for his few opportunities, and then when his opportunity at last comes he must not fail through ill-advised haste to make the most of it. The white man squanders his pleasures as he squanders his wealth. With reckless, headlong, swinish eagerness to drink his fill at one gulp; he spills his cup of happiness before he has really tasted it. The Indian takes his pleasures with careful deliberation, as he compels his enemies to bear the pain of the torture, and so he enjoys in its fullness, to the last drop, whatever drink his gods are pleased to set before him.”

“For God’s sake say what you have come to say and be done with it!” cried Edwards.

The Indian laughed.

“Many a white man, in the old days, has begged an Indian to end it all quickly and have done with it. But,” he added with triumphant insolence, “the rabbit that is caught by the fox does not dictate to his captor. I, Natachee the Indian, in my own way will tell you, Donald Payne, what I have come to say.”

As the Indian spoke that name, the man, known as Hugh Edwards, sprang to his feet with a cry.

Natachee watched the effect of his words with cruel satisfaction.

When the Indian’s victim had gained some control of his tortured nerves and had dropped weakly into his chair again, the red man said with savage irony:

“I regret, in a way, that Miss Hillgrove is not here to listen to my story.”

The white man, with his head bowed in his hands, winced.

“It would add much to my pleasure if I could watch her enjoying it with you.”

Hugh Edwards groaned as one in torment.

“But all that in good time,” continued the Indian. “I must explain now how it came about that the rabbit, Donald Payne, is under the paw of the Indian fox.

“When Sheriff Burks described the criminal who escaped from the California penitentiary I saw a possible opportunity that promised me, Natachee, no little pleasure and satisfaction—an opportunity for which I have been waiting. Miss Hillgrove’s agitation, her going to you, and your own action, confirmed my opinion as to where the convict who had so far escaped the officers was to be found. But I realized that it might be well to learn more. Thinking it unwise to appear too interested before the sheriff, I went to Tucson—first making sure that you would be here when I returned. In the white man’s city, clothed properly in the white man’s costume, with careful white man’s manners, I was permitted to search the files of the white man’s newspapers, and, thanks to my white education, to read the shameful account of this escaped convict’s crime.

“I learned how Donald Payne, a promising young business man and a graduate of the California University, had held an important position of trust in a certain investment company. This company had been specifically planned and organized to attract the savings of small investors. Its appeal was to the better class of workmen, who out of their meager earnings were ambitious to put by something for the better education of their children—widows, with a little life insurance money upon the income of which they must exist—school-teachers, who must save against that dread day when they could no longer work—stenographers, clerks, and that class of poor whose education and tastes were above their earnings, and in whose hearts hope was kept alive by the promise of safe and honest returns from their hard-saved pennies. Every dollar in that institution of trust represented honest human effort and worthy ambition and heroic selfsacrifice.

“Oh, it was a white man’s enterprise, born of a white man’s devilish cunning, and carried out with a white man’s remorseless cruelty to its damnable end. When the people’s confidence had been won, and they had been persuaded to place enough of their savings in the hands of these spoilers to make it worth while, the company failed. The investors lost everything. The promoters—the principals of the company—gained everything. But Donald Payne, the brilliant young financial genius whose manipulation brought about the wreck, went to San Quentin prison.

“He had served eighteen months of his sentence when he escaped. His mother, a widow, brokenhearted over the shame and dishonor, scorned and ostracized by her neighbors and friends, humiliated by the cruel publicity, died in less than a month after her son was pronounced guilty. Donald Payne is without doubt the most hated, the most despised name in this decade.”

The man who, during the Indian’s deliberate recital, had sat cowering in his chair, raised his haggard face. His eyes were dull with anguish, his lips were drawn and white; but in spite of his ghastly appearance there was a strange air of dignity in his manner as he said hoarsely:

“And is that all you know?”

The Indian waited a little as if to give the greatest possible significance to his answer, then:

“No, not quite all. I know that this escaped convict, Donald Payne, has learned to love a woman. And I know that this woman loves this man, who is hiding from the officers who would send him back to prison.”

“Yes,” said the white man, hoarsely, “that is true. If it is any satisfaction to you, I confess my love for Marta Hillgrove. I have every reason to believe in her love for me, and—I—dare not—for her sake—tell her of my love.”

He rose to his feet and stood before the Indian with a dignity and strength that won a gleam of admiration from the dark eyes of his tormentor, and in a voice ringing with passionate earnestness cried:

“But, listen, you damned red savage. You do not yet know all the truth. Donald Payne was never guilty of the crime for which he was sentenced. I was an innocent tool in the hands of the real criminal. It was a part of his plan from the first that some one should be offered, a sacrifice, to satisfy the public. He schemed far ahead to prove some one guilty and thus secure himself. I was chosen for that end. I was promoted to a position of trust with my sacrifice in view. It was all planned, arranged, and carried out. The man who robbed the people and for whose crime I was sent to prison is to-day living in Los Angeles in safety and luxury with the wealth he acquired through the company which he promoted and wrecked.

“The people who hate me, because they believe me guilty, do not know. The papers that branded me with shame and heralded my disgrace to every corner of the world do not know. The jury that convicted me did not know. The judge did not know. My mother did not know. The penitentiary does not know. The officers who would drag me back to it all do not know. But I know—I know—I know!”

He stood madly, superbly defiant, uplifted for the moment by the strength of his own asserted innocence. Then suddenly, as a beef animal falls under the blow of the butcher’s killing maul, he dropped into his chair, where he writhed in an agony greater than any physical suffering could have wrought.

The deep voice of the watching Indian broke the silence.

“Good! It is even better than I could have believed. In my wildest dreams I never hoped to see a white man suffer such unmerited torture. In time, perhaps, you will even come to a degree of sympathy for an Indian, and to understand, a little, his feeling toward the white race.”

When Hugh Edwards was able to speak again he said with dreary hopelessness:

“They will come for me in the morning, I suppose?”

“They? Who?”

“The officers—have you not told them?”

Natachee laughed.

“I tell the officers what I know about you? I give you up for them to take you back to the penitentiary? No—no—you do not seem to have grasped the purpose of my efforts in your behalf. I shall keep you for myself. I have too much pleasure in you to permit any one to take you away from me. You shall go with me, and together we, the two outcasts, we who are outcasts because of nothing that we have done, but only because some one wished by our misfortune and suffering to gain riches, we shall enjoy life together as we can.”

The note of exaltation that was in his voice, or some hint of a sinister purpose in his manner, aroused the white man.

“You mean that you are going to help me to escape?”

“From your white man’s laws, yes. From me, no—not yet—not until I am through with you.”

“Explain yourself,” demanded the other. “What is it that you propose? I don’t understand.”

“It is this,” returned the Indian. “You cannot stay here because any day—to-morrow even—the sheriff may come for you. You cannot go from this Cañon of Gold because you would surely be caught, unless you could leave this country, and that you cannot do because you have no money. You shall come with me. With me you will be safe from the law. No one will know where you are. No one shall ever find you. I, Natachee, know these mountains as no white man can ever know them. I will hide you.”

There was something in the Indian’s face that made Hugh Edwards gaze at him in wondering silence.

The Indian continued:

“I will show you where you can dig more gold than ever you would find here. Who knows, perhaps you may even find the Mine with the Iron Door. With gold enough you could make your way to safety. You could even take the woman you love with you. And so you shall work and dream and dream—and I, Natachee—I will help you to dream. If your dream never comes true, if your labor is all in vain, if you never find the Mine with the Iron Door, or if, while you are toiling for the gold you need, the woman you love should become the wife of your friend Saint Jimmy, why, that will not be my fault. I will help you to dream. It will be for you to find the gold that will make your dream come true—if you can.”

The Indian spoke those last three words with fiendish deliberation and sinister meaning that was unmistakable.

Hugh Edwards understood.

“You are a devil.”

“No, I am Natachee the Indian—you are a white man.”

“You would save me from prison so that you might feast your damned revengeful spirit on my suffering.”

“It is a help for you to understand exactly my purpose,” returned the Indian.

“What if I refused to go with you?”

“You will not refuse.”

“Why?”

“If you go with me you take your only possible chance for the future. You might, you know, find the gold. If you do not go, I shall send you back to prison.”

“I will go.”

“Good, but—you must understand. You will leave here with me to-night. There will be no message—no hint to tell any one why you have gone, or where, or that you will ever come again. As long as you are with me you will be as one dead to all who have ever known you.”

“But Marta—Miss Hillgrove—“ cried the other.

Drawing himself up with the air of a conqueror, the Indian answered coldly:

“I, Natachee, have spoken.”

When morning came, Marta saw no smoke rising from the chimney of Hugh Edwards’ cabin. At first she told herself, with a laugh, that Hugh was sleeping later than usual, and went happily about her own early morning work. But as the hours passed and there was no sign of life about the neighboring cabin, she became uneasy. By the time breakfast was over and the Pardners had gone to their work, the girl was fully convinced that all was not right and went to investigate.

Knocking at the cabin door, she called:

“Hugh—Oh, Hugh!”

There was no answer.

She went hurriedly to the top of the bank above the place where he worked.

He was not there.

Running back to the cabin she knocked again.

“Hugh—Oh, Hugh! What is the matter?”

There was no sound.

Pushing open the door she stood on the threshold. The room was empty.

The truth forced itself upon the girl with overwhelming weight. Hugh Edwards was gone. He had not merely left his cabin for an hour or a day. He had not stepped out somewhere to return again presently. He was gone. Sometime during the night he had packed his things and had disappeared with no parting word—no good-by—no promise—leaving no message. He had vanished.

The girl was stunned. She argued with herself dully that she must be mistaken—that it could not be so. Hugh, her Hugh, would never do such a cruel, cruel thing.

From the open doorway she looked out at the familiar scene, at the cañon walls, the mountain ridges and peaks, her home—nothing was changed. She turned again to the empty, silent room. Hugh was gone.

But there must be something—some word to tell her—to explain.

Carefully, with slow, leaden movements, she searched every corner of the bare room. She looked in the cupboard, under the bunk, in every crevice of the walls. She even searched with a stick among the dead ashes in the fireplace. There was nothing.

She did not cry out. The hurt was too deep. She sat on the threshold of the empty cabin and tried to make it all seem real.

It was two hours later when Saint Jimmy found her sitting there.

CHAPTER XXI

THE WAY OF A RED MAN

The white man was not a prisoner of force—rather was he a captive of circumstance. But captive and prisoner he was, none the less. He was held by the red man’s threat to reveal his real name and identity as the convict who had escaped from San Quentin, together with that hope so cunningly offered by the Indian—the hope of finding the gold that would bring him freedom and the woman he loved.

Every day the white man toiled with pick and shovel in a hidden gulch where the Indian had shown to him a little gold in the sand and gravel. Every night before the fire in the Indian’s hut he brooded over his memories, dreamed dreams of freedom and love, or sat despondent with the meager returns of his day’s labor. And always the Indian held out to him the possibilities of to-morrow. To-morrow he might, at one stroke of his pick, open a golden vein of such magnitude that the realization of all his dreams would be assured—to-morrow—to-morrow.

His small hoard of gold increased so slowly that, unless he should strike a rich pocket, it would be years before he could accumulate enough to win his freedom and his happiness. But gold was his only hope. And every day he found enough to justify the belief that all he needed was near to his hand if only he could find it. He was held by that chain of to-morrows.

In the meantime, what of Marta? Would her love endure? With no explanation of his sudden disappearance—with no word of love from him—no promise of his return—no message to bid her hope—would she wait for him? Was her faith in him strong enough to stand under such a cruel test?

Many times during the first weeks of his strange captivity he begged the Indian for permission to send some word to the woman he loved. But the red man invariably answered, “No,” with the cold warning that if he made any attempt to communicate with any one he should be returned to prison. When the white man realized that his importunities only served to give the Indian a cruel pleasure, he ceased to plead.

Then one evening just at dusk the red man said:

“Come, my friend, this will not do at all. You are not nearly so entertaining as you were. You need inspiration—come with me.”

He led the way to a point on the mountain ridge not far above the hut. The colors of the sunset were still bright in the western sky and behind them the higher peaks and crags were glowing in the light, but far below in the Cañon of Gold and over the desert beyond, the deepening dusk lay like a shadowy sea.

“Look!” said the Indian, pointing into the gloomy depths. “Do you see it—down there directly under that lone bright star? Almost as if it were a reflection of the star, only not so cold?”

“Do you mean that light?”

“Yes, you have good eyes for a white man,” answered the Indian. “I am glad. I feared you might not be able to see it.”

He paused and the other, watching the tiny red point in the darkness so far below, waited.

“That light is in the home of your friends, the Pardners and their daughter.”

The Indian’s victim muttered an exclamation.

“In fact,” continued Natachee slowly as if to make every word effective, “it shines through the window of Miss Hillgrove’s room.”

The white man stood with his eyes fixed on that distant light, as one under a spell, then suddenly he whirled about, cursing his tormentor for bringing him there.

The Indian smiled, as in the old days one of his savage ancestors might have smiled in triumph, at a cry of pain successfully wrung from a victim of the torture. Then he said with stern but melancholy dignity:

“I, Natachee, often come here to sit on this spot from which one may look so far over the homeland of my Indian fathers. But for Natachee there is no light in the window of love. Where you, a white man, see the light, the red man sees only darkness. For Natachee the Indian there is no soft fire of a woman’s love and home and happy children. Where the fires of the Indian’s home life and love once burned, there are now only cold ashes and blackened embers. I shall often see you up here watching your star that is so near. But for me, Natachee, there is no star. The dark clouds of the white man’s lust for gold have hidden all the stars in the red man’s sky.”

In spite of his own suffering, Hugh Edwards was moved to pity.

On another occasion the Indian told his victim of Marta’s visit to his hut that night of the storm. He called attention to the fact that the very chair in which Hugh was sitting was the chair in which she had sat before the fire. The couch upon which Hugh slept was the couch upon which she had slept. Hugh’s place at the table had been her place.

Invariably, when he saw that the white man was nearing the limit of his endurance, the Indian would hold before him the promise of the future—the love and happiness that would be his when he should find the gold—the gold that he would perhaps strike—to-morrow.

At times the Indian would be gone for two or three days. Always he left with no word or hint that he was going. The white man would awaken in the morning to find himself alone in the hut, or perhaps the Indian would disappear at a moment when Hugh’s back was turned, or again Edwards, upon returning from his work in the evening, would find that Natachee had left the place sometime during his absence. Invariably, when the red man reappeared, he came in the same unexpected and unannounced manner. The white man never knew when to look for him, nor where. Often the captive would look up from his work to find the Indian only a few feet away, watching him.

At times, when Natachee returned from an absence of a day or more, he would tell his victim of Marta—how he had seen and talked with her—how she looked—what she was doing—painting such true and vivid pictures of the girl that the captive’s heart would ache with longing. Then the Indian, watching with devilish cunning the effect of his words, would assure his victim that the girl loved him but that she believed he had left her because he did not care for her, and that the grief of her disappointment and loneliness was seriously affecting her health.

“What a pity,” the Indian would say mockingly, “that you cannot find the gold!” And then he would picture the happiness that would come to this man and woman—how they would go together to a place of peace and security—how, in the fullness of their love and in the joys of their companionship, the pain and suffering would all be forgotten. “If,” he always added, “you could only find the gold.”

Again the red man, with fiendish skill, would tell how he had seen Saint Jimmy and Marta together. He would talk of Saint Jimmy’s love for her—of his tender devotion and care, and of the girl’s affection for her teacher. He would relate how they spent hours together—how, in her grief, Marta had sought the comforting companionship of her gentle friend.

“I fear,” Natachee would say, “that if you do not find the gold soon it will be too late. What a tragedy it would be for you, for Doctor Burton, and for the girl, if, when you are able to go to her, you should find her the wife of your friend. But to-morrow, perhaps, you will find the gold.”

Every evening at sunset, when he thought that the Indian was away somewhere in the mountains, Hugh Edwards would climb to that place on the ridge from which he could see that tiny point of red light so far below in the dark depth of the Cañon of Gold. And not infrequently, when the light had at last gone out, he would return to the hut to learn that the red man had been watching him.

When, under the torment of the Indian’s cruel art, the victim would rebel, Natachee talked of the prison—of the future of shame and horror that awaited the returned convict if he should again fall into the clutches of the law. Reminded thus that his only chance was in finding gold the man would return to his labor with exhausting energy.

And Hugh Edwards, with his lack of experience in such things, never once dreamed that all the gold he dug in that hidden gulch was put there by the crafty Indian. Night after night when the white man was sleeping, Natachee stole from the hut to the place where his victim toiled, and there “salted” the sand and gravel with a small quantity of the precious metal.

In her home in the Cañon of Gold, Marta waited, as so many women have waited while their men toiled for the yellow treasure that meant happiness. She could not understand. But neither could she doubt Hugh Edwards’ love. She only knew that some day he would come again. With Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton to help her, she would be patient.

More than ever, in those days of her waiting, the Pardner’s girl depended for strength and courage and guidance upon her two friends in the little white house on the mountain side. More than ever, they were dear to her.

The Pardners too had faith that their neighbor would return.

“An’ when he comes,” said old Bob, “you can bet your pile he’s comin’ with bells on. We don’t know what it is that has took him away so suddenlike, but whatever it is, it ain’t nothin’ that we’ll be ashamed of when we know.”

And Thad, with characteristic fervor, added:

“Well, Holy Cats, there ain’t no law, leastwise in this here Cañada del Oro, that says a man has got to advertise every time he makes a move. You’re tootin’—the boy’ll come back, an’ he’ll come with head up an’ steppin’ high—that’s what I’m meanin’.”

It was on one of these occasions, when the Indian was taunting his victim with the assurance that more gold than he needed was within his reach if only he knew where to look, that the white man turned on his tormentor with a contemptuous laugh.

“Do you think that I am fool enough to believe that you actually know of any such rich deposit near here?”

The words seemed to have a marked effect upon the Indian. Hugh saw, with a thrill of satisfaction and not a little wonder, that he had by chance broken through the red man’s armor of stoical composure.

Natachee threw up his head and held himself stiffly erect with the pride of a savage conqueror, while his eyes were gleaming with intense mental excitement, and his voice rang with challenging force, as he said:

“You think that I, Natachee, am lying when I say that I know where there is gold beyond even a white man’s dream of wealth?”

“I know you are lying,” returned Hugh coldly. “Your talk of great wealth so near when I am finding so little is pure fiction. Because you know that I would almost give my soul to find a reasonably rich pocket, even, you have invented the story of this marvelously rich deposit, to torture me. If I believed it were true, I might, under the circumstances, feel worked up over it, but as it is you may as well save your breath. You are not worrying me in the least.”

“Good!” said Natachee, “the night is very dark. If the white man is not a coward he will come with me.”

“Go with you?” exclaimed the other. “Where?”

“You shall never know where,” replied the Indian. “But you shall see that I, Natachee, do not lie.”

From a peg in the wall he took a short rope and from the cupboard drawer a cloth and two candles. One of the candles he offered to Hugh with an insolent smile.

“If you are not afraid of the ghosts that, in the night and the darkness, haunt the Cañon of Gold.”

The amazed white man, snatching the candle, motioned impatiently for the Indian to proceed.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LOST MINE

“Certainly, I can see that,” returned the other wonderingly.

“Good!” returned the Indian. “Now we will go only a little way from this place.”

He extinguished the candlelight, and the inky darkness enveloped them like a blanket.

“But,” he added, “I must first make sure of your never again going as we shall go. I will blindfold you and you will follow me by holding fast to this rope. Are you willing?”

There was a taunting sneer in his tone that would have goaded the white man into any reckless adventure.

“As you like,” he said shortly.

When the cloth was bound securely about Hugh’s eyes, the Indian caught him by the arms and whirled him about until he was completely bewildered. Then he felt one end of the rope thrust into his hand.

“Come,” said the Indian, and gave a slight pull on the rope.

It was impossible for the white man to form any idea as to their course. At times they climbed upward, then again they descended as rapidly. At other times they made their way along some steep slope. Now and then the Indian bade him go on hands and knees, or warned him to move with care and to hold fast to the shrubs and bushes. At last Hugh Edwards knew that they were entering a cavern by an opening barely large enough for them to crawl through. He could not even guess the dimensions of this underground chamber, but he imagined that it was a passage or tunnel, for as they went on he touched a wall on his right and the Indian cautioned him to keep his head down.

For some distance they walked in this fashion, then Natachee stopped, and the white man heard him strike a match. A moment later his blindfold was removed.

“Your candle,” said Natachee sharply, and lighted it from the one he himself held.

The white man gazed curiously about him.

“Look!” cried the Indian. “Look and say if I, Natachee, lied when I told you of the gold that is so near the place where you work—if only you knew where to find it.”

Natachee the Indian had not lied. Thousands upon thousands of dollars in golden value lay within the circle of the candlelight.

Hugh Edwards stood amazed. He could not know the full extent of the vein, but a fortune of staggering proportions was within sight. The farther end of the chamber was an irregular mass of rocks and earth that had quite evidently fallen and slid from above; but the remaining walls and ceiling were as obviously cut by human hands.

The white man looked at his companion inquiringly.

“An old mine?”

The Indian, with an air of triumph, answered:

“The Mine with the Iron Door.”

As one half dreaming feels for something real and tangible, Hugh Edwards said hesitatingly:

“But why, knowing this, have you not made use of it—why do you leave such wealth buried here?”

“You forget that I am an Indian,” the red man answered. “If I, Natachee, were to tell the secret of the Mine with the Iron Door, would the white men permit me to retain this treasure or to use it for my people? When has your race ever permitted an Indian to have anything that a white man wanted for himself? Suppose it were possible for me to take this treasure without revealing the secret of the mine—of what use would its gold be to me? Could I, an Indian, use such wealth without bringing upon myself and my people, envy, hatred and persecution from those who say that this is a white man’s country?

“And suppose I could use this gold? What would an Indian do with gold? The things that the white man buys with gold mean nothing to an Indian. We do not want the white man’s things. We do not want your factories and railroads and ships and banks and churches. We do not want your music, your art, your libraries and schools. An Indian does not want any of the things that this yellow stuff means to the white man.

“Could I, with this gold, restore to my people the homeland of their fathers? Could I destroy your cities, your government, your laws and all the institutions of your civilization that you have built up in this, the land that you have taken by force and treachery from my people? Could I, Natachee, with this gold bring back the forests you have cut down, the streams you have dried up or poisoned, the lands you have made desolate? Could I bring back the antelope, the deer and all the life that the white man has destroyed?”

Stooping, he caught up a piece of the quartz that was heavy with the gold it carried. Holding it in the light of the candle, he said:

“Before the white man came, this, to the Indians, was only a pretty stone, of no more value than any other bright-colored pebble. If the red man used it at all it was as an ornament of trivial significance—of no real worth. But to the white man, this is everything. It is honor and renown—it is achievement and success—it is the beginning and the end of life—it is sacrifice and hardship—it is luxury and want—it is bloody war with its murdered millions—it is government—it is law—it is religion—it is love. And it was this—this bit of worthless yellow dirt—that brought the first white man to the Indians. For gold, the white adventurers braved the dangers of an unknown ocean and forced their way into an unknown land. For gold, they have robbed and killed the people whose homeland they invaded, until to-day we are as dead grass and withered leaves in the pathway of the fire of the white man’s greed. We are as a handful of desert dust in the whirlwind of your civilization.”

He threw the piece of quartz aside with a gesture of loathing, and stood for a moment with his head lowered in sorrow.

And once again Hugh Edwards, in spite of the cruel torture to which the Indian had subjected him, felt a thrill of pity for his tormentor.

But before the white man could find words to express his emotions, Natachee suddenly lifted his head, and with the cruel light of savage exultation blazing in his eyes, went a step toward his startled companion.

“Do you understand now why I have brought you here? Do you understand my purpose in permitting you to see, with your own eyes, the gold of the Mine with the Iron Door?

“Your only hope of freedom, from the hell to which you have been condemned through a white man’s trickery and by your white man’s laws, is in gold. Only through the possession of gold can you hope to win the woman you love and who loves you.

“You say you would give your soul for the gold which means so much to you. Good! I believe you. I am glad. Here is the gold—look at it—handle it—dream of all that it would bring you. Here is freedom from your hell—here is love—here is happiness—here is the woman you love. It is all here, within reach of your hand, and you shall never touch one grain of it. If you had a hundred souls to offer in exchange, you should not touch one grain of it. Because you are a white man, and because I am an Indian.

“I, Natachee, have spoken.”

The meaning of the Indian’s words burned in the white man’s brain. Slowly he looked about that treasure chamber as if summing up in his mind all that it might mean to him. His nerves and muscles were tense with agony. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead. His face was twisted in a grimace of pain. And in the agony of his torture a dreadful purpose came.

The watching Indian saw, and his sinewy hand loosed the knife in his belt, as his deep voice broke the silence of the old mine.

“No, you will not try that. You are unarmed. I would kill you before you could strike a blow. There is no hope for you there. Your one chance is to dig for the gold you need. You might strike it rich, you know. Who can say—to-morrow—another stroke of your pick. The hope that brought the first white man to the Cañada del Oro is your only hope. As so many of your race have labored in the Cañon of Gold you shall labor—you shall find your gold—if you can.”

The white man bowed his head.

Natachee went to him with the cloth to bind his eyes.

Quietly Hugh Edwards submitted to the bandage. The Indian extinguished the light of the candle and thrust the end of the rope into his victim’s unresisting hand.

“The white man is wise to take the one chance that is his,” said the Indian. “Come. To-morrow, perhaps, you will find gold.”

Through the remaining weeks of the winter Hugh Edwards toiled with all his strength for the grains of yellow metal that the Indian secretly permitted him to find. Day and night the knowledge of the Mine with the Iron Door tortured him. Many times he was tempted to abandon all hope, and, by surrendering himself to the officers of the law, escape at least the torment of his strange situation. But always he was held by the one chance—to-morrow he might find the gold that meant freedom and Marta and love.

And at last, one day in spring, when the mountain slopes again were bright with blossoms—when the gold of the buckbean shone in the glades, and whispering bells were nodding in the shadows of the cañon walls—when the glory of the ocotillo, the flaming sword, was on the foothills, and “our Lord’s candles” again fit the mesas with their torches of white, Hugh Edwards looked up from his work in the gulch to see a stranger.

CHAPTER XXIII

SONORA JACK