Hugh Edwards put his hand on the Indian’s arm.
“We can get horses and men at Wheeler’s,” he said quickly. “It ought not to take an hour to raise a posse. We can telephone the sheriff from the ranch. Come on.”
He started toward the door but the calm voice of the Indian checked him.
“You forget. This is no time for you to meet the sheriff. No one but Doctor Burton and his mother must know of this, until you are safe out of the country.”
“I am a fool, Natachee, I forgot. Tell me what to do.”
For a moment the Indian again bent over the unconscious man on the bed, then he said:
“We cannot leave Thad like this. He must have a doctor. I am going to bring the Burtons. While I am away, you must not leave the old man’s side. He might regain consciousness for a moment and you must be ready to hear anything that he can tell you. And keep your eye on that Mexican snake out there in the other room. He is the kind that may try something desperate to keep Thad from ever speaking again, for the old prospector is the only one who can tell us exactly what happened here last night. Do you understand?”
“I do,” returned Hugh. “You can trust me.”
A moment later the Indian was running up the cañon trail toward the little white house on the mountain side.
Two hours later Natachee returned with Saint Jimmy and Mother Burton, who were riding and carrying on their horses a supply of food.
While Doctor Burton with his mother and Hugh were doing all that could be done for Thad and for the wounded Mexican, Natachee, with the swiftness and certainty of a well-bred hunting dog, examined every foot of the ground in the vicinity of the house, the barn and the corral.
When the Indian was satisfied that he could learn nothing more, he climbed swiftly up the steep side of the cañon to the spot where he and Hugh had left the four burros with their heavy loads of gold. Edwards was just coming from the house when Natachee, leading the burros, arrived at the gate. Together the two men took the animals with their precious burdens down into the creek bottom and across to the Pardners’ little mine, where they hurriedly buried the sacks of gold in the dump at the mouth of the tunnel.
And then--not far from the house, between two wide-spreading mesquite trees, where a pair of cardinals had their nest and mocking birds loved to swing and sing in the moonlight, where anemone and sweet peas and evening primroses never failed to bloom, the white man and the Indian dug a grave.