“Sonora Jack and his Mexican have left the home of the Lizard, but the Lizard has gone with them. The three are camped in the foothills a few miles from the home of the Pardners and their girl. They are hiding there because they do not know how many there were in the party that rescued me. It was well that you made so much noise. But Sonora Jack will not hide long. When he is sure that he is not being followed by a posse, he will move. But he will not again attempt to find the Mine with the Iron Door. He fears to stay longer in the Cañon of Gold lest he be prevented from carrying out some other plan. I could not learn what that other plan is. I know only that it concerns Marta Hillgrove and the Pardners. Whatever Sonora Jack plans, it is not good. We must go at once that we may protect your woman.”
Hugh Edwards spoke as one who finds it hard to believe what he has heard:
“You say that _we_ must go--that we must protect Marta? Do you mean that you will help me to save her from whatever threatens through this Sonora Jack?”
Natachee bowed his head for a moment, then met the white man’s eyes proudly.
“Did I not say that the trail which I, Natachee, was following had suddenly changed as the course of a mountain stream is lost in the desert sands? When Sonora Jack and his companions caught me and tied me with their ropes to that rock, I was as helpless as a dove in the coils of a snake. Do you think that I, Natachee, would have weakened under their torture fire? Sonora Jack would have burned the heart out of the Indian’s breast but he never would have heard from the Indian’s lips the secret of the Mine with the Iron Door. It is not a new thing for an Indian to be tortured for gold. I, Natachee, would have died as so many of my fathers have died, without a word. But you, a white man, obedient to your strange white man’s nature, offered your own life to save the life of Natachee the Indian, who had for months been torturing you. The trail of hatred and revenge that lay so clear before the red man is lost in the strange desert of the white man’s ways. I, Natachee, cannot understand, but who am I to disobey? The life you saved belongs to you, Hugh Edwards. I, Natachee, am yours until I pay the debt. Can the heart of the white man understand?”