Doña Inez, who understood English, smiled a good-humored, but expressive smile; noticing which, Mrs. Jenny supplemented, without the least resentment: "And, besides, he wasn't at home to try. He started out this morning with Blake, and Goodwin, and old Pedrillo."
"To look for the Hidden Mine of the Padres? Oh, the foolish, foolish boy! Had I known how determined he was to go, I should not have left him last night. Will he never stop dreaming and chasing after shadows?"
Cousin Will was full twenty years his brother's senior; and it was, perhaps, the recollection of the almost fatherly love he had always shown for the younger brother that made Mrs. Jenny suddenly, when Doña Inez had left the room, fling her hat on the floor, herself on the lounge, and give way to the tears that had gathered in her heart all day. Cousin Will knew her too well to offer a single word of comfort or consolation; but when her convulsive sobs had ceased at last, he told her, in answer to her quick, impatient questions, all he knew of the letter, its contents and consequences.
In the old archives of Tucson, to which Ray, by virtue of his office, had access, he thought he had found sufficient proof of the existence of the old silver ledge, and sufficiently clear advices of its location, to warrant him in making a search for it. Fully aware of the many dangers to which any party he might organize for that purpose would be exposed, he had long hesitated--hesitated, too, partly on account of his wife's violent opposition, and partly because there were few, whom he would select, willing to go with him, where hundreds had already perished from the Indian's arrow and the want of food and water. Three days ago, the letter from Margaret had found its way to him. She was not long for this world, she said, and, poor and in distress--abandoned by her husband, who had been beggared by the war--she pleaded that Ray should care for the two children she must leave to the cold charity of strangers, if she died.
"What will you do about it?" his brother had asked. And then Ray had unfolded to him what the brother called one of his day-dreams. He would find the mine, load Jenny with the treasures its discovery would bring, and send her back to the States, to find Margaret, or the children (if she were dead), while he remained behind to develop and finally dispose of the mine, before joining his wife. He knew what Jenny had undergone in this country, for his sake; he knew how well she loved him, and he trusted that, with her noble instincts, she would aid him in carrying out his projects in regard to Margaret and her children--neither of whom he ever intended to see.