"That's funny," remarked Pike, "he's gone loony and talking of old chief Cajame of the Yaquis. He was hanged by the Mexican government for protesting against loot by the officials. A big man he was, nothing trifling about Cajame! That old Indian had eighty thousand in gold in a government bank. Naturally the Christian rulers couldn't stand for that sort of shiftlessness in a heathen! Years ago it was they burned him out, destroyed his house and family;--the whole thing was hellish."
The girl squatting in the sand, never took her eyes off Pike's face. It was not so much the words, but the tone and expression she gave note to, and then she arose and moved over beside her father.
"No," she said stolidly, "it is his families here, Yaqui me--no Pima! Hiding he was when young, hiding with Pima men all safe. The padre of me is son to Cajame,--only to you it is told, you Americano!"
Her eyes were pitiful in their strained eagerness, striving with all her shocked troubled soul to read the faces of the two men, and staking all her hopes of safety in her trust.
"You bet we're Americano, Tula, and so will you be when we get you over the border," stated Rhodes recklessly. "I don't know how we are going to do it, Cap, but I swear I'm not going to let a plucky little girl like that go adrift to be lifted by the next gang of raiders. We need a mascot anyway, and she is going to be it."
"You're a nice sort of seasoned veteran, Bub," admitted Pike dryly, "but in adopting a family it might be as well to begin with a he mascot instead of what you've picked. A young filly like that might turn hoodoo."
"I reckon I'd have halted for a sober second thought if it hadn't been for that other girl under the stones down there," agreed Rhodes. "But shucks!--with all the refugees we're feeding across the line where's the obstacle to this one?"
The old prospector was busy with the wounded head for the Indian and had no reply ready, but shook his head ominously. Rhodes scowled and began uncoiling a _reata_ in case it would be needed to tie Miguel in the saddle.
"We've got to get some hustle to this outfit," he observed glancing at the sun. "It's too far to take them back to Whitely's, and water has to be had. We are really nearer to Soledad!"