"Well, Bub, if you saw no one's dust it must be that gang were not headed for Palomitas or Whitely's."
"They could strike Palomitas, and circle over to the east road without striking Whitely's home corrals," said Kit thoughtfully.
"Sure they could, but what's the object? If it's cattle or horses they're after the bigger ranch is the bigger haul?"
"Yes,--if it's stock they're after," agreed Kit somberly.
"I reckon it's the damned buzzards," acknowledged the younger man. "I don't know what struck me as I sat up there watching them. Maybe it's their blackness, maybe it's their provender, maybe it was just the loco of their endless drifting shadows, but for a minute up there I had an infernal sick feeling. It's a new one on me, and there was nothing I could blame it on but disgust of the buzzards."
"You're goin' too shy on the water, and never knew before that you had nerves," stated Pike sagely. "I've been there; fought with a pardner once,--Jimmy Dean, till he had to rope me. You take a pull at the water bottle, and take it now."
"It touches the right spot, but it was not a thirst fancy. It was another thought and--O Bells of Pluto! Pike, let's talk of something else! What was that you said about the Sinaloa priest story of the red gold? You said something about a new slant on the old dope."
"Uh-huh!" grunted Pike. "At least it was a new slant to me. I've heard over and over about uprising of Indians, and death of the two priests who found their mine, but this Sinaloa legend has it that the Indians did not kill the priests, but that their gods did!"
"Yeh, the special gods of that region rose up and smote them. That's why the Indians barred out other mission priests for so long a spell that no white man remembered just where the lost shrine of the red gold was. Of course it's all punk, Bub, just some story of the heathen sheep to hide the barbecuing of their shepherds."
"Maybe so, but I've as much curiosity as a pet coon. What special process did their gods use to put the friars out of commission?"
"Oh, lightning. The original priests' report had it that the red gold was at some holy place of the tribes, a shrine of some sort. Well, you know the usual mission rule--if they can't wean the Indian from his shrine, they promptly dig foundations and build a church there under heavenly instructions. That's the story of this shrine of El Alisal where the priests started to build a little branch chapel or _visita_, for pious political reasons--and built it at the gold shrine. It went down in the priests' letter or record as gold of rose, a deep red gold. Well, under protest, the Indians helped build a shack for a church altar under a great aliso tree there, but when lightning struck the priests, killed both and burned the shack, you can see what that manifestation would do to the Indian mind."