The Heritage of the Sioux by B. M. Bower (best books to read for teens .txt) 📗

and round it. He wore a green-and-white roughneck sweater broadly striped, and the blue overalls that inevitably follow American civilization into the wild places.

“'S hot day,” he announced unemotionally, and took the paper which the red-blanketed one held out to him. His air of condescension could not hide the fact that behind his pride at being able to read print he was unhappily aware also of his limitations in the accomplishment. Along the scare-head Luck had indicated, his dirty forefinger moved slowly while he spelled out the words. “A-a-bank rob!” he read triumphantly, and repeated the statement in Spanish. After that he mumbled a good deal of it, the longer words arresting his finger while he struggled with the syllables. But he got the sense of it nevertheless, as Luck and Miguel knew by the version he gave in Spanish to the old Indian, with now and then a Navajo word to help out.

When he came to the place where Ramon Chavez and Luis Rojas were named as the thieves, he gave a grunt and looked up at Luck and Miguel, read in, their faces that these were the men they sought, and grinned.

“Me, I know them feller,” he declared unexpectedly. “Dat day I seen them feller. They go—”

The old Indian touched him on the shoulder, and Juan turned and repeated the statement in Spanish. The old man's eyes went to luck understandingly, while he asked Juan a question in the Navajo tongue, and afterwards gave a command. He turned his eyes upon the Native Son and spoke in Spanish. “The men you want did not come this way,” he said gravely. “Juan will tell.”

“Yes, I know dat Ramon Chavez. I seen him dat day. I'm start for home, an' I seen Ramon Chavez an' dat Luis Rojas an' one white feller I'm don't know dat feller. They don't got red car. They got big, black car. They come outa corral—scare my horse. They go 'cross railroad. I go 'cross rio. One red car pass me. I go along, bimeby I pass red car in sand. Ramon Chavez, he don't go in dat car. I don't know them feller. Ramon Chavez he go 'cross railroad in big black car.”

“Then who was it we've been trailing out this way?” Luck asked the question in Spanish and glanced from one brown face to the other.

The older Indian shifted his moccasined feet in the sand and looked away. “Indians,” he said in Mexican. “You follow, Indians think you maybe take them away—put 'm in jail. All friends of them Indians pretty mad. They come fight you. I hear, I come to find out what's fighting about.”

Luck gazed at him stupidly for a moment until the full meaning of the statement seeped through the ache into his brain. He heaved a great sigh of relief, looked at the Native Son and laughed.

“The joke's on us, I guess,” he said. “Go, back and tell that to the boys. I'll be along in a minute.”

Juan, grinning broadly at what he considered a very good joke on the nine white men who had traveled all this way for nothing, went back to explain the mistake to his fellows on the ledge. The old Indian took it upon himself to disperse the Navajos in the grove, and just as suddenly as the trouble started it was stopped—and the Happy Family, if they had been at all inclined to belittle the danger of their position, were made to realize it when thirty or more Navajos came flocking in from all quarters. Many of them could—and did—talk English understandably, and most of them seemed inclined to appreciate the joke. All save those whom Lite had “nipped and nicked” in the course of their flight from the rock ridge to the Frying-Pan. These were inclined to be peevish over their hurts and to nurse them in sullen silence while Luck, having a rudimentary knowledge of medicine and surgery, gave them what firstaid treatment was possible.

Applehead, having plenty of reasons for avoiding publicity, had gone into retirement in the shade of a clump of brush, with Lite to keep him company while he smoked a meditative pipe or two and studied the puzzle of Ramon's probable whereabouts.

“Can't trust a Navvy,” he muttered in a discreet undertone to Lite. “I've fit 'em b'fore now, 'n' I KNOW. 'N' you kin be dang sure they ain't fergot the times I've fit 'em, neither! There's bucks millin' around here that's jes' achin' fer a chanst at me, t' pay up fer some I've killed off when I was shurf 'n' b'fore. So you keep 'n' eye peeled, Lite, whilst I think out this yere dang move uh Ramon's. 'N' if you see anybody sneakin' up on me, you GIT him. I cain't watch Navvyies 'n' mill things over in m' haid at the same time.”

Lite grinned and wriggled over so that his back was against a rock. He laid his six-shooter Ostentatiously across his lap and got out his tobacco and papers. “Go ahead and think, Applehead,” he consented placidly. “I'll guard your scalp-lock.”

Speaking literally, Applehead had no scalplock to guard. But he did have a shrewd understanding of the mole-like workings of the criminal mind; and with his own mind free to work on the problem, he presently declared that he would bet he could land Ramon Chavez in jail within a week, and sent Lite after Luck.

“I've got it figgered out,” he announced when Luck came over to his retreat. “If Ramon crossed the railroad he was aimin' t' hit out across the mesa to the mountains 'n' beyond. He wouldn't go south, 'cause he could be traced among the Injun pueblos—they's a thousand eyes down, that way b'fore he'd git t' wild country. He'd keep away from the valley country—er I would, if I was him. I know dang well whar I'D hit fer if I was makin' a gitaway 'n' didn't come off over here—'n' I shore would keep outa Navvy country, now I'm tellin' yuh! No, sir, I'd take out t'other way, through Hell Canon er Tijeras, 'n' I'd make fer the Jemes country. That thar's plenty wild 'n' rough—'n' come t' think of it, the Chavez boys owns quite a big grant, up in there som'ers, 'n' have got men in their pay up thar, runnin' their cattle. Ramon could lay low fer a dang long while up thar 'n' be safer'n what he would be out amongst strangers.

“'N' another thing, I'd plan t' have some hosses stached out in one uh them canons, 'n' I'd mebby use a autymobile t' git to 'em, 'n' send the car back t' town—I could trust the feller that drove it—outa my sight. 'N', Luck, if you'll take my advice, you'll hit out t'wards the Jemes country. I know every foot uh the way, 'n' we kin make it in a coupla days by pushin' the hosses. 'N' I'll bet every dang hoof I own 't we round up that bunch over thar som'ers.”

“You lead out, then,” Luck told him promptly. “I'm willing to admit you're better qualified to take charge of the outfit than I am. You know the country—and you've fit Indians.”

“We-ell, now, you're dang right I have! 'N' if some them bucks don't go off 'n' mind their own business, I'll likely fight a few morel You shoo 'em outa camp, Luck, 'n' start 'em about their own dang business. 'N' we'll eat a bite 'n' git on about our own. If we show up any grub whilst this bunch is hangin' around we'll have t' feed 'em—'n' you know dang well we ain't got enough skurcely fer the Jemes trip as it is.”