Townshend Richard Baxter - Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine стр 14.

The personage irreverently referred to by the Texan as "old man Baca" was the head of the family of that name, and a man of no small position and wealth. The old families of New Mexico own immense flocks of hardy little Mexican sheep, whose numbers often run into hundreds of thousands. Their flocks are divided into bands of a few thousand and let out on shares to retainers, who return a rent in kind of the wool and the increase. The relation between these retainers and the heads of the great families is semi-feudal.

"Yes," said Stephens, "taking sheep on shares is a good business. I've seen his son, young Andrés Sanchez, up there on that Sanchez grant with their sheep herd when I've been out on the mountains."

"Oh, you've been up on the mountains round here?" said Backus, who saw his chance to lead the conversation once more in the direction he wanted. "Mining, I suppose?" he added, as if it were an afterthought.

"Well, I've prospected some," returned the other. "But you've heard me say I didn't think much of the opening here."

"Ever take any of the Indians out prospecting with you?" inquired the Texan. "They've bin here so long they'd ought to know if there's anything lying around worth looking at. Did they never tell you anything about mines?" He let these last words fall after a pause with studied carelessness.

"No, sir," said the prospector, "I've learnt nothing from the Indians, and it's highly possible that they've nothing to tell."

"You never thought to ask 'em, I suppose?" suggested Backus.

"Why should I?" returned the other quietly. "May I ask, Mr. Backus, if you've any special reason for these questions?"

The Texan hesitated; he felt sure now that his old antagonist was not at Santiago by mere chance, but had an object in view which he did not care to disclose. He quickly decided to try and gain his confidence by a show of openness.

"Wal', yes, I have," he admitted; "I guess I've got some information that might be of value to anyone as knew how to use it."

"What could he mean?" Stephens thought. "Was this information the knowledge of the secret mine? If so, it might be worth while to make terms with him, as the Indians seemed to be so impracticable."

"If anyone will show me a mine," said the prospector, "I can tell him if it's worth working, and how to work it."

"Yes," returned Backus, "and if so what terms would you expect?"

"A half-interest," said Stephens. "If I thought it good enough I'd take a half-interest and bear my share of the expenses."

"That's a square offer," replied the Texan. "Now look at here. Now, s'posin' I was to tell you of a mine in this neighbourhood, you'd be willing to do that with me?"

"Are you referring to the lost mine of the Indians?" asked the prospector. It was not worth while to make any further mystery of the matter, for the Texan had obviously heard the story.

"That's just what I am," said Backus. "I thought as how you must have heard some talk about it. Now you allow as you don't know where it is."

"I do not," said the other.

"Wal', I do," said Backus. "And I'll tell it to you on your own terms, and that's a half-interest for each of us. It's on the Indian grant up in the mountains."

"Well, I knew that much," said Stephens.

"Ah," returned the Texan, "but I can tell you more'n that. The Indians haint got no right to keep it; that grant haint been confirmed to them by act of Congress."

"But, my dear sir," returned Stephens, with something that savoured of contempt, "you're revealing to me as your precious secret what's matter of common knowledge. If you ask anyone in the office at Santa Fé, they'll tell you that the grant to the Indians of four square leagues round the pueblo has been confirmed to them, and that they own it from grass-roots to Hades by a perfectly indefeasible title; but they'll tell you there, too, in the office, that the twenty miles square that they claim in the mountains has never been confirmed, and for that matter is overlapped by half a dozen unconfirmed Mexican grants as well. The real title to that land is in the United States Government. That's as old as a last year's bird's-nest."

"I see you're well posted in the business," said Backus; "but maybe you don't know that the secret mine's on the Cerro de las Viboras. I can tell you that."

"If you can show it to me up there on that Rattlesnake Mountain, Mr. Backus," was Stephens's reply, "I'm ready to acknowledge at once that you'll show me something I don't know. But as you know so much you are probably aware that the mine has been closed for a hundred years or more, and that rumour locates it in a dozen different places, and that to look for it on the Cerro without knowing where it is is to look for a needle in a haystack. I've been all around that Cerro, you can bet, but I haven't run across the mine. The Cerro's a mountain five miles round and five thousand feet high, and a precious rough mountain at that. I'm willing to go up there again; I'm ready to start to-morrow if you like; and if you'll show me the mine there I'm ready to do as I said with you about working it; but unless you can do that I don't consider that what has passed constitutes any claim between us on either side."

"Wal'," said the Texan, "I couldn't leave the store here just yet, not till I get things straightened out and settled down. Nor I won't swear for sartin as I can put you right on to the exact spot, seein' as how I've not been up thar myself yet; but mebbe I can before long, and I reckon that ought to be enough for ye. Say, look here, couldn't we work it between us, somehow, to get them Indians to show us the spot?"

This intrusive Texan had so far told Stephens nothing he did not know already, and now here he was wanting to poach on the prospector's private preserve his personal influence with the Indians.

"That's what I've been trying to do already, Mr. Backus," said Stephens irritably; "and, to be plain with you, I'm not looking out for a partner in this matter."

"Ah, but mebbe that's just what you want," returned the storekeeper imperturbably; "mebbe the reason as you haint won nary trick so far is that you've bin playing a lone hand. Now, I'll gamble from what you said just now that you've bin trying to get the secret out of the bucks over there, and that you haven't tried the women for it at all. Now, aint I right?" and he gave the other a cunning look.

"I've never seen any reason to think that the women know anything about it," returned Stephens. "It isn't likely they would." The idea had never even occurred to him.

"Ah, and I'll gamble they do," replied Backus. "I know a thing or two about Indians myself, and it's a great trick of theirs to let some of the squaws only some, mind you keep some of the secrets of the tribe. You see they don't go and get killed off like the bucks, so it acts as a kind of safeguard against losing the knowledge of a thing entirely that way. Aint there some extra high-toned women, now, in the Santiago tribe,  chief's darters and the like, eh?" His keen black eyes were turned on the other with a cunning inquisitiveness. "Yes, by the way, aint there a white squaw in the tribe somewheres?"

Stephens was startled. "You've taken a lot of trouble to find out things, I fancy, Mr. Backus," he said rather suspiciously; "a great deal more, indeed, than you seemed inclined to let on at first. But you're quite right. Yes, there is a white squaw in the tribe, and she's the daughter of the cacique."

Backus listened with extreme interest. "You reckon she's an Indian, then?" he said. "You don't think she's a white girl they've picked up and adopted, by any chance? I've seen a good few sorts of Indians, but never any white ones yet."

"Oh no, she's Indian, right enough," said Stephens; "she's a natural Indian blonde, as fair-complected as I am. They're none so rare among these Pueblo Indians. There's twenty or thirty of them over in Zuñi."