With the recollection of his vision still perplexing him, he said in a weak voice, “Who are you?”

Her blue eyes met his own with quick intelligence and no trace of her former timidity.  A soft, caressing light had taken its place.  Pointing with her finger to her breast in a childlike gesture, she said, “Me—­Olooya.”

“Olooya!” He remembered suddenly that Jim had always used that word in speaking of her, but until then he had always thought it was some Indian term for her distinct class.

“Olooya,” he repeated.  Then, with difficulty attempting to use her own tongue, he asked, “When did you come here?”

“Last night,” she answered in the same tongue.  “There was no witch-fire there,” she continued, pointing to the tower; “when it came not, Olooya came!  Olooya found white chief sick and alone.  White chief could not get up!  Olooya lit witch-fire for him.”

“You?” he repeated in astonishment.  “I lit it myself.”

She looked at him pityingly, as if still recognizing his delirium, and shook her head.  “White chief was sick—­how can know?  Olooya made witch-fire.”

He cast a hurried glance at his watch hanging on the wall beside him.  It had run down, although he had wound it the last thing before going to bed.  He had evidently been lying there helpless beyond the twenty-four hours!

He groaned and turned to rise, but she gently forced him down again, and gave him some herbal infusion, in which he recognized the taste of the Yerba Buena vine which grew by the river.  Then she made him comprehend in her own tongue that Jim had been decoyed, while drunk, aboard a certain schooner lying off the shore at a spot where she had seen some men digging in the sands.  She had not gone there, for she was afraid of the bad men, and a slight return of her former terror came into her changeful eyes.  She knew how to light the witch-light; she reminded him she had been in the tower before.

“You have saved my light, and perhaps my life,” he said weakly, taking her hand.

Possibly she did not understand him, for her only answer was a vague smile.  But the next instant she started up, listening intently, and then with a frightened cry drew away her hand and suddenly dashed out of the building.  In the midst of his amazement the door was darkened by a figure—­a stranger dressed like an ordinary miner.  Pausing a moment to look after the flying Olooya, the man turned and glanced around the room, and then with a coarse, familiar smile approached Pomfrey.

“Hope I ain’t disturbin’ ye, but I allowed I’d just be neighborly and drop in—­seein’ as this is gov’nment property, and me and my pardners, as American citizens and tax-payers, helps to support it.  We’re coastin’ from Trinidad down here and prospectin’ along the beach for gold in the sand.  Ye seem to hev a mighty soft berth of it here—­nothing to do—­and lots of purty half-breeds hangin’ round!”