him, without glance or touch or word.  His thought was as inscrutable as if mind had never awakened in his race.  Yet Gale was conscious of greatness, and, somehow, he was reminded of the Indian’s story.  His home had been desolated, his people carried off to slavery, his wife and children separated from him to die.  What had life meant to the Yaqui?  What had been in his heart?  What was now in his mind?  Gale could not answer these questions.  But the difference between himself and Yaqui, which he had vaguely felt as that between savage and civilized men, faded out of his mind forever.  Yaqui might have considered he owed Gale a debt, and, with a Yaqui’s austere and noble fidelity to honor, he meant to pay it.  Nevertheless, this was not the thing Gale found in the Indian’s silent presence.  Accepting the desert with its subtle and inconceivable influence, Gale felt that the savage and the white man had been bound in a tie which was no less brotherly because it could not be comprehended.

Toward dawn Gale managed to get some sleep.  Then the morning broke with the sun hidden back of the uplift of the plateau.  The horses trooped up the arroyo and snorted for water.  After a hurried breakfast the packs were hidden in holes in the lava.  The saddles were left where they were, and the horses allowed to graze and wander at will.  Canteens were filled, a small bag of food was packed, and blankets made into a bundle.  Then Yaqui faced the steep ascent of the lava slope.

The trail he followed led up on the right side of the fissure, opposite to the one he had come down.  It was a steep climb, and encumbered as the men were they made but slow progress.  Mercedes had to be lifted up smooth steps and across crevices.  They passed places where the rims of the fissure were but a few yards apart.  At length the rims widened out and the red, smoky crater yawned beneath.  Yaqui left the trail and began clambering down over the rough and twisted convolutions of lava which formed the rim.  Sometimes he hung sheer over the precipice.  It was with extreme difficulty that the party followed him.  Mercedes had to be held on narrow, foot-wide ledges.  The choya was there to hinder passage.  Finally the Indian halted upon a narrow bench of flat, smooth lava, and his followers worked with exceeding care and effort down to his position.

At the back of this bench, between bunches of choya, was a niche, a shallow cave with floor lined apparently with mold.  Ladd said the place was a refuge which had been inhabited by mountain sheep for many years.  Yaqui spread blankets inside, left the canteen and the sack of food, and with a gesture at once humble, yet that of a chief, he invited Mercedes to enter.  A few more gestures and fewer words disclosed his plan.  In this inaccessible nook Mercedes was to be hidden.  The men were to go around upon the opposite rim, and block the trail leading down to the waterhole.