as guide of the expedition; and going as guide I will be at the same time a hostage for my good faith.”
“Is that what I am to understand; you estimate the price of your secret and services a tenth part of the whole?”
“That and two hundred dollars paid down to enable me to equip myself for the expedition.”
“You are more reasonable than I expected, Cuchillo. Very well, then let it be so; the two hundred dollars you shall have, and I promise you the tenth part.”
“Agreed.”
“Agreed, and you have my word upon it. Now, answer me some questions which I wish to put. Is this Golden Valley in that part of the country where I intended to have taken my expedition?”
“It is beyond the Presidio of Tubac; and since your men are to meet there you will not need to make any change in the dispositions you have already taken.”
“Good. And you have seen this Golden Valley you say with your own eyes?”
“I have seen it without the power of touching it. I have seen it grinding my teeth as I looked upon it, like the damned in hell who get a glimpse of Paradise.”
As Cuchillo spoke, his countenance betrayed beyond doubt the anguish he felt, at his cupidity having been balked.
Arechiza knew too well how to read the human physiognomy to doubt the truth of Cuchillo’s report. Two hundred dollars were to him a mere bagatelle; and taking an ebony case from his bed, small but heavy, he drew from it a rouleau of gold pieces and handed them to the gambusino, who immediately put them in his pocket.
There was a little more in the rouleau than had been bargained for. The Spaniard took no notice of this, but forming a cross with his thumb and index finger of his right hand à la mode Espagnole, he held it before Cuchillo, directing him to make an oath upon it.
“I swear by the cross,” said the latter, “to speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. At the end of ten days’ journey beyond Tubac, going in a north-western direction, we shall arrive at the foot of a range of mountains. They are easy to recognise—for a thick vapour hangs over them both night and day. A little river traverses this range of hills. It is necessary to ascend it to a point where another stream runs into it. There in the angle where the two meet, is a steep hill, the summit of which is crowned by the tomb of an Indian chief. I was not near enough to distinguish the strange ornaments that surround this tomb; but at the foot of the hill there is a small lake by the side of a narrow valley in which the water from rain torrents has thrown to the surface immense treasures of gold, this is the Golden Valley.”
“The way will be easily found?” inquired Don Estevan.
“But difficult to travel,” replied Cuchillo. “The arid deserts will be no obstacle compared with the danger from the hostility of Indians. This tomb of one of their most celebrated chiefs they hold in superstitious veneration. It is the constant object of their pilgrimages, and it was during one of these visits that we were surprised. Arellanos and myself.”
“And this Arellanos—do you think, he has not revealed this secret to any one besides yourself?”
“You must know,” replied Cuchillo, “that it is a custom of the gambusinos, before starting upon any expedition, to swear before the Holy Evangelists not to reveal the bonanzas they may find without the consent of their associates. This oath Arellanos took, and his death of course prevented him from betraying it.”
“You have said that after his return from his first expedition, you met him in Tubac. Was there no woman whom he may perchance have had in his confidence?”
“His wife only—he may have told it to her. But yesterday a vaquero gave me the news that she has lately died. For all that, she may have revealed the secret to her son.”
“Arellanos had a son then?”
“An adopted son—a young man whose father or mother no one knows anything about.”
Don Estevan could not repress an involuntary movement.
“This young fellow is, no doubt, the son of some poor devil of this province?” said the Spaniard, in a careless way.
“No,” replied Cuchillo, “he was born in Europe, and very likely in Spain.”
Arechiza appeared to fall into a reverie, his head bending towards his breast. Some souvenirs were disturbing his spirit.
“This much at least is known,” continued Cuchillo. “The commander of an English brig-of-war brought him to Guaymas. He stated that the child, who spoke both French and Spanish, had been captured in an affair between the brig and a French privateer. A sailor who was either killed in the fight or taken prisoner, was beyond doubt his father. The captain of the English brig, not knowing what to do with him, gave him to Arellanos—who chanced to be in Guaymas at the time—and Arellanos brought him up and has made a man of him—my faith! that he has. Young as the fellow is, there is not such a rastreador nor horse-tamer in the province.”
The Spaniard, while apparently not listening to Cuchillo, did not lose a word of what he was saying; but whether he had heard enough, or that the subject was a painful one, he suddenly interrupted the gambusino:
“And don’t you think, if this wonderful tracker and horse-breaker has been told the secret of his adopted father he might not be a dangerous rival to us?”
Cuchillo drew himself up proudly, and replied:—
“I know a man who will yield in nothing—neither at following a trail, nor taming a wild horse—to Tiburcio Arellanos; and yet this secret has been almost worthless in his keeping, since he has just sold it for the tenth part of its value!”
This last argument of Cuchillo’s was sufficiently strong to convince Don Estevan that the Golden Valley was so guarded by these fierce Indians that nothing but a strong party could reach it—in short, that he himself was the only man who could set this force afoot. For a while he remained in his silent reverie. The revelations of Cuchillo in regard to the adopted son of Marcos Arellanos had opened his mind to a new set of ideas which absorbed all others. For certain motives, which we cannot here explain, he was seeking to divine whether this Tiburcio Arellanos was not the young Fabian de Mediana!
Cuchillo on his part was reflecting on certain antecedents relative to the gambusino Arellanos and his adopted son; but for powerful reasons he did not mention his reflections to Don Estevan. There are reasons, however, why the reader should now be informed of their nature.
The outlaw, as we have said, frequently changed his name. It was by one of these aliases used up so quickly, that he had been passing, when at the Presidio Tubac he made the acquaintance of the unfortunate Arellanos. When the latter was about starting out on his second and fatal journey—before parting with his wife and the young man whom he loved as well as if he had been his own son—he confided to his wife the object of his new expedition; and also the full particulars of the route he intended to take. Cuchillo was nevertheless ignorant of this revelation. But the knowledge which the outlaw carefully concealed, was that he himself after having reached the Golden Valley guided by Arellanos, murdered his companion, in hope of having all the treasure to himself. It was true enough that the Indians appeared afterwards, and it was with difficulty that the assassin could save his own scalp. We shall now leave him to tell his own story as to how
