Dane Coolidge - The Desert Trail

At this the one good eye of Cruz Mendez lighted up with a great hope and, skipping lightly over the rock-piles with his sandaled feet, he ran to a certain spot, locating it by looking across the cañon and up and down the creek.

"Here, señores ," he pronounced, "is where the mouth of the old tunnel came out. Standing inside it I could see that tree over there, and looking down the river I could just see the smelter around the point. So, then, the gold must be in there." He pointed toward the hill.

"Surely," said De Lancey; "but where?"

The old Mexican shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.

"I do not know, señor ," he answered; "but if you wish to dig I will denounce the claim for you."

"For how much?" inquired De Lancey guardedly.

"For one hundred dollars," answered Mendez, and to his delight the American seemed to be considering it. He walked back and forth across the slide, picking up rocks and looking at them, dropping down into the futile trenches of Aragon, and frowning with studious thought. His pardner, however, sat listlessly on a boulder and tested the action of his six-shooter.

"Listen, my friend," said De Lancey, coming back and poising his finger impressively. "If I should find the ledge the one hundred dollars would be nothing to me, sabe ? And if I should spend all my money for nothing it would be but one hundred dollars more. But listen! I have known some false Mexicans who, when an American paid them to denounce a mine, took advantage of his kindness and refused to give it over. Or, if it turned out to be rich, they pulled a long face and claimed that they ought to be paid more. Now if – "

"Ah, no, no, señor !" clamored Mendez, holding up his hand in protest. "I am a poor man, but I am honest. Only give me the hundred dollars – "

"Not a dollar do you get!" cried De Lancey sternly; "not a dollar – until you turn over the concession to the mine. And if you play us false – " he paused impressively – " cuidado, hombre – look out!"

Once more Cruz Mendez protested his honesty and his fidelity to any trust, but De Lancey silenced him impatiently.

"Enough, hombre !" he said. "Words are nothing to us. Do you see my friend over there?" He pointed to Bud who, huge and dominating against the sky-line, sat toying with his pistol. " Buen'! He is a cowboy, sabe ? A Texan! You know the Tejanos , eh? They do not like Mexicans. But my friend there, he likes Mexicans – when they are honest. If not – no! Hey, Bud," he called in English, "what would you do to this fellow if he beat us out of the mine?"

Bud turned upon them with a slow, good-natured smile.

"Oh, nothing much," he answered, putting up his gun; and the deep rumble of his voice struck fear into the old man's heart.

Phil laughed and looked grimly at Mendez while he delivered his ultimatum.

"Very well, my friend," he said. "We will stay and look at this mine. If we think it is good we will take you to the mining agent and get a permit to dig. For sixty days we will dig, and if we find nothing we will pay you fifty dollars, anyway. If we find the ledge we will give you a hundred dollars. All right?"

" Sí, señor – sí, señor! " cried Mendez, "one hundred dollars!"

"When you give us the papers!" warned Phil. "But remember – be careful! The Americans do not like men who talk. And come to the hotel at Fortuna to-morrow – then we will let you know."

"And you will buy the mine?" begged Mendez, backing off with his hat in his hand.

"Perhaps," answered De Lancey. "We will tell you to-morrow."

" Buen'! " bowed Mendez. "And many thanks!"

"It is nothing," replied De Lancey politely, and then with a crooked smile he gazed after the old man as he went hurrying off down the cañon.

"Well," he observed, "I guess we've got Mr. Mendez started just about right – what? Now if we can keep him without the price of a drink until we get out papers we stand a chance to win."

"That's right," said Bud; "but I wish he had two good eyes. I knowed a one-eyed Mex up in Arizona and he was sure a thieving son of a goat!"

There are doubtless many philanthropists in the Back Bay regions of Boston who would consider the whipsawing of Cruz Mendez a very reprehensible act. And one hundred dollars Mex was certainly a very small reward for the service that he was to perform.

But Bud and Phil were not traveling for any particular uplift society, and one hundred pesos was a lot of money to Cruz Mendez. More than that, if they had offered him a thousand dollars for the same service he would have got avaricious and demanded ten thousand.

He came to the hotel very early the next morning and lingered around an hour or so, waiting for the American gentlemen to arise and tell him his fate. A hundred dollars would buy everything that he could think of, including a quantity of mescal . His throat dried at the thought of it.

Then the gentlemen appeared and asked him many questions – whether he was married according to law, whether his wife would sign the papers with him, and if he believed in a hereafter for those who played false with Americans. Having answered all these in the affirmative, he was taken to the agente mineral , and, after signing his name – his one feat in penmanship – to several imposing documents, he was given the precious permit.

Then there was another trip to the grounds with a surveyor, to make report that the claim was actually vacant, and Mendez went back to his normal duties as a packer.

In return for this service as a dummy locator, and to keep him under their eye, the Americans engaged El Tuerto, the one-eyed, to pack out a few tools and supplies for them; and then, to keep him busy, they employed him further to build a stone house.

All these activities were, of course, not lost on Don Cipriano Aragon y Tres Palacios, since, by a crafty arrangement of fences, he had made it impossible for anyone to reach the lower country without passing through the crooked street of Old Fortuna.

During the first and the second trip of the strange Americans he kept within his dignity, hoping perhaps that they would stop at his store, where they could be engaged in conversation; but upon their return from a third trip, after Cruz Mendez had gone through with their supplies, he cast his proud Spanish reserve to the winds and waylaid them on the street.

" Buenas tardes, señores ," he saluted, as they rode past his store, and then, seeing that they did not break their gait, he held up his hand for them to stop.

"Excuse me, gentlemen," he said, speaking genially but with an affected Spanish lisp. "I have seen you ride past several times – are you working for the big company up at New Fortuna?"

"No, señor ," answered De Lancey courteously, "we are working for ourselves."

"Good!" responded Aragon with fatherly approval. "It is better so. And are you looking at mines?"

"Yes," said De Lancey non-committally; "we are looking at mines."

"That is good, too," observed Aragon; "and I wish you well, but since you are strangers to this country and perhaps do not know the people as well as some, I desire to warn you against that one-eyed man, Cruz Mendez, with whom I have seen you riding. He is a worthless fellow – a very pelado Mexican, one who has nothing – and yet he is always seeking to impose upon strangers by selling them old mines which have no value.

"I have no desire to speak ill of my neighbors, but since he has moved into the brush house up the river I have lost several fine little pigs; and his eye, as I know, was torn from his head as he was chasing another man's cow. I have not suffered him on my ranch for years, he is such a thief, and yet he has the effrontery to represent himself to strangers as a poor but honest man. I hope that he has not imposed upon you in any way?"