"I wonder where that dogged Indian went to?" he said for the hundredth time, as the deep shadows gathered in the valley. "By Joe, Phil, if Amigo comes back I'm going to go ahead on that mine! I want to keep him around here, and we might as well get out some ore, if it's only for a grub-stake. Come on--what do you say? We'll open her up--there's nothing to hide now. Well, I'll do it myself, then--this setting around is getting on my nerves." His far-seeing eyes, trained from his boyhood to search the hills for cattle, scanned the tops of the ridges as he spoke; and while he sat and pondered they noted every rock. Then at last he rose up slowly and gazed at a certain spot. He waved his arm, beckoning the distant point of blackness to come in, and soon from around a point in the cañon the Yaqui appeared, bearing a heavy Mauser rifle on his arm. Across his broad breast hung the same familiar cartridge-belt, two more encircled his hips, and he walked with his head held high, like the warrior that he was. Evidently his flight had led to the place where his arms had been hid, for he wore the regulation knife bayonet at his hip and around his hat was the red ribbon of his people, but Bud was too polite to ask him about his journey. Since his coming the Yaqui had always maintained a certain mystery, and now, though his eyes were big with portent and he smiled at the jests about his gun, he simply waved his hand to the south and east and murmured: "_Muchos revoltosos!_" "_Seguro!_" answered Bud jokingly. "But have you killed any?" "Not yet!" returned the Indian, and he did not smile at that. "I wonder what that Indian is waiting around here for?" remarked Phil in English. "He must have his eye on somebody." "Yeah, I bet," agreed Bud, regarding his savage friend with a speculative interest. "Most of them Yaqui soldiers was farm-hands in this country before they rounded them up. I reckon he's looking for the man that had him deported. "Tired, Amigo?" he inquired in Spanish, and Ignacio gravely acknowledged that he was, a little. "Then drink plenty coffee," went on Hooker. "Eat lots--to-morrow we go to work in the mine." "Tomorrow?" repeated the Indian, as if considering his other engagements. "Good!" He nodded a smiling assent. After a month and more of idleness Bud and Amigo performed prodigies of labor in the cut, rolling down boulders, lifting them up on the tram, and clearing away the face of the cliff. Their tram was ramshackle, their track the abandoned rails from older workings, and their tools little more than their hands, but by noon the last broken fragments were heaved aside and the shattered ledge revealed. A low cry of wonder escaped the Yaqui as he gazed at the rich vein of ore, and as he saw the grim smile on Bud's rugged countenance he showed his white teeth in sympathy. "_Que bueno!_" he murmured. "How good!" gathering the precious fragments in his handkerchief.