A smile of satisfaction passed over the swarthy face of the Indian at this, and then the lines became grim again. His eyes glowed with the light of some great purpose, and for the first time since he had been with Bud he drew aside the veil from his past. "Yes," he said, nodding significantly, "the _rural_ is afraid. He knows I have come to kill him." He squatted by the fire and poured out a cup of coffee, still brooding over his thoughts--then, with a swift gesture, he laid open his shirt and pointed to a scar along the ribs. "He shot me there," he said. "And so you have come to kill him?" "Yes," answered Amigo; "but not now. Tomorrow I go to my people--I must take them my money first." "Have you got a wife?" asked Hooker, forgetting for once his accustomed reserve. "No," grumbled Amigo, shaking his head sadly, "no wife." "Oh, you take your money to your father and mother." "No. No father--no mother--_nadie_!" He threw up his open hands to signify that all were gone, and Hooker said no more. For three months and more he had worked alongside this giant, silent Yaqui and only once had he sensed his past. That was when Amigo had torn his shirt in lifting, and across the rippling muscles of his back there had shown the long white wale of a whip. It was the mark of his former slavery when, with the rest of his people, he had been deported to the henequen-fields of Yucatan and flogged by the overseer's lash--and Amigo was ashamed of it. But now that he was about to go, Bud made bold to ask him one more question, to set his mind at rest. "Perhaps this captain killed your people?" "No, _señor_," answered Amigo quietly; "they died." He spoke the words simply, but there was something in his voice that brought up images of the past--of peaceful Yaquis, seized at every ranch in Sonora on a certain night; of long marches overland, prodded on by _rurales_ and guards; of the crowded prison-ships from which the most anguished hurled themselves into the sea; and then the awful years of slavery in the poisoned tropics, until only the hardiest were left. Amigo had seen it all, as the scars on his broad back proved--but he withdrew now into silence and left his thoughts unsaid. As he sat there by the fire, one long, black hand held out to keep the gleam from his eyes, he made a noble figure, but the Yaqui songs which he had crooned on other nights were forgotten, and he held himself tense and still. Then at last he rose and gazed at Bud. "You pay me my money," he said. "I go now." "Sure," answered Bud, and after he had weighed out the equivalent in gold on his scales he flipped in some more for luck and gave him a sack to hold it. "What you buy with all that," he inquired with a friendly grin; "grub?" "No, _señor_," answered Amigo, knotting the precious gold in a handkerchief; "cartridges!" "What for?" queried Bud, and then it was Amigo who smiled. "To kill Mexicans with!" he replied, and in those words Hooker read the secret of his thrift.