Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/127

Rh For a moment the dark eyes of the savage glared into the blue eyes of the white man, hot hatred against cold resistance. Then the Apache indicated the cliffs of the cañon.

"You make picture along this cueva, all right. You write book along this cañon, all right," he said, condescendingly, in an attempt to cover his failure against the wills of the whites. "Suppose more Indian come you tell them Teozatl speak everything all right, tell them you give Teozatl tabaki, cartridge, meat, cloth like this," he touched tentatively the bandana neckkerchief that Stone wore. "You speak Teozatl say all right for this cañon. But you come no more close up Tonto Creek. Sabe?"

Stone took the dirty brown fingers from his neckerchief firmly but not roughly. One of the Indians, he saw, had coaxed or taken from Healy the latter's bandana and was wearing it with a strut. It was up to Stone. Harvey had indicated him as the writer, the head of the expedition, and the chieftain now ignored Harvey, craftily enough, figuring on Stone's inexperience of such occasions.

"You get nothing," said Stone. "Nothing! And we go where we like so long as it is off the reservation."

Again the black and blue eyes met, and once more the black eyes wavered. Then a sudden clamour broke out, with a warning expostulation from Larkin. Two braves who had been hovering in covetous fascination about the burros hurried up to their chief with urgent gutturals. Harvey translated.