Page:Allan Dunn--Dead Man's Gold.djvu/98

84 Harvey, holding the lead, halted suddenly. Stone, doggedly coming next, almost blundered into him. Harvey was anxiously scanning the broken skylines to north and east. Stone's cracked and swollen lips refused their office of questioning and Harvey contented himself with pointing to the summit of Promontory Peak. Healy and Larkin came up, glad of the stop, inquisitive.

From near the summit of the great pyramid of coloured rock little puffs of smoke were rising. Then they stopped and changed to a steady, threadlike column of white vapour. Harvey essayed a word:

"'Paches."

Eastward along the mesa terraces other smokes were answering the first. The jealous tribesmen had detected the entrance of strangers into what they considered their domain. Stone forced out some syllables though they brought little, salty streams of blood trickling from his lips.

"What 'll we do?" he asked, jerkily. "Go on?"

"Got to," said Harvey. "Get down to water. Smoke-talk won't hurt us."

An hour more of torture and they came abruptly to the end of the plateau. They gazed down upon a shallow stream, sparkling through banks of emerald that were set with cottonwoods, cherry, and pine. The magic of the water extended to each side of the steep-walled valley. Sage-brush and candlewood were plentiful, with groves of giant cactus and lesser spiny growths, brilliant with pink and orange, yellow, scarlet, and crimson blossoms. On narrow ledges