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"The two of us pulled out when the nights were moonlight. We travelled only at night, and laid up in the days. Vahna wouldn't let me light a fire, and I missed my coffee something fierce. We got up in the real high mountains of the main Andes, where the snow on one pass gave us some trouble; but the girl knew the trails, and, though we didn't waste any time, we were a full week getting there.
Well, I just sat there looking at the chip in the moonlight, and turning it over and over and figuring what it was and where it'd come from, when all of a sudden there was a snap inside my head as if something had broken, and then I could see Vahna spread-eagled on that big nugget and the old fellow with the beak waving the stone knife, and . . . and everything.
"And told her about me waiting for you back in Nebraska," Mrs. Jones observed in cold, passionless tones. "Now, Sarah, why should I hurt a poor Indian girl's feelings? Of course I didn't. "Well, she and Paloma talked Indian some more, and then Vahna says: 'If you stay, I'll show you the biggest nugget that is the father of all other nuggets. 'How big? I asked. 'As big as me? She laughed.
"When I come to, there was Vahna spread-eagled on top of the nugget, and the old fellow with a beak jabbering away solemnly as if going through some sort of religious exercises. In his hand he had a stone knife you know, a thin, sharp sliver of some obsidian- like stuff same as they make arrow-heads out of. I couldn't lift a hand, being held down, and being too weak besides.
That's the way I thought; and I started in to pump Vahna. But she wouldn't give down. 'You come along with me, she says. 'We can be back here in a couple of weeks with all the gold the both of us can carry. 'We'll take a burro, or a pack-train of burros, was my suggestion. But nothing doing. And Paloma agreed with her. It was too dangerous. The Indians would catch us.
Vahna gave a little cry that was half like a yelp and half like a gasp, and flumped down on her knees before me, pleading to me with deer's eyes and to him with the eyes of a deer about to be killed that don't want to be killed. Then, for a minute that seemed as long as a life-time, she and the old fellow glared at each other.
Vahna told me that the great winds that usually blew, kept the snow off of it. "We were winded, and I got mountain sickness so bad that I had to stretch out for a spell. Then, when the moon come up, I took a prowl around. It didn't take long, and I didn't catch a sight or a smell of anything that looked like gold. And when I asked Vahna, she only laughed and clapped her hands.
She explained that Vahna wanted me to take it to pay for her keep. And I had to take it to keep peace in the house. "Then, after a long time, came another visitor. We were sitting before the fire " "Him and the hussy," quoth Mrs. Jones. "And Paloma," he added quickly. "Him and his cook and his light housekeeper sitting by the fire," she amended.
"Oh, I admit Vahna did like me a whole heap," he asserted recklessly, then modified with a pang of caution: "A heap more than was good for her, seeing that I had no inclination her way. "Well, as I was saying, she had another visitor. He was a lean, tall, white-headed old Indian, with a beak on him like an eagle. He walked right in without knocking.
But Paloma kept whimpering and butting in, till something she said got across, because his face relaxed. He condescended to give me the once over and fired some question at Vahna. She hung her head, and looked foolish, and blushed, and then replied with a single word and a shake of the head. And with that he just naturally turned on his heel and beat it. I guess she'd said 'No.