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"Well, it's only what you might call a dummy, being just an invitation I received a little while back to invest in some worthless mines over in the Hualpai Mountains of Mohave County. I kept it, meaning to figure out how these sharpers work their game. Now, when I hand you this, look deeply interested, as though it might be connected with the finding of Uncle Felix." "Oh!
It took five minutes hard riding to reach him. "What did you see? What has happened?" he gasped. "Heap fire!" answered the Hualpai. "See?" But Gwynne's worn eyes could only make out the great mass of the mountain with its dark covering of stunted trees. He saw, however, that the scout was eagerly watching his comrades now so long a distance ahead.
Presently he turned and, using such signs as he thought might be comprehensible, asked the impassive runner if he knew where the first fight took place, and the Hualpai, as would almost any Indian partially gathering the drift of a question, began a rambling reply, pointing as he spoke, with shifting finger, all over the range to the south-east.
This despatch is two days old now. Have we nobody who can talk with this Indian?" "Nobody, I fear, sir," answered Strong, bending over the scout and examining the brass identification tag worn by each of those regularly employed and mustered. "He's a Hualpai. No. 21. Even Harris doesn't know that tongue, sir."
Val put his hands in his pockets and tipped back his chair. "I ain't sheriff of Hualpai County. My jurisdiction don't extend here," he said calmly. "I'm an unarmed man," pleaded Cavellado. "Come to think of it, so am I." "I reckon I'm holding all the aces, Signor Cavellado," explained the ranger affably. "Or do you prefer in private life to be addressed as Hardman or, say, Anderson?"
It was decided to push at once for Sunset Pass; to leave Captain Gwynne here with most of his nearly worn-out escort; to mount the six Hualpai trailers they had with them on the six freshest horses, so as to get them to the scene of the tragedy as soon as possible, and then to start them afoot to follow the Apaches.
Only once each year, until of late, had he been able to visit them, usually at Christmas-tide, but by every runner, courier, stage or post there came to them his cheery letters, bearing such old-time, outlandish post-marks or headings as "Lapwai," "Three Forks, Owyhee," and later "Hualpai," or "Hassayampa," until finally it became mild, civilized, pacific, even "Almy."
"Ask him, if you can, where the first fight came off, and who was sent with the despatch," demanded the general of the new-comer, upon whom the Hualpai looked in recognition, but with neither light nor welcome in his piercing eyes. Question and answer in halting, uncanny speech progressed fitfully a moment.
Jay Hardman, or Signor Raffaello Cavellado, as he was known the world over by countless thousands whom he had entertained, had purchased a corral and livery stable at the corner of Main and Boothill Streets and solicited the patronage of the citizens of Hualpai County. That was the purport of the announcement which Bucky ringed with a pencil and handed to his friend.
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