Desert Gold

That beautiful happy day, like life or love itself, could not be wholly
perfect.

Yaqui came to Dick to say good-by. Dick was startled, grieved, and in
his impulsiveness forgot for a moment the nature of the Indian. Yaqui
was not to be changed.

Belding tried to overload him with gifts. The Indian packed a bag of
food, a blanket, a gun, a knife, a canteen, and no more. The whole
household went out with him to the corrals and fields from which
Belding bade him choose a horse--any horse, even the loved Blanco
Diablo. Gale's heart was in his throat for fear the Indian might
choose Blanco Sol, and Gale hated himself for a selfishness he could
not help. But without a word he would have parted with the treasured
Sol.

Yaqui whistled the horses up--for the last time. Did he care for them?
It would have been hard to say. He never looked at the fierce and
haughty Diablo, nor at Blanco Sol as he raised his noble head and rang
his piercing blast. The Indian did not choose one of Belding's whites.
He caught a lean and wiry broncho, strapped a blanket on him, and
fastened on the pack.

Then he turned to these friends, the same emotionless, inscrutable dark
and silent Indian that he had always been. This parting was nothing to
him. He had stayed to pay a debt, and now he was going home.

He shook hands with the men, swept a dark fleeting glance over Nell,
and rested his strange eyes upon Mercedes's beautiful and agitated
face. It must have been a moment of intense feeling for the Spanish
girl. She owed it to him that she had life and love and happiness. She
held out those speaking slender hands. But Yaqui did not touch them.
Turning away, he mounted the broncho and rode down the trail toward the
river.