“In the succeeding years the story was handed down from father to son.  But of the many who hunted for the lost mine of the padres there was never a Mexican or an Apache.  For the Apache the mountain slopes were haunted by the spirit of an Indian maiden who had been false to her tribe and forever accursed.  For the Mexican the mountain slopes were haunted by the spirit of the false padre who rolled stones upon the heads of those adventurers who sought to find his grave and his accursed gold.”

XVIII Bonita

Florence’s story of the lost mine fired Madeline’s guests with the fever for gold-hunting.  But after they had tried it a few times and the glamour of the thing wore off they gave up and remained in camp.  Having exhausted all the resources of the mountain, such that had interest for them, they settled quietly down for a rest, which Madeline knew would soon end in a desire for civilized comforts.  They were almost tired of roughing it.  Helen’s discontent manifested itself in her remark, “I guess nothing is going to happen, after all.”

Madeline awaited their pleasure in regard to the breaking of camp; and meanwhile, as none of them cared for more exertion, she took her walks without them, sometimes accompanied by one of the cowboys, always by the stag-hounds.  These walks furnished her exceeding pleasure.  And, now that the cowboys would talk to her without reserve, she grew fonder of listening to their simple stories.  The more she knew of them the more she doubted the wisdom of shut-in lives.  Companionship with Nels and most of the cowboys was in its effect like that of the rugged pines and crags and the untainted wind.  Humor, their predominant trait when a person grew to know them, saved Madeline from finding their hardness trying.  They were dreamers, as all men who lived lonely lives in the wilds were dreamers.

The cowboys all had secrets.  Madeline learned some of them.  She marveled most at the strange way in which they hid emotions, except of violence of mirth and temper so easily aroused.  It was all the more remarkable in view of the fact that they felt intensely over little things to which men of the world were blind and dead.  Madeline had to believe that a hard and perilous life in a barren and wild country developed great principles in men.  Living close to earth, under the cold, bleak peaks, on the dust-veiled desert, men grew like the nature that developed them —­hard, fierce, terrible, perhaps, but big—­big with elemental force.

But one day, while out walking alone, before she realized it she had gone a long way down a dim trail winding among the rocks.  It was the middle of a summer afternoon, and all about her were shadows of the crags crossing the sunlit patches.  The quiet was undisturbed.  She went on and on, not blind to the fact that she was perhaps going too far from camp, but risking it because she was sure of her way back, and enjoying the wild, craggy recesses that were new to her.  Finally she came out upon a bank that broke abruptly into a beautiful little glade.  Here she sat down to rest before undertaking the return trip.