"You know only by a miracle could Rojas or anybody
have headed those white horses. Where's your old stubborn
confidence? Yaqui was up on Diablo. Dick was up on Sol. And
there were the other horses. They could not have been headed or
caught. Miracles don't happen."
"All right, mother, it's sure good to hear you," said Belding. She
always cheered him, and now he grasped at straws. "I'm not myself
these days, don't mistake that. Tell us what you think. You always
say you feel things when you really don't know them."
"I can say little more than what you said yourself the
night Mercedes was taken away. You told Laddy to trust Yaqui,
that he was a godsend. He might go south into some wild Sonora
valley. He might lead Rojas into a trap. He would find water and
grass where no Mexican or American could."
"But mother, they're gone seven weeks. Seven weeks! At the most
I gave them six weeks. Seven weeks in the desert!"
"How do the Yaquis live?" she asked.
Belding could not reply to that, but hope revived in him. He had
faith in his wife, though he could not in the least understand what
he imagined was something mystic in her.
"Years ago when I was searching for my father I learned many things
about this country," said Mrs. Belding. "You can never tell how
long a man may live in the desert. The fiercest, most terrible and
inaccessible places often have their hidden oasis. In his later
years my father became a prospector.
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