Yaqui put a hand on Gale's knee. It was a bronzed, scarred,
powerful hand, always eloquent of meaning. The Indian was listening.
His bent head, his strange dilating eyes, his rigid form, and that
close-pressing hand, how these brought back to Gale the terrible
lonely night hours on the lava!
"What do you hear, Yaqui?" asked Gale. He laughed a little at the
mood that had come over him. But the sound of his voice did not
break the spell. He did not want to speak again. He yielded to
Yaqui's subtle nameless influence. He listened himself, heard
nothing but the scream of an eagle. Often he wondered if the
Indian could hear things that made no sound. Yaqui was beyond
understanding.
Whatever the Indian had listened to or for, presently he satisfied
himself, and, with a grunt that might mean anything, he rose and
turned away from the rim. Gale followed, rested now and eager to
go on. He saw that the great cliff they had climbed was only a
stairway up to the huge looming dark bulk of the plateau above.
Suddenly he again heard the dull roar of falling water. It seemed
to have cleared itself of muffled vibrations. Yaqui mounted a little
ridge and halted. The next instant Gale stood above a bottomless
cleft into which a white stream leaped. His astounded gaze swept
backward along this narrow swift stream to its end in a dark, round,
boiling pool. It was a huge spring, a bubbling well, the outcropping
of an underground river coming down from the vast plateau above.
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