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.
"He's going home," said Belding.
"Home!" whispered Ladd; and Dick knew the ranger felt the resurging
tide of memory. Home--across the cactus and lava, through solemn
lonely days, the silent, lonely nights, into the vast and red-hazed
world of desolation.
"Thorne, Mercedes, Nell, let's climb the foothill yonder and watch
him out of sight," said Dick.
They climbed while the others returned to the house. When they reached
the summit of the hill Yaqui was riding up the far bank of the river.
"He will turn to look--to wave good-by?" asked Nell.
"Dear he is an Indian," replied Gale.
From that height they watched him ride through the mesquites, up
over the river bank to enter the cactus. His mount showed dark
against the green and white, and for a long time he was plainly
in sight. The sun hung red in a golden sky. The last the watchers
saw of Yaqui was when he rode across a ridge and stood silhouetted
against the gold of desert sky--a wild, lonely, beautiful picture.
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