The Talking Leaves | Page 5

"Not exactly. I only guessed it from things you've dropped."
"I'll tell you now, then. I did live in Mexico--down yonder in
Chihuahua."
"She-waw-waw?" said Steve, trying to follow the old man's rapid
pronunciation of the strange, musical name.
"Down there, more than a hundred miles south of the border. I thought
we were safe. The mine was a good one. The hacienda was the prettiest
place I could make of it. I thought I should never leave it. But the
Apaches came one day--"
He stopped a moment and seemed to be looking at the tops of the
western mountains.

"Did you have a fight with them?" asked Steve.
"Fight? No. I was on a hunt in the sierras that day. When I came home
it was all gone."
"The Apaches?"
"The mine was there, but the works were all burnt. So was the hacienda
and the huts of the peons and workmen. Everything that would burn."
"But the people!"
"Cattle, horses, all they could drive with them, they carried away. We
won't say anything about the people, Steve. My wife was among them.
She was a Spanish-Mexican lady. She owned the mine and the land.
We buried her before we set out after the Apaches. I've been following
them ever since."
"Were the rest all killed?"
"All. They did not even leave me my little girl. I hadn't anything left to
keep me there."
"So you joined the Lipans?"
"They're always at war with the Apaches. I'm pretty near to being an
Indian now."
"I won't be, then. I'll get away, somehow. I'm white, and I'm almost a
man."
"Steve, have you forgotten anything you knew the day they took you
prisoner?"
"No, I haven't. I was fifteen then, and if there's one thing I've been
afraid of it was that I would forget. I've repeated things over and over
and over, for fear they'd get away from me."
"That's all right. I've had an eye on you about that. But haven't you

learned something?"
"You've taught me all about rocks and stones and ores and mining--"
"Yes, and you can ride like a Lipan, and shoot and hunt, and there isn't
a young brave in the band that can throw you in a fair wrestle."
"That's all Indian--"
"Is it? Well, whether it is or not, you'll need it all before long. All you
know."
"To fight Apaches?"
"Better'n that, Steve. It's been of no use for you to try to get away
toward Texas. They watch you too closely, and besides, the Comanches
are most of the time between us and the settlements. They won't watch
you at all out here. That's why I insisted on bringing you along."
"Do you mean I'll have a chance to get away?"
"I don't mean you shall go back of the mountains again, Steve. You
must wait patiently, but the time'll come. I tell you what, my boy, when
you find yourself crossing the Arizona deserts and mountains all alone,
you'll be right glad you can ride, and shoot, and hunt, and find your
own way. It's all Indian knowledge, but it's wonderfully useful when
you have to take care of yourself in an Indian country."
The dark cloud was very heavy on Murray's face yet, but an eager light
was shining upon that of his young friend--the light of hope.
CHAPTER III
"Talking leaves?" said Ni-ha-be, as she turned over another page of the
pamphlet in her lap and stared at the illustrations. "Can you hear what
they say?"
"With my eyes."

"Then they are better than mine. I am an Apache! You was born
white!"
There was a little bit of a flash in the black eyes of the Indian maiden.
She had not the least idea but that it was the finest thing in all the world
to be the daughter of Many Bears, the great Apache warrior, and it did
not please her to find a mere white girl, only Indian by adoption, able to
see or hear more than she could.
Rita did not reply for a moment, and a strange sort of paleness crept
across her face, until Ni-ha-be exclaimed,
"It hurts you, Rita! It is bad medicine. Throw it away."
"No, it does not hurt--"
"It makes you sick?"
"No, not sick--it says too much. It will take many days to hear it all."
"Does it speak Apache?"
"No. Not a word."
"Nor the tongue of the Mexican pony men?"
"No. All it says is in the tongue of the blue-coated white men of the
North."
"Ugh!"
Even Ni-ha-be's pretty face could express the hatred felt by her people
for the only race of men they were at all afraid of.
There were many braves in her father's band who had learned to talk
Mexican-Spanish.