pioneers were no less brave and courageous than were the women of American pioneers.
Don Manuel found the chief and was welcomed by him like a brother. Not alone the family of the chief, but everyone else in the tribe had only gratitude and admiration for the great doctor, who was treated as a guest of honor.
“While on my way up here,” don Manuel said to the chief, “I came to think that it is rather strange that you, Aguila Bravo, did not exploit the mine yourself. You could easily have earned a hundred thousand gold forms, with which you could have paid me in full for my work, and I would have been satisfied.”
The chief laughed. “I do not need gold nor do I want silver. I have plenty to eat always. I have a young and beautiful wife, whom I love dearly and who loves and honors me. I have also a strong and healthy boy, who now, thanks to your skill, can see and so is perfect in every way. I have my acres and fields, and I have my fine cattle. I am chief and judge, and I may say I am a true and honest friend of my tribe, which respects me and obeys my orders, which they know are for their own good. The soil bears rich fruit every year. The cattle bring forth year in, year out. I have a golden sun above me, at night a silver moon, and there is peace in the land. So what could gold mean to me? Gold and silver do not carry any blessing. Does it bring you any blessing? You whites, you kill and rob and cheat and betray for gold. You hate each other for gold, while you never can buy love with gold. Nothing but hatred and envy. You whites spoil the beauty of life for the possession of gold. Gold is pretty and it stays pretty, and therefore we use it to adorn our gods and our women. It is a feast for our eyes to look at rings and necklaces and bracelets made out of it. But we always were the masters of our gold, never its slaves. We look at it and enjoy it. Since we cannot eat it, gold is of no real value to us. Our people have fought wars, but never for the possession of gold. We fought for land, for rivers, for salt deposits, for lakes, and mostly to defend ourselves against savage tribes who tried to rob us of our land and its products. If I am hungry or my wife is hungry, what can gold do, if there is no corn or no water? I cannot swallow gold to satisfy my hunger, can I? Gold is beautiful, like a flower, or it is poetic, like the singing of a bird in the woods. But if I eat the flower, it is no longer beautiful, and if I put the singing bird into a frying-pan, I can no more enjoy his sweet song.”
“All this may be how you feel, but as far as I am concerned,” don Manuel said jocularly, “I won’t put my gold into my stomach, I can assure you that, Aguila Bravo. I know what I shall use the gold for, don’t you worry.”
“I suppose you know, and you must know best. I won’t advise you what to do. You see, my dear friend, I can serve for my acres, but I cannot and I would not serve for gold, because then I would have no corn to eat, and my wife and my son and my old father and all my servants, who all depend on me, would go hungry. This I could not bear. Anyway, my friend, I think you don’t know what I am talking about, and how I mean it; and I feel that I cannot quite understand what you mean. Your heart is different from mine, and your soul is not like mine. God has made us this way. Yet whatever may happen, I shall always be your friend.”
4
Six long days did the chief, accompanied by the doctor and by two of the chief’s men, crawl through the underbrush looking for the mine. They dug and scratched here and there. Don Manuel was inclined to misjudge the doings of the chief. He thought that the chief was only trying to get out of the agreement some way or other, and that no mine existed at all. Yet when he saw how carefully the chief searched, how logically he worked along a certain line, how he watched the shadows of the sun and compared them with peaks of hills and rocks, he became convinced that the chief knew precisely what he was doing and that he was sure to find what he was after.
“It is not quite so easy as you may think,” the chief said to don Manuel one evening when they were seated by the camp-fire for supper. “You must understand, my friend, there have been earthquakes, torrential rains, landslides, changes in the course of rivers; brooks have disappeared and others have come anew; small trees have grown to giants, and big trees have died. All such things have been marks to locate the mine, and these marks do not exist any longer, and so I have to look for other marks. It may still be a full week before we find the mine. Have patience, my friend. The mine cannot run away like a deer.”
The search lasted far longer than a week. Then there came an evening when the chief said: “Tomorrow, my dear friend, I shall give you the mine, for tomorrow my eyes will have reached it.”
Don Manuel wanted to know why they could not get to the place immediately to make sure. He was restless.
“We might go right now, my friend,” the chief answered, “but it would not help us much. You see, all these days the sun was not throwing his shadow where I had to have it. Tomorrow the sun will point exactly to the mark. I have known the location for several days now, and tomorrow I will find the mine.”
So it was. Next day the mine was located in a ravine. “You see,” the chief explained, “there a hill has broken off and buried all the ground near by. You can easily see that. That is the reason it was so difficult for me to find the exact place. Too many changes have occurred during the last two hundred years. There is the mine, and it is now rightfully yours. And here we part. Now I beg of you to leave my house and my land.”
“Why?” don Manuel asked.
“My house would no longer be good enough for you. You now own the rich mine, and no longer will happiness be yours.” The chief stretched out his hand to shake.
“Wait,” don Manuel said, “I should like to ask you something.”
“Yes, my friend.”
“Suppose I had asked one hundred thousand gold forms to cure your son; wouldn’t you have opened the mine to get it?”
“I certainly would. Because I wanted my son to see, and I would not have him blind if I could help it. But after I had taken the necessary gold out of the mine, I would have closed it again, for gold makes no one happy. Besides, it might have happened that the people that rule—the Spaniards, I mean—would have heard of it, and they would have murdered me and all my family to get the mine. Whichever way you look at it, there is no happiness in it. And all that counts in life is happiness, or what else do we live for? Take my advice, my dear friend, take care that you are not murdered just for this mine as soon as your own people have word that you own it. If your people know that you own nothing but your bread, tortillas, and beans, nobody will murder you. I have to go now. I shall always remain your friend as long as I live, but we must part now.”
5
Don Manuel began at once to build a camp. Aguila Bravo returned to his home, which was about one day’s distance from the mine.
Before don Manuel had left the city he had secured from the authorities all necessary papers giving him permission to prospect for metals and making him the sole owner of mines he should discover. Taxes he would have to pay on the shipments to the city.
He returned to the town where he had left his wife. Here he bought tools and such machinery as he needed, and also blastingpowder. He hired labor and bought pack-beasts. Taking his wife with him, he returned to the mine and started to open it.
The mine proved so rich in silver ore that its production beat that of all the other mines. The main product was silver. But it carried a good amount of gold as by-product.
Experiences of other mine-owners had taught him to say little about his find. Bandits were less to be feared than high officials and the high dignitaries of the church. These lofty persons understood well how to deprive plain citizens of their property when the property was worth the trouble. The owner would disappear suddenly and nobody would find a trace of him. No last will would be found and so the mine would be declared church property or property of the crown. Furthermore, in Latin-American countries the Inquisition lasted far longer than in Spain, and its unholy power was nowhere exercised more rigorously than in this unhappy land.
Against such power what could a plain citizen do? A bishop or a cardinal only needed to get word that a certain citizen was in possession of a very rich mine and it would not be long before witnesses would appear and swear that the mine-owner had doubted the purity or the virginity of the Lord’s Mother or that he doubted the miracles of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe or uttered blasphemous speeches or said that Luther had been just as right as the Pope. If he denied the charges, he was tortured until he not only admitted that the witnesses had told the truth, but added anything else that he was asked to admit. He was found guilty, and was happy if he was granted the great mercy of being strangled before he was burned, because they might have burned him alive by a
