Who Would Have Thought It?. María Ruiz de Burton
part of them."
"Of course you ought to sell the greater part of them. It will only make the child vain to have so much jewelry. She doesn't want them," said Mrs. Norval, warmly; for she had already begun to form a little plan to buy cheap some of these rough pebbles, with the gold she meant to take out of the boxes for her husband's services. For, Mrs. Norval argued to herself, if the doctor was foolish enough to take so much trouble and care for a strange child, for no pay, she did not mean he should. She meant that his services should be well paid. He had a family which he had left for four years; and whilst he was looking after the interests of this strange child, of course he ought to be paid, and must be paid.
"No," the doctor said, and Mrs. Norval started, as if he had read and was answering her thoughts,"no, I can't sell the gems, for I remember now that the poor lady repeated that all, all should be made into jewelry for Lola, as the gold would be enough to support her until her father was found, and who, being rich, will not want Lola's gold,-so she said several times."
"She did not know the gold was a million dollars?"
"No; she had collected it gradually, but she had no idea how much it was. She was only anxious that there should be enough for Lola's expenses and education, until her father was found," said the doc,tor. But he did not say that Lola's mother had told him to take half of the gold for his services.
"And didn't she give you anything for your trouble and your kindness to herself and her child?" inquired Mrs. Norval again.
"Indeed she did pay me royally, like a noble woman that she was. I have yet about ten thousand dollars' worth of the prettiest gold nuggets ever found, besides five thousand I left in Sinclair's bank, and all I spent in California, after paying all my debts."
"And you consider that a sufficient remuneration for all that we are to do, besides what you have already done for them?" asked Mrs. Norval, a slight sneer curling her lip.
"Of course I do. She must have given me something over thirty thousand dollars. Besides, in using Lola's money, of course we can derive a great many advantages, for I don't mean to stint the income, only I shall take mighty good care of the principal."
Mrs. Norval's eyes brightened. The doctor added,
"And, as a matter of course, all the surplus income shall be well invested. The expenses of the child can't be very great, no matter how extravagant we choose to be. Her income will be mostly turned into capital."
His wife gave him a withering look of wrath and contempt. How stupidly, how provokingly honest that man was! His wife almost hated him for it.
"But now it is getting late, Jemima. I must hurry with my narrative, for I am tired with traveling all day," said the doctor, unconscious of his wife's unuttered, unutterable wrath. "Where was I? I forget how much I have told you about that poor lady's story. Let me see. I think I shall have to fill up my pipe again to finish my tale, which, as I said, is not very long, for I trusted to Lebrun's manuscript to refresh my memory."
Mrs. Norval scarcely listened. She made no answer. Her whole soul was oscillating between the bundle of rough pebbles and the box containing the yellow nuggets. What should she do? Who could help her to execute a plan to stop her husband from taking the gold away, or in some way to get hold of it? Ah! a bright thought! The image of the Rev. Hackwell presented itself. Yes, he was "smart," and-and-honest. The thought of Mrs. Norval stammered at the word honest,
"Well, here is my pipe filled again; but I must hurry, for it is past twelve," said the doctor, sitting by his wife to resume his narrative.
CHAPTER VII.
LOLA'S MOTHER.
"Let me see," said the doctor, looking at the clouds of smoke which, for the first time in the twenty-one years of Mrs. Norval's married life, floated in her bed-chamber, such is gold's power. "We were on our way down the Colorado River, intending to follow its course to its junction with the Gila, or perhaps to the Gulf of California, and we had encamped to take a two days' rest, when we were surrounded by a large party of Indians. We took our arms, and got together to make fight, if necessary, but it was not. The rascally Indians had had enough of shooting just then. They were returning from a fight with an emigrant train and some government troops. The chief and two of his sons were badly wounded, and perhaps would have died if my medicine-chest and my surgical instruments hadn't been so good. The village of the Indians-called rancheria—was only about a mile from our camp, and the chief told me he wished to send for his wife and daughter, and remain in my camp with his two sons, that I might attend to their wounds. I gave the three wounded Indians my tent, and went to share Sinclair's with him. That same evening, after I had dressed the wounds of the chief and his two sons, and was yet busy attending to other warriors answer, who had been winged, Lola and her mother came, accompanied by an Indian woman. The chief told me in broken Spanish, which he and I spoke about alike, that 'Euitelhap'-pointing to Lola's mother was his wife, and had come to take care of him; and said to her, Ña Hala, this is the good man doctor who is going to cure me and my sons, and has already relieved us.' The ña Hala looked at me with a pair of large, mournful eyes, but made no
She evidently did not feel very enthusiastic on the subject of the chief's recovery. The chief, however, seemed to feel the greatest respect for the ña Hala (which, in the language of these Indians, means my lady), and all the Indians the same, obeying her slightest wish. A day or two after, when the wounded Indians were taking their mid-day siesta, the ña Hala, feeling better acquainted, asked me if she could trust me with a secret, and begged me to do her a favor, for the love of God, and for humanity's sake. I answered I would do what I could. Then she told me that her name was Doña Theresa Medina, that she had been carried away from Sonora, in Mexico, ten years ago, and she had never had an opportunity to escape until now; that she had made an oath to the chief not to try to escape, because in that way he would relax his vigilance, and she be enabled to send her little girl away. I told her that she ought to try to regain her liberty, that her oath to the chief could not be binding. She insisted that it was, for she had voluntarily made it; that she did not wish to see her family now, after ten years of such life as had been forced upon her; that she only wished to save her daughter from a similar fate, and then to lie down and die. She said also that she would pay me well if I would take her child away and care for her until I found her family (she told me the name of the place where her family lived in Mexico, but I have forgotten it), and that I must promise to try to find Lola's father. This, of course, I promised her. Then she told me that she had enough gold to fill up those boxes' (pointing to our mess and provision chests), which she would put under my care for Lola, and for me to pay myself for my trouble; that she had the gold in a little ravine not far from the spot where our camp was pitched. At first I could hardly believe what she said; but she did not let me doubt long. That same night she brought me a buckskin bag, which she could hardly carry, full of gold nuggets, and gave them to me, saying she would give me as many more as I wanted if I only would take her child away from among savages and bring her up as a Christian, and educate her myself in case I should not be able to find her father.
"Sinclair and Lebrun had gone down the river on a sort of reconnoissance, and would not be back for a week. So I told the lady that when my companions returned we would make the necessary arrangements to carry Lola away, and the gold she wished to give her, and that she must keep quiet in the mean time. But she was too anxious to wait. Every night, accompanied by her Indian woman, she made four or five trips to the little ravine where she kept her treasure. By the time Sinclair and Lebrun returned, she had transferred nearly half of it, and she and I had packed two of our chests full of gold nuggets, leaving room only to put some specimens of ores and pieces of quartz on the top. As soon as Sinclair and Lebrun came, I took them aside and asked them if they were willing to discontinue our expedition for the present, and make ten thousand dollars each clear of expenses. They said yes, particularly as we were obliged to stop for awhile on account of the freshets. Then I pledged them to secrecy, and told them what Lola's mother had said to me, and of my promise to carry the child away.
"The