Marty's watch, that he thought he had lost in
the gulch; Wun Lung's carved image. Oh, Pedro! how dreadful and yet
how splendid!"

The shepherd allowed her rhapsodies to answer themselves. Though his
eyes betrayed his complacency, he had more serious work on hand, and,
pointing upward, he commanded:

"Fetch the padre's staff."

Lady Jess now realized that obedience was the shortest road to
freedom, so climbed and descended the rope again, with the ease gained
by her gymnastic training under the "boys'" tuition. But she took
into the pit, beside the staff that curious basket which she had once
seen Ferd carrying up the canyon and over which she had, most
fortunately, just then stumbled.

"See, Pedro! This will do to hold all those things!"

The Indian "saw," indeed, that this was a bit of his own handiwork
which had been missing from the mesa, for many moons. He nodded
gravely, but was more eager for the staff than for his lost property;
and, taking the lantern again to the inner wall of the shaft, he set
the rod upon its point. It remained motionless, exactly upright, where
he placed it; and now, truly, the old man paused to gaze upon it in
wordless delight. He was so rapt and still that the girl grew
frightened and awestruck, watching his odd behavior, and begged him:

"Tell me what that means, Pedro! The thing is bewitched."

"Ugh!" said the Indian, arousing from his contemplation, and, stooping
began to dig amid the loose stones at his feet, with the only tools at
his command--his own lean fingers. For these he sometimes substituted
a bit of rock, and to Jessica it seemed as if he would never give over
his strange task. When she had begun to really despair of the
liberation which had seemed so near a while ago, he ceased his labor
and stood upright, holding something shining toward the lantern's
light. To the girl it appeared as only another worthless stone, of a
pretty, reddish hue, but wholly unworthy the toil which had been spent
to secure it. She was further surprised, if anything could now
surprise her, to see the Indian place the fragment carefully within
his shirt front and tighten his belt afresh below it. Then he lifted
the basket she had filled with the articles they had found and
motioned her upwards again.

"Now, we're really going, aren't we, Pedro?"

"Yes, Sunny Face. We go."

Indeed, he was as eager for departure as heretofore he had been loath.
Releasing the dwarf's feet from their bandage