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 LYLEJR.
 
 2 35
 
 THE TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG
 
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 icau this, his past self, that sickened nim
 
 THE 
 
 TRANSFORMATION 
 OF KRAG 
 
 BY 
 
 EUGENE P. LYLE, JR. 
 
 Author of " The Miasourian" " The 
 Lone Star," Etc. 
 
 Illustrated by C. B. Falls 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1911
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF TRANSLATION 
 INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQII, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE * COMPANY 
 
 COUNTRY LIFE PRSSS, GARDEN CITY, N. Y.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART I 
 THE FLEDGELING 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. A Dandy Little Go-Cart for Two 3 
 
 II. The Spirit of the Bronze Mastiff 9 
 
 III. The Dragon on the Playground . . . . . 17 
 
 IV. The Medal Winner 58 
 
 V. A Young Physician's First Adventure .... 33 
 
 VI. The Sequel hi the Skillet 40 
 
 VII. Playing to Shudders 46 
 
 VIII. Finding a Man, by Himself. 55 
 
 IX. As One Would Humanize Paradise .... 59 
 
 X. A Society Item 65 
 
 XI. An Artisan in Circumstance 71 
 
 PART II 
 THE BROKEN GIANT 
 
 I. The Pearl in the Basin 77 
 
 H. Old Supernal 81 
 
 III. The Desert Rat 93 
 
 IV. The Phantom Mine 104 
 
 V. The Aristocrat of the Charnel House . . . . 115 
 
 VI. Worthy Wolf 129 
 
 VII. Legacies 139 
 
 VIII. A Long, Long Job 153 
 
 IX. The Lone Oak 161 
 
 X. A Miscalculation . 170
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PART III 
 THE TREASURE 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. 
 
 The New Strategy .... 
 
 191 
 
 II. 
 
 The Outcast 
 
 207 
 
 HL 
 
 Ghostly Wings 
 
 213 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Fairy Tale that Was Different 
 
 219 
 
 V. 
 
 The Mystery of a Pepper-Tree 
 
 229 
 
 VI. 
 
 The Prosecuting Witness 
 
 241 
 
 VII. 
 
 God's Machinery 
 
 250 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A Shipment of Ore .... 
 
 285 
 
 IX. 
 
 A Boom in Buttons .... 
 
 270 
 
 X. 
 
 Naming a Celestial Villa 
 
 280 
 
 XI. 
 
 
 . . . 286 
 
 xn. 
 
 
 . . 294 
 
 xm. 
 
 
 307
 
 PART I 
 
 THE FLEDGELING
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 A Dandy Little Go-cart for Two 
 
 JEANNETTE," said the boy, ducking his head to 
 peer under the witching hat of crisp straw and great 
 red roses into the eyes of the girl beside him in 
 the street car, "oughtn't there be a telescope go with it, 
 or something?" He looked up at the overhanging brim. 
 
 "Why?" she demanded warily. 
 
 "I don't know, only it's so far; seems like, out there 
 beyond the eaves, where what's left of the world, after 
 you, begins." 
 
 "It's a pretty hat," purred Jeannette. 
 
 They were children high school children he twenty 
 and she eighteen, and these lilting sallies were a trying-out 
 of the immense universe of things about which they knew 
 so little and were so curious. Taking the universe, as 
 epitomized in the hat feminine, so easily and humor- 
 ously, somehow made them feel accustomed and at 
 home while yet only on the threshold. This was pre- 
 paratory and necessary, for they were seniors, and here 
 the month of May was on them already, and it was com- 
 mencement week,with all the rush of festivity and weighty 
 matters that that means. They were even now going 
 to the Philomathean party given for the seniors at the 
 home of Maisie Hacklette. 
 
 3
 
 4 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 There were yet cable cars in those days, and these two 
 occupied, as they did whenever they could, the front 
 seat on the grip. It was their favourite. They were 
 alone together up there, and no other passenger need be 
 seen nor even exist. The worse the weather, the better; 
 for then everybody crowded into the closed trailer behind 
 and left them the more alone. They did not mind rush- 
 ing in the teeth of icy blizzards; that only stirred the lofty 
 combativeness of youth in them. Nor were they un- 
 mindful now of the caress of spring on their temples. 
 The seat up front was their own private chariot. It was 
 a dandy little go-cart for two, hitched up tight to the 
 stars. 
 
 The high school knew, better than its psychology 
 lesson, thait Jeannette Chesbro and Jim Krag were a 
 "case." The world could have guessed it easily enough, 
 too, only to see the ruddy happiness in their cheeks as 
 they sped past on the grip's front seat. Jeannette 's 
 hand was in Jim's coat pocket, and Jim's hand was in 
 the same pocket; and Jeannette 's scarf fluttering between 
 them and pinned to Jim 's sleeve left mere people 
 waiting at crossings quite innocent of suspicion. 
 
 " What do you think, Jim ? " She was the more 
 exclamatory because he was the heavy-going, 
 heavy -worded sort. "What why, that little Maisie 
 Hacklette wanted to send their victoria around for 
 me." 
 
 The boy stiffened a little. His pride of a poor boy 
 was instantly on guard. His countenance, at best a 
 sallow gray, became almost sullen. Others had clubbed 
 together to take the girls to the party in hacks. He
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 5 
 
 thought he detected a wistfulness in Jeannette 's pretended 
 scorn of the Hacklette victoria. He restively sensed a 
 kitten-like luxuriousness in Jeannette at times. And as 
 for himself, the sensitiveness that goes with patches had 
 never healed. 
 
 She felt the change, and looked up at him, a little 
 afraid. He was a blunt-spoken youngster, and his few 
 words often impinged at an unexpected angle. One 
 could never quite tell. She looked at the ominous rust- 
 red deepening on each cheek-bone. She all but wondered 
 if there were really an ugly nature lying dormant in this 
 boy who was the school's best hero. As with the rest 
 of the school, the feeling left her uneasy, despite the gen- 
 erosity that made his brutal ruggedness of character not 
 only acceptable, but even lovable. She knew nothing of 
 his shame and self -disgust when his sensitive, morbid, 
 brooding nature got uppermost and dealt wounds, nor 
 knew that his careless generosity was at bottom a 
 species of contempt for his fellows. 
 
 The school was never quite sure that it had the right 
 answer to Jim Krag. He was plain, square-featured, with 
 heavy brows, steady, level, gray eyes, and dark bronze 
 hair curling short and tenaciously on what at sight would 
 be called a stubborn head. He had the quality of wearing 
 well, and he was a latent explosion. By his second year 
 the school was beginning to discover his charm, a charm 
 partaking somewhat of that of a man believed to be al- 
 ways ready with a dangerous weapon. And yet, when 
 they came to reflect, his unexpectedness was not a tan- 
 gent at all, but a deep, merciless slash straight to the 
 elusive essential of things. By his fourth year, as the
 
 6 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 puzzled old principal himself said, they were all glorifying 
 Jimmy Krag as a surcease of the Obvious. 
 
 The cable car took the sweep of a curve, and Jeannette 
 clutched her hat. Glancing around to note if the roses 
 were safe, Jim spoke. 
 
 "We'll walk back," he said succinctly. 
 
 Walking back would keep them longer together, 
 and she tried to believe that that was what he 
 meant. "Won't it be rather far?" she murmured 
 dubiously. 
 
 "Rather," he said, "but it'll make you real friendly to 
 street cars." 
 
 Jeannette pondered that for a block and a half. "You 
 goose!" sh> decided at last. The little lady knew that 
 in their child world Jim Krag conveyed more distinction 
 than did victorias. " Why " she sniffed disdainfully 
 "poor Maisie only wanted to keep me from coming 
 with you. You are the densest thing and now, stop 
 frowning!" 
 
 Yet it fretted him to be teased about the little first-year 
 girl, Maisie Hacklette. He would never have known 
 her, even, except that the girls' society, the Philoma- 
 theans, had taken her in, and he had met her at their 
 parties. In this commencement season she had timidly 
 offered her home for the annual senior party, and had been 
 exalted by the Philomatheans ' gracious acceptance of 
 her hospitality. 
 
 "Jeannette I say, Jeannette," he demanded, "you 're 
 not a snob are you?" 
 
 He heard a gasp of indignation, 
 
 "Well, anyway," he went on, scowling thoughtfully,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "I like our small blow-outs best; that is, unless we rent 
 the dancing academy." 
 
 She tried to catch his drift. "They are more exclusive," 
 she agreed. 
 
 "No, no," he retorted. "It's because then we don't 
 know most of us don't if anybody has a finer home 
 than anybody else. But this big party business 
 needs a big house. Don't you see, Jeannie, it only 
 brings the big world down on top of us, when we're not 
 ready for the big world yet?" He knotted his fists. 
 
 "When I am ready, though " He stopped and 
 
 laughed, as one pretends to laugh at one's secret 
 ambitions. 
 
 "Here's our street," said Jeannette hastily. 
 
 Stepping from the car she tucked her elbow 
 into his palm, caught step with a hop-skip, and gaily 
 hurried him down a newly fashionable, maple - shaded 
 avenue. 
 
 "Look, Jim, there's the place, there." 
 
 She pointed to a lawn festive with Japanese lanterns 
 in the twilight, where there were white dresses among 
 the lilac bushes, and young men, and now and then the 
 clear note of laughter. 
 
 The residence was a fretted embroilment known as 
 Queen Anne. It was capped by a box-like tower which 
 the Hacklettes mentioned as the "cupola." One glance 
 at the house, and the passer-by looked hopefully for the 
 bronze mastiff on the lawn, and the passer-by was not dis- 
 appointed. There was also the majestic antlered stag; 
 also the bronze baby holding a bronze umbrella over a 
 fountain basin.
 
 8 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Isn't it a perfectly grand home?" sighed Jeannette. 
 
 "There'll be plenty of room, all right," said Jim, 
 "so's everybody can have a good time." 
 
 Then, as the dusk under the maples seemed provided 
 especially, and before she knew it, he had with frank 
 earnestness kissed her beneath the big hat. "Now you 're 
 awful mad," he laughed; "but it's our senior party, girl, 
 and it happens this once. How far can you swing on my 
 arm?" 
 
 "Must have been forty feet that last time," she panted. 
 "Oh, let's run; what if we are seniors?" 

 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 The Spirit of the Bronze Mastiff 
 
 THE young people had been a bit subdued. Of 
 course, a party usually begins that way, until 
 formality melts into exuberance, but here at 
 the Hacklettes there was a feeling of being among stran- 
 gers. No strangers were actually in sight, so the feeling 
 must be attributed to the bronze mastiff and antlered 
 stag, which coldly ornamental creatures seemed con- 
 stantly to say: 
 
 "Oo-oo, on your life be stiff! Be stiff, for we are much 
 money, oo-oo ! And we are not here to let you forget it, 
 oo-oo, oo-oo!" 
 
 One longed for a real bulldog. Then everybody 
 breathed more enjoyably, for Jim Krag, with 
 Jeannette Chesbro, was seen entering the high grilled 
 gate. 
 
 Young men flocked their way. And the sprites in 
 snowy white, they also came running across the lawn, 
 and they frankly gathered around Jim Krag, and 
 Jeannette was honest at last in not regretting the vic- 
 toria. The sprites were used to waylaying Jim in the 
 school corridors. To hear what he might say, and to 
 provoke him to say it, was a constant quest with them. 
 It had all the thrill of a shock. Yet a tongue petrific 
 
 9
 
 10 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 never made fewer enemies. They felt that the strength of 
 him belonged to them. Good old Jim Krag so they 
 thought of him. 
 
 A young man held up his hands for attention. He 
 was the rooter chief of the athletic fields. " Get together, 
 fellows! get together!" he shouted. "Are you ready? 
 All right. Let her go. What," he bellowed, "lies beyond 
 the Alps?" 
 
 "Ital-ee," they came back in thunderous unison. 
 
 Just here it is to be confessed that Jimmy Krag had the 
 night before won the oratory medal, thereby topping all 
 other annual honours in the realm of school land, and that 
 his subject had been: "Beyond the Alps " et cetera. The 
 medal itself, precious sheet of dazzling gold and as yet 
 ungraven with the victor's name, was at the moment 
 pinned in Jeannette Chesbro 's collar. 
 
 The rooter chief swung his arms with drum-major 
 ferocity. "Why, oh, why, oh, why does it?" 
 
 "Oh, please, sir," they roared plaintively, "we don't 
 know" . . . and so on to the end of the staccato 
 dialogue for Jim Krag's benefit. 
 
 Boys and girls watched Jim Krag's homely features. 
 If there came a twitching at a corner of his mouth, then 
 they might expect something. The corner of his mouth 
 twitched. 
 
 "Say it, say it!" they pleaded rapturously. "Let 
 her come, Jim. Crush us. Oh, say it." 
 
 "Why is Ital-ee?" He abated nothing of their mim- 
 icry. " Ital-ee, my little friends, is a prize for a mountain- 
 climbing stunt. Why are the Alps? The Alps were 
 invented to make you want the prize. But don't ask
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 11 
 
 me," he begged them gently, " why is noise. If you notice 
 any children around here, ask them." 
 
 Young ladies tittered. Young gentlemen grinned 
 hopefully. They had started what they meant to 
 start. 
 
 "But why is an iron bow-wow?" the captain of the 
 base-ball team suddenly demanded. Following up his 
 inspiration he shrank from the ornamental mastiff in 
 feigned panic. " Won 't he bite? " 
 
 Jim Krag's face darkened, the least unpleasantly. 
 "No," he half growled. "It's only another noise. It's 
 a sad noise." 
 
 This was what they needed; namely, Jim Krag's point 
 of view. They liked to have him do their hating for them ; 
 he could do it adequately. He was a regular Saint 
 George. He ripped the vitals out of bogies and shams 
 that were querulous in the matter of stiffness. Ex- 
 uberance began to flood in over restraint. Fairy-like 
 toes were tingling for the dance. 
 
 "I'd like to know," said Herman Muller, a blond youth 
 who was first violin in the high school orchestra and 
 while he said it he looked pointedly at the oratorical 
 trophy clasping Jeannette's collar "I'd like to know 
 if Jim has gone and lost his nice, new medal already. 
 Anybody around here happen to see it? " 
 
 Jeannette sniffed and put her chin high. With the glee 
 of young savages they declared that she was blushing, and 
 demanded of Jim if she wasn 't. Jim 's retort was already 
 tugging for release at the corner of his mouth when 
 he saw Bun Chubbuck in the group, and the look on 
 Bunny's face smote him oddly. JBunny's was a round,
 
 12 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 cherubic, freckled, serious face, with a lovably cleft chin. 
 Bunny was staring at the medal, and it was a poignantly 
 wistful gaze. He had issued first among the vanquished 
 in the recent battle royal of oratory. Barring Jim Krag 
 he would have won. But at his very climax he had 
 lost a word, had groped for it miserably, had mired. The 
 judges had to drop him to second place on poor delivery. 
 Bun Chubbuck never afterward forgot that lost 
 word. War and famine and sudden death might stam- 
 pede the rest of the dictionary out of his head, but the 
 one fatal word would still remain. The word was "super- 
 nal." With vaulting gesture and stern mien Mr. Chub- 
 buck had meant to proclaim: " . . . of all mankind, 
 content, that supernal goal!" 
 
 After the award Jim had asked him, consolingly: 
 "For the love of Mike, Chub, why didn't you work off 
 * superfine' on them, and let her go at that?" 
 
 But just now Jim could not stand the poignantly wist- 
 ful gaze. And yet, in what was cited as his generosity, 
 Jim had made Bun Chubbuck commencement orator. 
 That is, he had declined the honour for himself, and pre- 
 vailed on the class to give it to Bunny. 
 
 Accordingly Jim Krag forgot that proper retort on his 
 lips and turned abruptly from their teasing; and then 
 it was that he encountered a pair of big blue eyes; and 
 then it was that he recognized his little hostess, Maisie 
 Hacklette, where she fluttered timidly on the edge of the 
 group. These eyes, like Bunny's wistful gaze, in their 
 turn held him. They held him because he could not help 
 seeing the adoration in them, the hero-worshipping adora- 
 tion symptomatic of Age Sweet Sixteen. There was dis-
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 13 
 
 tress in the blue eyes, too, put there by the jest coupling 
 his name with Jeannette Chesbro 's. 
 
 He was painfully embarrassed, and because of his em- 
 barrassment he was resentful. No one must know that he 
 saw; that would convict him of the huge crime, conceit. 
 He looked away hurriedly, as though he had not seen 
 her at all, but Jeannette took his arm to escape their 
 persecutors, and her pretence was none other than that 
 he must greet his hostess. Whereupon she led him to 
 Maisie Hacklette. 
 
 Cross as he was with Jeannette about it, he was vaguely 
 troubled for another reason. She was only a sweet little 
 girl of sixteen, and not of his mature generation at all, 
 but well, he did not know the reason, and yet he 
 was troubled. Jim Krag was a boy. He was unaware 
 of the subtle and troubling potency of adoration, else 
 there would have been nothing vague about it. 
 
 He wondered only how the tiniest wave of colour 
 swept from her brow, cheeks, and throat, like the negative 
 of a blush. 
 
 Jeannette Chesbro took pity as the sex will at times 
 on her little sister in Eve who had not the years and 
 intuitions to shield her secret. She put an arm about 
 Maisie's waist, and whispered in Maisie 's ear that she 
 simply must have a chance to touch a powder rag to 
 her nose. Maisie was instantly all feminine concern and 
 hospitality. Jeannette really did have a presentiment 
 as to the tip of her nose. Jim 's ravished kiss behind 
 the tree box had landed just there. 
 
 The first murmuring of a guitar drew the young people 
 into the Queen Anne house. Musicians behind rubber
 
 14 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 plants in the sun parlour tuned themselves into accord, 
 and burst forth inspiringly on the "Beautiful Blue Dan- 
 ube." Couples of boys and girls were borne away on 
 its gentle flow. Jim Krag waited at the foot of the 
 stairs until Jeannette joined him from above, and he 
 passed an arm around her without a word, in the satis- 
 fying sense of understanding and comradeship. Still, 
 he was aware of Maisie Hacklette following Jeannette 
 down the stairs, and of a pair of big blue eyes tracing 
 them through the maze of dancers. 
 
 He went to her for the second dance. He feared his 
 clumsiness in etiquette, and always tried to check off 
 this attention to hostesses as soon as possible and have 
 it off his mind. He had no idea but that that was his 
 sole motive now. He found her with Bun Chubbuck 
 and her mother. 
 
 "Now, by jinks," Bunny grimly interposed, "there's 
 nothing doing, Jim. She just gave it to me." 
 
 "The next after, then?" 
 
 "Yes," said Maisie, barely in a whisper. It had come 
 to pass. She knew he must ask her to dance if she 
 were hostess. She trembled, arguing she knew not what 
 from his promptness. 
 
 Mrs. Hacklette looked on with a sour and wary smile. 
 Jim mentally appraised her as a large and bony lady in 
 yellow satin festooned with beads. Her lips pursed to 
 angry contempt as she noted Maisie 's confusion and its 
 cause; for she in her turn had appraised Jim, by his 
 sleeves worn a little shiny at the elbows, by the tightness 
 of his first "cutaway" over his thick chest and heavy 
 shoulders and bulging muscles. She moaned inwardly, as
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 15 
 
 was her custom, that this all came from sending one's 
 child to the public schools. She dreaded the coming of 
 her lord, when he should lift his brows at the mixed 
 assembling within his gates. 
 
 The sergeant-at-arms of the class, a chubby and mirthful 
 lass, was on Jim's arm when later he went to claim his 
 dance with Maisie Hacklette. It did not occur to the ser- 
 geant to release him merely because he was going to find 
 another girl. They were all communistic that way as re- 
 garded Jim Krag. Then the Philomathean president, a 
 girl with a grave, sweet brow and mischievous black eyes, 
 locked her arm in the sergeant 's, at the same time keeping 
 her own partner alongside. Herman Muller and Jeannette 
 Chesbro met them, and they wheeled about and went 
 along too, Herman laying a hand on Jim's shoulder and 
 Jeannette pitching into the chatter at the first open- 
 ing. Maisie was at the foot of the stairs, waiting, and 
 thus beheld the first gentleman of the realm, at- 
 tended by his court, coming to her, an obscure little 
 freshman. 
 
 "Gracious!" exclaimed a girl sitting with her partner 
 on the stairs. " Is this a ratification party for Jim Krag, 
 or what?" 
 
 "Anyway it's not a what," retorted the Philo 
 president. 
 
 "More silence in the gallery," cried the sergeant. 
 
 "How about flowers?" and a boy hurled a cluster of 
 lilacs over the banisters. 
 
 "For you, Jeannette. It's a bride's bouquet." 
 
 "Now I know," shrieked the first girl. "This is the 
 Honourable Mrs. Jim's inaugural ball."
 
 16 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Maisie flushed, listening, smiling, feeling lost in it 
 all, as one who didn 't belong. 
 
 "Don't laugh," protested Bun Chubbuck stoutly, 
 "we all know that Jim is bound to be governor, and 
 Jeannette 
 
 "Listen to old Supernal!" 
 
 "Hear, hear, bless his old heart!" 
 
 "Hip, hoo-ray for the governor!" 
 
 Very callow, no doubt. And neither wise nor witty. 
 But these fledgelings on the rim of the nest were trying to 
 peer into the future; and it was their future, and the adult 
 mind must be a hateful old crow indeed that would croak 
 at them. 
 
 "Governor, eh?" 
 
 It was a man's voice; a curt, cutting voice, meant for 
 patronizing good humour. 
 
 The mirth fell to a hush. The merrymakers turned, 
 their laughter silenced, and suspense on their young faces. 
 Two men had come in, and stood contemplating them 
 within the door-way. 
 
 "Why, it's papa!" cried Maisie, running to the elder 
 of the two. It was her first party as an almost grown-up 
 young lady, and she wanted him to see her triumph in the 
 quality of her guests. She eagerly took him by the hand. 
 "These are my friends," she announced. "First, I want 
 you to meet ' ' She would have led him to Jim Krag. 
 
 "Ain't there a servant in the house?" he demanded. 
 "Not one to take my hat? Where's your mother?" 
 
 Then they knew. The spirit of the bronze mastiff 
 was here.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 YET Mr. Hacklette Mr. F. DeL. Hacklette - 
 intended no discourtesy to his daughter's 
 guests. To make them a little uncomfortable, 
 to induce the proper awed respect for the presence of the 
 master of this house, that was all that Mr. Hacklette 
 intended. He was glad to have them there, because 
 he liked awed respect, and the young were impres- 
 sionable. They fell before his studied pose of criticism 
 of everything his money could provide, as though he had 
 always been used to the best and most expensive. But 
 guests, and least of all the young, did not willingly return. 
 They meant neither slang nor hyperbole when they told 
 themselves there was altogether too much agony. 
 
 And now Mr. Hacklette had stood under his own roof 
 for two minutes unseen and unheralded, and no one had 
 flinched, so busy was everybody with showering an 
 ovation on the half-baked, homespun lump of boy 
 over there. Mrs. Hacklette, it is true, was hurrying to 
 him to take his hat and the hat of the young man 
 who accompanied him, and while the mere children 
 gazed, he stood removing his kid gloves, curt and quiet 
 and severely dignified. He was a middle-aged, tailor- 
 smart type of business man. His high-bridged nose had 
 
 17
 
 18 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 on a time suffered a fracture, and that just at the point to 
 give the effect of stern hauteur, forcing him to focus his 
 eyes beyond at a high level. His "tooth-brush " fashion of 
 moustache was mixed with gray bristles and was cropped 
 to the line of the short upper lip. He bit off his words 
 much as he did a strand of moustache caught between 
 his teeth. 
 
 "Governor, eh? If the governor can wait, May, 
 suppose you shake hands with Mr. Sa-vedge here, who 
 I brought along to look in on your party. " 
 
 He tainted the name with a French accent, though 
 Mr. Savedge himself, the young man whom he had 
 brought along, did not. Mr. Savedge was a young 
 lawyer, rising, and he was one of the Savedges. The 
 Savedges were an institution of that adolescent Western 
 metropolis. They were often in the newspapers. Neces- 
 sarily, for they were a part of the news. They subscribed 
 to municipal bond issues. Every few summers they 
 went to Atlantic City. Once they went "abroad." 
 They were one of the nineteen or twenty first families. 
 Old Judge Savedge, as solid as a Roman senator, had 
 been on the school board for twenty years. The Savedges 
 could be described as "established." The English ivy 
 on their home had climbed almost to the eaves. Young 
 Mr. Savedge had found favour, which he valued not in 
 the slightest, in the eyes of Mr. Hacklette. Mr. Hacklette, 
 who was in "Real Estate & Loans " and obscurely re- 
 puted to be making money, had taken his law business 
 to the Savedges, which also was not valued in the slightest. 
 "Brought along" is not exact. Mr. Hacklette had 
 dragged Mr. Savedge along. In Mr. Savedge's honour,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 19 
 
 and if Mr. Savedge was to be impressed, Mr. Hacklette 
 needed to be especially curt and fault-finding. 
 
 Maisie gave her hand to Mr. Savedge. She did it 
 much as an obedient child who is called from play to 
 greet an older guest. Her father surveyed them both 
 over his high, broken nose, as stern as a field-marshal on 
 horseback. Abruptly his teeth snapped on a ragged 
 bristle end. In effect he had snapped at Maisie. The 
 little goose was not sufficiently aware of Mr. Savedge. 
 Her mind was somewhere else. 
 
 "Here, May, you hurry up them fiddlers, and dance 
 this with Mr. Sa-vedge. I don't guess he knows any of 
 your little friends. " 
 
 "Little?" Dignified misses tilted their chins. In- 
 dignant young men reddened down to their collar 
 buttons. 
 
 "But, papa," Maisie faltered, "this next dance, I 
 have it engaged. I " 
 
 "It's mine," said Jim Krag, discovering that the dance 
 with her was a thing he greatly desired. He spoke 
 more bluntly than he thought. He did not like Mr. 
 Hacklette's kid gloves. He did not like Mr. Hack- 
 lette. Something antipathetic in the man set him on 
 edge. 
 
 Maisie nodded earnestly. 
 
 "Eh oh, with our future governor, eh?" Mr. 
 Hacklette examined the gnarled hickory knot of boy- 
 hood confronting him. He wanted to see this snag that 
 caught into a sudden and passionate plan of his concern- 
 ing Mr. Savedge of the Savedges and his sixteen-year- 
 old child of a daughter. He was the more exasperated
 
 20 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 because the snag was a homespun stripe of boy. The 
 bully in him raged against the restraint imposed by the 
 modern drawing-room. 
 
 Mr. Savedge for his part was struck by the level 
 look in the boy's gray eyes. "Whew," he thought, 
 "here's a sturdy man-child that can be vindictive. Case 
 of cave canem all right." 
 
 "See here, Jimmy," chided the girl of the grave brow 
 and mischievous black eyes, "wasn't this to be our dance? 
 Seems to me the Philo president should claim some 
 precedence in the sight of the mighty." 
 
 A half smile twisted Jim's mouth. He understood. 
 A loyal comrade was bolstering up his dance market. 
 And two black eyes were taunting the dragon come among 
 them. 
 
 "No, Alice, you're mixed. " He rallied her as he would 
 a sister. "You have the fourth, fifth, and sixth. This 
 next is the third, and I have it with Miss Hacklette. " 
 He crooked his arm toward Miss Hacklette, and Miss 
 Hacklette took it as she would something about to 
 be lost. 
 
 The black eyes sparkled approvingly. "All right for 
 you, Jim Krag!" 
 
 "Eh what?" stammered Mr. Hacklette. "What 
 name? Krag! Surely no, surely it ain't little Yel- 
 low Jaunders?" The hard light of power came into his 
 eyes even as he relaxed, expanded. His change of man- 
 ner was like the sudden stopping of machinery. "Look- 
 a-here, Tildie. " This was a morsel of joviality bitten 
 off and flung to Mrs. Hacklette. "Look close. Re- 
 member him? Course you do. It's the same owlish,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 21 
 
 saffron-mugged little bra bruiser that used to 
 clutter around his mammy's skirts when she" -Mr. 
 Hacklette smiled, while his eyes grew harder "when 
 she would come to do your sewing, Tildie. Cain't reach 
 that far back, I guess. Eh, Master Jimmy?" 
 
 "No," said Jim, drawing away, "I don't remember." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Mr. Hacklette, "but I'd bet your 
 mother would. " 
 
 None could say that the least offence lurked beneath 
 the affable conversation-making, yet the boy's cheek- 
 bones were splotched rust-red. His mates, too, were 
 sobered and waiting tensely, sensing menace to one of 
 the pack. Instinct, peculiarly the monitor of the 
 young animal, was clairvoyant. Maisie herself was 
 half panting in vague excitation, with eyes raised be- 
 seechingly to her father. 
 
 "Probably you've never heard," said Jim, nervously 
 pushing his cuffs up the short sleeves of his coat, "that 
 my mother is dead. " 
 
 She had died only during the year. She could not 
 stay even to see her boy win the oratory medal. She 
 knew that the medal was to be won. He and she had 
 made quite a point of that. With the patient, plodding 
 calculation characteristic of him, he had settled on the 
 medal as the climax of his high school career, and dur- 
 ing three years she had watched him moving tirelessly 
 toward it. She knew how disappointed Jim would be if 
 she were not there to share in the glow and tingle 
 of triumph, as she had shared in the arduous 
 waiting. She tried very hard not to go before then, 
 and each day resolutely put off the merciful call.
 
 22 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 But the Angel lost patience at last, and struck her 
 down. 
 
 A small insurance, kept up by the toil of her fingers 
 and the squandering of eyesight, and Jim's vacation earn- 
 ings^ would, she knew, line her grave with flowers and see 
 him through to his diploma. For the rest, she had no 
 misgivings; Jim was a boy who could take care of 
 himself. 
 
 So much, and of his father's early death, Jim Krag 
 knew, for his mother had told him. Through their 
 years together, he had seen her it seemed always 
 he had seen her working with her fingers and pay- 
 ing out life. Ceaselessly the precious fluid had run 
 along the thread and off the needle's point into exquisite 
 fabrics. This also he knew. But he had never heard 
 her utter the name of Hacklette. 
 
 "Eh too bad poor woman ! " Mr. Hacklette snip- 
 ped off that shred of sympathy. "Sure, too bad, for I'd 
 bet she'd remember. Wouldn't she, Tildie?" 
 
 Mrs. Hacklette smiled hurriedly, and murmured "Yes." 
 
 "I wish you'd be plain, sir," said Jim. 
 
 Mr. Hacklette's short upper lip warped to his teeth. 
 He was ready. The sewing woman's kid was really going 
 to dance with Maisie, was he? And despite the bringing 
 along of Mr. Savedge? "Plain?" he repeated. "Why, 
 where's the harm in being glad to see you again, when 
 we used to be neighbours on et?" 
 
 "Of course," Mrs. Hacklette carefully interjected, 
 "that was before we went and built out here in the South 
 End, you know. " 
 
 Mr. Hacklette frowned. They should distinguish be-
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 23 
 
 tween him and Tildie. The South End did not puff him 
 up, they could see that. 
 
 "Well, well," he said, having thus taken care of 
 Tildie's interruption, "it's a curious world. Here's 
 a dozen years slipped by, and here's little Yellow Jaunders 
 again, and it don't seem yesterday since his mammy and 
 him came to do our washing, wasn't it, Tildie?" 
 
 "Papa!" It was Maisie's cry, hurt and protesting. 
 
 Her shrinking was pictured on all the young faces. 
 The World, a monster, had broken in on Childhood, 
 scattering the happy sojourners there, maiming their 
 leader, frightening them out of their pretty country. 
 
 Maisie had turned to Jim Krag, as one does involun- 
 tarily to note how a fellow-creature takes a blow. The 
 look on his face made her throb with compassion. Yet 
 she drew back from the look on his face, and could not 
 tell why. 
 
 Another girl not Jeannette, but Alice moved 
 between them, and laid her hand on his arm. 
 
 "What can it matter, Jim?" she said softly. "What 
 difference " 
 
 "None, if it was true," he stammered. "Mother 
 would have told me ' 
 
 "Not true?" Mr. Hacklette's brows twitched up- 
 ward. "Tildie, not true? " 
 
 "Sakes alive," protested Mrs. Hacklette, "don't I 
 mind me that last time him and the poor woman was in 
 our house? I'd just given her a snack of something to 
 carry home when " 
 
 "Tildie!" Mr. Hacklette was shocked. One should 
 not mention one's deeds of charity. Beside, his voluble
 
 24 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 lady had said precisely enough. It would be as well 
 not to recall all of that episode. He would not recall 
 how he had come from his shabby office to his shabby 
 home on the day in question, and met Jimmy's tired 
 mother with her baby coming out; how he had put 
 out his hand for the paper sack in Mrs. Krag's hand; 
 and how he had thrust his high-bridged nose therein. 
 
 The sack held a bunch of over-ripe grapes. Mrs. 
 Hacklette had gratefully pressed them on Mrs. Krag. 
 The "Boom" had not happened as yet, and Mr. Hacklette 
 had not as yet manipulated options on corn fields checker- 
 boarded into city lots. And Maisie had only just ar- 
 rived. Mrs. Krag, coming in to help on Maisie's scant 
 baby trousseau, had found poor Matilda Hacklette 
 half fainting over a tub of hot suds. The Hacklette 
 wash-day needed to be frequent in that era. Setting 
 Jimmy on the floor with a yellow soda biscuit, Mrs. 
 Krag sent Mrs. Hacklette to bed, and replaced her at 
 the tub. 
 
 Now munching a yellow soda biscuit soon palled on 
 little Jimmy, and he was for exploring the unfamiliar 
 and squalid kitchen. Mrs. Krag looked about her with 
 a mother's quick expediency. She had instant need of 
 two things, brightness and noise. She snatched a tin 
 pie plate from a shelf, and a spoon of German silver from 
 the cupboard. These she laid on the floor beside the 
 restless toddler, and let him work out the combination 
 for himself. 
 
 When Mr. Hacklette held the sack between his fingers 
 and thrust his nose therein, he perceived a brightness 
 among the grapes. His instinct was keen for that which
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 25 
 
 shines. Between thumb and forefinger he brought forth 
 the spoon of German silver. Little Jimmy had smuggled 
 his drumstick into the sack. 
 
 Mr. Hacklette's brows arched as he dangled the 
 accusing spoon in air. But he saw only Jimmy's scowl- 
 ing face over his mother's shoulder. The charitable 
 widow was hastening from that house. Fo; her the 
 Hacklettes never existed afterward. 
 
 The half truth! Jim Krag, surrounded by his little 
 world, took the blade into his flesh, standing. His pride 
 of a poor boy was the rawest pulp in any case, and in his 
 sensitiveness Hacklette's mean, ingrate half truth con- 
 cerning the family's washing might almost have touched 
 his mother's honour. At least, it lacked only that. He 
 was the more helpless. He could not assume offence. 
 The cruel, skilful manner of his humiliation left him 
 no retort. But the vindictive germ in him was multiply- 
 ing, seething, vitiating his being. In unreasoning, sullen 
 fury and the man's smile goading the boy to it he 
 blurted out choking syllables. "Unfair . . . coward- 
 ly" . . . These were among them. 
 
 Mr. Hacklette turned to the others in grieved surprise, 
 as though to ask what low rowdy was this that they 
 had brought to outrage his hospitality. 
 
 "Oh, well, you're your mammy's own unmannerly 
 whelp, I see, " he said resignedly. The boy caught his 
 breath and the man quickly raised his hand to stem 
 another torrent. Like acid dropping on a wound, his 
 words fell: "Now, that's enough, sir. Stop, that's 
 enough out of you. Your young friends don't know,
 
 26 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 I guess, that I caught her sneaking off some of our 
 silverware that day. " 
 
 On the haze of young faces and bright lights and flowers 
 of spring, while mandolins and guitars tinkled promise 
 of the dance, the boy stared dumbly. The faces all 
 seemed oddly white, and were of one blank expres- 
 sion. To his blurred vision they weaved up and 
 down, like faces chalked on an agitated canvas, yet ever 
 afterward they were as ston in his memory. Ever 
 afterward h could close his eyes, and they were there, 
 the blank faces of his little world. There was no 
 help in them. One Maisie's was ghastly white, 
 ghastly and haggard in its pity, and fascinated him. He 
 no more saw the others. He saw horror grow in her eyes 
 and fill them utterly. He wondered, not knowing that 
 the distorting change over his own features was the cause. 
 
 The change in him came with the clearing of his brain. 
 Now he could state to himself the situation in cold, 
 concise, merciless terms. His mother had been called a 
 thief! He realized, coldly, clearly, his responsibility 
 Only, how best to do it how how 
 
 He believed afterward that he was edging in toward 
 Hacklette's throat, seeing only that, when a shriek 
 a shriek that turned blood to ice, held him where he was, 
 and his tense, curled fingers went limp. There were other 
 shrieks, in hysterical sympathy. Some of the girls began 
 to cry. He saw Maisie falling, her eyelids fluttering and 
 closing. Bun Chubbuck caught her, awkward Bun Chub- 
 buck, his face scared and drawn in anguish, and let her 
 down to the floor as tenderly as a prince of angels. 
 
 Her mother was on her knees instantly beside her,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 27 
 
 moaning, blowing into her face, chafing her wrists, while 
 the festoons of beads jingled. 
 
 "Doctor Oliver! she cried frantically." "Oh, quick, 
 quick, phone for Doctor Oliver!" 
 
 Jim Krag thou ht at first that Maisie had fainted. 
 But as he looked on the waxen, death-like face, he began 
 to tremble. The impulse rose in him to snatch her up, 
 to struggle with her back to life. The impulse was pain. 
 But how best to do it how how? Again, he did not 
 know. 
 
 "It's only her heart," said Hacklette to young Sav- 
 edge, returning from the telephone. "She gets 'em, these 
 attacks." 
 
 The mother looked up in stricken appeal. "Oh, 
 isn't the doctor coming? Isn't . . . 
 
 Gazing down fixedly on the girl's lifeless face, Jim 
 Krag decided in the moment what his career was to be. 
 In the moment, at their little senior party on the threshold 
 of destiny, his goal had changed. Beyond the Alps lay 
 . . . rapine!
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 The Medal Winner 
 
 THERE was a rush of red letter days to the end of 
 the school calendar. With class days, field days, 
 contests, parties, then commencement, then 
 the alumni picnic, it was a sunburst of the golden hours. 
 These events were the punctuation marks that closed the 
 lesson. The text being youth, they were exclamation points. 
 
 How any mortal boy or girl, duly qualified by four 
 years of work for this season of glory, could miss the feast 
 was inconceivable. Yet commencement, the climax, 
 was only a few days off, and Jim Krag no more came to 
 school. He had dropped out, he had vanished. No 
 one had seen him since the Hacklette party. 
 
 Jeannette could tell them nothing. Jim had not spoken, 
 taking her home that night, except to ask her for his 
 medal and mutter "Good-bye," without, explained Jean- 
 nette, even shaking hands. 
 
 " It his just thinking, thinking, all the time was 
 downright creepy," said Jeannette. "It was like a 
 you know, like a blood-curdler going on in the dark, 
 which you can't see, but which you can feel." 
 
 "Just the same," said Alice, "we want him at com- 
 mencement. Oh, those horrid Hacklettes; except Maisie 
 of course!" 
 
 28
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 29 
 
 She and the sergeant-at-arms had already obtained 
 Jim's address at the office, and were going out there at 
 the noon hour. The rooter chief humbly applied to join 
 them as a deputy, and the little chubby sergeant, in 
 demure contempt for his brawn, finally said he might. 
 But she ignored him elaborately all the way there. 
 
 Jim made his home with three spinster aunts, dress- 
 makers, who lived in a little frame house. There was a 
 weather-worn porch brightly screened by morning glories. 
 The aunts did not even know that Jim had stopped school. 
 He was never a talkative lad, they said. He didn't 
 expect his hard-working aunts to be eagerly interested 
 in his lessons and games, so he almost never spoke of his 
 little affairs. He just came and went, and was so good 
 and quiet about the house. Poor, lonely boy! They 
 knew he grieved for his mother. He hadn't what might 
 be called a real companion since she died. "Ah, dearie, 
 life is cruel! " said these dress-makers behind the weather- 
 worn porch where morning glories clambered. 
 
 "But," Alice interrupted gently, "commencement is 
 Friday, you know. " 
 
 "Commencement? Ah, yes, that must be it," said 
 one of the old ladies. Yes, for Jimmy had seemed busier 
 than usual the last few days, getting his own breakfast 
 before they were up and coming home late, after they were 
 in bed. Did the young lady suppose the commence- 
 ment, was it was the reason? 
 
 Alice shook her head. So their expedition had only 
 deepened the mystery. 
 
 "I'll bet Jim has gone to work," declared the rooter 
 chief, as they started back.
 
 SO TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "And miss commencement?" objected the sergeant. 
 
 "Why not? You girls can't get it into your heads 
 there's nothing left of school now but the flourishes. 
 Just flourishes, and Jim 
 
 " can't wait for flourishes, " said Alice. 
 
 "Not him, Alice, and," added the rooter enviously, 
 "here he's gone and got a week's start on the rest of us 
 in the real business of life. I wonder whose law office 
 he's in." 
 
 Wherever Jim was, when two thousand and some hun- 
 dred fathers and mothers and available kin thronged 
 into the high school auditorium for commencement, 
 Jim's mind was not occupied with that event. He had 
 paused long enough during the morning to mail a small 
 package in care of the committee on flowers, whereupon 
 his thoughts surged back on a larger matter that now en- 
 slaved his existence. 
 
 Commencement was Bun Chubbuck's triumph. Bunny 
 delivered the class oration. Each premeditated sound 
 rolled off his tongue in exactly the right sequence. This 
 was the more to his credit, because constantly and val- 
 iantly he had to hold back the word "supernal," which 
 was ever trying to crowd through and slip off into the 
 infinity of space and posterity. 
 
 When, cherubic and stern, Mr. Chubbuck laid on the 
 last solemn marvel of effective sound to his critique of 
 the universe, the universe in front of him and his class- 
 mates behind him burst forth roundly, affectionately, in 
 a huge salvo of applause. The artistry of vocalization 
 had made them tingle. They trusted Bunny for it that 
 whatever he had said warranted a tingling. He sat down,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 31 
 
 flushed and glowing, just a human boy again. He 
 searched the blur of faces in front for a pair of blue eyes. 
 Maisie Hacklette was out there somewhere. He did not 
 find the blue eyes, but she was out there, and she had 
 seen him, had heard him, had witnessed his moment of 
 triumph. Surely, this was compensation for the loss of 
 the oratory medal. He thrilled in gratitude to Jim Krag 
 who had given him the chance, who had made him class 
 orator rather than take the honour for himself. 
 
 And now the flowers were coming. Enormous bouquets 
 were being handed up over the heads of the school or- 
 chestra. This present onslaught was Bunny's quota, 
 from his father and mother and Cousin Phemie, still 
 applauding in the fifth row back. Then came a little 
 package. A watch? No doubt, since Uncle Alec could 
 not be aught but rich and benevolent, he being down in 
 Sonora where all the world was a silver mine. At the 
 moment, however, Uncle Alec down in Sonora was think- 
 ing of passing dividends, and there was no watch in the 
 little package. Bunny, when he opened it, turned as 
 red as fifty beets and snapped the casket shut again be- 
 fore any one could see. Yet, in a flame of golden letter- 
 ing, he had read his own name. The little package 
 contained the oratory medal. 
 
 Only when alone that night in his room did he open 
 the box again, and saw the n te Jim Krag had sent with it. 
 
 "Melt the thing down, Chub" (he read), "into a nugget of 
 experience. .Consider also the ant, Bunny boy. One bundle 
 and one destination are enough for the ant. He doesn't try 
 to arrive at two places at the same time. But he does land the 
 bundle. Also your Uncle Jimmy. He landed the medal.
 
 32 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Oratory wasn't his kind of road, either. He stammered and 
 stumbled and barked his shins. But he had decided that he 
 had to have the medal. If it had been for logarithms, or 
 millinery, or peeling potatoes, or playing bean bag, he'd have 
 gone after it just the same. 
 
 "Now, you, Chubby, had been a speechful wonder even in 
 the ward schools. You had wee Jimmy beaten a thousand 
 octaves and a windmill full of gestures. You don't know it, 
 but it was a four years' campaign for Jimmy. And even then 
 you'd have won. But take your unabridged, Bunny, and if 
 you read deep enough, you'll come on a certain little word. 
 The certain little word is Supernal. One needs time, though, 
 to reach the S's, and meantime the bull pup passed the rabbit 
 and snatched off the persimmon. 
 
 "Do you guess now why I backed you for class orator? Two 
 bundles, Bunny! I loaded you up with the second one. And 
 you wobbled, and dropped one of them. I'm sorry, Chub. 
 I found, after I got the medal, that I didn't want it. You take 
 it. I can, by patient industry, probably gather up enough 
 remorse without having the memory of the way you looked at 
 this trinket the other night. Besides, as a nugget, Bunny dear, 
 jt ought to be worth more to you than a rich uncle's legacy. 
 And if you don't mind, won't you forgive me the second bundle? 
 
 "J. K." 
 
 Bunny stared at the note. Strident, mocking laughter 
 seemed to jangle in his ears. 
 
 "I suppose it's what Jim would call a 'supernal' 
 josh," he mused lugubriously.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 A Young Physician's First Adventure 
 
 THREE years from that spring, after as one may 
 say three years' toil in forging deadly weap- 
 ons, Jim Krag stirred again into the world. 
 Very curiously, it was into precisely the same little world 
 from which he had vanished. 
 
 Work, because of the ruthless Krag manner of working, 
 had created James Krag, M. D., a young man of a degree 
 and of stone. Jimmy Krag had not gone into the law 
 then! The morning following the Hacklette party he 
 looked up Doctor Oliver, the Hacklettes' family physician, 
 in the city directory, and thirty-five minutes later he was 
 telling that benevolent practitioner that he wanted to 
 enter his office and study medicine. Doctor Oliver had to 
 wrinkle his brows with severity in order to focus eyesight 
 and judgment, so that it took him a minute to say yes. 
 
 "I will take out enough life insurance to secure you, 
 until I pay it back, for any expenses I may have to ask 
 you for at the medical college," Jim explained, "and I 
 will do my studying here, so as to learn w r hat you will 
 let me learn from you and at the same time be of any use 
 to you that I can. But," he added, "I don't want to 
 bind myself after I get my degree. I must be free to 
 leave this town any time afterward. " 
 
 33
 
 34 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Doctor Oliver was content. He would not stand in 
 the way of a young friend's best interests. 
 
 "They won't be my best interests," said Jim. 
 Doctor Oliver felt that he said it the least bit sullenly. 
 
 The three years followed, day after day, hour after 
 hour, each hour being of sixty pregnant minutes. A 
 heart beat is infinity enough for an eternal thought, 
 whereupon eternity begins. 
 
 But the young student rather contemptuously regarded 
 himself as a plumber's apprentice. He worked in yards 
 of piping that were clogged with useless mortality to make 
 us rot before our time, as though we were yet as wolves 
 and devoured raw the flesh of our food. 
 
 Revolting thoughts were these, and a scavenger's 
 leer, for the blessed art of healing! 
 
 In the anatomical laboratory, with wide forearms bared, 
 he worked. He would lift a hair-like nerve from its 
 ghastly mass with the delicate precision of a watchmaker 
 or a woman, and as he worked a sneer grew on his lips. 
 But he worked with greedy intensity. It might have 
 been gluttony before an unclean feast. His passion was 
 the heart and the brain, the blood and the nerves. He 
 came to despise man's science because of the secrets that 
 the heart and the brain yet withheld from mankind. 
 
 Jim still lived with his dress-making aunts. The little 
 they needed from him, he gave. This he earned by proof- 
 reading on the Morning News. Except on lecture nights, 
 he read proof until two in the morning. Then he walked 
 home, and slept four hours. Sunday mornings he slept 
 through ten hours. Each week day, from eight in the 
 morning until half past six at night, he devoted to the
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 35 
 
 study of medicine, in Doctor Oliver's office, in the college 
 laboratories and lecture rooms, at clinics and Saint 
 Margaret's hospital. He went nowhere, he saw no one, 
 unless in this routine. He did not smoke. He did not 
 drink. Almost, he never laughed. He read no papers, 
 no books, no letters, except again as his daily routine 
 exacted. His communication with life and the world 
 and joy was a dead wire. 
 
 Now, however, he was going forth to a merrymaking. 
 He was going to the annual alumni picnic on Cleft Rock 
 for that year's high school graduating class. 
 
 The morning sun juggled dancing motes before his 
 dulled gray eyes, which were used to the lamp. Care- 
 free laughter roused his mind to the activity of rest, after 
 gore-stained books and labour in dead things. Piquant 
 beauty, shy glances, girlish forms, a ravishing ankle 
 revealed and seen no more, these troubled his senses, 
 wedded to sexless science. Colour, sound, flesh, the 
 stirring of spring, flowers, trees, birds singing, the clear 
 lake, distant mountains, the sky and fleecy clouds, brac- 
 ing air, subtle longing, enchantment, exaltation, illusion, 
 delusion Nature confused his being, which had 
 trafficked so long in drab facts, bartering the minutes for 
 truth. 
 
 When he closed his aunts' door behind him, and stepped 
 from the weather-worn porch to the street, it was as a 
 tired mechanic. The work was done, three years of it. 
 But he was too wearied to the fibre of his soul he was 
 weary for the labourer's restful relaxation in the quiet 
 sunshine of a holiday. Yet he did know the labourer's 
 hardly -earned feeling of satisfaction because of the work
 
 36 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 done. He might have been going forth to receive his 
 wage. His mind's eye was set on the vanishing point, 
 and the expression of his face was dark and resolute. 
 Nevertheless, he was going to a young people's picnic. 
 
 Carrying a canvas telescope valise, he swung on the 
 running board of a cable car with the nonchalant ease of 
 a brakeman. The action in its heavy grace proclaimed 
 that here was no futility. Down town he transferred to 
 a Lake car, already partly filled with picnickers on their 
 way to the boat at the foot of Main Street. There were 
 girls in crisp white, their escorts in duck or flannels, with 
 baskets, rugs, and shawls. 
 
 Krag's sombre figure and canvas telescope did not ac- 
 cord with the scene. None of the picnickers on the car 
 recognized him. It did not occur to them to look at 
 him closely, nor that he could be one of themselves. He 
 was equally oblivious of them. He was oblivious of the 
 contrast he suffered beside natty youth. The hardening 
 armour of his personality made him tolerant of differences 
 in apparel. Nonconformity no longer troubled him. 
 
 The car stopped half-way round the loop at the lake 
 front, and the picnickers climbed off with their baskets, 
 hurrying aboard a little excursion steam-boat and gaily 
 exchanging greetings with other picnickers at the rail. 
 Going up the crowded gang-plank, Krag heard his name 
 in a burst of reproachful surprise. 
 
 "Sakes alive, Jimmy Krag!" 
 
 It stripped off the years like a cloak, embarrassing 
 him. Over his shoulder, he saw a chubby, chatty, 
 mirthful young matron. "If it isn't the sergeant," he 
 murmured.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 37 
 
 "Oh, Jim, wake up!" cried she. "You're way off the 
 almanac, and that was ages ago. I'm only chaperon now. ' ' 
 
 "Chaperon?" He must get his mind on this. The 
 compact little sergeant-at-arms was already rotund. 
 She was a ripening peach. "Chaperon?" he repeated. 
 
 "Why not?" she retorted. "Archie!" she called to 
 some one ahead. "I declare, if that boy is trying to 
 lose me " 
 
 The boy in demand turned. He carried a hamper on 
 one shoulder, a shopping bag on his wrist, opera-glasses 
 over a finger, a bear rug and two Navajo blankets under 
 an arm, and his pockets bulged with veils, gloves, scarfs, 
 vanity bags, and handkerchiefs. Krag in bewilderment 
 perceived that it was the rooter chief. 
 
 "You took him?" he protested. "Why, you were 
 always fighting. " 
 
 "And are yet," said the sergeant. "Archie, you're 
 clogging up the ship. Please help me on this boat. You 
 know I'm out of breath. Oh, dear, you're right, Jim, I 
 shouldn't have done it. Wait, Archie's tie is round under 
 one ear again. Hold still a minute!" 
 
 Jim followed them dumbly. 
 
 "Now then questions," said the sergeant, having 
 led to camp-stools in the lee of the pilot house. "And 
 stacks of 'em. Jim Krag, what have you been doing 
 with yourself? " 
 
 Others wanted to know, too, as word passed over the 
 deck that Jim Krag had bobbed up to the surface of the 
 world again and was on that very boat. They gathered 
 round and welcomed him back. Yet back to what? 
 They began to know the feeling that handshakes and
 
 38 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 exclamations may not gloze over the truth that a re- 
 union is never a reunion. Quite simply, the past could 
 not be the present, and the past was an absent member. 
 After three years only, Jim's class could not muster a 
 dozen at the alumni picnic. And the short dozen, present 
 in the flesh, were yet not wholly there. Each met in 
 the other a partial stranger. Each had brought an in- 
 truder to the reunion. They spoke of the totally absent, 
 who also would have been partial strangers. 
 
 "Alice is a junior at Vassar now," said one. "She 
 won't be home till June. " 
 
 "And Jeannette, " said the clumsy rooter chief, while 
 others stole glances at Krag, "Jeannette's married, and 
 moved to California. " 
 
 Krag did not hear. He was peering down at the wharf, 
 scanning each new comer. He had received an invitation 
 to Jeannette's wedding, and laid it aside among the re- 
 agent bottles on his laboratory table. The man was some 
 California mining man, and wealthy, no doubt. Jim 
 had forgotten the name, and never did remember it. 
 
 The sergeant hastened to mention Bun Chubbuck. 
 Bun had floated away to Mexico; had an uncle down 
 there. 
 
 "Before he went, though," said Herman Muller, on a 
 time first violin, now clerk in Siegler's cigar store, "he 
 made a dead-set for Maisie Hacklette. Suppose he's hunt- 
 ing a fortune to match her dad's. The old hedgehog ! " 
 
 And so it went reminiscences fitting a glass case 
 over withered blossoms. 
 
 The stubby little steam-boat let forth a querulous 
 blast. Girls shrieked, and everybody stirred. There
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 39 
 
 was a rush to the rail to hurry up those who might be 
 left behind, as though the whistle were not perfectly 
 audible on the wharf. 
 
 Jim Krag's tired gray eyes focused in acute attention. 
 Two girls and a man were leaving an open carriage drawn 
 up near the gang-plank. One of the girls and the gray 
 eyes leaped to flame was flesh and form and breath, 
 a promise, a lure, mystery, the soul's warmth, and man's 
 rebellion against bleak loneliness a mate ! 
 
 The other girl? Krag did not see the other girl. He 
 saw the one girl pinch up her skirts in both hands, like 
 a Versailles milkmaid courtesy ing in the minuet; saw her 
 come swarming prettily towards the boat, her two feet 
 twinkling; saw a picture hat, as in running she tucked 
 down her chin; the curve and the nape of her white neck; 
 and two brown girlish curls fluttering on her breast; 
 and slenderness and sweet grace in fairy blue; and a 
 vibrant, joyous being. And he thought he saw happiness. 
 
 But over his face came another expression. It was 
 not pain, but more terrible than pain, and itself terrifying. 
 It was the power of will, flowing lava hot; and desire was 
 embedded there. 
 
 Yet he asked: "Who is she? Who - 
 
 Then the astounding happened, and swept the other 
 look, the look of renunciation, from his face. At the 
 foot of the gang-plank she glanced up, her eyes racing 
 eagerly from one to another of those looking down, her 
 red lips smiling and laughing for those she knew, and her 
 gaze sped at last to Jim Krag. Her hand snatched at one 
 of the curls on her breast. 
 
 She was Maisie Hacklette.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 The Sequel in the Skillet 
 
 A GROANING of timbers, a lapping of waters, 
 and the little stern wheeler began to nose her 
 way over the lake. The holiday makers 
 roamed the deck. Groups melted into other groups. 
 Everybody wanted to exhaust the reunion's capacity for 
 surprise. The very next face beaming one's way might 
 be of yet another old school-fellow lost since ranks broke 
 at graduation. 
 
 Jim Krag stayed where he was. Indeed, where he 
 became headquarters for the short dozen of his class. 
 He stayed, waiting for a pair of large blue eyes. Cal- 
 culation iced over fever and throbbing. If human hearts 
 were a commodity, she would bring hers to him, shyly. 
 If like a thug he clutched for it, she would flee, trembling 
 in the sudden knowledge that she possessed one. 
 Awakened instinct would hide it for her, to make it the 
 more desired. 
 
 "Heigh-o," cried the sergeant, "there's Maisie Hack- 
 lette. Isn't she the young lady, though, the delicious 
 dear? Maisie! Oh, Maisie! Does any one suppose 
 she has gone deaf? " 
 
 Maisie was passing the pilot house, chatting vivaciously 
 with the man and the other girl. She did not see the 
 
 40
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 41 
 
 pilot house. She was unaware of pilot houses. Yet the 
 cheek toward the pilot house burned. She felt it burn- 
 ing. Her high spirits hurried her on, and she hurried 
 on her two companions. But the other girl's ears and 
 eyes were better than Maisie's. She looked round, 
 hearing Maisie's name, and caught Maisie's arm. Then 
 Maisie had to look. She saw only the sergeant. She 
 was tremendously surprised and delighted, and she ran 
 up and kissed the sergeant. Her animation rose. So 
 also did the traitress shell pink in her cheeks. 
 
 When she paused for breath, the sergeant wanted to 
 present the ignored Archie and the ignored Doctor Krag. 
 And now that the huge creatures were visible, Maisie 
 declared, oh, but she knew them already, and wasn't 
 it just fine, meeting old friends again this way, and and, 
 oh, how horrid of her ! Miss Sommerville and Mr. 
 Savedge. 
 
 Still she had not actually looked at Krag. Her lashes 
 were long, and as a veil they were adequate. 
 
 Miss Sommerville protested that she, Miss Sonimer- 
 ville, needed no introduction. She remembered them 
 all so well. From her freshman year, wasn't it? Yes, 
 she was a freshman with Maisie, when they were haughty 
 seniors, so of course they didn't know her, then. But she'd 
 grown into a senior, too, and as she was class poetess 
 with a yellow ribbon around the poem she hoped they 
 must know, now, who she was ... It was apparent 
 that Miss Sommerville had a long tongue. Her high- 
 keyed inflection made them feel that it was a catty tongue. 
 
 For Mr. Savedge, of the Savedges, there were likewise 
 a few adjusting words. They all had met him before.
 
 42 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 He conceded, amiably, that he had met them. He wore 
 cool flannels and white canvas shoes, glasses and a pan- 
 ama. He had an alert air of gentlemanly, affable com- 
 posure. Mr. Savedge was already being mentioned for 
 the legislature. 
 
 Miss Sommerville, talking or not talking, was taking 
 her bearings. She had a sharp nose, which was her 
 despair. It was also her character. At present she was 
 a sweet girl graduate, and she was not unmindful of the 
 strategic advantages of that condition. Her pride was 
 her straw-coloured hair, but she was competent. What 
 might there be, thought Miss Sommerville, in this group 
 for Miss Sommerville? She shot a quick glance at Mr. 
 Savedge. Wherefore, effusively, she began to lionize 
 Jim Krag. 
 
 " Mr. oh, Doc-tor Krag, then you really are here 
 at our picnic nuss-pas ?" 
 
 Jim's lips twitched. "You've noticed it?" 
 
 "But Doctor Oliver was saying to Maisie you 
 remember, Maisie dear, yesterday when he said you 
 simply must not risk this picnic after all the agitation 
 you've had graduating? as I was saying, Doctor, 
 Doctor Oliver was telling Maisie how amazed he was at 
 this sudden notion of yours for picnics, seeing that you 
 never went out anywhere. How per-fectly honoured we 
 all are! Maisie 
 
 " Should obey her physician, " said Krag. 
 
 And as Mr. Savedge was regarding Maisie with eyes 
 full of question, Miss Sommerville was content. Maisie, 
 she knew, had declined Mr. Savedge's invitation to the 
 picnic, because of Doctor Oliver's warning. Miss Sommer-
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 43 
 
 ville knew also, and this she wanted Mr. Savedge to know, 
 that Maisie's later acceptance of the invitation had 
 followed Doctor Oliver's gossip about his young assis- 
 tant's sudden notion for picnics. Mr. Savedge meantime 
 had asked to take Miss Sommerville. Then, he had 
 brought both girls. Miss Sommerville was not without 
 spunk, but she could discern when spunk might not avail. 
 Mr. Savedge would gladly have released her, and taken 
 Maisie alone. 
 
 Being an amateur in emotion, the feminine mind has 
 an instinct for sequels. One evening long ago, an even- 
 ing of painful festivity, Maisie Hacklette had suffered 
 an attack of heart failure because of a very ugly scene 
 between her father and this Jim Krag. Maisie and Jim 
 Krag had not met since, until the present moment. 
 Miss Sommerville was good at surmising. Each 
 had sought the present meeting. The sequel was 
 in the skillet. And Miss Sommerville kindly poked 
 the fire. 
 
 The caldron astern had slacked to a clear, bubbling 
 wake. Over the water were foot-hills, the verdure of 
 them spotted royal purple by wild flowers. Farther 
 beyond a snow-crested range was dazzling in the heavens. 
 This range was the summit of things, far away and al- 
 luring. The newly fledged graduates took that metaphor 
 to their souls with the air of spring into their lungs. But 
 Miss Sommerville spoiled it. 
 
 "Isn't it per-fectly beautiful!" she cried. 
 
 Nor would she be be denied. Her yellow eyes turned 
 up beseechingly to Krag. " Isn't it per-iectly beautiful? " 
 
 "What is?" Krag asked absently.
 
 44 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Why, you know" her thin-fingered hand encom- 
 passed the solar system "everything." 
 
 Krag shook himself from his abstraction like a wet 
 bear. "Is it? Why?" 
 
 The class poetess winced. But he would not let her 
 off. "Why is it?" 
 
 Maisie stared. Even Mr. Savedge stirred in ap- 
 preciation. 
 
 "Because," protested the cornered girl, "oh, because 
 it's the spring-tide, and the flower-time, and, and oh, 
 when everything is simply bursting into life. You 
 know. " 
 
 "And glad to be alive," said Maisie; of which she 
 herself was the proof, budding, filling out, throbbing. 
 Krag's level gaze went to her, and was held by her, 
 while she spoke. But the bear had not forgotten the 
 poetess. Since they forced him to small talk, they 
 should have it. 
 
 "Why not wait till November," he asked, "and see 
 then which of your beautiful things have gorged on your 
 other beautiful things?" 
 
 "Jim Krag!" gasped the chubby sergeant. 
 
 "Your spring-time," he went on, his mouth twisting 
 in a hard way that was not like the old humorous 
 way, "is nature's vulgarity. It's the greedy time; the 
 gaudy time; the grafting, clinging, sucking, strangling 
 time. Glad to be alive? Sure. But not glad that 
 anything else is alive. " 
 
 "Oh, you're hateful," Maisie half sobbed. 
 
 "But the flowers," cried Miss Sommerville, "think 
 of the dear flowers!"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 45 
 
 "And their snake-like roots, choking each other. I 
 say, let's wait till fall, when Nature is tired and humbled. 
 Then, if we must rave, there are the dear weeds. " 
 
 "Don't, Jim," pleaded the sergeant. "Surely you 
 don't mean you respect the persistence of evil?" 
 
 "Why evil?" he demanded. "Just because weeds 
 don't happpen to be wanted by some other living order, 
 just because we don't want 'em oh, pshaw! Mrs. 
 Archie, what do you suppose you are, from the weed point 
 of view? " 
 
 The sergeant stamped her foot. " Weeds are evil, Jim ! " 
 
 "Until we find one good for something, like the tomato. 
 Then we cuddle it, and keep the rest of the vegetable 
 kingdom off it, and the animal kingdom too, except our- 
 selves. What respect can anybody have for a tomato 
 any more? Here, Maisie, " he said abruptly, "let's 
 you and I go aft and watch the bubbles." 
 
 Maisie looked at him, startled. But she put her hand 
 on his arm and went with him. Her animation had 
 left her, and she was very sedate, but inside, all that 
 there was of her tingled and danced.
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 Playing to Shudders 
 
 ON CLEFT ROCK the one spot for a picnic was 
 across the cleft. The Rock was a spruce and 
 pine little island jutting up out of the lake. 
 One side rose sheer out of the water, a bleak precipice 
 a hundred feet high, splotched a terra cotta red. 
 Across this highest part the island was split cleanly and 
 fearfully in twain, from the summit down to the lake. A 
 rustic bridge spanned the narrow canon thus formed. 
 On the other side Cleft Rock fell away to the shore, like a 
 sugar-loaf melting in a saucer of water. The boat made 
 her landing on this side. Bow and stern ropes were 
 carried to stumps, and the picnickers clattered down the 
 gang-plank. 
 
 A russet trail under the pines, carpeted with cones and 
 needles, wound upward to the cleft. Girls needed help 
 over the steep places, a breathing spell in the cool nooks, 
 and a drink at the spring half way up. They required 
 columbines, and screamed for help when the dainty 
 red blossoms hung just out of reach. Young men carried 
 the baskets, with a lessening respect for their fine young 
 strength. 
 
 The trail was as a legend, trod by one generation, and 
 so saved to the next. The first picnickers had it from the 
 
 46
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 47 
 
 pioneers. The pioneers had it from the Indians. The 
 Indians, being pursued, had landed on Cleft Rock from 
 their canoes, and rained arrows from the summit. The 
 little path in the little wilderness was a symbol. It was 
 an epic of the pioneers. 
 
 Crossing the twenty feet of rustic bridge that spanned 
 the cleft, girls would peer over the rail into the gloomy 
 fissure, and exult in delicious shivers of fright. Boys 
 leaped up and down, to make the bridge sway. 
 
 "I wouldn't," said Krag, turning round on them. 
 
 "Isn't it safe, really?" 
 
 "Maybe not that safe," said Krag. 
 
 He stepped aside, to let Maisie hasten off the bridge. 
 She had turned white, and he noted her sensitiveness at 
 any suggestion of horror. Her being was as simple for 
 him as a key-board. No one would have trusted the 
 hard half-smile on his lips, and yet there was a rapt ten- 
 derness there that would have puzzled even himself. 
 
 On the precipice side of the cleft a trapper 's abandoned 
 cabin offered a splendid place for cookery, and, if neces- 
 sary, for shelter. It was of logs, with a door and window, 
 and a fireplace of blackened rock, and a kettle hang- 
 ing by a chain over the hearth. Under the trees outside, 
 near the precipice but not too near, one contemplated the 
 lake down below, and the foot-hills beyond, and the snow- 
 clads far away, and indolently accepted Nature's 
 pain of world-birth at par with the flavour of a briar 
 pipe. 
 
 The morning passed, the feast from the baskets had 
 been spread and joyously wrecked, and the lazier ones, 
 a score or more, still lounged on rugs and blankets under
 
 48 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the pines, indulging the sense of being well fed and of the 
 placid grandeur of the view. The others were scattered 
 over the island, exploring, gathering wild flowers, blazing 
 away at pine cones with six-shooters, and plaguing the 
 echoes with their shouts and laughter. 
 
 But these lazier ones on their rugs were Krag's au- 
 dience, though Krag had a word only now and then and 
 seemed the drowsiest of them all. Yet he played to shud- 
 ders, deliberately. It was already late in the afternoon, 
 and the best hour on the Rock. The sun glorified the 
 white crest of mountains and the hills were mirrored in the 
 lake. This calmer splendour held a prophecy of gloom, 
 when the wild beauty of the wilderness must darken to the 
 sombre, and, because it is grandeur, be subtly appalling. 
 The feel of this coming on, as Krag knew, may be inex- 
 plicably dreadful, like ghostly forms imagined in the 
 twilight, while the actual black consummation of night 
 is not so dreadful after all. 
 
 Krag wondered idly how high the Rock really was, 
 which gave to a venturesome youth, not unmindful of the 
 girls there to see him, the idea of trying to measure the 
 dizzy fall with his eye. He ran to the edge, circled a sap- 
 ling with his arm, and leaned far over the cliff, looking 
 down. His head swam. He pulled himself back. They 
 saw how pale he was, and laughed. 
 
 "I tell you," he cried, to turn their thoughts from him 
 quickly, "this old rock would have been pie for William 
 Tell and them fellows." 
 
 "Those fellows, Ben," chided Miss Sommerville, 
 who reposed languishingly on a bear rug beside Maisie. 
 "But if William Tell was scared out of his grammar and
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 49 
 
 looked like you do now, when the Austrians were after 
 him " 
 
 "But they couldn't have got him up here," the boy 
 protested desperately; "that's exactly what I mean. 
 Oh, ain't isn't it a shame," he exclaimed in real re- 
 gret, "that he didn't have Cleft Rock? " 
 
 "Still, couldn't the Austrians get up here at all?" 
 asked the kind-hearted sergeant. 
 
 "You bet they couldn't. Not if the bridge was 
 down." 
 
 "Or," suggested Krag, "Mr. Tell might let 'em come 
 crowding on the bridge, and then crash! cut her 
 loose." 
 
 The word "crash," itself crashing through his indolent 
 drawl, made them start. Maisie uttered a little cry. 
 Krag did not seem to notice. Then they all laughed 
 again. 
 
 "However," said Mr. Savedge indulgently, while he 
 knocked the ashes from his cigar, "wouldn't it all de- 
 pend rather on the enterprise of the attacking 
 force? Suppose you young people reflect that, first 
 
 "Listen to the board of strategy," scoffed Ben, the 
 recently venturesome youth. 
 
 "Rah-rah, listen," whispered the rooter chief. 
 
 Then the objections: "How much enterprise would 
 it take to climb that bluff?" "Or up the cleft?" - 
 "Or to run and jump across?" 
 
 Mr. Savedge puffed composedly on his cigar. "Re- 
 flect first," he said good-naturedly, "that all the enter- 
 prise they'd need would be to go on home to dinner, and 
 leave Mr. Tell up here on the Rock, with the bridge down,
 
 50 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 where our Doctor Krag has isolated him so neat and 
 snug." 
 
 Miss Sommerville applauded softly with her finger 
 tips. "It looks as though it was up to Doctor Krag to 
 get him off," she said, tittering. 
 
 "Pshaw, he could jump off into the lake," argued 
 Ben. 
 
 "Reprehensible, very," objected Mr. Savedge. " He 'd 
 hit on the rocky beach." 
 
 "No he wouldn't, not if he could jump out eight or 
 nine feet. Would he?" the boy appealed to Krag. 
 
 "I don't believe," said Krag, "that a rickety invalid 
 could jump eight or nine feet." 
 
 "Who's talking about a rickety invalid? Wasn't 
 William Tell " 
 
 "William would be rickety enough when he'd try to 
 make that jump." 
 
 "I'd like to know why?" 
 
 "Because, Benny, he'd keep on waiting for his friends 
 or some other chance to get him off, and he 'd be starving 
 all the time, and when he'd finally see that he had to 
 jump " 
 
 "He'd be too weak to wrastle a rooster," cackled the 
 rooter chief. 
 
 There was a laugh, but the laugh died away into 
 thoughtfulness. This Jim Krag's knowledge of human 
 nature was a little bit uncanny. Yes, and unerring 
 cruelty, this putting a finger on the sore that must in- 
 evitably lose poor clay its darling spark of life. 
 
 "He'd be a goner all right," Ben dolefully conceded. 
 
 "It's still up to you, Doctor Krag," insisted Miss
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 51 
 
 Sommerville. "You broke down poor William's bridge, 
 you know." 
 
 Krag was looking at Maisie. "But I left him the trees," 
 he said. He tilted his head backward, to indicate the 
 cleft. His eyes still rested on Maisie, without her seeing 
 him. "You kids study the trees awhile." 
 
 They did study the trees. In imagination they 
 climbed first one and then another on the edge of the cleft, 
 searching a limb for a bridge into some other tree on the 
 other side. There were two pines, nearly opposite each 
 other on either bank, whose branches interlaced. Krag 
 admitted that he had these two in mind. 
 
 "But, Jim," objected the rooter chief, "there's no 
 branch grows out far enough for a man to climb out on 
 and reach any branch on the other side." 
 
 "Then," said Krag, "he'd have to climb out as far as 
 the branch would hold him, then hang by his hands " 
 
 "And the cleft underneath!" 
 
 "Naturally and let loose " 
 
 'Don't!" cried Maisie. "Oh please 
 
 " and as he fell, catch one of the branches from 
 
 the tree opposite." 
 
 "And if he missed?" 
 
 "Please, please," begged Maisie, with her hands to her 
 ears. 
 
 "William Tell wouldn't miss." 
 
 "In other words," observed Mr. Savedge, "a mythical 
 hero wouldn't. I'm afraid," he added courteously, "that 
 that doesn't solve the riddle. As Miss Sommerville so 
 charmingly says, it's still " 
 
 "Is it?" Krag retorted. He bolted to his feet; then
 
 52 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 slowly drew off his coat and started toward the first of 
 the two pines. 
 
 "The idiot!" said Savedge, leaping up to stop him. 
 
 Yet even in the old callow days Jimmy Krag would have 
 scorned a gallery play. Those who knew him were at 
 a loss to understand. 
 
 "What in the world don't you dare, Jim!" the 
 chubby sergeant called after him. Then in alarm she 
 cried: "Stop, do you hear? I'm afraid Maisie is 
 going to faint!" 
 
 He turned. "Aren't you coming?" he asked. "I 
 hear the boat's whistle." 
 
 So it was, as they themselves heard now that they 
 listened for it. 
 
 Krag came back to them, took Maisie 's two hands, 
 and helped her to her feet. She patted her skirts with 
 fluttering hands, and lifted her white face to his, 
 bravely. The tremour of laughter was on her lips. She 
 would let him see that she was vexed with her silly, 
 palpitating heart, and that she really wasn't going to 
 faint, and that now she was going to behave. 
 
 "Rest a moment," he ordered briefly. 
 
 The others, including Mr. Savedge, remembered that 
 he was a physician. The others, not including Mr. 
 Savedge, nor yet Miss Sommerville, in relief gathered up 
 rugs and bl .nkets and wild flowers and started through 
 the deepening shade of the pines toward the bridge. 
 
 Mr. Savedge folded Maisie 's bear rug over his arm, 
 and cupped a hand under Maisie 's elbow. He grew then 
 aware of Miss Sommerville at his other hand, and this 
 other hand rather, his arm he gave to Miss Som-
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 53 
 
 merville. Krag followed, alone, the last of the pic- 
 nickers. 
 
 At the bridge, which was narrow, they caught up with 
 the others. The bridge was crowded, jammed, and every- 
 body was laughing in high merriment. "Isn't the crazy 
 thing swaying?" some one cried out, half in earnest. 
 As Krag, just behind Maisie, bore his weight on the first 
 plank, a timber cracked like a pistol shot. 
 
 "Run," shouted Krag, "she's going down!" 
 
 A second to realize then screams and panic. 
 Everybody pushed those ahead, and the force of the 
 press kept them on their feet. The first off on the other 
 side turned to drag off those behind, and were knocked 
 over and out of the way by the rush. The last over was 
 Mr. Savedge, who turned to help Maisie. He supposed 
 she was just behind him. But there was no one just be- 
 hind him. The bridge was slipping. He stared across. 
 The others, too, breathless from their escape, were staring. 
 At the far end they saw Krag stepping back from the 
 bridge. His foot left the first plank as the bridge went 
 down, as though he had kicked it from him into space. 
 The form of a girl drooped lifeless over his shoulder. He 
 had put out an arm and circled Maisie Hacklette's 
 waist. He drew her back with him as she swooned. 
 
 The picnickers waited, some with hands clapped to 
 their ears, for the horrid crash at the bottom, until it 
 came. 
 
 Their gaze strained again across the chasm, seeking 
 Krag and the girl. They saw him through the dusk 
 under the pines, a huge, shadowy form, striding over the 
 rocks with his burden.
 
 54 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Miss Sommerville 's eyes glittered. Mr. Savedge 's 
 mouth opened, and opened again, and he yelled: "Hey, 
 stop, where are you going?" 
 
 Krag turned, with one foot planted on the rock ahead. 
 In the silent woods he made a figure of dark, eerie strength. 
 The girl 's head was thrown back on his shoulder, her face 
 and throat gleaming. 
 
 "To the cabin," he answered. "Why? " 
 
 "Why yourself!" screamed Savedge. "Put her down, 
 you " 
 
 "Mr. Savedge," said Krag, "come and help me. It's 
 her heart. And hurry. I shall need you." 
 
 He heard no more, but hastened on with her to the 
 cabin.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 Finding a Man, by Himself 
 
 AFTER a shock of catastrophe, the naive in heart 
 instantly and eagerly grope to justify Provi- 
 dence. Suppose the bridge had gone down 
 a minute sooner? They shuddered at what might 
 have been. They pictured Maisie Hacklette a bruised 
 pulp on the rocks at the bottom of the cleft. After she 
 had escaped that, they could not at once accept the 
 thought that the shock of it still endangered her life. 
 They gazed dumbly across the black ribbon of chasm to 
 the cabin among the pines. Krag had made a fire on the 
 hearth, and the window and chinks were a pulsating 
 glow. But they could see nothing, and knew nothing, 
 of Maisie. And the black ribbon lay between. 
 
 The steam-boat's whistle blew again, calling them. 
 
 They looked at one another in dismay. They were 
 unused to "situations." What was expected of them? 
 Was there something fine, something strong on character, 
 to be done? They were very willing, but they were at 
 a loss. It didn 't seem like life to go on tamely down to the 
 steam-boat and on home. They were too young to know 
 that life was just that. The urgent blast reminded them 
 of a mother on the back porch, her hands in her apron, 
 
 55
 
 56 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 calling them from play. Did they have to go? The 
 other picnickers, who had been scattered over the island 
 and were tired of waiting at the boat, came to see what 
 was the matter. These listened big-eyed and stared 
 where the bridge had been. At last came the steam-boat 
 captain himself, blustering. 
 
 "Contract was to leave at seven-thirty. I wheestled 
 three times." 
 
 They told him, gesturing vividly. When the tale had 
 simmered down to no lives lost, the captain emerged again 
 from the man. "What you waiting for then? Their 
 tickets '11 be good to-morrow. I'll bring the hook an' 
 ladder company for 'em. Now the rest of ye, come on." 
 
 Savedge, who was -moving restlessly back and forth 
 on the edge of the cleft, stopped and said: "Yes, yes; 
 the rest of you go on. And the minute you land, 'phone 
 to Mr. Hacklette." 
 
 "Then you're going to stay?" asked the rooter chief. 
 
 Savedge nodded. 
 
 "I think," said the chubby sergeant, "that Archie and 
 I will stay with you." 
 
 "Me, too," declared Ben. 
 
 "I simply couldn't think of leaving Maisie," said Miss 
 Sommerville. 
 
 In the end the captain had to leave a dozen tickets 
 behind. Those who remained with Savedge made a fire 
 of pine sticks and sat around on logs and rugs and thought 
 this the best part of the picnic. As the night advanced, 
 the rooter chief fell asle p and snored. Others dozed. 
 Now and then they roused themselves to brighten up the 
 fire, or hallooed over to Krag, demanding news of his
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 57 
 
 patient. But no reply ever came. Thoughts grew 
 that were embarrassing to youth. When they happened 
 to look at one another, after gazing across at the cabin, 
 their glances shifted hastily. 
 
 Mr. Savedge kept himself apart. If they called to 
 him, they found him irritable. His manner added to their 
 disquiet. The way he paced up and down along the 
 edge of the cleft wore on their nerves. Or if he stopped, 
 it was to set his glasses on his nose and peer fixedly at the 
 lighted window of the cabin, and then at the bridgeless 
 gap lying between. A thousand times, at a hundred 
 different points, he measured the width of gap with his 
 eye. Over and over again he decided once more which 
 was the narrowest place. Not twenty feet maybe 
 only sixteen or seventeen . . . But what was the 
 difference? A man couldn't jump it. No, a man couldn't 
 jump it. But Mr. Savedge never, as yet, lifted his 
 eyes upward. He restrained himself, steadfastly, from 
 lifting his eyes upward. He tried not to hear the soft 
 murmuring among the boughs overhead. 
 
 At last, unutterably weary of the grooved circle where 
 his mind toiled, he did look up, and looked up defiantly, 
 as though to challenge a grimacing goblin perched high 
 in the branches. He shoved his glasses tight and studied 
 deliberately the two tall pines that they had picked out 
 that afternoon for William Tell. In fancy Mr. Savedge 
 gained the lowest limb of the tree on his side the cleft. 
 The limb mocked him, it was so easy to reach. He 
 climbed to the biggest limb. The ease of that also seemed 
 provided by Satan. A parallel branch overhead was just 
 high enough to hold to, while he edged out as far as he
 
 58 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 could on the biggest limb. Then, in fancy always, 
 though breathing desperately just the same, he even 
 lowered himself and hung at arm 's length. Mechanically 
 the next thing was the easiest of all : to let go. But he 
 could not let go. 
 
 Another thousand times, in fancy always, he got that 
 far. But he could not let go. 
 
 The chaperon had been watching him, and once, as 
 he paused and was looking up, she went to him. "You 
 you couldn't do it, of course?" she faltered. It was 
 hardly a question. Yet a wan inflection of hope did 
 make it a question, too. 
 
 He started, as though awakened, glaring at her. 
 
 "Of course you couldn't," she murmured hurriedly.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 As One Would Humanize Paradise 
 
 WITHIN the cabin, Krag was not aware of the 
 hallooing. He had achieved the faculty, which 
 dominated even his physical senses, of shutting 
 out as much of the world as lay outside his purposes. 
 He knew that no one could come to him. That sufficed. 
 The picnickers were forgotten. 
 
 On the floor of the cabin, to one side of the fireplace, 
 he had strewn pine needles thickly, covering them with 
 a Navajo blanket. He had brought the blanket with 
 him in his canvas telescope. It was odd about this tele- 
 scope. He had left it here in the cabin during the day, 
 and had apparently forgotten it when he and everybody 
 started back to the boat. 
 
 On the blanket lay Maisie Hacklette, and Krag was 
 kneeling beside her. Between his big thumb and fore- 
 finger he gently pressed the lobe of her ear, the while 
 watching confidently for the first tint of dawning life. 
 He looked as well on the white, sweet face, and he was not 
 then the physician. A strange softness lay deep in his eyes. 
 Those who had known him during the past three years 
 would have said that they were no more his own eyes. 
 He would have said so himself. 
 
 59
 
 60 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 He had done already what was immediately needed 
 to be done. An odour of drugs hung over them. There 
 were restoratives, all but deadly to the normal heart. 
 There was a medicine case laid open, and vials strapped 
 down in a row like shrouded pixies. There were instru- 
 ments, bright, metallic, tubular, solid, of mysterious 
 shapes and functions; to the lay apprehension the trap- 
 pings of a star-chamber. The edged ones were unstained; 
 they had not been used. Out of the canvas telescope had 
 come surplusage of foresight. Lacking experience, 
 he was more than ready. Water steamed in the kettle. 
 Some had been splashed on the hearth. A wet and sod- 
 den blanket lay near, folded into a compress. 
 
 A button-hole of the girl's light blue dress gaped at 
 her shoulder, revealing a flake of linen, like snow, be- 
 neath. It was one button that he had overlooked when 
 his harsh ministry was done. Hands, eyes, brain, and 
 blood were impersonal then. But the button was a dis- 
 turbing magnet now. He put out his hand, and drew the 
 hand back again. These were not the deft, probing fin- 
 gers of the glorified mechanic of ten minutes ago. He 
 lifted one of the two brown curls lying across her breast^ 
 and laid it over the buttonless button-hole. Neither 
 was she a broken mechanism. She was the radiant bit 
 of girlhood, now peacefully sleeping, whom he had seen 
 coming aboard the boat that morning. 
 
 The little pump was at its work again. Valiantly 
 now it buffeted inertia that would dam the vital stream. 
 So the poor heart, mercifully given rest between its 
 throbs yet coaxed to beat with vigour, fought off the 
 Doisons that stifled, and hastened red wine to the thirst-
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 61 
 
 ing tissues. The bluish chill faded from her skin, and 
 through and through the flesh glowed in ruddy warmth. 
 
 "I know enough, poor child," he murmured. "You 
 will not have to suffer another of these." 
 
 He said it in all confidence, though the ink was still 
 green on his diploma. Blood had run through veins since 
 the creation of flesh, but during many thousand years men 
 thought it the ooze of stagnant gutters. Krag marvelled 
 at the colossal stupidity of his species. A charcoal 
 burner hiring a wood sawyer could tell by listening if the 
 sawyer were at his work. But no wise man thought to 
 listen to the heart, until more centuries were added to 
 the thousands of years. The young physician did not 
 grovel before past achievement. He tirelessly searched 
 his own brain for common-sense. 
 
 "Three years of my life," he mused. "Anyhow, no 
 matter what fiends I gave them to, they were well given 
 if she is not to suffer another of these." 
 
 He turned his head from her, and with his head so 
 turned he got to his feet, and went to the fire. He went 
 noiselessly, and stood, gazing down at the fire. He 
 would not have her awake yet to the memory of the horror 
 at the bridge. His strategy was to prolong oblivion, 
 changing it from syncope to refreshing slumber. 
 
 The hours passed like that, she asleep, he looking down 
 at the fire, and the pines faintly rustling outside. 
 
 Her eyes opened, lifting sleep's voluptuous weight. 
 Slowly they grew big with the wonder of this awakening. 
 A cabin in the woods, a firelight drowsily rising and falling, 
 a watchful guardian by the fire! It was all one with the 
 blissful ease of her body. Languor blurred the sense of
 
 62 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 alarm. When he brought her something in a cup, a 
 something that sent a delicious warmth through her veins, 
 she thought his being there and doing that the natural 
 thing. It was the essence of routine, as one would ideal- 
 ize routine, or as one would humanize Paradise. They 
 were out camping, he and she, that was it; and he, as he 
 ought, had made the coffee while she slept. She sighed 
 dreamily. Horror was remote. Once a bridge had fallen. 
 So had ancient monarchies. She would not fret about 
 history, now that she had graduated. She believed she 
 would sleep a little mite longer. 
 
 He leaned over and tucked her pulse under his thumb. 
 "Precisely as strong as fate," he said to himself. Phy- 
 sicians need make nothing of that diagnosis. Very likely 
 he meant that the pulse was normal. Or that here trem- 
 bled his own thread of destiny. His breast filled; then, 
 as before, he turned his head from her, arose, and went 
 to the fire. 
 
 When she stirred again: "Like some toast, buttered 
 hot?" he asked. 
 
 So, she thought, the routine was still going on. And 
 natural? It seemed as though it had been going on for 
 months and years. And comfy? Yes, and comfy! Yes, 
 yes, indeed ! 
 
 "Buttered nice and hot," said she contentedly. 
 
 Every vestige of the sick room was gone. Not the 
 faintest hospital taint was left. The fragrance of the 
 woods filled the cabin, and when he brought the toast, 
 there was the soothing fragrance of that also. She braced 
 her palms to the blanket, and sat up, curling her feet 
 under her skirts, and held forth a hand for the plate.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 63 
 
 But she only groped for the plate, not seeing it. What 
 had come into his eyes, into his tired gray eyes? 
 
 "Your eyes they are so so kind?" she murmured 
 wonderingly. 
 
 But there was in them a quality more appealing yet; 
 the appeal of a man's loneliness, and to her. It smote 
 her with a sublime and terrible pathos. She might hun- 
 ger for his strength to enfold and cherish her, yet hide 
 the hunger. But this was his weakness, and the hunger 
 to comfort him she could not hide. Before she knew, 
 tears blinded her, and her arm went round his neck, and 
 her lips touched his forehead. 
 
 The plate fell, and his arm stretched past her and bent 
 toward her waist. But there it stopped, quivering from 
 corded muscles, without touching her. He stood up 
 quickly, and looked about him. 
 
 He found himself at the door, where he turned and saw 
 that she was watching him. Her lips were parted, and 
 the old pallor was spreading on her brow. He recollected 
 himself angrily, and came back to her. 
 
 "How about another little nap?" he ordered gently. 
 "Here, a sup or two more of this." 
 
 She drank unquestioningly. " Where were you going? " 
 
 " Why, Maisie girl, don 't you see our wood is all gone? " 
 
 He stirred the fire, and waited. It was only when 
 she slept again that he fled. 
 
 Savedge noticed him first, coming down the rocky 
 path toward the cleft. Savedge 's muttered exclamation 
 roused the others, who got up stiffly, blinking through the 
 drab mist of daybreak at the haggard, hugely magnified 
 figure across the gorge.
 
 64 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 They did not understand for a moment, but when un- 
 derstanding flashed on them, they could not believe. 
 Several cried out. "Stop!" "Don't, don't!" "Wait." 
 Some covered their eyes, others could only stare. They 
 stared higher and higher as Krag climbed a tall pine and 
 went out on one of the branches, over the cleft. When 
 the branch bent with a cracking sound, they shivered. 
 When he let go, a girl screamed. But no one heard that. 
 The heard the brief rush of his body through twigs and 
 leaves. They saw him swaying, by one elbow hooked 
 over a lower limb. When he alighted among them, 
 they breathed again. 
 
 Savedge went up to him. "You blackguard," he said, 
 choking, "you . . . why couldn't you have come 
 last night, before before " 
 
 "And leave my patient?" To make precisely that 
 necessity of remaining with her, Krag had studied medi- 
 cine, had given the three years. But he did not say so. 
 They could have seen it in his twisted smile. "I won- 
 der you people, and you, Mr. Savedge," he added t 
 his smile twisting because of this contemplation of futility, 
 "didn't bring up the gang-plank from the boat. With 
 block and tackle it would have been a simple matter to 
 swing one end across for a bridge. I at the last I 
 needed help, badly."
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 A Society Item 
 
 THEY had to wait for the boat before they could 
 have the gang-plank. 
 When the boat came, in the first hour of dawn, 
 it bore the character of an important relief expedition, 
 fitted out, hurried, and derided by Mr. Hacklette. Mr. 
 Hacklette was a distressed parent, suddenly in the public 
 eye. The obligations of pose exacted by that camera, 
 like the meat of greatness set before Charles V in Her- 
 nani, were matter to fill a paunch. The public eye's 
 incarnation was the Morning News man and the Javelin 
 man, who were doing dog watch at police headquarters 
 when word of the Cleft Rock accident reached town. 
 Mr. Hacklette was short and severe with these two re- 
 porters, in what he fancied to be the manner of a greatly 
 pestered magnate. 
 
 No, there was positively nothing that he could tell 
 them. The accident was nothing that could interest 
 the public. They must say nothing about it. They 
 must not mention his name. He refused to be quoted, 
 before they asked him to be. He bit off his words, and 
 made it plain that they annoyed him very much 
 indeed. 
 
 65
 
 66 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "And the old boy isn't an advertiser, hoo-ray!" they 
 chirruped inwardly. They jabbed pungent key words 
 on the margins of the morning paper. 
 
 "Get that capital L," interjected Mr. Hacklette. 
 "Capital D, e, capital L, period F. DeL. Hacklette." 
 
 " I've got it 'Delavan, '" said the News man, which it 
 really was. 
 
 "Put it the way I tell you; no, leave my name alone. 
 What are you writing, anyway?" 
 
 "Story of 'One Man in a Boat' count 'em," said 
 the Javelin man inaudibly. 
 
 Yet there were also on board four firemen with ladders, 
 a number of the picnickers, and Mrs. Hacklette, frankly 
 weeping. 
 
 It was no trick at all for the firemen to span the cleft 
 with their ladder, to lay on it a flooring of boards, to cross 
 over and awaken Maisie in the cabin, and finally to lead 
 her, blindfolded, over the improvised bridge and into 
 her mother 's arms. Mr. Hacklette's own moist eyes put 
 him into a scowling humour. 
 
 Maisie, with an arm about her mother 's waist, clinging 
 to her father's hand, looked round on her young friends. 
 In tears and laughter she would make them a part of the 
 scene, and a part of her happiness. Happiness? Why 
 was she so happy? Like a presentiment of something 
 lost, this was a presentiment of something found. But 
 what? 
 
 Slowly a bewildering memory began to dawn. Her 
 gaze fluttered wistfully from one face to another. 
 She was seeking a pair of eyes. She sought a return to 
 that routine of his wizardry. Her gaze found him at last,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 67 
 
 silent, alone, apart from the others. He was looking at her, 
 and his eyes were kind, and in the same way. Her heart 
 sang joyfully. Somehow she feared that they might 
 not be. 
 
 Krag was content to let the social machinery grind 
 on. After three years he had brought his corn to the 
 mill, and he did not mind waiting a little. 
 
 But for Mr. Savedge there was sand and discord in the 
 wheels. Miss Sommerville 's countenance, on the other 
 hand, was of a saint listening to the music of golden harps. 
 
 These three stood watching, each alert for the signifi- 
 cant. When Maisie, after her experiences of the night, 
 looked for Krag first among those around her and flushed 
 on meeting his eyes, then did the Sommerville brows 
 arch, and the Savedge brows contract in a puzzled and 
 troubled way. Mr. Savedge was obviously in an anguish 
 of self-debate. He had to gather resolution for a matter 
 abhorrent to his affable nature. When at last he touched 
 Mr. Hacklette on the elbow and drew him to one side, 
 and talked with him, at first warily, then heatedly, even 
 obstinately; when Mr. Hacklette spluttered with ex- 
 plosive incredulity and turned pea green; when finally 
 the proud rigidity of the Hacklette countenance broke to 
 a ghastly twitching then Miss Sommerville 's harps 
 rose in a brilliant and surpassing diapason of malice. 
 She flashed on Krag a glance of enraptured admiration. 
 Krag did not see it. He knew that he would not have to 
 wait much longer. 
 
 The picnickers were doing an enormous amount 
 of chattering. Those who stayed had much to tell 
 those who came back on the boat. They marvelled
 
 68 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 together over Jim Krag's mythical-hero exploit of the 
 two pines. They felt that they talked to a larger au- 
 dience because of the two reporters, though they won- 
 dered if those nonchalant bystanders were even listening. 
 That nonchalance should have been to them as red lan- 
 terns, fire bells, and fog horns. The reporters knew that 
 a good story was dropping. 
 
 "Eh? Oh, sure I believe it," protested the Javelin 
 man. "That's all we 're allowed to believe, what we hear. 
 Nifty little climb, too. Spells it C-r Oh, with a K, 
 thank you. But, what was he in such a hurry about, 
 this Krag man? Couldn 't he wait for the fire department, 
 same as the girl?" 
 
 The News man picked up a stick a little bit hastily, 
 and whittled. Both hid a growing ferocity of impatience. 
 But there was no answer, because no one knew it except 
 Krag. The reporters feared that they had alarmed their 
 magpies. The Javelin man tried to restore the era of confi- 
 dence by matching the News man for his last cigarette. 
 
 "My, it does seem odd, don't it?" said venturesome 
 Benny, anxious to interest the worldly gentlemen of the 
 press. "Risked killing himself like that, and couldn't 
 wait an hour or two longer, after waiting across there all 
 night, too . . . Ouch, I say . . ." 
 
 Gloved fingers were fastened on his arm, Mr. Hack- 
 lette's gloved fingers. The boy was at sea before the 
 man 's agitated face and working jaws. 
 
 " Shut your fool mouth ! " But it was at the reporters 
 that Hacklette looked fire and sword. 
 
 "Oh well, it's your cigarette," the News man was saying 
 to the Javelin.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 69 
 
 Cried Hacklette: "If you dare print one 
 
 "They won't," spoke a hard, impersonal voice over 
 his shoulder; "if there isn't a story, they won't. I don 't 
 suppose," Krag went on to the reporters, "that Mr. 
 Hacklette has told you yet that his daughter Maisie and 
 I will be married this evening. That 's before your papers 
 go to press, you know." 
 
 "Eh? . . . Eh? " Hacklette ejaculated. 
 
 "But he will tell you in good time," Krag added. 
 
 The News man threw up his hands. He was game. 
 "You're right, Doc," he moaned, "that does kill it. 
 Just as we grab off a story, you slip us a society item. 
 Oh, thanks!" 
 
 "Awfully," echoed the Javelin. "I declare, look; is 
 this a fit that Delavan is going to have?" 
 
 For the instant Hacklette had not recognized Krag. 
 The cool announcement stunned him. Despite all that 
 Savedge had just told him, he could not identify the 
 ominous breadth of sombre young man with the sensitive 
 boy whom he had so wantonly degraded three years before. 
 Anger in a meaner nature varies with its object. Yet 
 when he did recognize Krag, in his fury he saw only a 
 helpless child again. 
 
 "So," he cried, "you are the filthy brat who compro, 
 mises my " 
 
 " Easy," said Krag. " But of course these gentlemen " 
 he indicated the reporters " understand that you tak< 
 it all back." 
 
 "Damn you, they understand nothing of the sort.' 
 
 "Oh, you do want it in the papers, then?" 
 
 "No, no, for the sake of "
 
 70 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Yet you are giving them a story, in spite of all 
 
 "It's none of their business, and I'll have it out with 
 you in private, you you 
 
 " You mean you withdraw what you have said already?" 
 
 "Eh? Yes, of course." 
 
 "Then come with me." 
 
 Krag led down the trail into the solitude of the pines, 
 Hacklette following. The little group watched them 
 until they disappeared. 
 
 "An adjective!" pleaded the Javelin man. "Quick, 
 give me an adjective!" 
 
 The News man deliberated. "Mine is 'consummate,'" 
 he said. 
 
 "And I can't beat it," said the Javelin. "Lord, if 
 we could run that lad through the type-writer, what a 
 story!"
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 An Artisan in Circumstance 
 
 AHACKLETTE followed the young man down the 
 trail, three ideas grew like imps in his brain, 
 until they were imps. The three ideas con- 
 cerned a pearl-handled knife in his hand in his trousers' 
 pocket; the erect, thick neck of the young man ahead; 
 and murder. Suddenly the imps terrified him. 
 
 "Stop!" he said. "This is far enough." 
 
 "Very well," said Krag, "though even here, if you 
 bellow out too loud " 
 
 "Eh! Ain't you forgetting who you're talking to?" 
 
 "Those kid gloves," said Krag; "the way you wear 
 them, irritates me. Take 'em off." 
 
 Amazement overspread Hacklette's face. "What I 
 have to say to you " 
 
 "Take them off." 
 
 Hacklette looked into dulled gray eyes shot through 
 with hatred. But Hacklette was most astounded when 
 he perceived himself drawing off the gloves, mechanically, 
 yet in a kind of nervous haste. He tried to believe that 
 he was merely humouring an uncouth ruffian. 
 
 "Now," said Krag, "what?" 
 
 Hacklette stiffened at the tone. He brought the 
 
 71
 
 72 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 well-known frown between his eyes. The nice adjust- 
 ment of personality had been lost, somehow, but he 
 would put that right again. He remembered, out of 
 a dizzily receding past, that this was only sullen little 
 Yellow Jaunders. 
 
 "You know well enough what! First there's Savedge, 
 the aristocratic pup, the 
 
 "What about Savedge? " 
 
 "A plenty about Savedge, the skut! He comes to me, 
 Savedge does, just now, and he's sorry, and he's changed 
 his mind, and after what's happened last night he really 
 cain't think of my daughter in the same way any more." 
 
 Mr. Hacklette stopped. Tears of common human 
 rage strained for release. The white insolence of his 
 brow flooded red, a plebeian red, as vulgar as blood, as 
 vulgar as a father's heart. 
 
 "I see," said Krag. "Why don't you make him?" 
 
 "What? Marry her?" 
 
 "Make him marry her, yes." 
 
 Hacklette laughed bitterly. "Maybe you could make 
 him?" 
 
 Krag's mouth twisted; as he had sneered at Savedge, 
 as he sneered at futility. 
 
 "Could you?" persisted Hacklette. 
 
 "Yes, if I set my mind to it." 
 
 An absurd Hope crossed the father's despair. "Do 
 it," he cried, "and I'll give you ten thousand dollars." 
 
 Krag shook his head. 
 
 "Twenty thousand. You've got to." 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Why not?"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 73 
 
 "One reason is enough. Maisie doesn't want him." 
 
 "How do you know she don't?" 
 
 " She told me so. She refused him yesterday morning. " 
 
 "Fiddlesticks! That ain't a reason. See here, some- 
 how I believe you can make him, and you got to. 
 It's your fault, and you got to. I'll give you a hun- 
 dred thousand, flat and cold." 
 
 "No," said Krag, "there's another reason. I want 
 her myself." 
 
 "You thief!" Hacklette raged. "You think you'll 
 get it all. You think but I'll not leave her a dollar, 
 not a " 
 
 "No," said Krag, correcting him; "you'll not have 
 one to leave." 
 
 Even a maniac, hurling himself against a stone wall, 
 will come to have a respect for the wall. Mr. Hacklette 
 looked this poor widow's son over more carefully. He 
 began to suspect that there was more here than he under- 
 stood. He doubted if it were stupidity after all that had 
 caused the young doctor to compromise his daughter. 
 Was it avarice, taking advantage of an accident to en- 
 snare an heiress? As Hacklette met the glitter of the 
 dull eyes, he questioned even the accident itself. Was 
 it an accident? 
 
 "What what do you want?" he stammered. 
 
 He saw a gleam of humour in the level gaze. "Thank 
 you," said Krag, "I take what I want. But I'm 
 still waiting for what you have to say to me. " 
 
 Hacklette flung out his arms. "There is nothing to 
 say," his voice broke and trembled, as the boy's had 
 done three years ago "nothing, nothing, except that
 
 74 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 you have got to marry her. I I guess you can under- 
 stand that?" 
 
 "Yes, I've understood it for three years." 
 
 "For three years?" Hacklette repeated. "Surely," 
 he gasped, * you ain't been planning this all this time! 
 And and all because of something I happened to say 
 about your mother " 
 
 "Don't!" Krag's fist was raised "I've already 
 promised to ruin you. I promise it again, for the next 
 time we meet. But I've tried not to kill you. Don't 
 make me ! It's the one kindness in this world I ask 
 of you." 
 
 "It's it's granted," said Hacklette, breathing 
 heavily. "And oh, no, don't mention it." 
 
 "The safest way," said Krag earnestly, "is not to let 
 me see you again. You'd better go now, and confirm 
 what I told those reporters. I will wait for Maisie here."
 
 PART II 
 
 THE BROKEN GIANT
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 The Pearl in the Basin 
 
 BUN CHUBBUCK, the supernal, was casting up 
 figures at a desk in the state of Sonora in the 
 republic of Mexico. Mr. Chubbuck disdained 
 a stool, but stood at his desk, which was midriff high, 
 so that the desk might have been a lectern and Bunny 
 a surpliced cherub behind it. But figures were sterner 
 material than stern eloquence, and could better mask 
 the stern visage of life, or compel it to a vapid, amiable 
 smirk. Figures were not ungrateful. For their casting 
 up, they exonerated Mr. Chubbuck from the Chinaman's 
 little monthly cuenta at the mess house. They laid in 
 a monthly pound of American smoking tobacco for him, 
 which was especially kind, as plug cut came purse-break- 
 ingly dear into the Sonora wilderness. They sub- 
 scribed to a clubbing list of magazines. They permitted 
 him to share the plaza unembarrassed by his German 
 tailor of a Sunday evening when he borrowed the metal- 
 lurgist's horse and rode in to the serenata. They passed 
 him benevolently through the teatro portals when an 
 Italian opera troupe stopped over for a week. They 
 bought him "$75.00 U. S. Cur." each first of December to 
 bait with much joy the hosiery of a school of little brother 
 
 77
 
 78 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 and sister Chubs back home. So paternally recognizant 
 were they, indeed, of the loyal and patient and beaming 
 Bunny that they held promises of a vacation in the States, 
 perhaps in a year or so. These figures were the infor- 
 mative and preternaturally truthful swarms that in- 
 habited the smelter "books" where Bunny's Uncle Alec 
 had procured Bunny a "job." 
 
 Late of an afternoon, when a great lazy ball of fire 
 Bunny knew it was the sun was rolling down behind 
 the violet sierra afar off beyond the glare of yellow desert, 
 peppering the heavens with volcano dust, Bunny usually 
 strolled from the mess house and the hope of a third piece 
 of the Chinaman's apple pie, and crossed the compound 
 to the row of cells where, with the smelter's other bache- 
 lor Americans, he had his dwelling. 
 
 His quarters were one of the cells and a chair tilted 
 against a post of the long porch that shaded the Row. 
 "Shaded" is correct. Bunny had imported, in a letter 
 from his mother, the seed of an abstemious gourd. The 
 Row backed on the flue, which lay like a torpid white 
 dragon dozing among the smelter buildings. It stretched 
 its length from the furnaces below, twisting out of that 
 dull-roaring inferno upon the compound, and thus to the 
 lone smoke stack just outside, into which it thrust its 
 head. The company thought the snake's warm flank 
 good cuddling for American bachelors, especially if ever 
 a winter happened cold. But dust had settled on 
 the photograph of the girl back home and into one's 
 trunk, while the dry desert air bit with the tang of 
 sulphurous fumes. 
 
 Mr. Chubbuck sat in the tilted chair, put on his
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 79 
 
 silver-rimmed spectacles, and thought he would read 
 the advertisements in the last magazine and smoke 
 his pipe. There was an advertisement of a piano with 
 piano-player attachment. . . He glanced in at his 
 narrow cell and gently turned the page. Beside, 
 there was a girl playing the piano thing, and a young 
 fellow in a big arm-chair near by, a finger curved over 
 one eye, dreamily listening to the music. It was 
 very snug and home-like. It was too snug and home- 
 like! In the cell two doors below, the assayer, time- 
 keeper, weigh-master, and sampling-mill boss were 
 starting an evening's session at poker. Chips rattled 
 preparatorily, and what the young men were saying was 
 what they had said last night, and last week, and last 
 month. Why could not people sell pianos without putting 
 in such pictures? Bunny lost a puff at the pipe and his 
 page. The back of Bunny's head caressed the post, and 
 Bunny gazed wistfully, nowhere in particular, unless 
 at the smoke curling deadly and heavy from the top of 
 the smelter stack, and hanging low over its purplish 
 shadow on the saffron desert. Bunny was thinking that 
 he'd like to have that vacation very much. Maisie was 
 up there up there in the States. Bunny's pipe was 
 out, and the magazine had slipped to the floor. 
 
 It was as well to think of something else, and Bunny 
 reflected that he should be hearing from Jim Krag pretty 
 soon now. Two weeks ago Bunny had replied to a letter 
 from Jim. To think of it, Jim being almost a doctor ! 
 No, by jinks, he was one already, for it was the 12th, 
 last week, when Jim was to gather in his M. D. Bunny 
 had written Jim that the smelter surgeon had persuaded
 
 80 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the company that he needed an assistant surgeon. After 
 which Bunny had overflowed. How glad he would be 
 to see Jim! Jim must come, sure and certain, as this 
 was just the opening Jim wanted, and it would be a great 
 chance for him, by jinks, it would, and they would rough 
 it through together in Mexico, Jim and himself. 
 
 The smelter surgeon, as it happened as happened 
 with everybody was fond of Bun Chubbuck, and that 
 was the whole secret of the matter, except that the 
 smelter surgeon suspected that he, the surgeon, was doing 
 too much work. But Bunny was convinced that any 
 position, vacant, occupied, or non-existent, would jump 
 at Jim Krag. 
 
 When, mused Bunny, his dead pipe between his teeth, 
 when Jim did come, Jim and he would do heaps in the 
 way of chatting here of an evening behind the gourd vines, 
 and they'd talk of those old days back at school, and how 
 Jim, the rascal, got that medal away from him, and 
 now here was the bottom of it with Bunny, the pearl 
 in the basin and perhaps Jim had been seeing Maisie 
 frequently Bunny hoped so and Jim would tell 
 him about Maisie, and all the rest of the long evening 
 they would talk of Maisie. . . . Maisie! 
 
 A week later Doctor Krag arrived, and Mr. Chubbuck 
 met him at the train, and was presented to Mrs. Krag.
 
 CHAPTER TWO 
 
 Old Supernal 
 
 IN HALF an eye poor cherubic Bunny perceived 
 rather, in half a heart throb, he felt that 
 Maisie was afraid of her husband. In the other 
 half, he almost knew that he, Bunny, was also afraid of 
 him. 
 
 Bunny was wedged into the usual swart, sweating, 
 odorous and clamouring throng of Mexicans that surged 
 to the coach platforms when the train emerged from 
 the glare of the desert upon the arid patch of station 
 gardening. 
 
 Bunny's narrow-brim straw hat, inadequate, gro- 
 tesquely jaunty, the style of a yesteryear back home, rode 
 above the maelstrom of peaked sombreros. Bunny 
 craned his long neck as each passenger appeared in the 
 sleeping car door, and he had to look twice to be sure 
 that the heavy, gray-clad young man with squared, 
 gaunt, clean-shaven features was really Jimmy Krag. 
 Krag, filling the door-way, cast one indifferent glance 
 abroad over Mexico, and recognized the beaming grin 
 under the jaunty straw hat. The granite features broke 
 to a smile. Krag's smile had affection in it, though it 
 was a contemptuous affection. Bunny's face was al- 
 
 81
 
 82 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 ready the rapturous grin just mentioned. His old 
 school-mate stood for all that he had left behind his 
 boyhood, of which the memory was the great treasured 
 thing in this later existence that was empty necessity of 
 living. He fought through the leather-aproned cargadores 
 mobbing the train, pulled himself up the steps, and 
 grabbed Jim's hand. Bunny could have been laying a 
 parcel the same being his soul wrapped up in 
 Krag's absent-minded, crushing grip of fist. 
 
 There was some one behind Jim, eclipsed in the door- 
 way by Jim's bulk. Across Jim's shoulder Bunny saw 
 a white flowing tourist veil covering a leghorn hat. Jim 
 stepped out, and Bunny discovered that Jim had not 
 come alone. 
 
 For the instant Bunny was so glad to see her that it 
 did not matter how or why she was there. His gladness 
 would not let him think or realize. The first joyful intake 
 of breath came first. 
 
 Krag read his face, for it was plainly written there, 
 and over his own passed surprise, amusement, and a 
 kind of grim pity. The sapient look went to Maisie. 
 Maisie's greeting smile was the sunshine. She had al- 
 ways liked Bun Chubbuck, and for her it was a treat 
 to see him again. Krag found himself thanking Bunny 
 in his heart for that sunshine. There had been mists of 
 late that he did not understand. 
 
 "How do how how do!" Bunny was ejaculat- 
 ing. He held a little gloved hand. He gathered the 
 bright eagerness of two blue eyes. He heard her laughter, 
 broken almost by tears, at him, Bunny, because he was 
 the same Bunny, and a boy as always, as he always
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 83 
 
 would be. And Bunny, seeing that the boy had all 
 gone out of Jim Krag, knew pity for Maisie, who was of 
 childhood still and who, always, would need childhood's 
 buoyant cheer in a life's companion. 
 
 "You see, Chub," Krag announced, "I got her." As 
 though poor Bunny had been watching the getting of 
 her as a species of prolonged and diverting sporting event ! 
 
 Bunny nodded, eagerly confirmative, though confirm- 
 ative of what, he as yet paused not to think. Rather 
 dazedly but grinning ever, he laid his handkerchief to his 
 brow. "I got her." It was only a clumsy, jocose, 
 bridegroom manner of announcement, such as seems to be 
 required of such occasions. Nevertheless, there was 
 something grisly about it that touched the marrow. 
 Bunny's stricken eyes went to Maisie. What was it 
 about her that was so unfamiliar? Yes, her curls. Cu- 
 rious, that his realization should come with missing them ! 
 In the first exaltation of her new estate, the pretty bride 
 had "done up " her hair. But that was not all. Maisie's 
 smile for Jim's announcement was less than perfunctory. 
 It was heartsick yes, heartsick. 
 
 "Well, we might as well be moving. Let me " 
 
 Bunny stooped for Maisie's suitcase and Jim's canvas 
 telescope. And as he leaned over, to the cinder-strewn 
 platform of the car was given the passing of the grin, 
 the sharp wrench of pain, the fixing of the cheerful 
 smirk when he should lift his head to face the next half 
 hour and the future years. "This way. All ready?" 
 
 He clove a passage, mostly by energetically shaking 
 his head, through cargadores clutching at the valises, 
 and brought his two friends to a decrepit hack. It was
 
 84 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the least decrepit one he could find. Bunny's aim in 
 life seemed to be to get them safely installed in the 
 vehicle, lest truculent brigands should hatchet them at 
 any moment. 
 
 There was what the Mexcans called a kilometre 
 of dust storm, they might have added between the 
 station and the town, since railroads in Mexico affect 
 an aloofness for towns. They go by them, but rarely 
 to them. So into the dust storm plunged Bunny's hack. 
 At least it made as much dust for the hacks behind 
 as the hacks ahead did for it. The Venetians and Es- 
 quimaux might call this a law of compensations, and be 
 philosophic. Bunny thought it matter for apology, 
 and said, by jinks, the natives were talking about the 
 last rain yet. He assured Maisie that the last rain was 
 still an article of human memory. Bunny was a brave 
 soul, and Krag knew that he was from the way he said 
 "by jinks." 
 
 Bunny had squeezed himself into the narrow drop-seat 
 of the one-time pretentious coupe, opposite Krag, and 
 not opposite Maisie. Yet Bunny found it hard to keep 
 his eyes from Maisie. Maisie supposed that Jim and 
 Bun Chubbuck had much to say to each other, and she 
 gazed mostly out of the dust-smeared window. She 
 wanted to be curious and interested, but she was home- 
 sick and lost and tremulous nevertheless. Bunny thought 
 that in her tan travelling suit and with that tourist veil she 
 looked sweetly fetching and very desirable, and with her 
 trying so hard not to be downcast she looked particularly 
 tempting as one to be cherished and forever shielded from 
 pain. Bunny took his eyes away, almost guiltily, just as
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 85 
 
 he had tried not to look at the medal Jim had won from 
 him three years before. He said to himself that he 
 couldn't have won Maisie anyway. It took a man like 
 Jim to win Maisie. Everything had come to pass exactly 
 as everything should come to pass. Bunny kept on as- 
 suring himself of the eternal fitness of things. 
 
 "They wore galoshes along here then," he added, 
 resolutely harking back to that last rain. He would run 
 all his brave soul through the sieve for one grain of cheer. 
 
 Krag took pity, and tossed him a straw on the waters. 
 "Any silver out there, Chub?" He lifted his chin at 
 the yellow desert, and beyond, to a purpled blur on the 
 horizon. 
 
 "My, yes," cried Bunny gratefully. "That's the 
 Sierra Madre." 
 
 Fit to be the mother of sierras, too! It was a barren, 
 treeless range, and hard and remorseless, as if the hot 
 winds of past eons had banked the desert in ridges along 
 the edge of the earth. 
 
 "Much silver, I wonder?" 
 
 "Much? Well! Hills full of it. That's what makes 
 'em so high, Jim. Full of other things, too. Full 
 of what fools had to give, their money, their years, and 
 their skeletons." He pursed his lips with decision. "None 
 of it for mine, Jim." 
 
 Krag grunted indulgently. This blessed Chub was 
 but extending the usual warning to the tenderfoot. 
 "Maisie girl" Krag turned to his bride. Mines were 
 apparently worked out "would you look at those 
 kids?" Three or four half -naked, reddish-brown waifs 
 were having great fun with a swirling, circling, slowly
 
 86 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 moving dust spout. They flung a sombrero into it, 
 which shot skyward, and then chased it, shrieking glee- 
 fully. "A little bit of audacity, that. Think of those 
 specks of flesh making a plaything of the desert. Eh? 
 Oh! But what were you saying, Chub?" 
 
 Chub was only saying something about conquistador es, 
 treasure ships, the Spanish Main, the Royal Fifth, Yaqui 
 massacres, abandoned bonanzas. He was pretty nearly 
 saying the viceregal history of the New World. He 
 wanted to keep Jim to silver. Silver was the great card 
 to play to strangers, and silver would last longer than 
 dust spouts. 
 
 "I was just thinking," said Chub, jumping the desert 
 and firmly putting them back on the purple range, "that 
 the Veta Negra is out there somewhere." 
 
 "Veta Negra? That means a black vein." 
 
 "What," exclaimed Chubbuck, "you know Spanish?" 
 
 "He was studying it, Bunny," said Maisie, "all the 
 time he studied medicine. How he ever managed so 
 much 7 don't know. No one knows." She shot a glance 
 of almost frightened admiration at her husband. " What's 
 more, as long as three years ago he made up his 
 mind to come down here." 
 
 "Jim always was near cousin to predestination," 
 laughed Bunny, but he also glanced a little restlessly 
 at the heavy profile before him in the dusty hack. 
 Krag was not flattered. Awe in others did not measure 
 him. It measured them. And he would not have 
 Maisie on that plane with the others. He wanted Maisie 
 in his own habitation. 
 
 "The Veta Negra " Chubbuck persisted.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 87 
 
 "Oh yes," said Krag, turning from the window, "your 
 Black Vein? Something recherch6 in vascular systems, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "No, Jim, no, and though you don't care about mines, 
 like me, still a story's a story and a legend's a legend, and 
 if you'll let me just vapourize along about this Veta Negra, 
 perhaps it'll entertain Maisie over a few of these bumps. 
 Anyway, it's one of the abandoned bonanzas, Jim. 
 Another case of Indians getting tired of toting two- 
 hundred pound ore sacks up chicken ladders for the 
 Spaniards, and one day murdering every Gachupin on 
 the works, and covering up the shaft, and keeping the 
 place a tribal secret for centuries until even the trails 
 to it were lost. Some of the richest bearing lodes down 
 here, accidentally discovered every now and then, are 
 believed or are positively known to be the same as some 
 of those old Spanish workings. But the Veta Negra 
 is still a legend, and that means that the excitement about 
 it will never go down until it is actually found and becomes 
 somebody's property. Wonder you never heard of it. 
 If you had a bucket of the Veta Negra ore for every 
 sun-cured skull of a prospector out in those hills that's 
 looked for it, you could why, you could buy a smelter 
 on the interest." 
 
 " Blessed old Supernal," murmured Krag. 
 
 "Dry up," said Chubbuck. "It's a fact. The 
 Yaquis kill 'em. And if it's the Yaquis that keep a 
 treasure secret, you can bet it's going to stay kept 
 a secret." 
 
 "But that vascular ore, Chub? Isn't that going 
 some even for a legend?"
 
 88 
 
 "Legend? By jinks, it's not really a legend. It's 
 good history. The vein was a hundred feet across, and 
 you can verify that by the old Spanish archives in Madrid 
 or somewhere. And it was so rich that well, a pick 
 would stick in it like as if it was driven in solid silver, 
 and you couldn't pull it out, like Siegfried's sword, 
 Nothung you know, the Needful in the oak tree." 
 
 "Needful," said Krag, with the faintest gleam hi his 
 gray eyes, "is good." 
 
 "Don't ' Bunny was going to say "smile," but 
 
 Krag's unpleasantly twisted mouth made him doubtful 
 if it were that "don't wrench your beauty, Jim, because 
 what I'm telling you, they are facts. Listen here: 
 about a hundred years ago there was a woman of this 
 very town, the widow of a merchant, who had saved a 
 wounded Yaqui from Mexican soldiers. What happened? 
 One night the Yaqui brought her a lump of practically 
 solid silver, black as coal, and big? took a dozen In- 
 dians to carry it. Romance nothing, no! The great 
 scientist Humboldt himself saw it in the City of Mexico. 
 As I say, it was black, and for its colour and size it couldn't 
 have come from anywhere except out of the Veto, Negra. 
 Now then!" 
 
 "Why," said Krag, "that's real entertaining, Chub. 
 Eh, Maisie girl? Black, you say? I declare. A sul- 
 phide then? Probably a deep mine, or was it?" 
 
 "Geology! Mineralogy! What else do you know, 
 Jim?" 
 
 Krag ignored the ejaculation. "That smoke stack out 
 there," he asked, "that the smelter?" 
 
 He pointed to a sooty blur on a little rise between the
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 89 
 
 town and tke mountains. The soot spot was the smelter 
 buildings. The stack pierced the sky above them, a 
 thread of smoke hovering over its muzzle. The patch 
 was not an oasis. It was the desert intensified. The 
 dust was black there. Like a pall it hung over the smelter 
 buildings. Maisie drew back into the shaking, rattling 
 hack from her first look at her new home, and batted her 
 eyes hard. 
 
 "They'll give you two rooms over the mess house - 
 oh, nice rooms," Bunny added valiantly. "And maybe 
 later, when one of the cottages falls vacant, which happens 
 pretty frequent. . . . Mike Eldridge the assayer 
 was saying just the other day that he couldn't face his 
 Maker and ask a white woman to stay any. . . . 
 But Mrs. Eldridge is subject to melancholia, you know 
 . . . I ... by jinks! . . ." Bunny 
 
 stopped definitely. He noted that he was failing to 
 cheer poor Maisie. 
 
 As they charged with a bump and a bang upon the 
 cobble stones of a narrow street, and there was the 
 drowsy Mexican life around them saddle-hued faces, 
 serapes, sombreros, rebosas, odours, plaintive phrases 
 caught above the din of wheels and hoofs, quaint signs 
 over shops, barred windows, and gaudily painted adobe 
 fronts, all swaying drunkenly past and as the rattling, 
 pitching, screeching old hack made pleasant discourse 
 preposterous, Bunny managed the rest of the journey 
 with his heroic smile and a nod or gesture or so, until 
 they were jerked up short before the hotel where his 
 friends might stop for a few hours' rest. 
 
 "The company's coach will be by for you this after-
 
 90 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 noon," Bunny reassured them, seeing Maisie peer into 
 the dark patio beyond the arched portals of the hotel. 
 "Want some aguacates alligator pears, you know? 
 Figs, too Think you were in the Orient, wouldn't 
 you?" He bought from the pyramid-heaped wooden 
 bowl of a peddler at the door, caught up their hand 
 baggage, and led them into the dank, moist, stone-paved 
 patio. Close smells of kitchen, bedchambers, and un- 
 washed, tawny flesh weighted the air. "If you've never 
 tried an aguacate salad," Bunny was saying, and thus 
 got them up a flight of slippery stone steps to their 
 rooms. 
 
 Bunny had asked no question about "everything back 
 in the States"; to ask hundreds of which he had looked 
 forward so pleasureably to Jim's coming. He remem- 
 bered with surprise that he had asked not one, and he 
 remembered only when Maisie was gone for a moment to 
 remove the leghorn hat and tourist veil. But still he 
 asked none. He had a queer feeling of utter solitude in 
 the world and he did not care to ask questions. For was 
 not the heart of each of the hundreds of questions the 
 one sweet, potent personality in the next room? Maisie ! 
 She was exactly an eternity farther away than the States. 
 And Bunny's questions did not apply to eternity. 
 
 All this filled Bunny with a dread that he had not been 
 polite. To show no concern for a dear friend's kith and 
 kin was stupid. It was boorish. 
 
 " Do you know you haven't mentioned any of the folks?" 
 He spoke when Maisie returned for her suitcase. "Tell 
 me, how did you leave Mrs. Hacklette, and all of them?" 
 
 To his surprise Maisie cast a startled look toward her
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 91 
 
 husband, who kept his eyes from her and went to the 
 window balcony. 
 
 "Mamma's quite well," she said. 
 
 "And your father?" Bunny blundered on. 
 
 Again Maisie's eyes darted swiftly to her husband, 
 and this time Bunny could not be mistaken there 
 was appeal in them. It was as though a weapon were sud- 
 denly raised against her father. And Bunny, seeing Krag's 
 face, did not wonder that Krag kept his face from her. 
 The look Bunny saw there made his heart go out in 
 helpless pity to the young wife. 
 
 Krag's massive~shoulders lifted. For him the thought of 
 Hacklette was dismissed. He turned, but to find Maisie's 
 pleading eyes still on him, and a look of sharp pain came 
 into his own eyes. Then his jaw set. Hacklette had 
 given him Maisie. But Hacklette still kept Maisie from 
 him, just as during three years Hacklette had stood 
 between him and his pride of manhood. He kept from 
 him happiness, his hope against loneliness, his mate, as 
 surely as though the episode on Cleft Rock had never 
 been. Hacklette pursued him with the meed of hatred. 
 And it was hatred, gleaming in steel gray eyes, that caused 
 Maisie to shrink from her husband. Because she shrank, 
 the hatred grew. Krag now charged against the man 
 Hacklette his bride's pitiful fear of him, and each stab of 
 pain that that meant. 
 
 Krag, turning heavily again toward the window, 
 was caught by the dismay on Bun Chubbuck's face. He 
 saw the poor fellow whip his gaze from Maisie. Krag 
 paused and contemplated Bunny, a little puzzled, a little 
 meditating, a long time. He uttered a contemptuous
 
 92 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 grunt. But another thought came. He drew Bunny 
 out on the balcony. 
 
 "Chub," he said, "you've got to make her laugh! 
 Make her smile something. You've got to, or I 
 believe I'd kill you." 
 
 "Poor old Jim," said Bunny suddenly, "I'm afraid 
 it's killing you already."
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 The Desert Rat 
 
 DOCTOR KRAG'S duties at the smelter were not 
 excessive. Occasionally a peon at the furnaces 
 backed into a slag pot, and landed with a 
 comical splash into the molten mass, his arms and feet 
 pawing the air, a contortion of intense amazement on 
 his face. Usually the doctor prescribed a wooden box 
 painted pink, and the company gave his widow fifteen 
 pesos. If it was a burro that the peon lost instead of 
 his life, the company gave the peon twenty pesos. The 
 company methodically scaled all things to schedule, 
 from mortality to a settlement sheet. 
 
 Other casualties were not always so conclusive, and 
 science intervened to prolong uncertainty. Also they 
 interfered with the smelter surgeon's practice in town. 
 Wherefore the surgeon had demanded an assistant. 
 It was in this fissure operated in the company's payroll 
 that Krag found himself. His generous chief turned 
 over to him more and more of] the casualties, as being 
 "a gorgeous chance in chocolate ivory for bringing up 
 one's technique." But fissures' are abhorrent to 
 corporation schedules. At the end of a year Krag 
 found himself his own chief. This helped all round. 
 The surgeon had all his time for town practice. Krag 
 
 93
 
 94 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 had more of gorgeous chance. The company had a 
 surgeon at an assistant's salary. 
 
 In due course, which was ten minutes after the next 
 following pay-day, Doctor Krag made it clear to the 
 company that his friend Bunny would have to cast up a 
 rather larger figure on the smelter surgeon's bi-monthly 
 salary voucher. He tendered the voucher itself for 
 revision. 
 
 "Oh well," said the manager to the superintendent 
 later, still with a sharply defined impression of the recent 
 interview, "he's twice old Doc anyhow." 
 
 "Twice?" echoed the superintendent. "The only 
 requisition he's turned in in months has been for " 
 
 "I know; mustard plasters. Now what the Sam Hill 
 does he want with so many mustard plasters?" 
 
 "Never mind," said the superintendent. "Maybe 
 they're little stepping stones to good health. Anyway, 
 when you see a Mexican nowadays go into the hospital, 
 you can bet your grandmother that he's a sick Mexican 
 a sure sick one, all right. Here, I'll just bet you 
 myself that we're saving enough out of the men's hospital 
 dues to pay that silent, rock-ballasted demon his raise 
 twenty times over." 
 
 "Demon? I can quite believe that, but " 
 
 "Watch him once with his knives and his needle work- 
 ing over some gory smear that used to be a perfectly good 
 peon. He's as cold as ice and swift as a steel trap, and 
 his jaw's undershot, and inside that's my theory 
 he's fighting mad, a white-heat mad. And the more darn 
 foolish it is trying to sew up the basket of ribbons into a 
 man again, the icier and hotter and madder he gets."
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 95 
 
 "He loves the lowly peon, then?" 
 
 The superintendent vented the one improper word 
 for disgust. "I dope it out this way," he explained. 
 "It's table stakes against the Reaper with him, and lie 
 hates to lose. No,he declines to lose; that's it,he declines." 
 
 What was called a hospital was not a hospital at all. 
 Ordinarily it was a dispensary. It was a low, white, 
 stone building of two rooms, three barred windows, and 
 one outside door. The first room contained a roll top 
 desk and swivel chair, a gun rack, a wooden bench, 
 bottles on shelves, a pharmaceutical cabinet, freight 
 boxes partially unpacked, the odour of iodoform, dis- 
 order, and dust. The dust cushioned all things. Flies 
 perished in it, and were buried. 
 
 A door between the two rooms, always kept closed, 
 led into the second room, and here was the realm of the 
 scrubbing brush. Every morning three muscled Mexi- 
 cans scrubbed. After which operation, it was the operat- 
 ing room, shining, polished, clean, with table, stand, 
 lavatory, instruments, windows double screened, and not 
 a fly, either alive or buried. 
 
 Krag received, on suspicion, in the first room. Each 
 shift brought him its woes of body or imagination, and 
 waited on the long wooden bench, while the senor doctor 
 tilted back heads and lifted eyelids and looked 
 at tongues, and turned a trembling peon's soul 
 inside out, and grunted. If it was quinine or calomel 
 that the peon wanted, to barter for mescal at 
 the cantina under the hill, the doctor diagnosed 
 that too, and softly said: "Vamanos Flit!" 
 If that peon fraudulently came a second time, the
 
 96 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 doctor prescribed Specific No. 1, which was a mustard 
 plaster and non-negotiable, laid firmly on the shoulder 
 blade by the doctor himself. And perhaps the doctor's 
 own cheyenne salve was laid on after that. The works 
 had never been in such a state of health. 
 
 But any peon, however foul; any vermin-ridden flesh, 
 so only that it contained life and was about to lose life, 
 was very welcome. The Reaper's seal was his passport. 
 Such a one Krag would bear to the inner shrine, into 
 the waiting sanctuary of the scrubbing brush. The 
 surgeon then was greater than loving care. He was the 
 ferocity of determination, the more so because his foe, 
 being death, was the deadliest foe; the more so because 
 that which he championed he most despised, mortality. 
 To such he gave his skill, daring, caution, and patience, 
 his days and nights, working swiftly or watching silently, 
 while whiter men of lesser ills might wait or rot, as they 
 chose. 
 
 The superintendent unwittingly had hit it right. 
 This was Krag's game. It was his play time, though his 
 bread-winning time. It was release from the vanishing 
 point; his recreation. The rest of the day, or of the night, 
 was his real work, which with Krag was Krag himself. 
 
 Yet this real work looked like the dawdling phase of 
 his existence. Intellectual dawdling, the superintendent 
 called it, as when Krag conceived a weird notion to study 
 the Yaqui dialect. For the Yaquis were not a conver- 
 sazione people. They murdered, and did not linger. 
 And if they did, who in thunder would want to talk to 
 them, anyway? 
 
 Besides, if one absolutely must talk to Yaquis to be
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 97 
 
 happy, why not do it in Spanish to the Yaquis pacifico a 
 working for the smelter? These pacificos all knew Span- 
 ish. Many of them had been living in civilization for gen- 
 erations, though they disappeared sometimes for a while, 
 and perhaps their wages often went for Mauser shells 
 to send to the untamed Yaquis in the sierra. They were 
 good workmen, and the smelter's best paid natives, 
 and the company managed to keep the watchful govern- 
 ment from putting them in chain gangs, as was being 
 done with pacificos elsewhere while the sierra Yaquis 
 stayed on the warpath. 
 
 Still, there was no explaining the young doctor. He 
 was always ready to go when a pacifico child in the village 
 fell sick. A pacifico required only a word of Yaqui to 
 get the doctor's ear, at any time and no matter where. 
 The superintendent even suspected that Krag gave them 
 lead from the assay office. Leisure, comfort, sleep, all 
 these the untalkative Doctor Krag would forego for his 
 linguistic passion. 
 
 Krag had other and more rational amusements, but 
 they were seemingly as aimless. For example, the 
 superintendent was always glad to let him help figure 
 out a metallurgical charge. It began by Krag 
 sauntering in one day and idly wondering how 
 they kept the furnaces from freezing up. Likewise 
 he had strolled into the laboratory and was soon 
 doing some determinations for antimony, while the 
 chemist sat down and read the paper. Eldridge the 
 assayer entertained him, too, by letting him pull the 
 cupels out of the little hell over which assayers pre- 
 side, or weigh gold and silver buttons, the specie of
 
 98 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the little hell as of Hell, on glass-encased scales. In the 
 prevailing state of health Krag could often loiter a half- 
 day with one of these amiable toilers, or even with the man- 
 ager himself in the ore-buying sanctum. But none of 
 them realized how much he soon knew about the ex- 
 traction of values from the rocks of the earth. 
 
 Krag had need of the larger figure henceforth cast up- 
 ward by Bunny. He had sent Maisie to Mexico City, se- 
 cretly hoping that she might find sunshine there and bring 
 it back with her. She stayed two weeks, and begged to 
 come back. But she brought no sunshine. Else it 
 went into the desert's glare. Now he wanted to send her 
 for a visit home. And send her he did. She was to stay 
 as long as she wished, no matter how long. He made it 
 explicit; gently, yet explicit.. She stayed a month, and 
 begged to come back. He knew she would. Soon after 
 she had her baby, a baby girl, but that was not the sun- 
 shine not quite though they named her Alice. 
 
 That baby! She earned her father's attention as an 
 instance of the most troublesome and stupid of the young 
 of all animals. She was an item the more in his contempt 
 for the human species. For the species, that is, because 
 as babies go she was an exemplary babe; which he was 
 entirely willing to accept on faith and her mother's word. 
 But his scientific discernment would not let him away 
 from the fact that Alice referred the universe and all that 
 in it was, and her mother most of all, to her little tummy. 
 Krag kept it to himself, but he could recall no young 
 animal feeding that was more purely animal at that fes- 
 tival than this wee thing sprung from his loins. Yet, 
 when excess was vocalized in terms of colic, the one to
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 99 
 
 wait her through the endless reaches of the night was 
 himself, precisely as he would thrust the bulwark of his 
 flesh and bone between Maisie and every pest. And his 
 hand, that might tear away the jaw of a lion, stroked 
 his baby girl's fragile head, and soothed her in the 
 Nirvana of his huge vitality. 
 
 The meagre American society of mess house and 
 cottages alleviated both desert and smelter, although 
 it was a narrow, gossipy, tattling little circle in its mutual, 
 self-sacrificing helpfulness, and as ridiculous as an army 
 post over the precedence of one's husband's position and 
 salary compared to the same of each other woman's 
 husband. The safety valve for husbands was to pack 
 them off to the States whenever they could find the money. 
 All, however, were of accord about Maisie's little trips. 
 They deplored her going. They needed no perfunctory 
 exclamation to be glad when she came back. Maisie 
 was hors de concours. They would relish seeing her brows 
 lift. They longed to see her tilt her chin. But Maisie's 
 brows and chin were not of that kind, unless in making 
 delightful faces at Baby Alice, and Baby Alice, like 
 queens and empresses on their thrones, was not fretting 
 about precedence. 
 
 So there were other reasons why Krag gave Maisie 
 the little trips. The reasons abounded when he could 
 no longer bear the frightened look in her gentle blue eyes. 
 He dreaded, some day, to see her cringe from him. He 
 had made her heart all snug and right so far as hearts 
 go as mechanical pumps. But he could not make it 
 snug and right as a register of joy and a chronometer 
 of bright seconds. And his hatred of Maisie's father grew
 
 100 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 because Maisie's life also was dwindling into wretchedness. 
 He would not see that this hatred itself, and the sodden, 
 heavy look of it in his eyes, reared the barrier between 
 Maisie and the sunshine. He saw only his hatred's 
 object as that barrier. 
 
 But, after all, the need of Maisie's little journeys 
 back into the world was a current need only, like coffee 
 at breakfast or the baby's safety pins. It did not concern 
 the vanishing point, and Krag's unflinching gaze was 
 always on the vanishing point. His need of more salary 
 had to do with coffee and pins and Maisie's least desire, 
 but not ultimately. Ultimately, in some strange way 
 it had to do with an occasional lean, leather-fleshed, rope- 
 sinewed, dust-begrimed, and half-naked native off the 
 yellow desert who had come from the terrible sierra 
 beyond the desert. 
 
 Cutting blasts had matted the dust in the creature's 
 straight black hair, whose stiff tufts pierced the cracks 
 in a rotting sombrero. The saffron powder was ground 
 into the seams of the lean face and into the creases of 
 the neck. Like tawny gilt on bronze, it streaked the 
 hollows between the ribs, seen when the ragged mania 
 blouse lay back before the wind. It filled the deep cracks 
 in the man's heels, which were of tougher leather than 
 the sandals under them. It stained the cotton calzones 
 flapping about the thin, knotted legs, and through every 
 stitch it was caked and rusted. 
 
 This occasional native was a desert rat. He was a 
 chameleon of the waste, meek, passive, and surviving. 
 Bones, tendons, and hide, these were wrought to endure 
 his habitat, and his brain was an instinct to skulk before
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 101 
 
 the fiercer creatures out there. To the very membrane 
 of his gullet the heat had sucked out the juices, until 
 that also was parched to the chameleon hue. Then one 
 day the desert rat would blot himself against the outer 
 smelter wall, lethargic, patient, and athirst, waiting 
 for one he knew, that he might lave the crackling mem- 
 brane in aguardiente of a fire to match the sun's own. 
 
 One afternoon at five o'clock, as was his custom dur- 
 ing the two years he had been at the smelter, Krag locked 
 the hospital door behind him, putting an end to pro- 
 fessional routine for that day. Except when a joust 
 with the Reaper was on, he would then return to Maisie 
 and the baby more apparently, let us say, to his books 
 on mineralogy in the stifling and dusty rooms over 
 the mess house. 
 
 But this afternoon, as he passed through the smelter 
 gates, nodding to the two policemen always on guard 
 there, a desert rat detached the blot of himself from the 
 wall and drew alongside the doctor, taking off his limp 
 sombrero as he did so. 
 
 Krag glanced down at the dust seamed face. "How, 
 Pldcido; back, are you? " He could tell the natives apart, 
 which is a trick that requires practice. 
 
 "Pues si, senor" The man put the sombrero brim 
 between his teeth and began fumbling with his loin cloth. 
 From its knotted ends he drew pieces of rock, and laid 
 them on Krag's broad palm. While Krag examined 
 them, he waited stolidly, like an old dog. Krag hefted 
 the rocks one by one, turned them over, examined them 
 under a pocket magnifying glass. He seemed greatly 
 bored. The Mexican's dog-like eyes shifted from the
 
 102 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 white man and on down the little hill, to the village of 
 thatched adobes where aguardiente was sold. They came 
 back, and met the steel gray eyes of the white man. The 
 Mexican quailed, although there was no lie in his heart. 
 
 "You have been gone," said Krag, "two weeks and 
 three days. I advanced you a media a day, to buy beans 
 and tortillas for two weeks. Three days over; eighteen 
 cents I owe you. Take them." 
 
 "But senor," faltered the man, "there are yet the two 
 reales a day " 
 
 "Did they not pay you in the mine where you have 
 been working?" 
 
 "In a mine, senor? Truly, I work in no mine. The 
 senor must believe that I work for him only." 
 
 "Are you a liar, Placido?" 
 
 "Pues, no, mi patron. I am prospecting only for the 
 senor." 
 
 "Am I a fool, Placido?" 
 
 Placido shrugged vaguely. "The senor should know." 
 
 Krag handed him back the rocks. "See for yourself, 
 Placido. Yes, they are heavy. Yes, there is silver in 
 them. But they are not outcroppings. They are not 
 reddish. You would not call them colorados. You 
 would call them negros, so that they came from deep 
 down eh, Placido? But after all, Placido, you have 
 not told me where you got them?" 
 
 "In a mine, senor." 
 
 "Ah, then " 
 
 "No, mi patron, I did not steal them. I have not 
 been working in a mine. Yet they came from a mine. 
 A mina tapada, an antigua, a lost mine, senor"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 103 
 
 Krag gravely took the rocks and dropped them in his 
 coat pocket. "A peso on account, Placido. Here.' 
 The desert rat caught the coin, knotted it in an end of 
 his loin cloth. "Be here," said Krag, "at five o'clock 
 to-morrow. At five the day after. At five the day after 
 that, until we start for your lost mine. Does it happen 
 by any chance to be the Vela Negra, Placido?" 
 
 A scene such as this had happened before many times. 
 A half dozen desert rats were even then in the sierra wil- 
 derness beyond the yellow desert, each trailing it alone 
 among the peaks, each solitary waif alert for rock and 
 "sign," skulking from the Yaquis; and each with the 
 smelter surgeon's beans and tortillas tied into a corner 
 of his blanket. 
 
 Placido's sandals fell like pads in the dust, pattering 
 down the hill toward the clustering adobes. Krag turned 
 back to the assay office with his bits of rock.
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 The Phantom Mine 
 
 KRAG never left Maisie behind, if he could help 
 it. He rarely left Bun Chubbuck behind. Yet 
 the gray eyes seemed to be unseeing. He 
 wanted Maisie along for himself. He wanted Bunny 
 along for Maisie to talk to. The desert and sierra were 
 a prescription. They were good for Maisie. Had it 
 been necessary to buy them, at no matter what price, 
 and the hot, dry winds thrown in, Krag would have 
 thought them cheap, for browning Maisie's creamy skin, 
 for ruffling her hair, for making her toss back her head 
 in the luxury of deep breaths, for the dancing and crisp 
 sparkles in her blue eyes. Others of the smelter 
 settlement who cared to go along were welcome, but 
 the others had early acquired discretion. Krag's outings 
 across the sands did not have the name of picnics. " They 
 were," said the superintendent, "roughing it down to 
 the brass tacks. They weren't country club stunts. 
 They were the real business. " 
 
 But to Maisie and Chubbuck it was no extraordinary 
 thing, when Krag looked twice on a rock brought him by 
 one of his desert rats, to mount little mustangs, with 
 sheathed rifles under their stirrup leathers, and ride 
 with him from Saturday noon till midnight, camp in the 
 
 104
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 105 
 
 mountains where the desert rat led them, spend Sunday 
 morning there, and toward daybreak Monday see the 
 smelter stack again. For Maisie the stack stood for 
 Maisie's baby. The nearer the stack, the nearer that 
 baby, who was necessarily left behind with one or another 
 of her worshippers among the smelter women. 
 
 After the first few trips the bit of rock in the affair 
 seemed to Krag's wife and friend an incident merely. 
 Nothing ever happened, and they were no more ex- 
 citable over the chance of a bonanza. Krag would fol- 
 low the outcropping pointed out by his desert rat, stoop 
 for chunks of float, perhaps drop one in his pocket for 
 future assay, and coming back to camp would say: 
 "Well, let's eat," and seem to forget all about it. So 
 far he had not "denounced" located a single prospect. 
 
 But Maisie and Chubbuck felt that, once this silent 
 man did show interest, it must warrant excitement in a 
 lesser nature. A lighter head, indeed, might have been 
 turned by some of the indications that Krag passed over. 
 Krag, however, had his own system. Of a prospect 
 he exacted both high grade and width of deposit and both 
 must show practically at the grass roots. Aught less, he 
 mentioned to Chub, could neither build a railroad nor 
 break his heart. In his secret soul Krag was wondering if, 
 after all, the curse of futility were dogging him. But 
 doggedly he kept on. He thought of Hacklette and his 
 promise to Hacklette. He scorned an antagonist on equal 
 terms, but wealth multiplied one antagonist into many. 
 By wealth an antagonist projected his prowess by the 
 prowess that he could buy. Krag proposed to overcome 
 that handicap. Then on Hacklette first, he meant to jus-
 
 106 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 tify his existence, not as a unit of spawn on the earth, but 
 as a man as those three letters spelled the word to him. 
 He would exemplify mastery of the thing he lived on. 
 
 They had three days, and needed as many, to verify 
 Placido's tale of a lost mine. May the fifth, one of the 
 days that Mexico celebrates, fell on a Friday. Saturday, 
 consequently, was as good as a holiday, after which 
 came Sunday. With pack burros, water skins filled, and 
 armament, they started Thursday afternoon. They 
 camped at midnight. By sun-up they were again trail- 
 ing the desert. 
 
 The way was heavy. The little caravan moved in a 
 stirring of powdered mist that moved with it. Ahead 
 the jagged mountain wall was plum-coloured, splashed 
 with lavender, mauve, rose, and rust, with tints of the 
 opal, aflame, vivid , and near enough, they seemed, to touch . 
 The three Americans knew by now the desert's fascina- 
 tion. It had grown into them, and they responded with 
 a craving-like thirst of the over-soul. However far they 
 might roam hereafter, they knew that they would long 
 to come back, and would come, if they could. 
 
 Yet the call was of death rather than of life, and at 
 first it was terrifying and dreadful. A living thing was 
 an isolated thing, and alive only because it was a rare, 
 brave thing. Life nowhere crowded here. It was of a 
 desolate exclusiveness. Only gray tufts of chaparral 
 flecked the waste. Krag had an affection for these in- 
 domitable Spartans. Tramping for miles on foot next 
 his wife's stirrup, his horse's bridle over his arm, he talked 
 of it. He never talked much, and never for the sake of 
 talking, but it had become a habit with him to strive on
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 107 
 
 and on for Maisie's comradeship, hoping that yet she 
 might chatter with him as she did with Bunny. 
 
 "There's a tumble-weed," he said, pointing to a drab, 
 leafless little bush hardly bigger than his fist. "See 
 it rolling along there, just wherever this wind blows it. 
 Maisie girl, what's your opinion of a poor fool thing like 
 that trying to grow?" 
 
 Or he showed them, here a greasewood almost buried 
 under the sand, there another fallen over, its roots under- 
 mined by the wind. He showed them an organ cactus 
 cut through by the sand blast. The sun scorched the 
 soil beyond the point where plants are thought to live. 
 The sky often withheld the dew. Aught of leaf or fibre 
 hinted of food to every ravenous desert animal. But 
 Krag showed them the thorns that kept off the fanged 
 jaws. He showed them the hairy air cushions that 
 clothed a plant against the blaze of day and the chill 
 of night, or the shellac covering that armoured it, and he 
 told them why the leaves grew small, or why there were 
 no leaves at all, since then the sun might not suck forth 
 all the precious moisture. And then he bent forward 
 in his stride, and his lips brushed his wife's riding skirt. 
 
 At times he looked up at her, but not hopefully. True, 
 the pallor of brow and cheek was no longer there. At the 
 worst, it was but faintly suggested under the desert's 
 tempered alchemy of tan. He was gratefully triumphant 
 in that alchemy wrought by his merciless colleague, the 
 desert. Often and often he looked, though mostly she 
 talked with Chubbuck, and as for himself he had little 
 to say, and the tenderness that racked him with pain 
 softened the remorseless glint in his eyes. His heart as
 
 108 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 he looked up at her was his intelligence. It told him 
 that here was a human soul, one that yearned to 
 cling for warmth, to nestle for affection, his to cherish, 
 to make for it the minute of this life a transcendant 
 minute of joy; a soul that was his soul's responsibility, 
 lest having that dear essence in his keeping he mar it. 
 So he bent in his tracks like that, until his lips brushed 
 her riding skirt. 
 
 She had turned to Chubbuck, answering a question. 
 
 "Indeed, yes," she was saying, "I dearly hope they 
 will come, though I don't know how they'll like our 
 desert, do you, Bunny? Jim's thorns would scare away 
 touring cars too, and anywhere papa can't go in his tour- 
 ing car What was that?" 
 
 She turned and looked down, but Krag had straight- 
 ened, and she thought it only his elbow hitting her stirrup. 
 He quickly averted his head. He knew that the look she 
 dreaded was on his face, come there at mention of her 
 father, and he could not bear to see the shrinking in her 
 wistful blue eyes. In the same impulse she swayed from 
 him toward Bunny. 
 
 Krag mounted. Hatred was in the saddle now. 
 
 He took one of Pldcido's rocks from his pocket and 
 handled it musingly as he rode. Maisie and Bunny 
 ceased their talking. They had never seen him intent 
 so on a rock before. They stirred restively, not 
 knowing why. They had only his profile, under his 
 high peaked sombrero with its silver rope, a profile 
 harshly carved, hard of mouth and jaw and chin. 
 The eye under its heavy brow was narrowed to a slit 
 against the wind and glare. His sallow features had
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 109 
 
 taken the desert's own tint. "In that climate," a 
 quaint old chronicler once said, "the people turn yellow. 
 It may be that the desire for gold which fills their hearts 
 shines forth in their faces." Bunny's skin was only 
 burned. The blushes could still mount through it. 
 
 Krag looked up, at the trail ahead, and only then 
 noticed, seemingly, that he was the object of their interest 
 and their silence. He bent his gaze on them quizzically. 
 
 The suspense in cherubic Bunny's expression did not 
 escape him. 
 
 "It is really a black ore," he said, as if to continue 
 his thoughts aloud and gratify their curiosity. "You 
 know what that means, Chub? For if it were reddish, 
 what then? It would mean that surface waters had 
 oxidized it, consequently, that it lay near the surface. 
 But this "he tossed the rock, caught it, meditatively 
 "is dark and undecomposed. The surface waters of a 
 hundred years, or a hundred thousand, haven't had a chance 
 at it. It's still a sulphur base. It's a silver sulphuret. 
 Consequently what? " He flung a leg over the pommel 
 of his saddle, and looked past Maisie at Chubbuck. 
 
 Chubbuck's uneasy attention quickened. His in- 
 nocent soul grew aware of temptation. Krag noted that, 
 but went on, as a geologist fondly absorbed in his de- 
 ductions. " So this rock in my hand is to-day, chemically, 
 just what it has been for some millions of years since the 
 earth was a melting pot, before this desert was the bottom 
 of a sea, before even a two-legged creature needed a silver 
 dime for a loaf of bread, or bushels of 'em for a touring 
 car." He tossed the rock again. "There's a dime in 
 my little bric-a-brac here. It's been waiting for me all
 
 110 
 
 this time. What do you think, Maisie girl? Isn't that 
 a lot of patience for even an inanimate thing?" 
 
 "Eldridge says," said Chubbuck," that the piece you 
 gave him would run four hundred and thirty ounces." 
 
 Krag nodded impatiently. This was not pertinent. 
 It was trivial interruption. It was elbowing him from 
 the marvels of cosmic science. 
 
 "And," Bunny went on, "a trace of gold." 
 
 This time Maisie's eyes opened anxiously. The little 
 maternal person was disturbed by these signs in Bunny. 
 Bunny should not meddle in mines. He would never be 
 old enough. Bunny, casting up figures, had so far done 
 it wisely, academically, platonically. So many ounces of 
 silver to the ton, so many ounces of gold to the ton; 
 these were figures only. He cast them up into dollars 
 and cents; again, figures only. He did not see the men 
 who brought the ounces and tons to the furnaces. He 
 did not see the men who pocketed the dollars and cents. 
 But he saw Jim Krag very distinctly. 
 
 "What's more," said Bunny, "it carried lead. I don't 
 remember how many units Mike said, but anyhow it was 
 enough to mean a premium on the ore instead of a charge 
 for smelting." 
 
 Krag was studying the rock as if it were a key to the 
 cosmos. 
 
 "Jim," cried Bunny, casting up the figures, "don't 
 you know that that would net, at the smelter, something 
 like two hundred and seventy-five dollars a ton?" 
 
 "So," said Krag, summing up his own reflections, 
 "Placido must be right. It can't be an outcropping." 
 
 Thus he brought the chain of his meditations to the
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 111 
 
 last link of Bunny's numerals, and the two chains were 
 welded, remorselessly. 
 
 "You don't mean," protested Bunny, "that it came 
 from a mine? You're not thinking of buying a mine, 
 Jim?" 
 
 "On my income?" 
 
 "Then how did your prospector where 
 Bunny gestured at the rock in Krag's hand. 
 
 Krag made no reply in words. Chubbuck saw his 
 twisted smile, full of meaning, and saw him nod back- 
 ward over his shoulder at the pack burros and drivers 
 straggling behind them. One of the burros was loaded on 
 either flank with a great coil of rope. 
 
 "It's a an abandoned shaft," cried Chubbuck, 
 "and you're going down into it!" 
 
 Krag looked at him, and Bunny flushed. Of course, 
 an abandoned shaft with four-hundred-ounce ore in it 
 so near the smelter would have been found out long 
 ago. 
 
 "No," said Krag, "there are no signs of the shaft 
 left." 
 
 "Why, Jim," cried Maisie. "it must be a a phantom 
 mine!" 
 
 Instantly, on hearing Maisie's voice, Krag was willing 
 to explain. 
 
 "Not at all," he said, "only the Yaquis must have 
 done a clean job, filling it up, covering it over, making 
 a genuine mina tapada of it, as Placido says. There's 
 not even a stone left of the old real fortress, you know 
 such as the Spaniards used to build around a shaft. 
 For centuries, until Placido came along, the desert rats
 
 112 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 have been going over the spot without once smelling a 
 grain of ore. " 
 
 Maisie's brows crinkled in perplexity. "Pshaw, 
 
 Jim she gave way to exasperation "you're 
 
 either fooling us, or your Placido is fooling you." 
 
 "No, Maisie, I'm not, and he's not." 
 
 "But you're telling us, " insisted Bunny, "or letting him 
 tell you, that he smelled it out, the Lord knows how." 
 
 "Suppose," said Krag calmly, "we go back three hun- 
 dred years. It won't take long. We find the Spaniards, 
 with their Indian slaves, working our phantom mine. 
 They have sunk on a rich vein in the side of a mountain, 
 They follow the lode down as far as it goes. Then they 
 drift you understand, Maisie; they tunnel horizontally 
 and dig out the vein as they go. And one day while 
 they are digging in the breast of their drift, what hap- 
 pens? The tunnel caves in behind them, that's all. 
 They are there yet." 
 
 "Oh!" Maisie pictured starving, entombed men; not 
 their skeletons. 
 
 "Then what?" demanded Chubbuck. 
 
 "I told you. Then the Yaquis fill up the shaft. Also 
 they murder the Spaniards left above ground, so that 
 no more white men shall know of that mine and come to 
 enslave them. " 
 
 "But your Placido? How " 
 
 "I see," said Krag, his lips twisting, "the mystery 
 remains. Well, then, I should have said that when the 
 Spaniards tunnelled, they tunnelled with the slope of the 
 mountain, so that each foot brought them a little 
 nearer to the surface. Finally they drifted into a pocket;
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 113 
 
 at least, the vein widened and bulged upward, and they 
 went to work digging it out stoping, it's called, Maisie 
 
 scooping out a wide, high chamber in their tunnel. 
 They were still doing it when the tunnel behind them 
 caved in, and it was in this stope where they perished. " 
 
 "But Placido?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, Placido. Well, he was down in this stope. " 
 
 "Jim, three hundred years ago!" 
 
 Krag laughed. Maisie was interested. "No, no, the 
 other day. The Spaniards had stoped up close to the 
 surface, and the crust over this tomb was pretty thin, 
 so thin that three hundred years of rain wore in the roof. 
 At last, just a little while before our famous Placido 
 passed that way, the roof caved in, and our famous 
 Placido found it. There, Maisie, is that satisfactory?" 
 
 For a time they rode in silence, letting imagination feed. 
 
 "But see here, Jim," objected Bunny, "if the 
 vein runs with the slope, and it has been dug out as far 
 as you say, then there can't be much of it before it crops 
 out on the surface, and there's an end to your vein. " 
 
 "And others would have found that outcropping ages 
 ago," added Krag. "But the surface slopes up again, 
 Chub, just beyond the stope, and on this surface the out- 
 crop of the vein is entirely obliterated, and the vein goes 
 
 the Lord you mentioned knows where." 
 
 "You've probably got " Bunny's eyes were glisten- 
 ing "a bonanza! " 
 
 Krag's heavy shoulders lifted. This was the business 
 side of it; his business. But his friend was muttering: 
 "Two hundred, three hundred dollars net Lord, Lord ! " 
 
 "Jim," cried Maisie, "what does he mean?"
 
 114 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "I mean," said Chubbuck, "that soon Jim will be 
 drawing the smelter's check for two, three, four, five 
 hundred a thousand dollars a day. " 
 
 "Yet," said Krag, "there'd have to be a railroad first, 
 across this desert, and I'd have to yes, I'd have to 
 let others in on the bonanza." 
 
 im," said Maisie timidly, "are you that is, Jim, 
 if you must let others share in this oh, Jim, dear, I 
 mean, you're not forgetting papa?" It was the chance, 
 she thought, the chance for reconciliation between 
 those two. 
 
 Krag abruptly bent his head to the pommel, to the rock 
 in his hand, that she might not see his face. 
 
 "No, Maisie," he said at last, "I'm not forgetting 
 your father. "
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 The Aristocrat of the Charnel House 
 
 AFER a time they perceived a foot-hill off to the 
 right, then two more on their left. These 
 mauve warts of the desert, ancient, barren, 
 eroded, seemed to have swelled there but a moment 
 since, breaking the ring of the horizon. After an hour, 
 more foot-hills rose in front of them, and thus gradually 
 the flat waste gave way to another barony of the wilder- 
 ness. The sierra was closing about them. 
 
 Finally they were in a wide ravine, banked by the hills. 
 The sand under foot became moist. The sand grew to 
 pebbles. Next their horses trod a bed of rock, littered 
 over with small bowlders, and there was a tiny, trickling 
 stream. The hills came nearer, growing together, and 
 suddenly were mountains, high, rugged, overhanging, 
 precipitous. The little brook was making itself heard, 
 as it tumbled and raced over green-hued ledges. The 
 ravine narrowed. The bulk of mountains crowded al- 
 most on their toes. The shadows deepened. A de- 
 pressing sense of something lost crept over the moving 
 human dots in the bottom of the gorge. At last they 
 remembered. It was the blazing sun that was gone, 
 screened from them as by a smoked glass. Looking up, 
 they saw the sky, a gossamer of blue laid over the 
 
 115
 
 116 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 cracked earth. In the azure down, pin-point stars were 
 twinkling. 
 
 "How's this for a real canon, Maisie? " asked Krag, as a 
 physician might ask if his medicine was pleasant to take. 
 
 "It's grand grand!" she murmured. "Oh, think, 
 let's give it a name. " 
 
 "Can't," said Chubbuck. "It's already the Barranca 
 Quebrante. " 
 
 Maisie was disappointed. "The breaking gorge," 
 she translated. "Pshaw, what a chance thrown away! 
 Beside, " she insisted, "that's not why, not grammati- 
 cal. What does it break? If it were even the Bar- 
 ranca Quebrada the broken gorge now that would 
 mean something. But whoever heard of a gorge breaking 
 anything?" 
 
 It was referred to Placido, and Placido shrugged his 
 shoulders. A tortilla was a tortilla. A serape was a 
 scrape. The Barranca Quebrante was the Barranca 
 Quebrante. But he didn't know why. Why, senores, was 
 a why desired? 
 
 A little farther on, the wall of the gorge on their right 
 opened into a ravine, which drained the slope of a moun- 
 tain on either side like the valley of a roof. Placido hailed 
 them, saying that here was the best place to camp. 
 Krag ordered his burro drivers to pitch Maisie's tent, 
 which was the only tent, near the brook; then struck off 
 up the ravine with Placido, Maisie, and Chubbuck to 
 have a look at the lost mine. 
 
 Answering a question from Krag, Placido touched his 
 sombrero and waved an arm over the mountain slope 
 to the left.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 117 
 
 "You asked him where the slope is?" demanded 
 Chubbuck. 
 
 "No,"saidKrag, "for we already know it must be almost 
 under the bed of this ravine. I asked him which side 
 it's on. It's on that side. " His arm swept the moun- 
 tain rising on their left. "The shaft was sunk not 
 very far up the slope. From the bottom of the shaft 
 they drifted toward the ravine. They would have 
 passed on under the bed of the ravine, following the vein 
 into the mountain on that side. " He swept the mountain 
 to the right. 
 
 "And the poor Spaniards" said Maisie, "they're 
 in there!" She stared pityingly at the sierra's mass 
 under her. 
 
 "That's all right, Maisie girl. They're held down." 
 
 "But where, Jim?" Chubbuck insisted. "Where's 
 the stope?" 
 
 Krag nodded ahead at the lean desert rat plodding 
 up the ravine's dried bed. "The answer's in those 
 whipcord legs," he said. 
 
 "But," said Maisie after a little, "the answer seems to 
 be lost." 
 
 Placido had stopped. His eyes roved, locating a 
 remembered ledge here, a scrub oak there. His fingers 
 went into his coal black hair. 
 
 "Senor, it's gone!" 
 
 " Gone ! What, a hole in the ground ? " 
 
 The dazed fellow smiled weakly. "Yes, senor, " 
 
 Something about this struck Maisie as funny, and she 
 began to laugh. The vanishing of a bonanza, like break- 
 ing a leg, is not usually humorous, but when it is, one
 
 118 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 has a unique treat. The unexpected thrill of merriment 
 made Krag thank his bonanza for vanishing. But 
 Placido was woefully distressed. 
 
 "The favour, senor," he pleaded. "Let me see one 
 of the rocks in your pocket. " 
 
 "Is the man dippy?" exclaimed Chubbuck. "He 
 might as well try to find a dog by his bite. " 
 
 "It's not that, Chub," said Krag. "Placido's universe 
 is tottering. Look at him. He sees that the rocks he 
 gave me are real, and they help him to believe that he 
 got them from a real mine. A dog's bite would assist 
 you to the same certainty about the dog. And yet, 
 Maisie girl " so much breath was for Maisie only 
 "you see there is not a sign of a hole in the ground. What 
 would you do about it?" 
 
 "Look for it," said Chubbuck. 
 
 "This invaluable Supernal!" grunted Krag. 
 
 He had taken his rifle from its case, and was peering 
 up one and the other slope, questioning each bowlder 
 that might hide a Yaqui. Chubbuck understood. With- 
 out a word the two men rode in close on either side of 
 Maisie, yet casually, so that she saw no purpose in it, 
 until their horses almost touched noses in front of her 
 horse's nose. Each man recalled, hopefully, that a 
 company of soldiers had passed the smelter a few days 
 before, bound across the desert. The chances were that 
 the soldiers had driven the Yaquis farther back into 
 the mountains. Nevertheless, Maisie was dismounted 
 in the first sheltering gully that offered, and when the 
 burro with the coil of rope overtook them, Krag sent its 
 driver back to camp for the rest of his peons. These
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 119 
 
 peons were old deer hunters, carefully chosen, and Krag 
 had made them discard their muzzle-loaders for American 
 rifles which he had borrowed from the company. 
 
 Krag and Chubbuck persuaded Maisie that she 
 needed a rest, and exacted her promise to wait for them 
 while they and Placido explored for the lost mine. They 
 did not venture far, for the desert rat was positive about 
 certain of his landmarks. The mine was bound to be 
 near. But when he seemed on the point of locating the 
 spot, a something unfamiliar, he could not tell what, 
 intervened and upset his reckoning. Then he floundered 
 lugubriously, and asked to see the specimens again. Bun 
 Chubbuck, for all his scoffing, commenced to share the 
 bewildered fellow's intuition of something uncanny, 
 when Maisie called them. Her voice carried excitement, 
 eagerness. 
 
 They found her in her gully, kicking clods into a heap. 
 "There, Jim," she said, pointing the toe of her boot, 
 "there's your old mine!" 
 
 "Well, by jinks," cried ^Chubbuck, "by jinks! But 
 Maisie how in the world 
 
 "Just from sitting here with nothing to do," said Mai- 
 sie. " I began thinking I could dig a mine while you men 
 were looking for one. So I started to dig, don't you see, 
 with my foot, and then I struck that!" Again the 
 contemptuous little boot pointed. 
 
 Scooping out a basin in the dust and stones, she had 
 come to a flooring of logs. She had sifted dust between 
 the chinks until that seemed an indefinite procedure. 
 Apparently there was no bottom underneath, and in one 
 ecstatic second she knew that she had found the mine.
 
 120 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "And it'll have to be her mine, won't it, Jim?" said 
 Bunny. 
 
 Senorl" It was Placido's exclamation. He was 
 smoothing the stiff black hair on his peaked cranium. 
 "1 understand at last. It was this." He indicated the 
 little gully. "This was not here before. " 
 
 "Not here! What?" 
 
 He shook his head emphatically. "No, senor, this 
 arroyo has been fabricated. Why? To hide again this 
 mina tapada that betrayed itself to your servitor. " 
 
 Sharp eyes were needed, but the desert rat was telling 
 the truth. The gully had not even been dug out. It had 
 been built. Dust and rock had been carried there to raise 
 its banks, which were graded off on either side to conform 
 to the slope of the mountain. The same patient cunning 
 had made the short little ditch resemble erosion by 
 water. Its bed was covered a half-foot thick with 
 pebbles. When these were scraped away, there was 
 revealed a raft of logs, set into the ground even with the 
 surface. Krag's peons pulled out these logs, and the 
 desert rat stood, pointing down into a gaping black hole. 
 
 Chubbuck strode round to Krag. " Jim, " he whispered, 
 "I believe it's the the Veto, Negra!" His face was 
 white under its blistering. "Wasn't this hole's history 
 the history of the fabulous Veta Negra?" he rattled on. 
 "Weren't there Spaniards entombed or murdered? 
 Wasn't there a shaft filled up by Indians? Wasn't 
 every vestige destroyed, and the secret preserved? And 
 look here, here was this hole covered up again, 
 the minute it shows itself after all these centuries!" 
 
 Krag laughed in the white face. "Well," he said, "we
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 121 
 
 might call her the Vela Negra. It would help to sell 
 stock. But let's look first and see if we want to sell any. " 
 
 "Jim," cried Maisie, "you're not going down there?" 
 But she knew that he was. 
 
 " I ought to go, too, " said Chubbuck. " I've heard that 
 a man ought never to go into a mine alone. " 
 
 "Bunny!" exclaimed Maisie. 
 
 Krag heeded neither of them. He knotted the rope 
 about a log that his peons had laid across the hole. He 
 went down hand under hand. The last he saw, before 
 the brink of the hole shut them from his sight, was Maisie 
 and Chubbuck peering breathlessly down at him. Maisie 
 had to accept his daring as a matter of course, while 
 at the suggestion of daring in Chubbuck she was hor- 
 rified. But her husband did not explain so easily the 
 tense look on her face as she leaned over and peered down 
 at him. That look he carried with him into the dark 
 cavern below. 
 
 The darkness thickened. His eyes saw nothing of 
 walls or bottom. He might have been the one atom of 
 matter poised in space, himself the universe. But his 
 ears caught, faint and thin, a shriek overhead, and 
 something passed him downward, stirring the dead air. 
 It crashed and shattered on the bottom, and the cavern 
 groaned with stifled echoes. He knew what had happened. 
 His weight on rope and log had loosened a bit of the crust, 
 and a slab of rock had fallen. He looked up. A head 
 was silhouetted on the edge of the jagged patch of light. 
 He heard Bun Chubbuck calling down, as one who dreads 
 that he may be calling to the dead. 
 
 Krag would not answer at once. The possibilities in
 
 122 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 his death, paradise, should first flash across Bun Chub- 
 buck's mind. Krag knew, for all Bunny's loyal heart, 
 that just such an elysian bower would rear itself like a 
 fiend's mirage. He waited exactly long enough, and 
 hallooed, as from the tomb: "Well, well, what is it?" 
 
 Abruptly he remembered Maisie. For it was Maisie 
 who had screamed. Was she, perhaps, lying white and 
 lifeless, and only clumsy Bun Chubbuck to bring her back 
 to this world! Krag began climbing up again, when a 
 second head outlined itself in the patch of light. He 
 thrilled in gratitude to his science that had so strengthened 
 her frail heart. He saw r her arm stretching over the void, 
 and saw Chubbuck's hand guide her hand to the rope. 
 As she clutched it, he understood. She was assuring 
 herself that his weight was still on it. The falling rock 
 had not plucked him from his hold. From the golden 
 light above, down to him in the utter night, the vibration 
 of the rope with her hand around it came like a caress, 
 and entered his being as a message. He did not think 
 of that then, but he did long afterward. He saw Chub- 
 buck's arm draw her back. He grunted, and lowered 
 himself on down. 
 
 When he stood on the bottom, closed round by a dense 
 mustiness like the diseased breath of earth, he lighted 
 a candle. There were no drafts of a subterranean laby- 
 rinth to snuff it out. The one egress was the small 
 dazzling hole sixty feet overhead through which he had 
 come. Neither were there gases to smother the flame, 
 or his own flame of life, since Placido had been down 
 here already, after borrowing all the lariats in his native 
 village, five leagues away. Slowly the candle light grew,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 123 
 
 and its flickering circle crawled farther out upon the dark- 
 ness. The pitchy black dissolved into vague shadows, 
 the shadows into clumsy shapes of jutting rock. 
 
 Here was the last chamber of the Spaniard's treasure 
 house. Here their devious burrowing opened on a vaulted 
 cathedral. This far they had followed the bonanza 
 vein under the mountain, and here the vein had swollen 
 big and tumorous, so that they had hollowed out the 
 cathedral. Naked Indians had carried out these tons of 
 rock, gangue, and ore. They had crawled and squeezed 
 through the tunnels with it, and staggered up notched 
 timbers with it, one sack at a time that was corpse heavy, 
 and one sack at a time they had dropped it, with sweat 
 and anguish, upon the earth's surface under the sun; and 
 in Spain armadas and churches were built and upstart 
 grandees stood covered before their king. And here was 
 an American named Krag, to take up the tragedy where 
 the old tragedy had left off three hundred years ago. 
 
 But Krag was not greatly interested in Spaniards. A 
 drama some millions of years yet farther back had pre- 
 cedence. Compared with that, Castilian bones were his 
 contemporaries. He slowly moved the candle over his 
 head, bringing the feeble rays on the walls of naked rock. 
 A page of geology lay here. It was the earth's memoirs 
 in the original manuscript, spread in molten ink when the 
 earth was hot with youth. Now they were tablets of 
 stone, being read by an intruding creature under the light 
 of a candle. 
 
 A black hole gaped in the cavern's wall. It was 
 where the drift entered the stope. A something on the 
 ground gleamed yellowish white. Krag recognized the
 
 124 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 breast bone and ribs of a skeleton. It was but human 
 to turn from earth's memoirs of millions of years to this 
 pitifully insignificant and human document. Even Krag 
 did so, but solely on the chance of enlightening addenda 
 to the grander document. 
 
 The skeleton lay on its side, and the knees were ludi- 
 crously drawn to the breast like a man doubled up with a 
 stomach ache. Thus the man had doubled up when the 
 empty stomach was yet there. Krag bent over the relic 
 with his candle. He touched a finger to the ground 
 underneath. Dry dust, heavy and grease-laden, stuck to 
 his finger. This was departed flesh, and flesh unclothed. 
 The man had been naked in death. Only the loin cloth, 
 rotted and drooping slack on the pelvis, marked him in 
 dying above the beasts. He had been an Indian, one 
 of the mine slaves, and therefore was now an unprofitable 
 document. 
 
 Stooping, holding his candle before him, Krag stepped 
 over the skeleton into the mouth of the drift. Another 
 skeleton lay at his feet. A little farther on, the bones of 
 two more were mingled. One was lying a little over 
 the other, its bony fingers clutching at the other's throat, 
 its teeth apparently sunk in the chalky wall of the other's 
 fleshless chest. The living man sneered. Here was 
 only a document of self self in extremis, and again of 
 no profit to the incarnate selfishness treading among them. 
 
 Yet farther on many more skeletons were heaped 
 and jumbled together, like slain bodies on a battlefield. 
 To pass them in the narrow tunnel, Krag had to squeeze 
 close to the wall, and beyond he came into a cleared 
 space; cleared, that is, of the mortal debris except for
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 125 
 
 one lone skeleton, which seemed yet to master the whited, 
 cowering pack. Near it lay a rusted, broken sabre, deeply 
 gashed from point to hilt, and in the jumbled heap of 
 bones there were cleft skulls. Behind the lone skeleton 
 the tunnel ended in a crush of rock and splintered timbers. 
 At that point the wound in the earth had closed, trapping 
 these one-time living men in their treasure chamber. 
 He of the lone skeleton had held the spot nearest succour 
 against the pack, and he had died victor on his futile 
 vantage ground. 
 
 The sword is more of a document than a loin cloth 
 can ever be. Krag knelt beside the lone skeleton. It 
 was of the aristocracy of bones. It was accoutred in 
 conquistador leather; in doublet, breeches, and boots. 
 The leather parted like paper ash under the living touch, 
 and bared the glistening frame within. The living fingers 
 went to the belt, to a pouch there, and peeled it open. 
 Yellow as a hag's tooth, something lay folded inside. It 
 was parchment, enduring yet; a gesture, nod, frown, or 
 smile, of one century to another across the chasm of 
 time. 
 
 Krag's heavy hands smoothed out the limp folds with 
 the gentleness of the surgeon. The dead Spaniard's 
 breast he used for table, and spread the parchment there, 
 centring the candle's flare on its smeared lines. The 
 antique Castilian lettering was dim, and clouded by 
 the wash and sop of blood long since dried. But the 
 man who had come afterward needed no written word to 
 interpret the gesture whether "Yes" or "No" of 
 that other century. Krag knew already that the lode 
 ran from north-west to south-east, so that it was easy to
 
 126 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 trace understandingly the old workings on the Span- 
 iard's chart. Krag traced them from the shaft, along the 
 gutted vein, to the breast of the drift in the fateful stope, 
 where the last pick had been driven in the treasure- 
 freighted lode. 
 
 This much Krag expected to find. Every mine 
 boss would know as much of his mine. But it was little; 
 it was nothing. The intruder on that ancient tragedy 
 hoped for more; expected it not, yet hoped. He bent 
 avidly over the parchment. The hard gray eyes awoke 
 like sleepy hounds to the scent. They darted to and fro, 
 over and over again, across a certain parchment country 
 that was blank. They sought to project the traced line 
 from where, as a worked-out vein, it stopped at the face 
 of the drift. He brought his head closer, and blew softly, 
 to blow away what might be dust. But the specks, if 
 such they were, held fast. Then he noted that they were 
 orderly specks, tracking single file over the parchment. 
 They were a dotted line, faint, and doubtful, too, like 
 the dead treasure seeker who had set them there. They 
 began near the stope, and did, theoretically, project the 
 virgin lode. But, what was astounding, and rasped the 
 geologist's soul, the tracks bent in their course. They 
 bent from south-east to southward. Almost to a right 
 angle they broke. Now what Spaniard that dead 
 Spaniard must have been, to feel along a thread of silver 
 from under one mountain into another mountain! 
 To see, with his Spaniard's greed, that the thread 
 curved within the solid mountain! Moreover, a 
 bending vein of ore is a monstrosity in all geology. 
 The dead Spaniard had been a very crazy live
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 127 
 
 Spaniard. So any other man than Krag must have 
 thought. 
 
 But Krag looked farther. A little beyond its bend 
 southward the dotted line stopped. It stopped short, or 
 was brought to a stop, by a bold, harsh line like a stonewall 
 in its path. That bold, harsh line pictured no shade of 
 doubt. Did the fanciful Spaniard, then, imagine that the 
 vein had heaved at that point? Was he dreaming of a vol- 
 canic shiver that had ruptured the vein there? If so, 
 he was dreaming of many things under the earth. And 
 yet, the stone wall was the boldest line on the chart. It 
 was assertive, stubborn, and would not be denied. 
 
 There were some letters three letters, a word 
 written along the bold line. They were almost illegible, 
 but Krag made them out: "A UA. " There was a 
 blur between the first two. That halted Krag a second 
 only. "Agua," he exclaimed. "Water!" 
 
 Water was as important as silver, if one would have 
 silver of those barren mountains. The Spaniard was 
 certain to indicate water. But again, was he imagining 
 a stream within the earth? 
 
 In a flash of intuition Krag understood. "Agua" on 
 the chart stood for the little stream they had followed up 
 the gorge! The bold line was the gorge itself. And the 
 vein stopped with the gorge. It outcropped somewhere 
 on the gorge's precipitous walls. The Spaniard had 
 discovered this outcropping, by accident, doubtless, per- 
 haps from the summit of the opposite wall. He had 
 identified it as the same vein. But, to outcrop there, the 
 vein must have changed its course. Hence the doubtful 
 bending dotted line on his chart.
 
 128 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Thereupon Krag thought for a long time on it. An 
 expert examining the property would believe that the 
 vein kept its course, which was south-eastward, and where 
 no gorges intervened to cut it short. On that assumption, 
 supported by all the rules of geology, the expert would 
 recommend development. He might advise a railroad to 
 the smelter. Only later, when the vein had been followed, 
 would its queer twist and quick end be known. There 
 was a chance here to lose a great deal of money. 
 
 Krag thought of Bunny. Bunny was quite sure that 
 this was the Veto, Negra. But Bunny forgot the grateful 
 Yaqui, the Mexican widow, and the famous chunk of 
 silver ore that Humboldt saw. 
 
 That episode had happened a hundred years ago. But 
 this mine was buried three hundred years ago, and had 
 stayed buried too deep for any Yaqui, no matter how 
 grateful a Yaqui. 
 
 "Still " Krag took up the candle, and got to his 
 feet "anything not to disappoint Bunny. The Veto, 
 Negra it is. Furthermore, as thoughtful Bunny reminds 
 me, it is Maisie's mine. We will defer to thoughtful 
 Bunny. " 
 
 He held the parchment to the candle flame, and the 
 ashy flakes wavered down upon the aristocrat of the 
 charnel house. Then, back in the stope, he dug speci- 
 mens from the richest seam in the breast of the lode, 
 filled a canvas ore sack with them, tied the sack and his 
 pick to the rope, and signaled to them above to draw up 
 the rope. 
 
 When they lowered the rope to him again, he climbed 
 as buoyantly as though his bonanza were genuine.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 Worthy Wolf 
 
 DO YOU think there's any danger what would 
 be danger to him?" asked Maisie. Peering 
 down, she saw his candle moving about, and 
 vanish, as though it were pinched out. " Is there, Bunny? 
 Is there? He's in that tunnel now, I think. There's 
 only the darkness. " 
 
 Chubbuck gazed on her where she knelt, braced by her 
 stiffened arms at the very edge. The slender neck was 
 as pretty in its tan, perhaps, as it had been in soft ala- 
 baster. Its curve, from her shoulder to the first maddening 
 little curls, was anxiety's line. Her one thought was for 
 the man below, and Bunny knew it. He laid his forearm 
 across his brow as if he were perspiring. 
 
 "There can't be, Maisie," he said. "I was talking to 
 Placido. Jim can't go more than a few steps into the 
 tunnel before the cave-in stops him. And there's no 
 shafts to fall into. " 
 
 "But I wish he hadn't gone, Bunny. And I wish / 
 might do something to frighten him, and, " she whispered, 
 to herself, "make him wonder, as he makes me. Jim! 
 Jim, dear!" So she thought of him, and her heart, 
 bolder than her lips, kept the words. 
 
 "Maisie." 
 
 129
 
 130 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 She looked over her shoulder. Bunny's voice was 
 strange. He was staring fixedly down the ravine. 
 His old briar pipe, poised half-way from his mouth, 
 trembled in his hand. His lips were parted. Maisie 
 could not see outside the gully, being on her knees, so 
 that she did not see Placido and the peons intent on the 
 same direction, silently watching, with their rifles 
 ready. 
 
 "Maisie, is he there? Look again. Do you see his 
 candle?" 
 
 "No, Bunny. Not yet. Why ? " 
 
 " Maybe maybe you'd better call him. Yes, 
 loud! No, no, you needn't . . . God, they're 
 only soldiers!" 
 
 Fourteen drooping soldiers and a sub-lieutenant were 
 toiling up the ravine. Down in the gorge they had seen 
 burros browsing around the half unpacked camp. Maisie's 
 tube of tooth paste had fallen out of her saddle bags, 
 and by that they knew that the camp belonged to 
 Americans. The battered soldiers, what was left of them, 
 were coming out of the fastnesses of the sierra. The 
 trickling stream in the gorge was their last chance this 
 side the smelter to fill their canteens. 
 
 The soldiers had a prisoner. They pulled on the chains 
 from his wrists, and when the prisoner swayed they wear- 
 ily pushed him headlong, so that the momentum of his 
 lurch gained them a few steps. If he fell they roused 
 him by kicks, or the sub-lieutenant with his sword 
 point. If that failed, for the captive was weak, they 
 took him by arms and ankles, and dragged him. Thus 
 they were exerting themselves greatly for a trophy.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 131 
 
 Captives in that warfare were permissibly shot instariter. 
 But if one stumps one's toes on a clod of gold, one bur- 
 dens himself with the clod. Likewise with a Yaqui. The 
 sub-lieutenant was a gem of a sportsman. They might 
 not believe him at the barracks. They could always 
 shoot the Yaqui afterward. 
 
 They had caught their Yaqui the day before, 
 when they were returning from the chase after Yaquis. 
 It was near the place of their first skirmish, out- 
 going. They had tracked him by blood. Their 
 scout, of wary eyesight, had picked up a mesquite 
 pod. It lay a dozen feet off the trail, but against the 
 brown he had seen a smear of rust, and knew it for a 
 dried drop of blood. The others crouched involuntarily, 
 fingering their Mausers. The scout did not at once 
 follow the sign, but came back to the trail. There was a 
 little patch of dust in the trail at this point. He stooped 
 and gently rubbed his palm into the dust. He rose and 
 showed his hand to the lieutenant. Dust was sticking 
 to it, and the dust was reddish. A pool of blood had been 
 covered over there. They took hope. That the stained 
 mesquite pod had not been covered proved that the 
 wounded Yaqui was ebbing fast. But they kept their 
 Mausers cocked. 
 
 They found him in a clump of ocotillo where he had 
 crawled, thrusting into the thorns with his naked shoul- 
 der. His rifle was not on him. They had not hoped to 
 find that. His body was lifting as by knotted ropes, 
 and falling when the ropes slacked. The one sound 
 of his mouth was the bubbling of froth. His wound, 
 furrowed raggedly and deep along the thigh, was alive
 
 132 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 and horrible. They fixed chains on him before they put 
 mescal to his lips. 
 
 Maisie stood in the gully. She made out the fourteen 
 soldiers and the sub-lieutenant, and then the prisoner, 
 staggering, falling, and being beaten. Her lip quivered. 
 
 "That that's something they must not do! Oh, 
 callJim! Jim!" 
 
 "Wait, Maisie, wait! I- -" Bunny left her. He 
 went running on his gangling legs down the ravine. Soon 
 she saw him protesting to the sub-lieutenant, helping 
 his Spanish with indignant gesture. The little sub- 
 lieutenant wanted to be accommodating, but he was 
 puzzled. Was it that the senor desired that he cease 
 employing his officer's sabre in the discharge of his duty 
 to his patria, no? The flat of his officer's sabre had just 
 left the Yaqui's naked back. Chubbuck pointed help- 
 lessly at Maisie. The senorita But the lieutenant 
 comprehended. Of course, of course, the senorita did 
 not wish to see. He would desist. His men would desist. 
 Because of the senorita they would carry their Indian, their 
 desperate young bronco, in their arms. So it should be. 
 
 "But why come at all?" Chubbuck demanded. He 
 would save Maisie the horror of the Yaqui. " WTiy " 
 
 "We thought," said the officer, "that you might have 
 mescal, or wheesky. We have used all our own on this 
 mad dog which I have captured. And there remains 
 the desert. We ' 
 
 "Bunny," said Maisie, coming up with him, "tell 
 them that Jim is a surgeon. This poor, wild, wounded 
 creature " 
 
 "Of course," said Bunny. "I never thought."
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 133 
 
 The lieutenant was courteously pleased. A surgeon 
 was better than wheesky. A surgeon would make his 
 trophy whole. The lieutenant saw enhancement of 
 renown at the barracks. To capture a reasonably sound 
 Yaqui was somewhat. 
 
 "Why not," said Maisie, emboldened by compassion, 
 "have him brought to our gully, and let one of the men 
 go after Jim's valise it's back at camp, in the green 
 striped blanket and have it all ready? Quick now, 
 hurry!" 
 
 They were hardly back in the gully with the wounded 
 Yaqui, when the rope dangling in the hole began to jerk 
 and rap against the cross beam to which it was tied. 
 
 "Prospecting, no?" said the lieutenant genially. 
 "Ai, the great hole!" he exclaimed, and looked quickly 
 at the Yaqui. But the Indian's metal-bright, fevered 
 eyes betrayed nothing. "Yes, yes," said the lieutenant, 
 "it was from here that they first shot at us, when we 
 numbered as yet all of fifty-seven. And why? They 
 were keeping a watch on this hole. Ai, senor," he 
 opened his arms eloquently at Chubbuck "you are 
 not the strategist. You do not therefore perceive. But 
 I, yes. The Yaquis want no rich mines to be found in 
 this sierra. Why? Pobre, you are not the strategist. 
 Because, mines will bring a railroad across the desert, 
 and a railroad will bring armies. Ai, yes, senor mio, 
 and we foot-blistered soldiers of the patria do hope that 
 you now have found a very rich mine. So it should be. " 
 
 Chubbuck had drawn up Krag's sack of specimens 
 from the hole and was dumping them on the ground. 
 "Rich? "he said. "Heft that, then. Or that. Or that."
 
 134 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 He piled black sulphides on the Mexican's palm. They 
 weighed almost what solid silver would have weighed. 
 "Rich?" sniffed Bunny. The virus, which is the same 
 whether silvered or gilded, coursed through his veins. 
 The man below had sent up before him, not the human 
 document, but this other of geology rocks a subtle 
 lie in her eternal truth. 
 
 It was Maisie who thought to lower the rope again. 
 
 No one had been noticing the Yaqui, but it was the 
 Yaqui, lying half propped up on blankets spread for him 
 by Maisie, that Krag noticed first of all, when his large 
 head and dull gray eyes rose out of the hole. The Indian 
 was young, but his apathy was supreme, despite the wast- 
 ing of his corded frame, the thirst on his swollen tongue, 
 the pain of the festered wound, despite even his shackles. 
 Only the black opals that were his eyes seemed alert, yet 
 they were still, like a desert viper's when the viper lies 
 coiled. They were on Chubbuck as Chubbuck fondled 
 the treasure-laden rocks. 
 
 And so the eyes encountered Krag's, as a great yel- 
 lowed hand, streaked with candle grease, reached out 
 of the black hole and closed over the rope, and cords in 
 the wrist strained like cables, and this other man's 
 eyes of steel rose into the light, blinking as though 
 behind a crack in a plank, yet holding the Indian's own. 
 It was as when the viper sees a boulder loosen and begin 
 to roll, at first very slowly, down the mountain side 
 toward him. The Yaqui in no way comprehended 
 the uneasiness that grew on him. 
 
 Maisie trembled at the edge until Krag stood safely 
 beside her.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 135 
 
 "Brought me a patient, I see," said Krag, turning to 
 the sub-lieutenant. 
 
 "If the senor," begged the officer, "will but give him 
 legs enough for the desert." 
 
 "Or to run away, " added Krag. He noted the Yaqui's 
 lean figure, the clean, noble lines of a runner. 
 
 "But I captured him, senor," protested the little 
 officer. 
 
 "Very well," said Krag, "yet I mention again that he 
 will run away. " 
 
 "Jim," said Maisie, "he's suffering. Here's your 
 telescope case, everything. " 
 
 "But your claim, Jim?" Bun Chubbuck interposed. 
 "Aren't you going to denounce it?" 
 
 "Why, yes," said Krag. "Can't you and Placido 
 stake her off? " 
 
 "Sure, " said Bunny. "But there are no surface signs. 
 How'll we run the lines?" 
 
 Krag was laying out glittering instruments on a cloth 
 of black velvet. "The vein," he said, without looking 
 up, "runs south-east from the stope." 
 
 "That's easy. How far shall we follow her? " 
 
 "Suit yourself, old Supernal. Take in a hundred 
 pertenencias, if you like. " He squinted along the edge 
 of a long, thin knife. He was reflecting on law, not on 
 cutlery. Mexico had no law of the apex. A miner could 
 take only what lay between his lines. The vein, twisting, 
 would quickly pass under Bunny's south side-line. Knife 
 in hand, Krag turned to the Yaqui. "Now, my vale 
 coyote," he said affably. 
 
 The Yaqui's eyes darted to the knife. It was their
 
 ISC TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 refuge from this white man's eyes. He had feared that 
 he might flinch, but, looking on the material steel, he 
 would not flinch. 
 
 Krag did not use the knife. He put it down, first 
 for a hypodermic syringe, and then to let Maisie 
 pour an antiseptic wash on cotton swabs. His 
 fingers worked along the wound's jagged furrow, now 
 touching lightly, now pressing. Between him and his 
 patient there grew a sort of contest, a silent, instinctive 
 duel of two naked natures. The young warrior lay, 
 opposing his Indian will. Krag was half smiling, in 
 that strange affection he had for the wild, persisting 
 things of the desert. Smiling, he pressed, quick and 
 sharp. The Yaqui's body lifted, all but head and heels, 
 from the ground. His jaws snapped open. It was an 
 intake of breath, a sucking for mercy of the universe 
 outside since within himself he did not suffice. The 
 soldiers drew back, and laughed, admiringly they had 
 not been able to do that. But the yelp of agony was 
 still-born, though the Indian knew himself beaten. He 
 had recognized the empire of pain. He swept his man- 
 acled fists into the white man's face. Krag took the 
 blow, smiling. The Yaqui lay still then, gazing up at 
 him, while heavenly surcease of pain went stealing 
 through his body. After a little his head rolled over 
 on one lean jaw and he slept. 
 
 "Now, Maisie girl, some gauze." 
 
 Maisie had the bandages ready, unrolling them as they 
 passed through her husband's fingers. Krag felt her 
 nearness to him at such times, and he was deeply sen- 
 sitive of it. Especially so, because these were the only
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 137 
 
 times. Why his work, and not the cradle, nor his 
 love, nor hers, should draw her to him, he did not know; 
 or rather, he dreaded to know. His intuition of it dis- 
 mayed him; more, embittered him. For here were these 
 others, soldiers and peons, callous and pachyderm lumps 
 with no more feeling for surgical nicety than of needle- 
 work, yet, like his sweet wife, held by him at his work as 
 by the lodestar. His thick brows narrowed. He sensed 
 the cause, not confessing it. They, peons, soldiers, his 
 wife, humanity, had an instinctive antipathy for the cold 
 blooded creatures, for creatures without the grace to 
 know suffering. Begot of such antipathy was fascination, 
 enthralling warm blood despite itself. Krag pondered. 
 Was that, then, the spell of him at work, when his raw 
 material was mortal suffering? 
 
 Maisie wondered, also, but with less discernment. 
 Of ten she lingered at the closed door of the smelter hospital 
 when he was operating, although he would not let her 
 enter. It was not the horror of the scientist's sacrilege 
 in the temple of life, at least not that alone, that held her; 
 but with that, this man's, her husband's, cynical power 
 over life and death. His conquest of suffering but 
 deepened his sneer for poor mortality. At times Maisie 
 almost prayed that he might fail. She would cure the 
 healer himself in a little humility. Only a little humility, 
 and she thought that perhaps just possibly she could 
 make out whether it was that she hated him or that she 
 loved him. For this had come to be the enigma and 
 anguish of her life; this harassing riddle as to which 
 emotion she was the slave. That she was a slave she 
 knew quite well. And now, here in the Mexican wilder-
 
 138 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 ness, she had seen an Indian likewise falling a slave under 
 his hand; or was it? yes under his eye. Her 
 husband was the master animal. Maisie felt strangely 
 cold as she unrolled the last of the gauze. 
 
 "There," said Krag, "he's patched. But you will 
 either have to leave him, shoot him, or carry him. " 
 
 The sub-lieutenant thought of the desert, yet decided 
 to carry him. He rigged up a litter, accepted Krag's 
 invitation to camp fare, and would not be denied in a 
 wish to escort the Americans back to the smelter. On 
 the weary way he detailed his men by fours to bear the 
 trophy. 
 
 They reached the smelter late at night, and the soldiers 
 were exhausted and close to mutiny. If they might 
 rest at the smelter till morning? Krag warned them 
 as to their prisoner. He had heard that a Yaqui could 
 always escape. The sub-lieutenant laughed easily. A 
 room with barred windows, or without, it did not matter; 
 his men should sit over the Indian with levelled rifles. 
 It was Chubbuck who suggested the hospital. And there 
 the Yaqui was laid and two sleepy guards with carbines 
 sat on the wooden bench. Krag bade the sub-lieutenant 
 good-night. 
 
 The next morning at daybreak, when the squad roused 
 to take up the march to town, the Yaqui was gone.
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 
 Legacies 
 
 JIM." Maisie spoke his name almost timidly. She 
 did not fear her interruption would annoy him, 
 for it never did, nor that his head would lift 
 from his work with a frown, since he had never frowned 
 at her yet, or because of her. She sometimes wished 
 that he might. This perpetual calm was a cloak, while 
 a lightning flash might reveal her husband to her and 
 bring understanding. Nevertheless, she spoke his name 
 timidly. 
 
 He brushed aside the papers charts, blue prints, 
 official documents stamped by the government; all the 
 final papers of his mining claim spread out before him 
 on their plank library table and by his quiet gesture 
 told her that the moment following, or any other period 
 of his life, was her own if she cared to ask for it. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 Maisie was looking over his shoulder, rather bewildered 
 by the formidable scrolls whose magic was a license to 
 dig and possess treasure. She took courage. His word 
 of question was tender. She could not know how ter- 
 ribly so it was. 
 
 "Jim, you're going to be rich now, aren't you?" 
 
 "Am I?" He felt her nearness to him. His gnarled 
 
 139
 
 140 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 being was as sensitive to that as a leaf bud to the morning. 
 His shoulder ached for the resting of her hand there, 
 and she was wishing that it was was possible to 
 put her arm around his neck. "Why so? " he asked. 
 
 "Why!" she exclaimed: "because you have a mine, 
 of course!" 
 
 "Poorer, you mean. But since our last raise, maybe 
 we can afford just one mine." 
 
 "Aren't you," she asked, "going to let Bunny get 
 rich too?" 
 
 Krag mocked himself for hoping for the weight of her 
 hand on his shoulder. So his possible riches interested 
 her that the Bunny person might share them! 
 
 But the specialist in the human heart was quite mis- 
 taken. Maisie took it for granted that Jim would be rich 
 sometime. To wish him luck did not seem necessary. On 
 the other hand, not only to wish luck, but to inspire it, 
 did seem necessary for poor Bunny, if that good friend 
 to them both were ever to have reward. 
 
 "Aren't you?" she repeated, for his great, squared 
 head was on his chest, and she thought him deep in 
 other thoughts. "You know, Jim, to make Bunny 
 rich?" 
 
 "You mean, to make him poorer, the innocent Chub!" 
 
 "Please, Jim." She sighed despairingly at his humour. 
 
 "But it's not a joke, Maisie. It's ruin. For Chub 
 it is. Still, as he's secretary of our mining company, 
 I've given him ten thousand dollars' worth of stock." 
 
 "Jim Krag!" The blue eyes opened gloriously on 
 him, could he have seen them. "Jim ten thousand 
 dollars ruin? "
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 141 
 
 "Exactly, Maisie girl. It's assessable. Old Supernal 
 gets a vara." 
 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "A Mexican stock term." Then he explained. 
 "You see, we're a Mexican company. We've incor- 
 porated the Mexican way. There are twenty-five varas 
 of stock. One vara is non-assessable, which goes to 
 Placido as his prospector's share. But all the other 
 twenty-four are assessable. A vara is one hundred 
 shares, and the par value of a share is one hundred dollars. 
 Dear Bunny gets ten thousand dollars' worth." 
 
 "But Jim " 
 
 He shook his head. She knew what that meant, and 
 waited. 
 
 "For every dollar of stock," he went on, "there will 
 have to be another dollar, real money, to build a rail- 
 road, install machinery, and dig. Dollar for dollar, 
 only for a starter. Bunny's vara, will cost him ten 
 thousand dollars. Now where is Bunny going to get it? 
 Where's a destitute beggar who " he looked hard at 
 the table, his ugly smile jerking his lips " who handles 
 the smelter's cash! where is he going to get ten thou- 
 sand dollars? List, the echo, Maisie girl. Where?" 
 
 "But Jim, if that is so, where can you either? How 
 many what you call 'em have you?" 
 
 "All the rest. Twenty-three." 
 
 "Let's see, that's" her red lips fluttered indus- 
 triously "oh, I always did hate mental arithmetic!" 
 
 "Two hundred and thirty thousand dollars, Maisie." 
 
 She gasped. "Jim Krag, you can never, never " 
 
 "Hardly. I'd have to sell some of my stock."
 
 142 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Oh, now I see!" She clapped her hands in delight 
 at her deep penetration. "Of course, then with what 
 you sell you can pay that hateful business; assessments 
 on what you don't sell." 
 
 She pondered a moment behind puckered brows and 
 her former timidity returned. It was at once apparent 
 that this hesitating manner had no connection with Bun 
 Chubbuck. 
 
 "Jim." The appealing stress was there again. "Jim, 
 dear," and now her hand, both hands, fell on his shoul- 
 ders, " this stock that you must sell, why not sell it to 
 to papa. Oh Jim," she hastened on tempestuously, 
 "if only you would let him help, instead of strangers! 
 And it's not like asking favours, Jim. It's giving him 
 a chance to get richer, isn't it, and he would get richer, 
 wouldn't he, for helping you? Don't you see, Jim? 
 Then why not let him? And Jim . . . Jim " 
 
 But the words dragged at the prayer in her heart. 
 She could not say it all. She could not tell him that she 
 saw in his necessity a way to his reconciliation with her 
 father. Least of all could she tell him of her more ultimate 
 hope, that his bitterness must then perish, that per- 
 haps he would find again his better self, left so far behind 
 with his lost boyhood. She could not say all that, but 
 if Jim would only let her father help, at least that would 
 be the start. "Jim," she whispered, "won't you, Jim?" 
 
 He had risen at mention of her father, the act brushing 
 her hands from his shoulders, and she shrank a little 
 away from him. She hoped, when he should turn from 
 the table, that she would not have to meet his eyes. 
 He was lifting the papers from the table and laying them
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 143 
 
 down again, one by one, in business-like deliberation. 
 He found one that he wanted, a single sheet of stamped 
 paper, and kept it in his hand as he turned and faced 
 her. She looked up, and she could scarcely believe. 
 The dull, tired eyes were soft. They were kind, so very 
 kind, as they were the night in the trapper's cabin on 
 Cleft Rock. The tears welled blindingly in her own eyes. 
 
 "Maisie girl" the hard, cool voice had changed to 
 a note of sorrow " Maisie, it happens that you are 
 going to have a great deal to think about. A great deal, 
 Maisie. And soon. Very soon, indeed, Maisie." 
 
 "JimI . . . Why Jim, dear!" She was star- 
 ing at him. 
 
 He shook his head. She was not to interrupt. "And 
 Maisie, when you come to do this thinking," he said 
 very slowly, "and you see your happiness, then, Maisie 
 girl" he paused; his look, his manner, were the sol- 
 emnity of command "then clutch it! Grip it, hard 
 and fast. Snatch it as your due, girl : as your due from 
 Heaven, or whatever: as the due you owe your life's 
 years yet to be spent on earth Now, Maisie girl, do 
 you think you can remember, when this thinking time 
 conies?" 
 
 "Jim, I don't understand! What " 
 
 "Now as to your father," he interrupted abruptly. 
 She started. It was the first time she had heard him 
 speak of her father deliberately. He was, moreover, 
 quite passionless. But she took no hope from that. 
 Something a presentiment, perhaps was making 
 her tremble. She could better endure the old silence. 
 The very air seemed freighted with consequence to-
 
 144 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 night. "Your father," he said, "and here's at least 
 one item to be on my credit side I give you your 
 father's respect. Why?" The shade of a sneer crossed 
 his lips. "Because I you we are synonymous with 
 twenty-three varas two hundred and thirty thousand 
 dollars. You will be very welcome, little girl and little 
 mother, on your next visit home. You won't be treated 
 there again as you have been, as my my mother was. 
 He will toady to you now yes, twenty-three raras 
 worth!" 
 
 She listened, amazed. How could he know of her 
 treatment in her father's house, during her visit there? 
 She had never admitted even to herself that there was 
 a difference in her father's manner toward her. Yet 
 she had felt it at the time, and now she knew it for the 
 truth her father's contempt for her as a poor man's 
 wife. She recalled incidents, when adroitly her father 
 had cut under her naive pride in merely being alive, 
 and took the spirit out of her, and made her feel small, 
 dependent, inferior. He had patronized her with ques- 
 tions about her "home" over the mess house, about 
 Jim's salary and prospects. His brows had lifted, 
 noting her simple dresses and simplest of hats. His 
 very greeting, curious, cold, suspicious, had been a su- 
 percilious expectancy of a claim on his bounty. There 
 had been many things to start the tears. Every corner 
 in the wealth-reeking Queen Anne house was a brazen 
 contrast to exact humility. But Maisie had owned to 
 the truth in none of these incidents, and all together 
 they had not made her one in sympathy with her husband, 
 so that her husband's chief hope in sending her there had
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 145 
 
 withered miserably. And now he was making her see 
 what his mind's eye had seen her father, the man 
 Hacklette. But in his gentleness for her he would not 
 force her to spoken assent. 
 
 "There," he said, " none of that rot will happen again. 
 Next trip, what you don't like, buy and burn up. You'll 
 have your mine." 
 
 "My mine, Jim?" 
 
 "Yes, the Veto. Negra. You found it. The Bunny 
 person said you ought to have it." He opened the 
 paper in his hand. "Here it is," and he handed her 
 the paper. 
 
 She looked at it, and made nothing of it, except that 
 it was stiff and crinkly, with formal penmanship, and 
 made her think of her high-school diploma. 
 
 "It's a power of attorney," Krag explained. "That 
 will protect you better than actual ownership. And 
 there," he pointed to a block of lithographs on the table, 
 " are my shares, your shares, twenty -three varas of the 
 Veto. Negra; par value, two hundred and thirty thousand 
 dollars, gold. You can sell them, or keep them. The 
 power of attorney lets you do all that in my name, but," 
 he said, "there's one restriction. Not a share must be 
 sold for less than par, and for cash down," 
 
 "Par?" she questioned. 
 
 He explained "par." 
 
 She listened, wondering if she were dizzy. "Oh, you 
 keep it, Jim," she cried. "I don't want any mine. Please, 
 Jim. There's so so much thinking, and I don't even 
 know what the words mean." 
 
 He made no answer. She started to protest again.
 
 146 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Still he waited. She was not saying the right thin^. 
 She stopped protesting, dubious. He waited for her. 
 Slowly her brow cleared. There was a dimple, another, 
 like the stars coming out, but the stars were not com- 
 parable to the growing gladness in her eyes. . . . 
 Of course ! Jim did not want to go himself to her father 
 for help. But, to please her, he was willing to accept 
 such help. She had won! She had won! He would let 
 her go. That was why he gave her the mine. 
 
 "May I," she asked, to be real sure, " may I sell some 
 varas to papa?" 
 
 "If you don't," said Krag, "he'll take them away 
 from you." 
 
 Her face clouded plaintively. "Then you want me to 
 leave you again, to go on another visit home?" 
 
 "Time enough to decide that, Maisie girl, when you 
 come to do the thinking I mentioned." 
 
 She let that mystery pass. "And you don't really 
 mind if if papa helps! . . . Oh, Jim!" 
 
 The impulse was overpowering. She flung herself into 
 his arms. And quailed, when she found herself there. 
 
 He knew of old that flinching in his clasp a clasp 
 passive, that had not tightened and it decided him 
 beyond recall. A first joy died on his face, leaving the 
 corpse of joy, and the man's loneliness. He looked 
 down at the head nestled on his breast, yet lifting, draw- 
 ing away. His palms, laid on her shoulder, on her waist, 
 tingled. It was an ache, a hunger reaching to the mus- 
 cles of his arms, travelling to his heart; it was the 
 pain-sense of a void. Her body throbbed against 
 him. It was warm. A flush passed in waves over her
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 147 
 
 neck. Her hair brushed his face. The subtle fragrance 
 of it was in his nostrils. There was a demand of the 
 sensuous in him for this one and dearest woman; the 
 sensuous of a thick-set, rugged, robust animalism, gal- 
 vanized by fiery tenderness. Though of the body, it 
 was inexplicably one with the soul, too. He knew it for 
 no other woman, for none that he could imagine or dreaiii 
 of. It was the sensuousness of the monogamist, whic'i 
 cleansed passion of fleshly taint. But he was denied. 
 Her impulse, he remembered, was because of her father; 
 an impulse of gratitude. He accepted that for the 
 truth, and went on to do that which he had planned 
 to do. 
 
 "No," he said, "I don't really mind; at par." 
 
 There was a rumbling knock on their outer door, at 
 the head of the stairs. 
 
 "That will be the Bunny person," said Krag. 
 
 Maisie's ears were quick for another note. "The 
 clumsy thing," she said, much provoked, "now he's 
 wakened the baby!" 
 
 She hurried into the next room, and Krag opened the 
 door to Bun Chubbuck. 
 
 "Got your vacation at last, eh, Chub? When you 
 going?" 
 
 "Next month." He was glowing at the prospect. 
 
 "Don't be coy when you get home. The News and 
 Javelin might like to interview you about the Veto, 
 Negra, you know." 
 
 "Sure they will. It's a big story, Jim; finding an oKi 
 hidden treasure house that way, and the skeletons, aru 
 the centuries that have passed, and "
 
 148 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "People's tongues will be hanging out to lap up your 
 stock, Chub. Fill your trunk with specimens." 
 
 "But I won't sell," protested Chub. "I'm going to 
 keep my stock, all I can. I want to be rich, Jim. I 
 s'pose the kids at home have been growing all this time, 
 and if they could go on to college, maybe Hello, 
 there's Honey Bunch. Looks like somebody's gone and 
 woke her up." 
 
 "Somebody certainly did," said Maisie, bringing in 
 the little lady. "Bunny, why can't you knock in more 
 of a whisper?" 
 
 "Oh, well, Chub," said Krag, "don't grieve. It's life, 
 getting woke up. Death, when we don't." 
 
 "Now I think that's gloomy, by jinks!" said Bunny. 
 
 "Not at all." Krag smiled on him. "Snatching 
 at happiness" - the smile ended in a click of teeth 
 "now, that's being awake. Was just trying to wake up 
 Maisie there." 
 
 Chubbuck gazed helplessly from one to the other. 
 Maisie was as bewildered as himself. 
 
 "Told her," Krag went on ruthlessly, " when she sees 
 her happiness, to snatch it, pin it down. Only way. 
 Butterflies will fly; their nature. I I say, Mr. Chub- 
 buck," he turned on the amazed Bunny, " that might 
 apply to you, you know. Why not? General proposi- 
 tion, you know. Remember, anyhow. When you see 
 it, grab quick, especially especially if it means as well 
 the happiness of others, or of one other. For I suppose," 
 he added, robbing the last of hidden significance, for 
 Chubbuck had reddened, not knowing why, before the 
 rigid glare of the eyes under the thick brows, " that
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 140 
 
 happiness is a bargain out of the supernal box, say 
 and it takes two, at least two, to make happiness. And 
 when two can make it, then it is a real bargain, Chub, and 
 cheap at any price, whether paid here, in Heaven, hell, or 
 the grave. . . . By the way, Maisie girl, I've got a 
 call this evening. I may be late getting back, so don't 
 waitforme." He stopped, paused; seemed to be measur- 
 ing the seconds of his pause. "So don't wait for me," 
 he repeated. 
 
 He moved about the little room, gathering up his hat, 
 his medicine case, his rawhide quirt, his cartridge belt, and 
 revolver. In the inner room, on his dresser, there was 
 a small hand mirror. He slipped it in his coat pocket. 
 His shaving mirror hung on the window casing. That 
 also he slipped in his pocket. As he moved about, his 
 walk stiffened. His heavy, gaunt frame seemed to 
 be hardening, as a man who prepares to strain against 
 a great weight. His upper jaw was set in the lower. 
 His being was locked fast in corded ropes. But when he 
 came to his wife, his manner was casual. He made it so. 
 
 "Well, Honey Bunch, night-night." He held out his 
 hands for the baby. 
 
 But she, looking at him unafraid for the space of a 
 second, suddenly twisted in her mother's arms, and flung 
 out her own dimpled ones to Bunny. Splotches of pur- 
 ple mottled the father's cheek and brow. He caught 
 her to him, buried his mouth against her neck, and let 
 the savage pressure of his lips rest there until she had 
 screamed quite her loudest. Then he handed her back 
 to . . .he changed his mind. He handed her to 
 Chubbuck.
 
 150 
 
 Chubbuck, very red of face, turned with the baby, 
 and walked out in the hall. 
 
 "Now you, Maisie," said Krag. 
 
 But Maisie was petulant about the treatment of 
 Honey Bunch. She puckered her lips indifferently to 
 his lips. "You, too!" he muttered, and took her. He 
 held her long, his face buried against her neck. He did 
 not look at her again when he let her go. 
 
 "All right, Chub," he said, joining Chubbuck in the 
 hall outside, who returned to the doorway and gave the 
 baby to Maisie. He then followed Krag with some 
 resolution, with intent strong on him. 
 
 "Look here, Jim," he demanded, once they were down 
 the stairs of the mess house and outside, " what is it? 
 What's the meaning of all this?" he heard the click 
 of teeth that ended a smile. "Eh, what " 
 
 "Go on, Bunny. What's what?" 
 
 Bunny sighed. He fell in with Krag's steps across 
 the compound toward the gate. He laid a hand on 
 Krag's shoulder, dimly surprised that it took courage 
 to do that. 
 
 "You were driving at something, Jim," he said, "with 
 that devil's own talk about happiness. You drive at 
 something with every breath, for that matter. You 
 don't want to tell me what it is? All right. I'll wait 
 till some act of yours jolts me bolt upright and I see 
 your meaning as clear and cruel and cynical as sunlight 
 on midnight assassination. But you brought me into 
 it, up there just now, and intruding or not, I'm in it 
 long enough to say this " 
 
 "Old Supernal," grunted the man at his side.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 1.- 
 
 " I am thinking of Maisie back there, Jim 
 
 "Eh, are you though?" 
 
 "If you struck her, Jim, she would look like she di<! 
 to-night. Like she looks so often." 
 
 "Is there much more of this damned oration?" 
 "And I am thinking of you, too, Jim, and 
 "For the Lord's sake, then, cut out the stage fright." 
 "And thinking of you both, I want to say this, Jim. 
 I find that consideration of the feelings of others is the 
 best philosophy of personal happiness." 
 "You poor old doddering sissy!" 
 "I I want you to try it, old old chap." 
 "Oh, well, Chub," said Krag in contemptuous tol- 
 erance, "speaking only humanly not supernally, 
 mind we may go on giving, and giving, and giving? 
 That's your idea? But what if we humans are dia- 
 bolical enough to hunger for some return? And not 
 getting it, the devil in us acknowledges a hunger of the 
 soul, and he holds to the province and dignity of Lucifer 
 to strike, to hurt, as he is hurt? Eh, Bunny? Oh, 
 well, as I say, be as Christ-like as you like. That's 
 all right. Very pretty, too." 
 
 Chubbuck drew away. "God," he cried, "what is 
 your heart? Stone?" 
 
 "Why no," said Krag gravely, "it's living tissue. 
 It's an ulcer." 
 
 "A bad heart," said Bunny, "when when you 
 admit it." 
 
 "Maybe so, Chub. And you'll notice I'm not trying 
 to disabuse your mind about my being a loathsome 
 hyena. Believe it, Chub. Maybe that's another thing
 
 152 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 I'm driving at. ... Hello, here we are at the 
 smoke stack. Light a match. Or did you notice al- 
 ready this hieroglyphic picture, here on the side? Some- 
 body smeared it on with red clay." 
 
 "Yes," said Chubbuck dully. The palpable change 
 of subject, he felt, was but a sardonic grimace at his 
 sense of defeat. "I noticed it this morning." 
 
 "Make anything out of it?" 
 
 "Some peon kid trying to draw a man in a foot race, 
 I suppose." 
 
 "But," persisted Krag, satanically intent on exas- 
 perating the other with this trifle, " imagine now ; what if 
 it were picture writing? An Aztec message, say. How'd 
 you translate it?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't know. I'm going to bed. I'm tired." 
 
 "Wait. Wouldn't you read it something like this: 
 'Come a-running?'" 
 
 "I suppose so. Good night." 
 
 " Good night," said Krag, hard and short.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 A Long, Long Job 
 
 THE next morning's sun found Krag in mid-desert, 
 a solitary horseman plodding on and on toward 
 the purpled silhouette of mountain range. 
 From his horse's tail dangled the rope of one drooping 
 led horse, which laboured through the sand under 
 blanketed bales. 
 
 Krag had made up his bundles the night before, alone 
 in the smelter hospital. Roughest clothing, instruments, 
 drugs, went into them. He chose mustard plasters 
 sparingly. Morphine, the sedative, had obviously sup- 
 planted them in his pharmacopoeia. An afterthought; 
 he scribbled his resignation from the smelter's employ, 
 and left it, weighted by a quinine bottle, on his dust- 
 covered desk. 
 
 On the desert, as he rode, himself and horse a gray- 
 yellowed, sand-swept, scarcely moving speck, he seemed 
 to amuse himself from time to time, but queerly, uncan- 
 nily, as when a man mutters to himself. His amuse- 
 ment, if that is the word, was this : 
 
 He drew from his pocket the little hand mirror, rubbed 
 off the coating of dust with his sleeve, rested it on his 
 saddle horn, and bent, until he encountered his reflec- 
 tion in the glass. Minutes passed as he gazed steadily 
 
 153
 
 154 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 on his own face. He might have been deep in an 
 abstruse book. 
 
 The first time that morning when he bethought himself 
 of the mirror, the ugly smile drew down the corner of 
 his mouth, and in the glass he saw the smile mocking 
 him. Abruptly he spat, the venom smearing the glass 
 between the two faces. 
 
 "It is a black heart," he said slowly. "It's there, 
 the black heart, in my eyes, on my mouth, where all 
 the world may see. Even my baby girl " 
 
 He seized the mirror, swung it over his head, as if to 
 hurl it and shatter the image that was there no longer. 
 But he laughed horridly in self -contempt. He brought 
 the mirror again before him. The image of quicksilver 
 and the visage of flesh held one another fixedly. Slowly 
 the sinister creases between the steel-gray eyes grew less 
 deep. Slowly the hard jaw slacked, and the lips parted, 
 as if to smile. But it was benevolence in caricature; 
 grotesque, diabolic, and uglier by far than the old warped 
 smile. 
 
 The man vented a low grunt, a token as near despair 
 as his gnarled soul ever boded forth. He dropped 
 the mirror in his pocket, and gravely shook his head. 
 
 "It's going to be a long, long job," he thought. Then, 
 to the long, long job, he summoned the resolution and the 
 patience that those two things meant in him. 
 
 Now and again throughout the day's weary journeying, 
 when his features set rigid, and his lower jaw locked over 
 the upper, and he was deepest in his black thoughts, 
 he would suddenly remember, and take out the mirror, 
 and hold it unflinching until each cruel line in the reflected
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 155 
 
 image softened, though the visage became flabby and 
 disgusting in its hypocrisy. Then he put the mirror away. 
 His patience did not break again. This was the begin- 
 ning of the long, long job. 
 
 By late afternoon he was in the noble canon where he 
 and Maisie and Chubbuck had made camp, and where 
 their camp had been he spread his blankets. 
 
 From any sheltered rock, from any bush behind him, 
 above him, or on the stupendous cliffs opposite, a rifle 
 ball might have taken him neatly. But he did not lift 
 his gaze to either rock, or bush, or cliff. He was as in 
 his own house, as though aware of every object about 
 him. Yet he had reason to be sure that eyes were 
 on him, and that the eyes were behind a gun 
 barrel. Notwithstanding, the first thing he did, 
 after unburdening, staking, and feeding his tired 
 horses, was to lay his fire-arms two rifles and 
 a pistol a distance from his blankets, where 
 in case of surprise during the night he could reach them 
 with difficulty, if at all. He threw off his coat, revealing 
 himself in woollen shirt, breeches foxed with chamois, and 
 laced boots. An unconcerned, dauntless figure, and un- 
 armed, he busied himself kindling a fire for his supper. 
 He poured aguardiente in a hollowed rock, lighted it, and 
 therein boiled four eggs. He ate them with tortillas 
 warmed on the coals. That done, he lay on his stomach, 
 thrust his face in the little mountain stream, and drank. 
 He slept the night through without stirring. When Krag 
 slept, he slept for the purpose of sleeping. 
 
 On awakening, without a glance to note if his fire-arms 
 were where he had left them, he cooked and ate his
 
 156 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 breakfast, and rose to his feet. He put his hands 
 to his mouth, and trumpeted forth: 
 
 "Coyote! Vale Coyote!" 
 
 The echoes reverberated in distant nooks of the canon. 
 He waited until the last had died away, and put up his 
 hands again. Behind him some one touched his elbow. 
 
 "Well, Coyote," said Krag. 
 
 First he pressed his fingers tips between his brows, 
 rubbing out the furrows of a scowl. Then he turned and 
 beheld his Yaqui. The lithe young warrior was naked 
 except for loin cloth. The white serape of a runner 
 lay over one arm. Lean as a timber wolf, of stringy, 
 supple muscles; erect, sleek, clean; breathing free, 
 poised as for instant motion, he stood like an Olym- 
 pian victor in bronze; and Krag, contemplating him, 
 smiled fondly. 
 
 The taunting glee on the savage's face vanished. 
 He had hoped to startle the white man. 
 
 "I wait here, three days," the Yaqui spoke chidingly, 
 as the proud host of a laggard guest. 
 
 "So?" said Krag. "I waited almost, to call twice." 
 He extended his hand. There was something of insult 
 in the gesture, and the curl of his lip confirmed it. His 
 whole demeanour goaded the Indian to spurn the offered 
 hand. The savage hesitated, his fingers playing restively 
 over the lock of his rifle. Krag waited and watched him 
 with that twisted smile, as a trainer watches and loves the 
 snarling leopard who will in the end obey. The cold, 
 calm, confident waiting compelled at last. In a sudden 
 impulse of affection that was itself ferocity, the Yaqui 
 took Krag's hand. For the white man the clasp was
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG U7 
 
 the coiling of a snake. For the Indian it was the bruise 
 of granite. 
 
 " Peace, my Vale Coyote," said Krag. " Four mornings 
 since, I saw your sign of a running man on the great stack. 
 But there was work yet. I had a loaf to bake." He 
 swept a hand up the ravine, toward the old Spanish mine, 
 the spurious Veto, Negra. "The babes must eat when 
 I am gone. Now I am here. I am alone." 
 
 The Indian bared his teeth in a sudden, gleaming smile. 
 He knew the white man was alone. While the white 
 man slept, he had made sure. He and his tribe, deceived 
 down the centuries, trusted no alien, nor yet this one, 
 who had saved him from a Mexican holiday, and spoke 
 his language. That chamber of magic and this white 
 man's temple of pain, which was the Indian's prison house 
 for one night, had filled during that night with fumes, 
 stifling his wearied guards under a sleep like death; 
 yet the captive had awakened, and he was breathing 
 air like the air on the highest peaks, only the air was 
 in a bag, and cleared his head and exhilarated his being 
 and made his limbs as springs of steel; and this white 
 man, the wizard of that chamber, had led him by the hand 
 until they were beyond the smelter walls, and there had 
 loosed him on the wide world, giving him a saddled horse 
 for flight. But the man of those black arts had asked of 
 him nothing, only the making of a sign on the great stack 
 after the moon should wane and fill again. The ways 
 of this white man were inscrutable. It might be that 
 he had loosed one wounded bird as a decoy to trap the 
 flock. Whatever the strange riddle, the young Indian 
 would bate no jot of arrogance to put a question.
 
 158 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Doctor Krag, adept in the human heart, knew as much 
 already. "You ask me why I come, Coyote?" 
 
 "I? I did not speak." 
 
 "And what I wish, Coyote?" 
 
 The bead-like eyes wavered. 
 
 "Peace, peace," said Krag, "you do not need to speak. 
 My wish, then, is to dwell among worthy wolves. You 
 will take me to your people, Coyote." 
 
 The coppery lips bared the teeth for an instant, but 
 with that the Yaqui's surprise had passed. 
 
 Krag thought of him as a superb pet. Moreover, 
 Krag's affection for his people was real. White men 
 had long since driven the Yaquis from docility 
 to bloodthirst. Enduring through generations, the 
 bloodthirst grew into instinct. And purpose that 
 touched instinct, varying as little as the herding of wolves 
 to bring down a foe, was, in Krag's thought, an admirable 
 thing. 
 
 The admirable thing was even then whetting the 
 young barbarian's fancy. He believed he saw a feast 
 of torture, the zest of the warrior elders and old women, 
 the expectancy and delight of children, when this prince 
 of pain, who had wrung the homage of a smothered gasp 
 from a Yaqui, should himself come to resist Yaqui fire 
 and Yaqui art, and writhe, surely, at the last. The 
 feast would be a rare one. A bright crimson tip of tongue 
 darted forth, touching the coppery lips. 
 
 Krag saw the murderous lust plainly. "If I choose," 
 he said, "I will keep your people's graves waiting for 
 them. Remember, Coyote, your own had all but closed 
 over you."
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 159 
 
 "And will you stab us to sleep, to the sleep in Para- 
 dise?" he asked, recalling the bliss that came from a 
 needle thrust. 
 
 Krag laughed. Always the weakness of flesh, always ! 
 Even this copper stoic, making no concession to pain, 
 was lecherous in the memory of oblivion. Krag nodded 
 his head. "If I choose," he said. 
 
 Perplexity clouded the Yaqui's features. Why did 
 the hard, strange, ponderous rock of man wish to live 
 in the desert sierra among the hunted masters of the 
 wilderness? Like all his kind, did he hunger for a hidden 
 mine? No, since he had found a mine already. To 
 betray them? Perhaps. But hardly. The man was 
 not an imbecile. The Mexican government had offered 
 no reward. One does not offer rewards for a slice of 
 the moon. The warrior elders would have to decide. 
 Yet the perplexity grew threatening in the serpent 
 eyes. 
 
 "Well, Coyote?" 
 
 Slowly the wild ferocity which was affection roused 
 the Yaqui. "I know," he cried, his voice like the deep 
 note of falling waters. "You are weary of your kind. 
 You call them babes. Soft pink babes they are. Yes, 
 you would weary of them. I understand. And call 
 me Coyote, if you wish, though in the tribe I am 
 Tetibite." 
 
 Krag nodded toward his rifles and pistol. They were 
 where he had laid them the night before. "They are 
 yours, Coyote," he said, "and many cartridges. I hear 
 that some of your sharpest marksmen must even use 
 the old bows and arrows."
 
 160 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "You almost are welcome," returned the Yaqui. 
 "These are precious." 
 
 Krag nodded again toward his horses. He wanted 
 one saddled, and both made ready for the journey. He 
 wanted the Yaqui to do it for him. There was no 
 misunderstanding that. 
 
 Instantly the savage's rifle was levelled from his waist. 
 "Am I then thy son?" he hissed. 
 
 "Yet you will saddle my horse, I think," said Krag. 
 
 The Yaqui's lean breast rilled exultantly. His eyes 
 fell on his weapon, and he seemed bewildered, as if 
 unable to remember what he had meant to do with it. 
 
 "I will saddle thy horse, my father," he said, leaping 
 to the task.
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 The Lone Oak 
 
 ONE night some two years later, while a storm 
 tore and snapped at earth and in each lightning 
 flash the sierra's teeth were bared at heaven, 
 the padded foot-falls of a Yaqui runner splashed the 
 mountain trail* in open, generous rhythm. There was 
 no sight of him as he ran except the ghostly streak of 
 his serape, which, like a wing, fluttered from his shoulder. 
 The night was black, and the driven sheets of rain were 
 blinding, except when the lightning crashed about him, 
 but he tossed and caught a little wooden ball to while 
 away the hours along the mountain's heaving breast. 
 His stride was as free, his breathing as exultant, as when 
 at sunset he had caught up a spoken message from the 
 relay before him and started on his flight. His forbears 
 in their youth had done the same, when Aztec emperors 
 desired fish out of the Vermilion Sea. 
 
 In the wild night a dog yelped madly. Then another. 
 Then many. They raged in low-walled yards, with 
 currish discretion. Here was a mortal note laid on storm 
 and darkness. The runner knew there were scattered 
 huts. He had come to a village of his people. A 
 drenched thing, a human arm, barred his way, out- 
 stretched against his throat. A dark, crouching object, 
 
 161
 
 162 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 a canon, an ancient mountain howitzer, lay across his 
 trail. 
 
 "Ah, Tetibite, but do not crack thy shins," said the 
 vidette cheerily, when he had made certain that lie 
 knew the runner. Yet concerning the runner's mes- 
 sage, which must have been a grave one, he asked no 
 question. Curiosity is no habit of speech in the Yaqui 
 country. The runner passed into the village. 
 
 The huts were dark. Where perceived at all, they 
 were a denser shadowing of the night. Not a tallow dip 
 was alight behind the walls of plaited twigs. No ember 
 glowed in dead ashes. But the runner halted before the 
 dwelling of the elder-man of the village. The elder 
 himself came from the doorless hut among the frantic 
 dog-s. Clutching his flapping blanket to him, he passed 
 among goats and burros huddled close in his little corral, 
 and spoke to the runner at the low rock wall. 
 
 The runner tossed his ball a final time. "Cajemi 
 has been shot," he said. 
 
 Cajemi was the tribal chieftain. 
 
 Trees bent in a rush of wind through the defile. The 
 elder waited until that turmoil was past. 
 
 "He is dead? "he asked. 
 
 "He is dying," said the messenger. "The pelones" 
 the word means lepers, but the Yaqui meant Mexican 
 soldiers "begged for peace. Cajemi went to Guay- 
 mas to hear them ' 
 
 The old Yaqui groaned. "If Cajemi did that, then 
 our need of another chief is heavy." 
 
 "But," said the runner, "Cajemi did not altogether 
 trust them. He went only to their barracks. He
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 163 
 
 would not enter, and they shot him from the walls. lie 
 fell on his face, so his murderers are surely doomed. 
 His daughter, alone with him, dragged him back. She 
 dragged him to the adobe of a pacifico, and there Cajemi 
 lies hidden." 
 
 "What is your message, Tetibite?" 
 
 A bolt splintered rocks on the shoulder of a peak 
 above them. In the vivid flash the elder saw the cou- 
 rier's gleaming smile. 
 
 "The message," he said, "is Cajemi's. It is to kill. 
 At the mines, in settlements, haciendas, towns, where 
 you find a Mexican, let him have Cajemi's message. 
 Now call another runner to carry on the signal. I am 
 going back. Cajemi is dying." 
 
 "Who knows that he is dying?" demanded the elder. 
 "We used to know when death was near, but that was 
 before death had to pass the Lone Oak." 
 
 "Aye, the Lone Oak," said the runner. "I come for 
 him." 
 
 "He is here," said the elder, "asleep, no doubt, bedded 
 as a shell in the rock. An hour ago he returned through 
 the storm. A child in the valley was ill." 
 
 "He will go with me." 
 
 "He will go with you, yes. He always goes. You 
 know his jaical?" 
 
 The runner grunted. Surely he knew that hut best. 
 The measured splash-splash of his sandals was lost at 
 once in the tempest. 
 
 The hut of the priest-like Samaritan whom Yaquis 
 called the Lone Oak was like the others, a hive-shaped 
 blur in the tumultuous night. There was no door, and
 
 164 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the runner bent his head under the matted brush of the 
 roof and entered. He stood for a moment in the black 
 pocket. A man's heavy breathing filled each lull of 
 the storm. It rasped in its cadence. Somewhat of 
 a soul venting fettered impatience was in the sound. 
 The intruder grinned. "He hates most," he thought, 
 "to have taken from him what one cannot give him back, 
 his sleep. Hoo-ee, my father, awake! " 
 
 The breathing ceased, or blended into a groan of un- 
 speakable weariness. The runner laughed; but purposely, 
 to voice his mirth. A torturer's genius inspired him. 
 "My time," he thought, "my time! All other times he 
 is master. Hoo-ee, my father!" 
 
 "Thou tongue of hell!" rumbled forth a great voice, 
 "and curse thy noise! Here, find my hand. I have 
 the matches. How now, my Vale Coyote?" 
 
 The match, of Mexican wax, flashed alight, and a 
 hand that might have been an ogre's held it to a candle. 
 The hand was of a huge bearded man half risen from a 
 bunk in the back of the hut. He had thrown a sheet 
 and bear skins from him, and as he sat on the edge of 
 the couch his night shirt of clean white muslin fell away 
 and revealed a massive, hairy chest. His beard was 
 tumbled curls, virile as the Jove of Phidias, and seemed 
 of bronze, with a dark, fugitive sheen. It hid his mouth 
 and the lines there, whether of benevolence or cruelty. 
 He caught up a mirror from a stool at his bedside, looked 
 once, and laid it down, and passed a hand across his 
 brow, heavily, as though to press out the furrows of 
 a scowl. 
 
 Hardship and perils are of the day's work, and a good
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 165 
 
 shepherd takes no thought of his own life. But a warm 
 bed, and a storm without, when one is heavy with sleep, 
 when the simulacrum of death nourishes the body to 
 take up life again, when one is snatched from that lethal 
 tomb, then in truth a saint might scowl and be forgiven. 
 James Krag, come like a tribal god among the Yaquis 
 and hedged inscrutably in the mystery of godship, at 
 such a time fought with himself his hardest fight, and 
 the young savage in malignant glee seemed to know it. 
 
 Krag saw the flashing teeth, and his gray eyes, cleared 
 by mountain living and mountain perils, as steady and 
 strong and calmly fierce as the eagle's, narrowed on the 
 lean, dripping Indian, considering him. A viper's eyes 
 met them, unmoving, alert. 
 
 It was the old duel, yet plainly these two were glad 
 to see each other. The duel of their wild natures was 
 life. It was a jungle bond of affection. All that could 
 taunt, sting, and make mad, lay in the insolence of the 
 white man's contemplation, and the Yaqui's gaze, shifting 
 thirstily, darted to a knife struck in the latticed wall. 
 Krag's laugh, sneer, chuckle, grunt all four it was 
 invited the Indian to strike. The naked body 
 trembled. Krag stretched back comfortably on his bed. 
 
 "If that's all, my Vale Coyote, Nature still owes me 
 two nights of sleep. Take the knife when you go." 
 He turned on his side, closing his eyes. 
 
 "My father," exclaimed the Yaqui, surrendering. 
 
 "Stand off my matting," said Krag. "The water is 
 cascading over thy ribs like many brooks. Choose a 
 blanket, and hang thy serape to dry." 
 
 "There is no time. I come "
 
 166 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Ho, do you? Then I am blind." 
 
 "Be dressing while I speak." Yet the Yaqui did not 
 give at once his real message. There was another, one 
 more apt to stir the imperturbable Oak. " I come not long 
 since from the Great Stack. I went to gather cartridges 
 and powder from the pacificos. They can give little 
 besides their wages since you are there no more." 
 
 Krag sat again on the bunk, and was lacing his boots. 
 The Yaqui could not see his face, but at mention of the 
 Great Stack, the fingers tightened on the strings. 
 
 "They have found your bones," said the Yaqui. 
 "They found them in the Barranca Quebrante, near the 
 trail of the new iron road where you told me to put 
 them. The builders of the iron road found them. They 
 were yellowed by the sun. They were clothed in your 
 rags, and the gold band from your finger was on one finger. 
 Our people, the pacificos, heard these matters when the 
 Gringos of the Great Stack talked." 
 
 "What more?" The voice was hard, impersonal. 
 
 "We let the builders of the iron road build until they 
 found the bones. Then we drove the builders again 
 across the desert back to the Great Stack. That is as 
 you wish, so the building of the road may cost much 
 money. We killed threescore, and the pelones threw 
 away seventeen Mauser guns when they ran." 
 
 "What more?" The voice was but a shade 
 deeper. 
 
 A tip of tongue wet the coppery lips. "Your 
 woman " 
 
 Krag raised his head, looked steadily at the Yaqui. 
 He would take this full on, in the open. "Yes?"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 167 
 
 "She waited for you a long time, but still you do not 
 come, and she is now in the north country with her 
 people." 
 
 "You told me that nearly two years ago. Go on, 
 Coyote." 
 
 "Her father, who builds the new iron road, buys that 
 mine from her, so your woman has much money." The 
 young Yaqui dwelt on it lingeringly. He was baffled, 
 and his perplexity was the tribe's also. For why, leaving 
 riches behind him, had this white man come among them, 
 
 giving the utter devotion of a saint? " much, much 
 
 money," the Yaqui repeated. 
 
 "You tell me only what is old, Coyote." 
 
 "Maybe, but I tell you also of your friend, my father, 
 of that man of the pink skin who was so greedy for silver 
 rocks in the barranca. He has departed also for the north 
 country " 
 
 "Peace, Coyote, that also is stale. My friend secretly 
 took many pesos from the Great Stack people, for he 
 needed money to hold his part of the mine. And my 
 wife, because she is rich, saved him. It is as I planned 
 it. Go on, Coyote, to what is new." 
 
 Homeopath of the human heart, he had indeed planned 
 it so. A potion of silver rock craftily administered, and 
 human nature was functioning quite to his notion. Often 
 he took the news from his courier's mouth and foretold 
 the gist of it himself. But this time he would not mystify 
 the Yaqui. Something stifled the prompting. He even 
 wondered if he hoped that his forecast was at fault. "Go 
 on, Coyote," he said patiently. "They have found my 
 bones. Very good. White or yellow, I have no more
 
 168 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 use for them. Therefore I am dead and . . 
 speak, thou snake, before I touch thee!" 
 
 "And," said the Yaqui, "it comes to the ears of the 
 Great Stack that the woman and the pink-face are 
 married in the north country." 
 
 . "So," said Krag. . . . "Now say what brings 
 you here." 
 
 The Yaqui stood silent. He was regarding Krag's 
 rigid, bloodless face with wolfish greed. His tale had 
 severed the white man's bond with the white man's world, 
 and for that the Indian was exultant. But it left the 
 white man free, or free in the eyes of the tribe, as to 
 other bonds, and the jealousy of the young savage was 
 murderous. His gesture was sudden, panther-like. He 
 snatched the knife from the wall, and held it. 
 
 "My father can now take a maiden of the tribe." 
 he said. 
 
 That had been hinted before, and Krag had laughed. 
 He did not laugh now. Thinking of Maisie, he did not 
 laugh. Coyote saw violence purpling the cheek-bones, 
 and gloated on that negative that was his answer. 
 
 "It will be urged," he murmured. "The Yaquis will 
 not hold to my father's good faith among them if he says 
 no. Torture and death have been kept back, but " 
 
 Krag rose quietly, and struck him with his open hand 
 on the mouth. 
 
 The Yaqui's teeth flashed white, but it was a jubilant 
 smile. "A good answer, my father," he cried, tossing 
 and catching the knife as he did the wooden ball when he 
 ran. "Now we will go to Cajemi. He is dying. He 
 would hide behind the Lone Oak."
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 169 
 
 "Cajemi the chief?" 
 
 "The great chief, yes." 
 
 "To the corral, then, Coyote. Bring my horse." 
 
 Maisie married as he had planned! A dying chief 
 an event for which he had waited ! The legacy of tribal 
 secrets here lay the final advance on his goal !
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 A Miscalculation 
 
 COYOTE led, upturning his face to the beating 
 rain, drawing taut the halter of the white man's 
 horse. On the mountain trail, the old Yaqui 
 Trail, he brought down his open stride to the lope of a 
 wolf, yet at that the rider behind him used spurs and 
 lash, while the horse sniffed for precipices in the black 
 turmoil. Through the weird Mesquite Forest the way 
 was hardly better, because of low-hanging limbs, and 
 uprooted trees, and the eddying pools and quicksands 
 of new-born torrents. Daybreak but made it drearier. 
 Before they came to the open, they stopped and waited 
 for night. The storm had ceased, and a soft west wind 
 bore a tang of salt from the Californian gulf. Coyote 
 said that they were now near the coast and three leagues 
 from Guaymas. He predicted trouble, for the pelones, 
 if they had not found Cajemi, would be scouring town 
 and country. 
 
 With nightfall they started again, leaving Krag's 
 horse staked in a deep arroyo bed. Once, for an hour, 
 they had to lie flat on the plain, while two mounted 
 rondas smoked cigarettes under the stars and talked and 
 waited to report to their officer on his round. Another 
 time, lacking shadows of cactus clumps and bowlders, 
 
 170
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 171 
 
 they wormed their way across a starlit space. Or Coyote, 
 poised with nostrils twitching, as if sound were a thing 
 of scent, heard a distant challenge and the impact of 
 hoofs, while the white man heard neither. 
 
 At last they came upon the crest of a barren cliff, and 
 looked down on the roofs of a town, and beyond, on the 
 shimmering waters of a placid bay. They descended 
 by a twisting, beaten path, which opened on a lane 
 flanked by squalid adobes. They were in this lane, 
 hugging the shadows, when a startled, "Halt! Who 
 goes?" broke on them, which was instantly followed 
 by a pistol shot behind them. 
 
 Krag felt the Yaqui's fingers on his arm, and they 
 sped silently, close along the adobe walls. One corner 
 they turned, and a moment later swung short into utter 
 darkness. To Krag it seemed as if a black cavern had 
 engulfed them. It was only a charcoal vender's adobe, 
 whose sooty hole in the wall opened on the street. They 
 tested their steps cautiously, the Yaqui guiding. Once 
 the toe of Krag's boot caught on a soft bulk, and the 
 thing roused with a querulous grunt. But it lay back 
 again, and all was still as before. A blanketed family 
 lay scattered on the floor asleep. Ahead there was an 
 arched door-way, and starlight flooded the patio beyond, 
 where the charcoal merchant kept his burros. One little 
 beast was stretched prone, and Krag suspected, from the 
 twisted neck, that it was dead. 
 
 Instead of leading out upon the patio, Coyote sheered 
 off toward the side wall, where the hovel was darkest; 
 where, also, as they discovered by groping, sacks of char- 
 coal were banked to the ceiling. The Yaqui stopped
 
 172 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 and felt along the bottom tier, passing a hand over the 
 end of each bag. Krag heard him tugging at something; 
 then a bag was wrenched free and dragged out, and then 
 a second. Two more bags above the first two came out 
 more easily. "Follow," whispered the Yaqui, and on 
 hands and knees they crawled into a tunnel through the 
 charcoal. Behind them some one pushed the bags back 
 into place. The dust filled Krag's nostrils, dried his 
 throat, and hurt his eyes, although he tied a handker- 
 chief over his face. They came to the wall itself, at a 
 point where the adobe bricks were loose, and Coyote 
 shoved them outward. Coyote, and behind him Krag, 
 squeezed through the hole, and beyond it stood erect, 
 again in total darkness. 
 
 "The Lone Oak." It was Coyote's voice. Krag 
 thought of liveried footmen announcing a titled guest. 
 The silence held, and Coyote spoke the words again, 
 intoning them oddly. 
 
 Nothing of dread import happened. The plaint of 
 a guitar, invisible strings brushed by invisible fingers, 
 the final chord of an interrupted song that was all. 
 Murmuring of breeze-swept, ripening grain would not 
 be softer. 
 
 "Hunh, thy Lone Oak!" The voice was a woman's, 
 as rich and thick as clotted cream, gurgling from the 
 throat. "Hunh, it is time! Thou, Tetibite, first put 
 back the adobes in the wall." 
 
 "Call me a fool," retorted Coyote. "They are back." 
 
 A match was scratched across its box, and glowing 
 fingers, a rounded arm, and a woman's head and bust 
 flashed with vivid warmth out of darkness. Her skin
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 173 
 
 was bright copper, tinged by rose beneath. The eyes 
 were black, black and sleepy and lustrous. They blinked 
 in the yellow light, like smouldering coals of jet. The 
 glossy hair flowed free and straight. The breast was 
 full, and the dark red lips also, and her even teeth were 
 white as chalk. One thought of her teeth as keen and 
 sharp. She was a sleek and lithesome animal, and 
 bounteously dangerous. Krag grunted in his beard. 
 
 She was sitting on a Yaqui matting of reeds, and as 
 she lighted a tallow dip near at hand, Krag saw a bow 
 and feathered arrows beside her. The guitar, at her other 
 side, was an armadillo shell mounted in cedar. Her 
 white skirt, slashed with scarlet, was of maguey fibre 
 and of her own weaving. A sleeveless blouse of white 
 mania covered her body. Large pearls from the Gulf 
 of California, grooved and so threaded on the strand, 
 were a barbaric ornament that heightened the sheen of 
 tawny flesh. Her feet were bare. At most she was not 
 eighteen, but her being throbbed with a cruel greed of 
 fulfillment. 
 
 "It is days even," she complained in her rich, cloying 
 tones, "that I roll his tobacco in corn husks." She 
 waved an arm to a shrivelled form lying near her. "And 
 he has not the breath to keep them lighted. But this 
 great Oak of a Man? I want to see him." 
 
 She rose with the candle, so that Krag saw better and 
 understood where he was. They were in a side room of 
 the charcoal dealer's hovel. It was a long room, from 
 front to back the length of the charcoal dealer's store. 
 It was, moreover, exceedingly narrow; a tall man might 
 not lie across it. The place was a gloomy, sinister
 
 174 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 vault. The floor was the ground. The high walls were 
 dried mud. There was not a door, not a window, not 
 a crack. There were steps against the back wall to 
 the roof, but the tiling of the roof showed no break. 
 Neither rat nor bat could have escaped an enemy in this 
 cell. The room was like the false bottom of a trunk 
 turned on its side. From without the room's existence 
 was not to be suspected, nor even proved, unless by actual 
 measurement of the walls. 
 
 The vault was, in effect, the false bottom of a trunk, 
 for its purposes were secret. Crude, dingy apparatus, 
 mortars and pestles, old coffee mills, scales and measures, 
 littered the ground. A work bench, covered with sheet 
 iron, was strewn with a black powder resembling ground 
 charcoal. Some had been scraped into a heap at one 
 end. There were charcoal sacks, filled and empty; there 
 were manilla bags, and a yellow stuff spilling out; and 
 there were boxes of a something white and lumpy. In 
 the centre of the room there was an open well, with a 
 bucket and rope. Nothing lacked for a primitive man- 
 ufacture of gunpowder, and the charcoal vendor was 
 engaged in just that, bringing charcoal from his kilns 
 in the mountains, getting sulphur and saltpetre from 
 ships in the bay, and smuggling forth the product in his 
 supposedly empty charcoal sacks. He was a Yaqui 
 pacifico, this charcoal merchant, and his tribal brethren 
 of the sierra required gunpowder. 
 
 The candle's wavering circle of light passed over the 
 shrivelled form, where it lay bedded on sacking and 
 blankets. A hideous old face stared upward, and flabby 
 cheeks puffed out as the thing sucked at a husk cigarette
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 175 
 
 hanging from its lower lip. This was the thing that had 
 drawn Krag out of the mountains. The surgeon was tak- 
 ing off his coat, when the girl raised the candle to his face. 
 
 "Hunk, the Oak!" she mused aloud, peering into the 
 eyes under his thick brows. A gnarled monarch, or 
 monstrosity, of the forest, she might have said. Storms 
 of passion could not bend him, nor yet the clinging par- 
 asite, remorse. The girl's sleepy eyes blinked impudently. 
 " But what I see of him for the beard is black with char- 
 coal. Tetibite, there's water in the bucket. Bring 
 the water, for I must see this man." 
 
 Coyote's fingers coiled about her arm. "Quick! 
 You get the water," he said. "My father must cleanse 
 his hands before he works in blood. "What " he was 
 helping Krag off with his coat, and brought his 
 hand away, wet "ay, and here is blood already!" 
 
 Krag glanced at him sharply. "No matter, Coyote," 
 he said. He knelt over his coat, and began laying out a 
 small instrument case, packages, and vials from the 
 pockets. He worked with despatch in these preparations. 
 He was not deceived by the lazy calm of the face on the 
 blankets. "Now the water, and hasten, before the 
 great chief yonder departs in a puff of his own smoke." 
 
 "The pelon who shot at us in the street," Coyote 
 insisted; "you were hit, my father!" 
 
 "Where?" cried the girl. She brought water and an 
 earthern basin. "In his shoulder? No, there, in his 
 side. Oo-oo, we must cut away his shirt!" 
 
 Krag was rolling up his sleeves, baring his wide, hard 
 forearms. Unheeding the two young Yaquis, he laved 
 his hands, but not his face. Then, nodding to Coyote
 
 176 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 to bring the candle, he gathered up his instruments and 
 went to the old man. The girl followed. She stood by, 
 her arms folded, stroking her arms with her finger tips. 
 
 It might, in the ghastly light, have been a worthless 
 peon huddled in his rags and vermin to die. But there 
 were neither rags nor vermin. There was the inevitable 
 loin cloth, that only. His clothes were a heap on the 
 floor, and these carried a chief's distinction. There was 
 his charro jacket, heavy with silver and recently heavy 
 with his blood; his skin-tight, silver-laced leather 
 breeches; his gold-roped sombrero; and his small, high- 
 heeled shoes with great, glittering spurs. The mania 
 shirt had been ripped into bandages. 
 
 However withered and repulsive, the hide of him was 
 clean, for he was a full-blood Yaqui. Whipcord sinews 
 beneath, as well as bones, stretched the unsightly parch- 
 ment, and betokened the endurance of bull thongs in 
 emaciation. In the features the quality of hideousness 
 mostly lay. They were loose and flaccid, pierced by a 
 wiry, corkscrew hair here and there on the chin and jaw. 
 The copperish drab of the skin was mottled over by a lep- 
 rous pink. The eyes were only his nose's breadth apart, 
 and were seemingly crowded against that thick ridge 
 by the high, bulbous cheek-bones. Because of their 
 sparse lashes and the scraggy brows shading the lids, the 
 effect of them was that, when he looked down his nose, 
 he seemed staring wide ahead; and when he opened them, 
 each was like a weasel crouching deep in its hole. They 
 were the instinct of the hunted, not alone of one old man 
 hunted through his long life, but of a tribe, hunted from 
 generation to generation. His mouth was enormous,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 177 
 
 entrenched in shrivelled lines curving from nostril to 
 chin, where the loose flesh lapped over. The upper 
 lip lay tight against the gums, but the under hung, as 
 if cut away, and between them the length of grin was 
 spaced by three yellow fangs. A greenish smear, war's 
 pathetic panoply, had been rubbed on his chin and arms. 
 A bandage crossed his chest, under one arm and over the 
 opposite shoulder, and at one sickening spot it was kept 
 freshly wet by a crimson spring beneath. 
 
 He did not raise his eyes when Krag knelt by him. 
 "The candle," he was muttering. "This husk this 
 cigarrito " 
 
 "Coyote," said Krag, " sit there and tend his cigarette. 
 The great chief," he said, but gently, with no shade of 
 irony, " must have time for other troubles. When that 
 one burns his teeth, have another ready." 
 
 "Truly, here is the Yaqui's good friend," wheezed the 
 old man. On a rising inflection his hollow voice col- 
 lapsed entirely. "Dolores there, a dog even would she 
 drag to shelter from Mexican bullets. Ay, and I can 
 thank the Mexicans that she did as much for her father. 
 But she touches no broom to sweep back death from his 
 pallet. Not one barrido has she given, O Heaven ! And 
 she does not hold steady the candle to my cigarrito. 
 Yet, mind you, Lone Oak " the weasels were peering 
 from their holes "mind you now, since a tigress a 
 man will have, a superb one should he have, and but 
 look once at Dolores." 
 
 "If that's your name, Dolores," said Krag, "fill the 
 bucket again." 
 
 The old man tried to raise his head. "She she
 
 178 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 obeys ! " he murmured in grim astonishment. He studied the 
 Yaquis' good friend through half-closed lids. Nor was it 
 the surgeon's work that interested him. Cajemi the 
 chief knew that he was dying. Each breath from the 
 depth of his lungs brought up a new moistening, as a 
 broken pipe wets the sod above. Krag dared not probe 
 for the bullet. But Cajemi was not thinking of that. 
 His interest was the face of the white man, of a young 
 white man, bearded and blackened. Cajemi cast the 
 smoke sideways from his mouth, that he might always see 
 the face. He was thinking of this: he must leave many 
 Mexicans behind; yes, although his life had been a busy 
 one. His people, so their legends said, once had num- 
 bered thrice a hundred thousand, but that was before 
 the centuries of fighting for their valley and sierra. 
 Cajemi himself had led barely a thousand warriors, and 
 against his thousand they had sent twenty thousand. 
 Yet, to bring him down at last, they had offered a treacher- 
 ous peace. But one thing could follow, the death struggle 
 of the tribe. And the tribe's monument should be a 
 great heap of Mexicans slain. The thousand warriors 
 must not be unduly wasted. There was need in this of 
 more than a poor Indian's craft. A rugged saint had 
 come among them, whom they called the Lone Oak, and 
 he had often whispered good counsel, so that a rumour 
 stole into Mexican garrisons of an American officer whose 
 far-discerning eye guided the Yaqui strategy, making it 
 certain and deadly, unerring in ambush, elusive in flight, 
 fathoms deep in hiding. The superstition thrived and 
 decided skirmishes. 
 
 Cajemi's eyes opened. "The Lone Oak I heard
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 179 
 
 these children saying you were hit by the shot we 
 heard." 
 
 Krag's mouth twitched unseen. "No matter," he 
 said, and went on dressing the old man's wound. 
 
 "He has said it twice no matter," Coyote grum- 
 bled. The young Yaqui was restive. His viper eyes 
 were darting from the chief to Krag, from Krag to the 
 girl stroking her arms. "It is not the first pelon bullet 
 my father carries for us." 
 
 "The candle again, Tetibite." Cajemi opened his 
 mouth, letting the smoke drift out. When the cloud 
 passed, his eyes opened again on Krag. "Why for us?" 
 His voice was like the rasp of a saw. "Why these things 
 for us? Why?" 
 
 Krag's forefinger pressed out a sudden scowl, as 
 though wiping off perspiration. "Why?" he said 
 wearily. "My love of wolves, Cajemi, is enduring. 
 That is why." 
 
 The old Yaqui spat out his cigarette. "Why?" he 
 cried. He knew he was growing weaker. "The true 
 answer, why?" 
 
 "Why then," Krag burst forth, but his anger was 
 daring calculation, "I do not know. Why, truly, 
 do I come to you, and not sleep in my bed? I do not 
 know. You are no wolf. You break the oath of the 
 tribe, the splendid Yaqui oath, which is never to stop 
 fighting. Why do I come to a dog? I do not know." 
 
 Coyote's chin jerked high, the white teeth showing. 
 The girl sucked in her breath. Her sensuous fingers 
 lowered, until their tips touched the white man's head. 
 She and Coyote were with him. But Krag's calculating
 
 180 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 went farther. He waited, as a chemist watches for an 
 unknown reaction. 
 
 "A dog?" Cajemi laid a hand on his wound, bathing 
 it in the life fluid flowing for the tribe. "Ay, I am a dog. 
 The Lone Oak always said: 'Never go to a pelon for 
 peace talk!' An oak sends its roots far in what is hidden. 
 And this wisdom must take my place. . . . Lone 
 Oak" his voice rose, edged and querulous "be a 
 Yaqui first, then great chief. A Yaqui? Thou art 
 a Yaqui when Yaquis trust thee. Take a maiden of 
 the tribe. So may we know thou art a tribesman. Then 
 the secrets of the tribe are thine. The secrets they go 
 from me with the last drop from my veins to the great 
 chief after me. Secrets of mountain and gorge, of rock 
 and sand, of caves, of hidden mines . . . Look, 
 white man, there is Dolores. Take her!" 
 
 Krag renewed the gauze on the wound. "So," he 
 said. Coyote from where he sat looked up at the girl 
 and mocked her in silent laughter. 
 
 The chief gazed a moment longer. Then his head rolled 
 on his pallet. " Tetibite," he said, " we must kill this 
 white man." 
 
 Krag smiled. Coyote, true Yaqui, was ready to obey. 
 Dolores, a scorned woman, was more than ready. Yet 
 Krag's mirth was real. He alone smelt the ruse to 
 compel him. 
 
 The dying chief, although Krag read him so well, was 
 already mouthing the fancy for one more victim before he 
 went, but something, an alarm prearranged, put their 
 thoughts to rout. The world without was tapping on 
 their vault. Cautiously deadened blows fell on the wall.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 181 
 
 Coyote snuffed the candle. A faint gray haze formed 
 overhead; it was day sifting through the fluted tiles of 
 the roof. The girl snatched her bow and arrows, and 
 hurried up the steps against the back wall. One could 
 break through the tiling and escape over the roofs. The 
 steps were provided for that. But Dolores, and Coyote 
 close behind her, pulled out an adobe brick from the top 
 of the wall, and looked through the slit they had made. 
 Coyote motioned to Krag, and he climbed up beside 
 them. Outside they saw a man, a Mexican officer with 
 drawn pistol, standing on the patio wall. He was frown- 
 ing perplexedly down at the burros. 
 
 "See," whispered Coyote, "the pelon who shot at us 
 last night. With daybreak he has followed the blood 
 drippings." 
 
 In effect this was true. The Mexican officer had 
 noticed spattered drops on the pavement, and he had 
 traced the drops to the charcoal vendor's, to lose them 
 there in the trampled coal dust. But he hoped to pry 
 out the fugitives yet, and entirely by himself. He had 
 a pert, ambitious air, and was resolved on an elusive 
 glory. Search of the charcoal store had revealed nothing. 
 The fugitives must have fled by way of the patio. 
 
 Coyote and the girl were fighting, silently, viciously. 
 He had snatched at the bow. She had brought her 
 nails through his cheek. 
 
 "Let me!" 
 
 "No, no, he is mine!" 
 
 The Mexican on the wall turned slowly. His puzzled 
 gaze was travelling toward their loophole. Coyote 
 uttered a cry of joy. "Quick!" he hissed. "You must,
 
 182 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Dolores; he is my own! Listen, I have felt his chains, 
 
 his sword, his foot. Ask " They turned appealing, 
 
 flaming faces to Krag. 
 
 Krag nodded. He, too, had recognized Coyote's 
 captor, the sub-lieutenant of that day in the gorge. 
 Reluctantly Dolores surrendered the bow. "But the 
 next shot " she insisted. 
 
 Coyote fitted an arrow, pulled the feathered butt to his 
 eye, and the twang of the release interrupted her. "Pig!" 
 she snapped vengefully. 
 
 Krag looked away, but to cover that weak gesture he 
 said, "Somebody has killed cock robin." 
 
 The body fell into the patio. Two blackened, leather- 
 aproned men ran out and dragged it into the charcoal 
 dealer's. When Dolores had seen quite the last of that, 
 she flung herself from the steps in a tantrum and went 
 to her father. 
 
 Krag took Coyote by the shoulder. The grip seemed 
 to crunch his bones, but the young Yaqui knew it for a 
 caress. "Boy!" whispered Krag; "would you like to 
 be chief?" 
 
 The warrior answered simply. "I often see how 
 Cajemi might kill more pelones yes." 
 
 "Then do a thing to make talk." 
 
 "My father will tell me what thing?" 
 
 Krag pointed through the loophole toward the edge 
 of the town. "That higher building, with the towers?" 
 
 "The barracks, of the soldiers." 
 
 "You can come near it over the house tops?" 
 
 "Surely. It is in the next square." 
 
 "Good, Coyote, and the thing will look brave. You
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 183 
 
 will carry the dead Mexican over the roofs; then lash him 
 to that flag-staff on the last roof yonder, and bid his 
 friends in the barracks come for him. Chief Tetibite's 
 defiance, we will call the little play. They will shoot. 
 You can escape?" 
 
 The Yaqui laughed easily. A friendly patio, a drop 
 from sight; yes, he could escape. 
 
 "The burro drivers, the charcoal man," Krag went on, 
 "they must see the thing, that they may tell of it in the 
 sierra before the tribe chooses the next chief. Wait, 
 there's a dead burro below. You will wrap your friend 
 in the burro's skin." 
 
 Admiring wonder blended with glee on the Indian's 
 face. "Ay, will I?" he breathed. "But Cajemi is 
 right. My father must be chief." 
 
 "And Dolores?" 
 
 The savage face darkened. "No," he said. "Chief 
 Tetibite it shall be." 
 
 He was for going at once to the adventure, but Krag 
 stayed him and called Dolores. She came sullenly, and 
 Coyote jeered. "Is it a bad tooth, Dolores?" 
 
 "Pig!" she cried, flaring. "When it was my chance 
 to send a pelon ahead of my father " 
 
 "Peace," said Krag. "You have more arrows!" 
 
 "Hunk, to waste on an Oak, maybe." 
 
 "No, for Coyote will provide the targets. Go with 
 him over the house tops. Hide behind the farthest 
 parapet, and when the soldiers come to the barracks 
 windows at Coyote's call, amuse yourself. Pick off 
 what forerunner for your father you wish. Perhaps 
 a colonel, a general "
 
 184 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Her breast rose. "Tetibite, does he speak true?" 
 
 Coyote took her by the hand. "Only come, little 
 sister. Come out to play." 
 
 Like famished cubs crawling out of their den, they 
 went, and Krag was alone with the dying chief. After 
 replacing the adobes in the wall, he lighted the candle 
 and sat himself on the ground beside his patient. He 
 heard a plaintive rattling in the old man's throat. 
 
 "Here," said Krag, "here is one," and he put a cigarette 
 between the champing lips. From time to time also 
 he plied him with the wizardry of his science to stem an 
 ebbing vitality. 
 
 "Dolores," whispered the old man "where?" 
 
 "She has gone. She will be back with news to 
 please you." 
 
 "Tetibite?" 
 
 "He is with her." 
 
 "And you? " The restless eyes steadied in their depths. 
 "White man, what do you want?" 
 
 Krag passed a hand over his brow, in what seemed a 
 habit only, and bending forward, he quietly met that 
 scrutiny of a hunted tribe. "Cajemi," he said, "might 
 rightly ask that had I taken the chance to be chief after 
 him. And then the true answer might be: 'I want 
 those secrets of hidden mines.' But I refused " 
 
 "White man," came the edged voice, "what do 
 you want?" 
 
 "Cajemi," Krag answered him patiently, "I am an 
 outcast. What, then? What, if I seek outcasts? 
 What, if I give to them my life? What, Cajemi, what? 
 The answer is in the question. Ask me no more,"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 185 
 
 The old eyes wavered. Something child-like, trusting, 
 came into them. "You were shot last night 
 on your way to help me." 
 
 "That is nothing. Ho, Cajemi, Cajemi, you must 
 not sleep! Open your eyes! You ' 
 
 "I am going, senor It is the start. But hold me 
 until the secrets ' 
 
 "I am listening, Cajemi." 
 
 "Promise, you will tell them to the chief after me 
 and forget. First the richest, the Veto. Negra. 
 In a barranca, the face of the Barranca " 
 
 "Yes, Cajemi, yes?" Krag's voice was low, and of 
 wondrous patience. 
 
 "It is called" the withered eyelids fluttered open, as 
 the fluttering soul within hovered over the name. Sud- 
 denly his gaze was held, and it struggled pitifully, like 
 a bird on a limed twig. "Thine eyes!" he screeched. 
 "They are hungry hungry thine eyes!" The cry 
 fell to senile, crafty mirth, spluttering through a foam 
 on his lips. 
 
 A shot, then scattering shots and crazed yells burst 
 on the outside world. Two Yaqui children were baiting 
 pelones. Cajemi strained to rise. Blood filled his 
 mouth, and he lay back, listening. "Dolores!" His 
 eyes closed, and the foam lathered his hideous grin. 
 "Ay," he murmured, his mocking spirit calling back as 
 it went, "ay, I remember, Dolores. Thou hast the 
 secrets coaxed them from me, wench. But Dolores, 
 look into the white man's eyes. Look " 
 
 "Faugh!" Krag threw a sack over the face, and let 
 him die.
 
 186 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Krag got to his feet. He drew back one foot, to drive 
 his heavy boot against the corpse. But a spasm crossed 
 his brow, and his jaws met. He held himself from the 
 ghastly act. 
 
 The muscles of his body relaxed, and the pent-up 
 flood of his being receded. A cold, dead smile parted 
 his lips. He seemed to be taking stock. His wife and 
 baby girl, they were on that side. They were gone, 
 paid out, cancelled. The bleak loneliness of life, that 
 also he was paying. Two years of it he had paid already. 
 They were two years of dreary toil in what? In 
 human pity. No inner thought of self was given out- 
 ward expression. During two years every breath he 
 drew was given to his fellow man, to the poor hunted 
 Indian, to the fellow creature who needed him most. 
 Over on that side were those things. On this side, what? 
 Futility ! Colossal futility ! The dead Yaqui at his feet 
 had just paid him off. 
 
 He took from his pocket a small mirror, and looked 
 in it intently, this bankrupt. His face was blackened, 
 as he had purposely left it, the better to blur expression. 
 The tumbled beard hid his mouth, and the lines of his 
 mouth. There was nothing significant to behold, noth- 
 ing to betray him, nothing, except the eyes and his fellow 
 man's intuition. He looked long and thoughtfully 
 into the eyes. He saw as the dead Yaqui saw. A man 
 may not hide the blackness within. He pondered this 
 truth. Two years had made it known to him. Ah the 
 eyes were suddenly glittering here was one asset at least 
 out of the rubbish ! He credited the two lost years with 
 the elimination of a vital error. He had miscalculated.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 187 
 
 "The Lord Christ himself," he muttered, "would 
 have failed by only doing. One must be the thing!" 
 
 Still he thought long, and as he thought, his expres- 
 sion changed. It hardened to granite with resolve. 
 At last he let the mirror fall, and quietly ground 
 it under his heel. "I will!" he said aloud. "I will 
 be the thing!" 
 
 He picked up his coat and turned out one of the pockets. 
 Bits of glass fell to the floor. They had been a flask, and 
 the flask had been filled with a potent cordial. But a 
 bullet, doing no other harm, had broken the flask and 
 wet the man as with his own blood. "That," he reflected, 
 "was not being the thing." 
 
 Then he knelt, and lifted the sack, and closed the dead 
 man's eyes. 
 
 He discovered that this act was setting his foot in 
 the path of most resistance. For the act itself he loathed 
 himself, but he gloried in the new foe that he had encoun- 
 tered. He wondered at the terrible and diabolic strength 
 of this new foe that was himself. He wet his lips 
 thirstily for the struggle to come.
 
 PART III 
 
 THE TREASURE
 
 CHAPTER ONE 
 
 The New Strategy 
 
 RIFLES, bullets, bows and arrows, and an indus- 
 trious torch, if not hampered by a peevish civ- 
 ilization these can have a rich effectiveness in 
 murder. Also they have a downright frankness, a clean 
 quality of horror, mightily invigorating after crimes of the 
 slums, and the cynical subtleties of crime on the other 
 crust. Perhaps it is a matter of atmosphere. A man 
 might conceivably prefer being tomahawked on a clear 
 frosty night to certain adventures in a foul cellar. It 
 is certain, at least, that Krag loved his Yaquis. 
 
 The new state of these coppery children was a freehold 
 of hell. It had been bad enough before, under truculent 
 old Cajemi. And Cajemi, by letting himself be trapped 
 and slain, was in his grave making it so much worse now. 
 Because of that treachery the old, dull pain leaped to 
 jumping agony. The tribe bit and tore, with a madman 's 
 horrid frenzy. 
 
 An expression of this, the very keynote of it, was a 
 foeman's corpse wrapped in an ass's skin and flaunted 
 under the walls of the enemy's citadel. Such a reckless 
 and classic deed made articulate the tribe 's rage, and the 
 tribe spoke gratefully. It named Coyote chief. 
 
 Because of the rainy season when Cajemi died, the 
 
 191
 
 192 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Mexicans kept close in barracks, so that in the first raids 
 the Yaquis worked their murderous will unchecked. 
 But they roused a formidable adversary. The Mexican 
 general of that zone sent his president in the capital 
 thousands of soldier caps, demanding that the caps be 
 returned with soldiers under them. The president sent 
 back the caps, and the soldiers were under them. Like- 
 wise the president sent picks and shovels to widen the 
 old Yaqui Trail into a military road. Cajemi had foretold 
 the death struggle of the tribe. 
 
 But the broncos, the hot-bloods of the tribe, thought 
 only that there would be more pelones. They were used 
 to more pelones, and their hospitality was perennial. The 
 call went forth for the gathering of the tribe. It was a low- 
 spoken word. In effect it was the great gong clanging on 
 the teocalli of the Aztec war god. Runners stole into 
 mining camps, haciendas, towns, wherever a Yaqui 
 labourer dwelt in civilization, and whispered the word. 
 Even the pacificos melted by scores into the wilderness, 
 answering instinct as well as the chief's call. They 
 sensed the perishing of their race. 
 
 The warriors left their fields and villages in the Valley 
 the Yaqui Valley of homes and flocks and drew back 
 into mountain passes and pathless forests. They planted 
 corn on hillsides or in little clearings deep in the wood, 
 and these the women tended when the men were gone. 
 They sold off their flocks of sheep and goats, buying 
 ammunition. The children smuggled grain from the 
 towns or fish from the coast and river, and practised 
 marksmanship on wild turkey, deer, and bear. 
 Arsenals in secret caverns were paid out, and the Yaqui
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 193 
 
 who could have no fire-arm made himself a bow and 
 arrows, or a spear. 
 
 Tetibite made his chief's house in that wild mountain 
 village of straggling huts where Krag lived. Chihuitl 
 was the name of the village. The word itself was a mem- 
 ory of Aztec kinsmen long since conquered, and of a far- 
 off time when Yaquis dwelt in Anahuac near to the heart 
 of Montezuma. Only by a hidden and perilous trail 
 threading up a deep barranca might one come among 
 the nested huts. But no human being, unless he were a 
 Yaqui or the Yaquis' friend or a doomed prisoner, ever 
 came that far. The lost pocket mid black peaks seemed 
 a region of foreboding, as though one were under the 
 shadow of frowning giants and had left hope behind in 
 the valley, where the sun swept her domain broadly. Yet 
 the sun, when zenith high, pierced the cavernous nook, 
 and there were ferns in the crannies of wondrously tinted 
 granite and wild flowers on the ledges to tell that she did. 
 
 When the rains ceased, the tribe held a fiesta at Chi- 
 huitl, around the chief's house. But the feast was not 
 mere gorging over the oil pots. It foreshadowed darker 
 things. Feast they did, for that matter, grouped by 
 families and friends about caldrons in the open air, spear- 
 ing out bits of wild duck or venison, while patient beldams 
 warmed tortillas on the coals, and dogs snatched at bones 
 in unwary fingers. The eating done, sleek youngsters 
 played at games of running, or shot at marks. Harps 
 and guitars mingled their notes, and a low, wild, poignant 
 cry throbbed in them that was very like a czardas of 
 Tzigany, and there was dancing on a levelled place, and 
 fires kindled in dark eyes. The young men decked their
 
 194 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 black hair with quills, and bared their breasts and arms, 
 and swung into a rhythmic step, around and round, sway- 
 ing, twisting, hopping, and moaning lugubriously to the 
 weird plaint of the music. Before the chief's house old 
 men squatted in council, nodding or scowling at the 
 murder-laden word and gesture of their young chief. 
 
 Behind this council of old men, in the swept door-way 
 of Coyote's hut, Krag sat on a bale of fagots. He 
 scraped an arrow on his knee with a bit of glass. Now 
 and again, when a voice leaped angrily like a forked 
 flame, he glanced up at the solemn pow-pow. He was 
 indulgent, as of children, and these children, he knew, 
 were game for their play at death. One may sit and 
 watch the sea for hours, and each breaker rolling in has 
 its own grandeur, and each time the spectator holds his 
 breath anew as the wave hurls itself into spray against the 
 eternal rocks. Futility but grandeur nevertheless. 
 So Krag sat and watched his Yaquis, watched a sea of 
 passion. For the sea's vastness there were centuries of 
 hatred. Back to the horizon of time there was hatred. 
 And for a present storm lashing the waters, there was 
 the treachery of Cajemi's death. The desolate white 
 man never wearied of that fathomless turbulence. There 
 was a something in it akin to his own ebb and flow of life, 
 for neither a man nor a people may beat against all man- 
 kind and not be broken, and he loved the sea about him 
 because it tossed and broke and persevered again as he 
 was tossed and broken and yet persevered. 
 
 There was a woman at the council circle, but, like Krag, 
 not of it. Krag regarded her as a spiteful tomboy, 
 intruding on men-children's own pow-wow. The old men
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 195 
 
 had grunted their disgust, yet let her stay. A Yaqui 
 woman is a warrior's mate, not a squaw and beast of 
 burden. This woman, besides, was Cajemi 's daughter, and 
 she should hear, if she must, how the tribe avenged its 
 chiefs. But Dolores, sitting on the grass with her bare feet 
 tucked under her, lazily fingered her guitar and crooned 
 to herself. Sometimes she lifted her heavy, lustrous 
 eyes and gazed up sleepily at Krag, quite frankly, quite 
 insolently. She hah* smiled as if to herself, before she 
 looked down again. Coyote saw well enough what she 
 was doing, or trying to do, but Krag went on fashioning 
 his arrow and was unconcerned. 
 
 The old men, clothed in white mania or torn and 
 bruised leather, sitting cross-legged on their serapes, 
 more like meek peons than red Indians, were debat- 
 ing a matter of strategy. They debated it, although 
 they were all agreed on it already. Tetibite himself 
 had brought word that, with the clearing of the skies, 
 gangs of labourers were again at work laying iron rails 
 from the Great Stack across the desert to the Bar- 
 ranca Quebrante. A train load of peons had made camp 
 on the sand at the end of the track, and soldiers with 
 carbines guarded them. Soon the iron road would reach 
 to the Americano's mine. The mine was the mine which 
 the Lone Oak had found before he came to the Yaquis. 
 The Americano was the father of the Lone Oak's wife. 
 It was the Americano, from his home in the North, who 
 was building the new iron road. And when the first 
 cars came to the mine, Mexican soldiers would be in 
 the cars. Without the pain and danger of the desert 
 march, the soldiers would be ready for battle. Hence-
 
 196 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 forth the enemy would begin where usually he ended, 
 at the very threshold of the Yaqui sierra. 
 
 To this strain the old men harangued : their young chief 
 should swoop down upon the desert camp of railroad 
 builders and again tear up the iron track. The matter 
 was going to a vote, when Krag broke the arrow across 
 his knee, kicked back the bale of fagots, and stood on his 
 feet. 
 
 "Let the Americano build his railroad," he told them 
 sternly. 
 
 The old men stirred as if a lash had cracked over their 
 shoulders. The effect of the white man 's cool dominance 
 was of overriding them like foolish children. They 
 writhed in anger, and at once felt the more humiliation 
 because of their anger. Dolores's fingers faltered over 
 her guitar, and she drew the striped rebosa closer around 
 her breast. One is chilled to hear a man speak on the 
 quiet air words that invite the Yaqui manner of death- 
 giving. She bent over the guitar again, waiting. She 
 did not know if she wished them to do it, nor if she would 
 try to stop them. Yet there was something voluptuous 
 in anticipation. 
 
 The sachems questioned one another with their eyes. 
 Dignity forbade the accents of wrath. The unspoken 
 death sentence went round the circle. They turned to 
 the young chief in mild solemnity. 
 
 Coyote had abated nothing of his haughty apathy, 
 and yet he was profoundly astounded at Krag's 
 risking his life for one whom he hated, as Coyote 
 knew he hated his wife's father. Coyote knew Krag's 
 greed hitherto always to harass the building of the
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 197 
 
 new road, and thereby ruin that man whom he hated. 
 The Yaqui searched the white man 's countenance for the 
 meaning of his sudden and perilous change. He saw the 
 hard features in repose, yet still black from receding 
 passion. There had been a cruel conflict there, of will 
 over hatred, and the will was rock. Nothing could have 
 been more abhorrent to Krag than what he had just 
 asked. But he had asked it. Why? In a flash of 
 revelation Coyote thought he knew why. 
 
 "If," said the young chief to the waiting council, 
 "the Lone Oak would betray the tribe for the sake of the 
 Americano's road, I but wait. Let him speak." 
 
 Krag did not speak. He had the air of regarding the 
 matter as settled; as though, since he had bidden them 
 do a thing, they would do it. Nothing could be more 
 belittling to an Indian's self-esteem. After his bitterly 
 forced word for the man Hacklette, he was in a sullen 
 humour to hurt others. None could do it more pitilessly 
 than he hi his pitying contempt. The whim being gen- 
 uine, he did not hide it. He no more hid any mood that 
 was genuinely himself. 
 
 Such was no longer his method. It was not his method 
 since he had closed old Cajemi 's eyes. If he was ever to 
 be believed, if ever trusted and have the guerdon of 
 trust he must speak to men nakedly. Even to these 
 children of the wilderness he must speak from himself, 
 and his words, looks, acts, had to be himself, and not a 
 cloak. For no fabric was heavy enough, although woven 
 of hardship, perils, and seeming devotion, to hide the 
 twisting of the soul beneath its folds. This was a truth 
 that he had learned very thoroughly. After two years
 
 198 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 of patient weaving, he had cast the cloak from him over 
 the dead chief's clay. 
 
 Thus had he changed his method. In cold calculation 
 he had changed it. And by it he abided, unflinching. 
 If evil thoughts came, he let them darken his brow. For 
 what evil there was in him, he was ready to take the con- 
 sequences. The Yaquis should trust him in this at least, 
 that he was not to be trusted. Such was enough for a 
 beginning. 
 
 He had even shaved his beard, and his squared, gaunt, 
 harshly aggressive features emerged, so that the Yaquis, 
 magnificent wolves that they were, winced to look on him, 
 quite as gentle Maisie had done. Yet he held to his new 
 strategy, though they destroyed him. He no longer 
 pressed out the furrows of a scowl, but let the scowl 
 come, if it would. He passed his hand over his soul in- 
 stead. For that was his strategy, too; and the essence 
 of it. They saw a blackened soul now, like girders 
 warped in an inferno of heat. But some day they should 
 see it cleansed and upright; and they would trust him 
 wholly. They would remember their years of gratitude, 
 for the gratitude should become affection, and as naturally 
 as a child bares a treasured hurt finger to its mother's 
 gaze, they would bring him the secrets of the tribe. 
 
 Almost as hardily found as the Holy Grail, and by 
 purity likewise, would be those secrets of the Yaquis. The 
 Spaniards, the Mexicans, and the Americans had made it 
 clear that the secrets were the tribe 's life. To part with 
 them was to perish. They were pregnant with fabulous 
 wealth; but no Yaqui chief, naked, hungry, lacking even 
 gunpowder, would lay a pick to the treasure, lest he reveal
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 199 
 
 it and white men flood his sierra, paying armies from the 
 bonanza hoards. So the secrets were a primal instinct 
 of existence itself, and the stranger who won them must 
 lift mountainous centuries of oppression. He must lift 
 a distrust of the weight of ancestral slain. This Krag had 
 set himself to do. 
 
 His reward of sainthood once harvested, then might 
 he return to evil, as the lean jackal gorges after fasting. 
 For evil was the motive of his sainthood. Let him but 
 possess the true Veta Negra, overcoming money's handi- 
 cap of man over man, and out in a world of rapine he 
 would justify his right to live. He would prove it on the 
 man who first goaded him with wealth 's disdainful sneer 
 at simple manhood, and crush that man utterly. 
 
 Krag had brooded for years on a very few things only, 
 and that is dangerous; on his boyhood, among others. 
 The man lacks woefully, and is less a man, who is not 
 startled at times into revering his boyhood as a thing 
 apart from himself, and somehow better. He recalls an 
 awkward being mostly hands and feet and heart, whose 
 wondrous purity vaguely troubles his later worldly poise. 
 Krag's story had begun in that way, promising as sweet 
 a story as happens; as precious as the enthusiasms of 
 youth and youth's eager courage. Furthermore the 
 grown man will hate, if he hates meanness, the creature 
 or circumstance that first bruised the boy's trust and 
 opened his eyes on men and made even of him a man. 
 Krag's danger was that he had brooded. The sap that 
 might have been human kindness left him, and he turned 
 to stone. He charged Hacklette with his lost boyhood. 
 And it was Hacklette again, not the bitterness in his
 
 300 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 own soul, whom he charged with a lost wife. Hacklette 
 always, who kept him from perfect union with the one 
 being he loved, and therefore with the world, and left 
 him half a man, miserably doomed to live half a life. 
 
 And yet, facing torture, he stood between Hacklette 's 
 property and Indian destroyers. The reason was diabolic 
 in its simplicity. He was merely playing his system, as 
 he inwardly and sardonically described it. The new strat- 
 egy did not admit of vengeful thoughts. For an hour's 
 tedious length he could forget Hacklette, and when Hack- 
 lette stalked forth unbidden, Krag thrust him back, 
 turning grimly to thoughts and deeds that were good. 
 Though it killed him, he cultivated a saintly habit of the 
 soul. 
 
 Krag's indifference to the call to speak incensed the 
 Yaqui elders. One lifted his arm, opened his mouth to 
 summon the nearest dancing warriors. The guitar was 
 silenced, and Dolores looked at Coyote. The young 
 chief was on his feet. 
 
 "No," he cried, lithe and ready. "7 will speak." 
 
 An elder grumbled, but all were grave and anxious. 
 It seemed that their young chief was on trial as well. 
 Dolores crooned low over her guitar. 
 
 "I do not speak for the Lone Oak," said Coyote in 
 a hushed voice, as when falling water is heard from a long 
 way. "The acts of the Lone Oak have been good friends 
 to our people. Yet, is he our good friend? We cannot 
 know. I do not speak for him." 
 
 He paused, forgetting the earnestness of words meant 
 alone for the welfare of his tribe. His eyes had met 
 Krag's, and in them came the old gleam, chafing against
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 201 
 
 his savage's affection for the man. Something had always 
 stayed his hand before, even while it goaded him to strike. 
 But this time he held no knife. The knife was in other 
 hands. He had only to stand aside. Yet he turned, so 
 as to keep the white man's maddening sneer from his 
 sight. 
 
 "I speak," he said, "for one who did what was good 
 because it was good. I, Tetibite, saved to be your chief, 
 was caught in hiding, where I had crawled like a wounded 
 snake on my belly to die, and was dragged in my blood, 
 and kicked, and prodded as an ox with bayonet points, 
 when this one saw and hurried a man to my enemies and 
 made them stop, and they brought me to her. She spread 
 blankets where they laid me. She put water to my lips, 
 and when the Lone Oak rose out of the earth she helped 
 him with trembling hands and pitying eyes while he 
 bathed my wound. That was good, because she was 
 good. She asked nothing. There was naught to ask, to 
 hope for, from a dying wild animal. But the animal who 
 was dying, Tetibite the chief, stands here now to give 
 her his life, unless you let him give her something of 
 better use, which is bread to her mouth and the warmth 
 of wood fires in the cold country where she dwells." 
 
 He contemplated them proudly for a space, and they 
 noted that his rifle lay on the ground at his feet. 
 
 "The Lone Oak," he went on, "is a man. He does 
 not save himself behind a woman. You will wait, then, 
 a long time for him to speak. He must have heard, as 
 I heard men say at the Great Stack, that the woman's 
 father pours all his money into the railroad building, and 
 he takes at last from the woman the money that the
 
 202 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Lone Oak left her for bread and wood, for her and her 
 little child " Coyote could not see the darkening of the 
 face behind him, and the astonishment on it "so," 
 he said, "that the man may build his railroad, and come 
 to his mine of silver, and pay back to the woman what he 
 has taken, for this, and not to betray, does the Lone Oak 
 say to us: 'Leave the man's railroad in peace.' . . . 
 And now Tetibite, chief of the tribe, which is great chief, 
 says this also: 'Leave the man's road in peace !" : 
 
 Dolores struck her guitar sharply, and the notes burst 
 in riotous accord with the music of the dancers, and her 
 voice rose, rich and cloying and madly defiant, on the 
 wild strain. 
 
 The old men frowned. Coyote snatched the guitar 
 from her. 
 
 "Fools," she laughed. "You listen to Tetibite? . . . 
 Hunh, so there is a woman! . . . And the Lone Oak. 
 . . . Pig, give back my guitar !" 
 
 "Take her away," said the elder of the village wearily. 
 
 "And you will not!" She showed her teeth. "You 
 will listen to Cajemi's daughter, for Cajemi's daughter 
 has much to tell. That iron road, when it comes into the 
 barranca " 
 
 "True," Krag interposed quietly, "the railroad will 
 
 bring soldiers into the barranca, if but let my 
 
 Coyote tell you " 
 
 "Ay," greedily cried Coyote, "I will tell you that the 
 trains with soldiers must cross the desert, and if in a night 
 we cannot dig the sand from under a rail " 
 
 "Ay, indeed," grumbled an elder from the gloomy 
 Mesquite Forest, "but we aged ones with few years left,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 203 
 
 we think of the years. Our young men cannot forever 
 lie in wait with shovels for trains of soldiers." 
 
 "For one year only they will need to," said Krag, 
 "and in the cries and screechings, the hissing of steam, 
 the burning of splintered wrecks, they can shoot their 
 Mexicans by hundreds. That," he said, his mouth 
 drawing to its ugly smile, "is honourable warfare. I 
 will give the young men safe counsel in it." 
 
 "Still you forget," protested the forest philosopher, 
 "the years afterward, when this war is a man-hunt, and 
 we have few warriors " 
 
 "In one year," said Krag, "there will be no railroad, 
 unless the tribe itself desires the railroad. In one year 
 the man the Americano will dig enough silver to 
 pay back to to pay back what he has stolen. But 
 he will come also to an end of the silver. I will tell you 
 what I know, which the man does not. The vein of 
 silver bends. It opens on the face of the barranca. You 
 can prove that for yourselves. So, when there is no more 
 silver, go and tear up the track and take back your desert 
 for your own." 
 
 For a little there was silence. The old men sat dream- 
 ily hi the sunshine, squinting at the black peaks, or gazed 
 unseeing at the sleek, romping children. One took off 
 his sombrero, found in its crown a cigarette and matches. 
 While he rolled the loose paper over again, a goat thrust 
 her nose into his fingers, and he slapped her away. The 
 elder of San Marcial, from the Rio Matape, was moved 
 to speak. 
 
 "Our answer," said he, "unless one of us raises his 
 voice to say no, is as I tell you now. The man, the Amer-
 
 304 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 icano, shall build his iron road in peace, because of a 
 woman's pity for a Yaqui. That is all." 
 
 Each ancient, shaggy head gravely nodded, but 
 as the nods went round, Dolores the girl was up, 
 crying: 
 
 "Fools and soft hearts, I was not thinking of the sol- 
 diers who will come, but of a solitary white man and his 
 burro, of yet another solitary white man and his burro, 
 of another, and another, and another, until one of them 
 shall pick up the rock he seeks. Then, soon, here in 
 the heart of our sierra, there is a white man 's settlement 
 of the Americanos who do not tremble for war cries and 
 bullets, and at the last the Yaquis must move again deeper 
 into the West. And what is there deeper in the West that 
 is left us? Fools, it is the sea! No, no, you see my 
 tongue is loosened. I will not stop So the railroad comes 
 off the desert into the barranca ? But it must not come. 
 I cannot tell you all, yet you shall judge. Cajemi 's daugh- 
 ter says it must not. She says it must not, because she 
 knows the secrets of the tribe that you think died with 
 Cajemi. She knows them, and they give her right in 
 your councils. She knows where the lost mines lie cov- 
 ered, and she says: 'Beware the white man and his iron 
 road that would enter that barranca.' Hunk, because 
 Tetibite's heart whimpers for a woman, because also the 
 Lone Oak's " 
 
 Coyote laughed, jeering. "S-s-s, I was wondering, 
 but it is a woman in her head, not secrets. The secrets, 
 if she has them, are the chief's to keep. Let her give 
 them to me, and I will say if these secrets forbid the road." 
 
 An elder made noises in his throat. It was near to
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 20,5 
 
 chuckling. "Cajemi lets a girl pick the tribe's secrets 
 from that hard skull!" The words were echoed, for to 
 think her only boasting was relief. 
 
 "It is not well for secrets to be with a woman," another 
 soberly declared. "What Cajemi 's daughter knows, she 
 must whisper in the chief's ear." 
 
 The girl shook her head until the blue-black hair fell 
 from her shoulders and hung like a lustrous, breeze- 
 blown arras before her face. She pretended that not 
 for life would she let them see her mock them. The 
 bewildered old men regarded her helplessly. Derision 
 quivered yet on her lips when she looked up, brushing 
 back her hair. 
 
 "So," she said, the words gurgling in rich thickness, 
 "then would I forget secrets with whispering them? 
 La-Za, lu-/a, but our tribal fathers step where the mire is 
 deep. Poor gray heads, rest easy." Abruptly she shot 
 a look, languorous and wanton, at Krag. "Rest easy, 
 for those secrets I shall keep for the man I take to myself. 
 A woman wishes to be desired, my fathers." 
 
 More than one fatuous old man brightened. "Take 
 Tetibite then." 
 
 She remembered Tetibite 's jeering, and now she jeered 
 at him. 
 
 "No," scornfully retorted the young Yaqui. "for 
 I should only learn that she has no secrets. Ancient 
 men, whose blood has cooled, I tell you it is a woman 
 in her head. Look, the warriors have danced themselves 
 hot. It is time to take the trail." 
 
 The elders rose on stiffening legs, grunting and glad 
 of release. "Go, Tetibite," they said.
 
 206 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Cajemi's daughter," added the village elder, "we 
 shall keep her for you, her and her secrets." 
 
 Dolores lingered as they went. Krag rose and turned 
 toward his hut. The tread of her bare feet was soft, 
 and he did not hear her until she spoke at his shoulder. 
 "Lone Oak," she whispered, "are you thinking of the 
 woman?" 
 
 Krag turned, and saying never a word, he took her 
 nose between his fingers and wrenched it deliberately. 
 This was according to the new strategy.
 
 THE little brown Mexican soldier, in his glazed 
 fighting cap, dingy uniform, and sandals, can 
 live on maguey and the dew. But where a 
 torrid sun sucks the maguey dry, where the dew is quaffed 
 off by desert sands, who lives? The Yaqui lives, who is 
 himself sand, and slips through the fingers. 
 
 This was the superstition of the clumsy, stolid, little 
 brown man concerning his enemy. But superstition is 
 exaggeration. The Yaqui 's capacity for the pain of 
 endurance was greater, that was all. It merely took him 
 longer to recognize the perishing state of flesh and blood. 
 Even then, his grief was not for the lack of what one may 
 eat, but for the lack of what may kill. Gunpowder! 
 Little pellets of lead! Even the savage in his warfare 
 must have the sinews of war. This is one handicap from 
 civilization that he may not evade. 
 
 In the score and ten months since Cajemi's death, all 
 bone and muscle and wit of the tribe went into fighting, 
 so that none was spared for wage-earning in towns and 
 mining camps. Even the pacificos could not be spared, 
 not when women themselves turned warriors and led the 
 hunted life hi cactus and swamp. The very children 
 frowned on bread, and starved to buy ammunition. 
 
 207
 
 208 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Game fled the Yaqui retreats. The Mexicans, travelling 
 their new military road over the old trail, destroyed what 
 growing crops they found. The Yaquis made cakes of 
 crushed roots and rush and straw and wild grasses. But 
 the time came when, though women toiled at their weav- 
 ing and old men at the potter's wheel, there was little 
 money. The earnings of fifty years were spent on war, 
 all that the Yaquis had made by labour, by their herds and 
 fields of grain, or by their mines, in the days when they 
 had their valley and homes and peace. Cajemi's old 
 custom-house at the Rio Yaqui 's mouth, where like a 
 baron of the Rhine he forced toll from every river craft, 
 was lost long since to the Mexicans. Neither could they 
 pan gold from the sands of the river 's bank, as they used 
 to do, each man weighing himself out fair wages, because 
 here also were the Mexicans encamped. 
 
 Consequently the Yaqui raids became fewer, until only 
 the nearest settlements were menaced. Yet this was not 
 because the Yaquis were fewer, because few were killed, 
 and rarely was one captured. Nor was it because they 
 were less eager, or less daring. It was solely because 
 they lacked the instruments of massacre. 
 
 Krag had long pondered the situation. The tribe, it 
 seemed to him, was in its last home, the sierras and 
 swamps. And that home seemed only transitory, to 
 give way soon to slave-ships and slavery in Yucatan. 
 Something in Krag rebelled fiercely against that impend- 
 ing fate of a noble savagery, and his mind never rested 
 from plotting a counter-fate, a remedy, the tribe's life. 
 Yet, while he plotted, he was certain that he was only 
 plotting the success of his own resolute and selfish purposes.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 209 
 
 " My Coyote," he spoke one day when things looked 
 most desperate, "some kinds of ore are ground, others 
 melted, and the silver taken out, as simply as women 
 grind corn into tortilla paste or melt lard from the pork. 
 It can be done in a cave, and there are caves that no 
 Mexican would ever find. Or," he went on, anxiety 
 deepening the furrows between his eyes, "if the ore is 
 very rich, it can be smuggled a sack at a time into Guay- 
 mas, where those shifty ore pirates, the rescatadores, will 
 pay rifles and corn for it, and keep the barter a secret. 
 There, I know of no other way. If you would save your 
 tribe, my Coyote, you must work the hidden mines. If 
 you do not, the Yaquis will be driven like peons where 
 these names can never help them. So bring me pieces 
 of ore from each, and I will tell you which mine to 
 uncover." 
 
 Coyote glumly shook his head. The young Yaqui had 
 broadened, was quieter, statelier. Thirty months of 
 chieftanship had sobered the lean runner, had stiffened 
 the supple play of muscles. The cheeks were sunken, the 
 neck was laced in stringy smews, the chest was a wall of 
 bone. There were scars on him, and one was yet raw. 
 The cold glitter of his eyes was now of famishing. He was 
 grave and haggard. " If I only could ! " he sighed heavily. 
 
 Krag, regarding him under thick brows, knew a pang, 
 a something that cut oddly and deep. It was like the 
 pang of one who sees a pet grow old, losing its beauty of 
 line and fire of spirit. "My Coyote," he said, "you 
 must." 
 
 The Indian's teeth flashed impatience. "You know 
 Cajemi is dead. He took the secrets with him!"
 
 210 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "There is Dolores," said Krag quietly. 
 
 A strange flush darkened the coppery cheeks. 
 
 "Have I ever lied to you, Coyote?" 
 
 Coyote met the piercing gray eyes without flinching. 
 He rnet them eagerly, even, because of a serene strength 
 that had come to be in them. The squared face of the 
 white man was gaunt, and there was a bullet's furrow 
 across one temple. The great shoulders, the body in 
 its heavy breadth, these also were gaunt. Lines of suf- 
 fering, or of struggle, had mellowed the hard features. 
 Suffering and struggle had broken the cool poise that was 
 once a sneer. The Yaqui thought the white man's suf- 
 fering to be hunger. The savage knew nothing of loneli- 
 ness. But he knew, without looking at the worn laced 
 boots, the tattered khaki, the ragged woollen shirt, what 
 hardship it had cost to follow the trail that no wounded 
 warrior might be wasted. He knew that the surgeon, when 
 the mood came, cursed, and cursed honestly, cursing the 
 wounded under his hand for recklessness, once cursing 
 even him, Tetibite the chief, for shooting down three 
 sullen braves who had misbehaved in battle. The 
 Lone Oak hid no feelings, unless they were kindly ones. 
 The kindly ones he often suppressed, thinking them 
 fraudulent. 
 
 "The liar," said Coyote, "is Dolores. My father is 
 only mistaken." 
 
 "I am not mistaken," said Krag. "Dolores has the 
 secrets. Marry her, my Coyote. She said that she 
 will give them to the man she takes." 
 
 The blood reddened in the Yaqui 's high cheek-bones. 
 "I did take her or she me" his lip lifted from his
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 211 
 
 teeth. He said it in one poisonous breath. "No, she 
 has no secrets." 
 
 He would tell little more, but Krag saw it all vividly, 
 as red blood in young veins is vivid. After the war 
 fiesta and pow-pow thirty months before, Dolores had 
 followed the warriors down the trail. Touched by licking 
 fires, she had whispered to the white man, and he had 
 taken her nose between his fingers. He was lustful, this 
 superb animal of a white man; she sensed it, and it drew 
 her. But she sensed the animal only, and divined nothing 
 of desire for but the one woman. Then instinctively 
 she had turned to her own kind, to one like her who 
 throbbed with the nettling greed of fulfillment, and she 
 followed the warriors on the first march of their raid, and 
 that night when they lay scattered in their blankets, 
 she crept to the young chief. But never was the white 
 man, and his scorn of her, out of her mind. 
 
 "But for more than two years no one has seen her," 
 said Krag. 
 
 " Have / then? " retorted Coyote. " See, has she woven 
 a new serape for me?" Wofully he held out his once 
 white blanket, worn thin even to ravelling. "Or does 
 she follow me to the hunt? Yet, being mad as she made 
 me for her that night, I said: 'We will go before the 
 tribe, and have the marriage feasting,' and I handed her 
 my loaded rifle, to fire in air, as I would do for her. It 
 is the wedding bond, the right of death over one who is 
 faithless. But she called me 'pig,' the slut, and laughed, 
 gurgling in her throat, while her lips were on my neck. 
 Before the sun rose, she was gone. Since then I have 
 not seen her. She is an outcast from the tribe."
 
 312 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 " But the hidden mines ? The secrets ? ' ' 
 
 "She laughed again, when I asked her for them." 
 
 "My Coyote," said Krag, "go and find her. Listen, 
 
 Cajemi told me as he died that she has the secrets. Go 
 
 then, and find her." 
 
 The Yaqui went, grim before his tribe's necessities, 
 
 but promising nothing.
 
 CHAPTER THREE 
 
 Ghostly Wings 
 
 A FORTNIGHT later Coyote reappeared. He 
 came back alone to the little sierra village of 
 Chihuitl, and went straight to the hut of the 
 Lone Oak. The desert's white powder was ground into 
 the tawny seams of his neck, and clung to his sandals and 
 rusty leather breeches despite the bruising of mountain 
 rock. Either anxiety or serious enterprise impending 
 was in his manner. 
 
 Krag's keen eyes noted the powdered alkali and the 
 Yaqui's stress. "The boy has found Dolores," he 
 thought; "found her in the desert or beyond." The 
 years flooded on him with their weight of triumph. 
 "And he has the secrets! He has them!" 
 
 Coyote wet the dried froth on his lips with the tip of 
 his tongue. "I come for you," he said, "and you will 
 be glad to come. We go to the barranca you know of." 
 
 The barranca! That was the key word, Cajemi's 
 key word to the Veta Negra, and confirmed the white 
 man's hope. For Coyote meant the Barranca Quebrante, 
 the canon where Hacklette's railroad crawled off the 
 desert into the sierra, where Krag had staked the 
 spurious Veta Negra and baited it with ruin for Hacklette, 
 where the real, the genuine, the fabulously rich Veta 
 
 218
 
 214 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Negra must surely be! Krag was quite satisfied of 
 that. Old Cajemi, mumbling his last, had uttered the 
 word. Then Dolores, exasperating the council of old 
 men, had warned them to let no railroad come into 
 the Barranca Quebrante, yet would not tell why. 
 
 Since then Krag had scoured that definitely located 
 gorge from the little brook's first cascade down to the 
 wet sand on the desert's margin. With all his prospec- 
 tor's craft, he had stealthily explored either precipitous 
 face of the canon. But great surfaces of those towering 
 walls were hidden from his sight when he was in the 
 gorge below, and inaccessible from the perilous ledges 
 above. He decided that nature herself hid the treasure, 
 as if in mid-air. He trod the pebbles below, the jagged 
 rocks above that treasure. But no miserly talons might 
 clutch it. 
 
 Now, he reflected, Coyote had come from Dolores. 
 For the tribe's sake Dolores had told him where to 
 find the Veta Negra. And as the Veta Negra was in that 
 barranca, Coyote had come for him to go to that barranca. 
 Coyote needed him, the skilled white man, to bring out the 
 ore secretly, to prepare for its smuggling to the samplers 
 in Guaymas; in a word, to work out the tortuous alchemy 
 whereby the tribe might convert silver into death. 
 
 So the years had brought their triumph in one tumul- 
 tuous flood ! He had procured wisely that Coyote should 
 be chosen chief, since to the chief must fall the tribe's 
 dazzling secrets. And though they had fallen instead 
 to a stubborn girl, yet had he overleapt even this obstacle. 
 He needed but to go with his Vale Coyote whom he 
 had rescued from death five years before for precisely
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 215 
 
 such a purpose and lay his hands on the Black Vein's 
 unthinkable bonanza. To make it his own, afterward 
 that were the simplest exercise in the manual of 
 villainy. 
 
 His mule, the tough little beast he rode now, was 
 brought him from the village corral by the "doctor's 
 assistant," a dozen-year-old incipient Yaqui warrior 
 of globular belly and protuberant ribs The child buckled 
 on Krag's spurs, watched him mount, was watching his 
 jog-trot departure in Chief Tetibite's wake, when he 
 burst forth hallooing and came running after. 
 
 "There is an old woman," he panted. "She is an old, 
 old woman. She is a curandera" 
 
 Krag bent a tuft of the lad's stiff black hair in his 
 fingers. "Well?" 
 
 "She wishes to speak with the Lone Oak. She is a 
 Pinto woman, surely." 
 
 Krag frowned. He resented a minute's delay, after 
 five years' delaying. But the last three of those years 
 had fastened a habit of the soul on him. The wish of any 
 fellow creature was become matter for consideration. 
 "Bring her," he said, with a serenity that was near to 
 benevolence. Nor was there hint of struggle. That 
 fight had been fought out long since. The composure 
 of the man was the calm empire of mastery. "Bring 
 her quickly," and he gave the hair a twisting reminder. 
 
 "She came riding on a burro." said the boy, unafraid. 
 "It is an old, old burro." He scampered off to the hut 
 of the village elder, where a toothless and foolishly grin- 
 ning beldame had come inquiring for the Lone Oak. 
 She was a Pinto. There were tattooed smears on face,
 
 S16 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 breast, and arms, creased by leathery wrinkles. She 
 was also a medicine woman, a curandera. A round green 
 leaf was plastered on each withered temple. Her eyes 
 were bleared from the smudge of brewing herbs. 
 
 The Yaqui youngster herded her forward. "Take 
 care, I think she is a bruja," he cried; and witch, she 
 doubtless thought herself. 
 
 "Well, what?" demanded Krag, for she only looked 
 up at him with her toothless, foolish grin. 
 
 She held up her hands; talons, rather, with crooked 
 claws. "Blisters, "she said indignantly, in cracked accents, 
 "you see them? They are blisters." 
 
 "Well, well?" 
 
 "They are from sweeping, sweeping, and my broom 
 sheds its straw like a scalded goose. And I weep, and 
 moan, and wail, yet yet not a devil of the calentura 
 stirs." She cocked her frowsy head, and leered at Krag 
 in professional gravity. "Not a devil, remember, leaves 
 the body of the possessed one oo-ee, oo-ee, is it not 
 then the hour to die?" 
 
 "Is this a consultation?" Krag asked soberly. 
 
 The hag grinned, not understanding. "The woman," 
 she chattered on, "put her hands to her ears. She cursed 
 my wailing at devils. 'The Lone Oak! Go to the Lone 
 Oak!' the woman said, and with her nails she tried to 
 scoop forth my eyes. Art thou the Lone Oak? Oo-ee, 
 what can it matter? The child must die, since not a 
 devil " 
 
 "The child?" Krag demanded sharply. 
 
 "Eh? The woman's child." 
 
 "What woman?"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 217 
 
 "A woman. The daft woman, for she cursed my 
 wailing. The lone woman, who lives in our village." 
 
 "Take me to her," said Krag, as by rote, by habit. 
 ' ' Wait ! Where is your village ? ' ' 
 
 "Nay, do not come, for it is far, and the child will be 
 dead, since no root, no bark 
 
 "Shall we cut out thy tongue?" cried Coyote. "Now 
 where is the village?" 
 
 "Far, I said. And hast thou, chief, no fear whatever, 
 of an evil eye? Far, in the swamps of the coast, our 
 men are pearl divers, and they think less of sharks than 
 of the evil eye." 
 
 Toward the coast, to the gulf? That was westward. 
 And Coyote's mission, the Veto, Negra, the goal of five 
 years' waiting, lay to the south. Yet no struggle dis- 
 torted Krag's features. His expression was clouded, 
 nothing more. He turned to Coyote. "You will not 
 say why we go to the barranca. But tell me, is it life 
 and death to the tribe that I go with you?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Or life and death to any Yaqui?" 
 
 "No, my father." 
 
 "Then," said Krag, "you will have to go alone." 
 
 By acts like this, so that he was himself in them, Krag 
 had laid a foundation of trust day by day, as the weeks 
 and months dragged past. And he could not risk the 
 structure now by turning his back on a call of human 
 suffering, however obscure and unpromising the call might 
 be. He could not, though by refusing he might grasp 
 the object itself of all this strategy of pity. For the very 
 reason that his ambition beckoned on the one hand, he
 
 218 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 must turn to suffering on the other. Such his remorseless 
 policy exacted, to waive no jot of it even to compass the 
 purpose of it. There was yet another article of the com- 
 pact. He must be himself. Therefore he gave way 
 to his reluctance. 
 
 "Don't think, Coyote," he muttered, "that I want 
 to go. But there's this consolation, to find the brat 
 
 already cold when I get there. At least I hope " 
 
 He paused, queerly questioning within himself if this 
 were strictly true. The doubt disturbed him like the 
 rush of ghostly wings. Saying no more, he patted the 
 Yaqui chief on the back in farewell.
 
 CHAPTER FOUR 
 
 The Fairy Tale that Was Different 
 
 DOWN into the coast country, to the wet brush 
 country lying low about the mouth of rivers, 
 Krag on his mule followed the shrivelled Pinto 
 woman. She led him at last to a jungle village where a 
 scattering of huts, of thatch and plaited mud-daubed twigs, 
 was fairly lost in the rank turmoil of vegetation. Swamp 
 and lagoons and natural moats, filled by the backing of 
 the sea, cut off the desolate clustered abodes from the 
 knowledge of mankind outside. Decaying fish burdened 
 the air, and water-fowl made noisy the dense little world. 
 Naked children romped in puddles. Women squatted be- 
 fore their huts, twisting reeds into matting. The men 
 fishermen, pearl divers, smugglers laboured hip deep in 
 fish traps or strung their catch in the sun. They jeered at 
 the Pinto medicine woman, seeing she had brought a white 
 doctor, and raked her professional pride sorely. 
 
 "But the chiquito is dead?" she protested, smirking at 
 the first ones they passed. 
 
 "No, no," they shouted, "he is still warm, still burning 
 with fever, the chiquito" and she smiled foolishly in her 
 chagrin, whereat they jeered again . 
 
 "Oo-ee,"she retorted, lashing her burro, "then it's 
 because he's a tougher breed than thou." 
 
 219
 
 220 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Through pools of water the burro splashed, the mule 
 behind, and they came to a hut deep in the tangled vine. 
 The hag called out, slipping from the stuffed sack on the 
 burro to the ground. "Eh fool, he is here, the Lone Oak. 
 Now give me the pearls." 
 
 A coppery arm brushed back a matting that closed the 
 doorless entrance, and a woman's face appeared. A 
 rebosa wrapped her head and covered her mouth and nose. 
 Great wasted eyes shot a hungry look at Krag. Hastily 
 she tore from her breast a strand of pearls, and thrust 
 them into the hag's clutching fingers. 
 
 "Now my chief will live,"she laughed wildly. "Come!" 
 she cried to Krag. 
 
 A tigress, could she summon aid to her dying cub, 
 would utter the cry as the woman did. The ferocity 
 of animal mother-love was the same. 
 
 Krag thought he remembered the strand of pearls. 
 And when he heard the voice, rich and vibrant still, he 
 knew it was Dolores. 
 
 "Coyote Tetibite did not find you then?" he 
 exclaimed. 
 
 She shook her head impatiently. The male animal 
 , was forgotten. "Come," she urged, her eyes suddenly 
 dangerous. In Krag himself she saw only a medicine 
 chest. 
 
 He stooped to pass the matting and fell back. The 
 stench within was ghastly. The mother dreaded each 
 breath of air, lest it chill her fevered babe. Krag tore 
 away the matting with a sweep of the hand, and in almost 
 the same gesture he caught her wrist and twisted 
 free the knife she held.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 221 
 
 "As though I were here to argue methods," he 
 grumbled. 
 
 He plunged into the hut, groped toward where the 
 pallet would be at the back, felt the touch of flesh that 
 burned his own, and gathered into his arms a little human 
 form. "Make way there!" He shouldered the mother 
 from the door-way, and carried the child past her into 
 the air. He stripped it of covering, and wrapped it round 
 in his own clean blankets. 
 
 "Burn every rag," he ordered. "The Yaquis would 
 be ashamed of dirt like this. Get rid of that filthy witch. 
 She is falling asleep." 
 
 Thus he changed the medicine, holding his patient, a 
 tiny, straight-limbed, two-year-old Yaqui boy, while he 
 browbeat the mother into helpful obedience. By night- 
 fall the hut, or the bare shelter that was left of it, was 
 fumigated, scalded, and aired as clean as a whistle. 
 
 All the while he held the babe; held it tenderly. As the 
 tiny, pink-red morsel stirred in its far-away, troubled 
 region of fever, as he felt its searing breath on his hand, 
 cleansing lungs and blood of poisons that had stifled 
 it, he knew that the piteous stress, the valiant battle of 
 the little sufferer, were projected into a tingling, a yearning, 
 through his own great frame. As he watched, clasping 
 the soft bundle, and thought that it would have died 
 that night, he slowly grew aware that at least he 
 doubted if he were not glad he had com*. He wondered 
 yet could it be? if an empty habit of the soul were 
 becoming the soul itself, inevitably rebuilding the ethereal 
 tissue, filling out the substance to the shell, until there 
 was this sensitive, quivering nothingness in him that
 
 222 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 tingled and yearned yes, and sorrowed over a little 
 life that he might save. 
 
 "That moss dry yet?" he questioned gruffly. He was 
 ill at ease with himself, as before a strange master. 
 Perhaps, he thought, the soul is touchy machinery, and 
 mortal fingers were rash to meddle in it. "Quick, then, 
 Dolores, and we'll make him his new bed." 
 
 The case was simple. Understanding eyes, alert 
 through the hours of danger to the crisis, and a lusty 
 small Yaqui would be preserved to his tribe. There 
 were no such eyes to trust except Krag's own. He 
 settled himself by the little woodland couch beneath 
 the thatch to stand the watches of the night. Tempera- 
 ture, breathing, heart beats, semaphores of the flesh 
 in distress, he read as plainly as rockets at midnight, 
 and heeded them according to the varying message. 
 The mother was crooning over her babe, sometimes with 
 her guitar, mumbling phrases in its ear that the white 
 man could not catch. The accents were smothered in 
 wild, jealous mother-passion, and were too tense for 
 merely a lullaby. Krag, provoked and warned by the 
 child's tossing, ordered her away from the crib. 
 
 "Besides," he said, "there is something I have to say 
 to you, since Coyote did not find you. Make me first 
 some coffee, the blackest you can; then sit there." 
 
 He had not slept for two nights in coming, and when 
 he had drunk, he made her sit in the door-way and said : 
 
 "Dolores, do you know that soon the Yaquis must 
 begin falling? Like flies they will fall." 
 
 In the darkness her shoulders lifted, and she half flung 
 out an arm. He knew that the gesture was not indiffer-
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 223 
 
 ence. It was poignant despair for her tribe, a gesture 
 to say that she was helpless. "I am a woman," she said. 
 
 "To the last man," he added. 
 
 "But let them wait, and I will give them a chief. 
 Oh," she started up, crying -"he does not breathe!" 
 
 "He is breathing quietly, that is all; go back. But 
 when your little chief here grows up, he will be a chief 
 without a tribe, unless you save his tribe for him 
 now." 
 
 She sank listessly in the door-way, and gazed at the 
 dim sheen of stars on the wet earth. "I know," she said, 
 "you mean the secrets. But the secrets are for him." 
 She jerked her head defiantly toward the child. "I 
 keep them for him. Then he will be chief. Then the 
 Yaquis will make him chief. He is the son of a chief, 
 he is the grandson of a chief, he is an outcast, with his 
 mother. Enough, for his mother will see him chief also, 
 because of the secrets. And you ask me to rob him, 
 my little chief!" 
 
 "A chief without a tribe?" 
 
 Again she shrugged her shoulders. "Better no tribe 
 than one that Mexicans can conquer," she said. "I"- 
 it was a stifled shriek "do not hear him breathing!" 
 
 In pity he let her come, to satisfy herself. On her 
 knees she laid her cheek to the babe's, and trembled until 
 she felt its breath. But she stayed so, and soon was 
 crooning as before, passionately, jealously. The child 
 stirred. The low moan of its troubled breathing rose 
 feebly again. 
 
 Krag needed but to let her alone, and the mother 
 would kill her child by morning. If the child lived,
 
 224 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the tribal secrets were locked in the mother's breast for 
 twenty years or longer. Krag could not wait that long. 
 Twenty years would bring his own age close to fifty. 
 Very likely twenty years would bring Hacklette, scath- 
 less, to the grave. In mercy, then, let a foolish mother 
 coddle her young! Krag remembered, too, the tribe's 
 dire need of those secrets. 
 
 " Dolores," said Krag softly, " go back now to the door." 
 He had reflected, quite simply, that it was not according 
 to the new strategy. But, while bathing the child's 
 hot brow, he caught himself murmuring: "You poor 
 little son-of-a-gun," as though he owed him something 
 for the black thought of a moment ago. Cold adept in 
 the human heart, he feared he had been imbibing some- 
 what "of the common heart." To be sure, this meddling 
 with one's own soul was risky business. In such phrasing 
 he might think flippantly, but he discovered that he was 
 not feeling so. That self -trouble of his was swelling to 
 awe, as if, to pay the devil's coin, unwittingly he had sold 
 his soul to Heaven. He wondered about it as he sat 
 there; wondered if he were growing aware of a celestial 
 foreclosure. Then he came back, as he always did, to 
 one word, one vision, one sorrow. "Maisie," he 
 whispered. 
 
 A quaint sputtering of baby prattle roused him to 
 his patient. "How now," he murmured, bending over, 
 "the chief awakes! No? Yes? Else he's delirious." 
 
 The chief was somewhat of both. His urchin mind was 
 not solid on its pins as yet, or like a dazed old raven 
 was trying to rehearse a speaking part. 
 
 "Oh, well, maybe it's not very important," said Krag;
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KEAG 225 
 
 "take your time. Like a little bit o' milk? Well, chief, 
 howdy to you, sir. Now, back to the sandman so!" 
 
 But the doughty warrior would not back to the sand- 
 man. He kept on struggling to the front; rather, the 
 dazed old crow cawed and hopped about in the lean, 
 copper skull. 
 
 "Oh, all right," said Krag, "only don't wake your 
 mammy," and Krag dropped again into his desolate 
 self-communion, paying small heed to the babbled syl- 
 lables picked out of a misty brain and slipped off the 
 tongue. A Yaqui babe, the same as other two-year-olds, 
 likes to adventure on the wonderful, newly found region 
 of speech, and Krag meant to let him talk himself back 
 to natural slumber. It was Yaqui equivalent for a 
 Mother Goose rhyme, no doubt, that the chief was 
 trying to piece together, and the Guardian Science watch- 
 ing over him smiled at a phrase now and then, and paid 
 no attention. 
 
 Now Dolores, overcome by sleep in the door-way and 
 snoring voluptuously, heard the faint lisping through 
 her own clangour. Instantly, with feline lightness of 
 bare feet, she was at the crib of boughs and moss, and 
 bending over her cub. The little mouth and tiny glis- 
 tening teeth she covered with her lips. 
 
 "Here," Krag interposed, "he's all right, Dolores. 
 Let him go to sleep." 
 
 She flashed him a wild look of distrust, and held the 
 smothering kiss. 
 
 "Your imp is all right, I tell you," Krag insisted. 
 " But you'll fret him into danger. Come!" He gripped 
 her shoulder, and lifted her to her feet. Then he saw
 
 226 
 
 that she had laid the palm of one hand over the child's 
 mouth. It was then that he began to suspect this latest 
 maternal ferocity. He took her by the arms, and firmly 
 turned her from the crib. Her hand, drawn from the 
 child's mouth, released a feeble torrent of baby patter. 
 
 " . . . ba (then a desperate burring note) 
 anca. . . . " 
 
 Krag's ears burned. The Spanish word barranca! 
 It was a lone, inadvertent foreigner in the Yaqui throng 
 of words. It was unrelated, friendless, isolated. He 
 could piece it in nowhere. But inspiration burst on him 
 like a shattering globe of fire. Dolores her darken- 
 ing suspicion her wild anxiety? So, neither could 
 Dolores wait twenty years. Her fierce mother-passion 
 must anticipate time. In yearning fancy she would give 
 her chief his birthright at once, and every hour live 
 anew the joy of her fervid make-believe, crooning low, 
 rapturously, in his ear. They were secrets she crooned, 
 his tribe's fatal secrets, in lieu of lullaby; secrets for 
 which human bones strewed the mountain trails, for which 
 a nation was exterminating a race of men, for which 
 the good physician in the Indian hut was a good physi- 
 cian, for which he was cursed and desolate, forsaken 
 by those he had forsaken, for which, like the rest, he 
 would enter hell; and secrets that were a cradle song in 
 a baby's ear! 
 
 "Some more of this will soothe him to sleep," Krag 
 said quietly, giving a sedative. He no longer sought to 
 drive her back, knowing what he knew, until the small 
 warrior head drooped over on one cheek and the eyes 
 closed and the tongue was still. Then Krag sat himself
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 227 
 
 in the darkest corner of the hut and let his brain have 
 its will. 
 
 "Barranca" was an alien bit. It fitted in nowhere. 
 The rest of the sectional puzzle-picture was lost. Krag 
 marshalled each syllable and sound that he could recall 
 of the infant prattling. They made only gibberish, 
 Mother-Goose gibberish, Yaqui Mother-Goose gibberish, 
 a baby's Yaqui Mother-Goose gibberish thus he went 
 on building up to nothing, and building up again. But 
 he did not stop, give up. He kept on. It was a habit 
 of his loneliness. Hours and hours, and another time, 
 other hours, he had lived through by trying to fancy, for 
 instance, a universe of four dimensions. " No two straight 
 lines are equal," he said, and imagined a geometry. 
 "Man bartered memory for foresight," he said, and reared 
 a philosophy. He pulled a snail from its house, and built 
 a new cosmos for it. He annihilated a grain of sand, and 
 relocated the solar system. He bade the sun stand still, 
 and peopled the world anew. Or these things he en- 
 deavoured to do. It was mechanical. He had to. 
 His brain would not stay empty, now that Hacklette, 
 who once had crowded it, was cast out. For that matter, 
 neither could his soul remain a vacuum, since for the 
 nonce he had driven forth hatred. He was only begin- 
 ning to realize, of late, that some other soul stuff had 
 been filling in. But this gibberish. . . . 
 
 "And the great big earth cracked way way open and 
 and the great big earth bust a blood vessel" 
 
 That was all of it he could piece together. He trans- 
 lated it over into an American youngster's lisping tongue. 
 He tested it by every tale and song he knew of Indian
 
 228 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 folk-lore. But he identified nothing. It was unique. 
 Long he pondered it. There was plenty of time. Five 
 years of time were behind him; seven, since he had first 
 come to this country resolved on treasure. There was 
 plenty of time ahead of him. So he kept on pondering. 
 Sometimes he jerked himself together, jerked himself 
 wider awake, dug spurs into his brain, goaded it out of 
 the rut, lashed it across country. He pondered gibberish 
 on and on, across country, in the rut, driving like a weary 
 fiend to invisible portals that would not open. Yet 
 when morning broke, and he rose to awaken Dolores, 
 gently, with the toe of his boot, and asked for more coffee, 
 he knew that the secret of the Veto, Negra was his, that 
 the hoard of the mighty Black Vein was his. 
 
 He had turned his back on what seemed the certainty 
 of treasure to follow a loathsome hag on an errand of 
 mercy. And his reward was the treasure! It was like 
 the old tale of the youth who carried a beggar woman's 
 fagots, and the beggar woman was really a fairy with 
 power to reward. But Krag's charity was calculation. 
 His charity was of a piece with his strategy for achieving 
 the treasure. He smiled. It was a grisly smile. Yet 
 it was a sad smile, too, as old as the world, and tired. 
 "Superb bunco," he muttered, "I've even fooled 
 Heaven!" And he discovered that he was sorry. He 
 liked the fairy tale better.
 
 CHAPTER FIVE 
 
 The Mystery of a Pepper Tree 
 
 A PHILOSOPHER has owlishly declared that 
 the hardest task in all this world is to think. 
 It is also the very easiest. For the greater 
 part of his vigil beside the Yaqui child, Krag found it the 
 hardest thing. But a waif, an intruding imp, only a 
 remembered name, alighted in his brain, and suddenly 
 he found it the easiest thing. Idly, casually, shiftlessly 
 or was this thinking, too? the name of the Barranca 
 Quebrante wandered into his meditations, as for that 
 matter the Latin for quassia bark or the date of the 
 Norman Conquest might have done. The Barranca 
 Quebrante? He recalled that Maisie had found the 
 grammar of it unsatisfactory. Why a breaking barranca ? 
 What could a barranca break? Shouldn't it be the 
 Barranca Quebrada, one that was broken? No, Krag 
 ejaculated, no, not at all! Whereupon the balky steeds 
 of thought reared and plunged headlong. 
 
 . . . " and the great big earth cracked way way 
 open and and the great big earth bust a blood 
 vessel. . . ." 
 
 A crack in the earth? that was a barranca. 
 
 A blood vessel? that was a vein. 
 
 229
 
 230 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 A barranca "busting," severing, a vein? Ergo, the 
 Barranca Quebrante! 
 
 And the vein was the Black Vein, the Vela Negra. 
 
 "In the face of the barranca," dying Cajemi had mut- 
 tered. Krag contemplated incredulously his own density. 
 Yet it was true, for he had never, until now, reflected 
 that the Vela Negra must be the prolongation of the spuri- 
 ous Veta Negra across the barranca, beginning in the face 
 of the opposite cliff. 
 
 Krag, however, waited until his little informant was 
 past danger before setting forth to make sure. 
 
 Astride his mule, leaving the swamp country behind, 
 threading the upward trail into the sierras, Krag was the 
 only white man in this world who would not have perished 
 of a Yaqui bullet through his brain. Yet to all visible 
 intent he was alone with his thoughts. There was 
 temptation, then, to drop the bars and let in the blackest 
 of thoughts, and with them the banished Hacklette; 
 to let those demons of thought drag Hacklette down, 
 design for him ruin, humiliation, beggary. For to this 
 Krag would devote the hoard of the Black Vein. 
 
 But, he must make sure of the Black Vein first, and 
 resolutely he kept up the bars. Serenely, almost sweetly 
 in reverie, he plodded onward toward the Barranca 
 Quebrante. No feature of Hacklette once crossed his 
 mind's eye. Krag put him taboo while the vision was 
 yet vague, and there was the end of it. 
 
 The first quarter hour that Krag had endured life with- 
 out that vision was an eon of triumph. He had locked 
 it from his soul, his will in agony braced against the doors. 
 Another time the quarter hour grew into a half hour,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 231 
 
 then became an hour. At last a day passed without 
 Hacklette, then days at a time; finally, a night. He 
 had fallen to sleep, had slept, without the vision! It 
 was the peaceful slumber of a babe. That broke the 
 ghost's back. For more than a year now Krag had not 
 once looked on the Moloch visage of hatred. To lack 
 that carrion nourishment was become a habit of the soul. 
 
 Contemplating the long ears of his hard-headed mule, 
 Krag reflected that he had better be occupying himself 
 with how he should possess the treasure. He might, 
 with heart sufficiently lost to decency, do either of two 
 things. One was to reappear in civilization and account 
 vaguely for his five years' disappearance. He could say 
 that he had been wounded and captured by Yaquis while 
 out prospecting, and as evidence point to the furrow 
 of the Mexican bullet across his temple. After that the 
 Yaquis had kept him to tend their wounded, especially 
 as they saw that he was not quite right in his head and 
 that his memory was a shaken leaf. But gradually 
 and here he would ask how many years had actually 
 passed his sense of identity had come back. After that, 
 he had stayed on to exact retribution for his sufferings; 
 and, moreover, had succeeded so well as to surprise the 
 secret of one of the Yaquis' hidden mines. Having thus 
 righted his status with the Mexican authorities, helped 
 perhaps by a driblet or so from the immense Golconda at 
 his command, he could go ahead and realize on his claim. 
 An impregnable stockade and hired battalions would 
 protect his mine from the Yaquis. 
 
 Or, on the other hand, he might linger with the Yaquis 
 until they succumbed to the Mexicans. That would
 
 232 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 not be long to wait. Then, when the tribe should no 
 longer exist as a race on the earth, and the sierras were 
 open terrritory to the prospector, then he, Krag, would 
 emerge with his tale and stake off the greatest treasure 
 of all, the Veto, Negra. 
 
 But hardly had Krag begun on these meditations when 
 he was taken with a feeling of disgust. Besides, it was 
 not perhaps wise to entertain treachery in his thought 
 yet awhile, since to achieve that treachery he must re- 
 quire for a time longer the Yaquis' trust in him. He 
 needed to reconnoitre the barranca. He needed to be 
 left alone to make his surveys and put up his monuments. 
 He could do none of these things once the tribe questioned 
 his absolute devotion. 
 
 So the wayfarer reminded himself once more that his 
 baby girl could talk, could walk why, she was probably 
 going to school! Of course, Maisie's little soft, pink 
 Honey Bunch was past six years old so high no, 
 a little taller going on seven years. Yet he had to 
 remind himself. It was difficult. He always thought of 
 her first as the wee, unsteady toddler, more in arms than 
 out of them; then, remembering, he would add the years 
 to that mite of babyhood. And Maisie? The change 
 in Maisie was the hardest of all to reconcile. He ought 
 not to be thinking of another man's wife. But he did. 
 No will power, no Lethe, could drown those thoughts, 
 and the one dear memory of his manhood. 
 
 Krag did not pass through Chihuitl. He avoided the 
 village for a shorter trail to the Barranca Quebrante. 
 He was almost there when the figure of an Indian, lean, 
 famished, wolfish, and straight as a wand, rose among
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 233 
 
 the rocks ahead and waited for him. It was Coyote. He 
 stood mournfully, his chin on his bony chest, and Krag, 
 riding nearer, saw that the cruel profile was distorted 
 by a rage that knew its own impotence. The chief of his 
 tribe was returning from the Barranca, On his belly 
 on the highest overhanging rock he had looked into the 
 gorge, to the glistening rails of the iron road down there, 
 and he had seen old men, women, and children Yaquis ! 
 - herded on flat cars. Perishing of hunger, yet to earn 
 a few centavos for their warriors, they had crept out of 
 the sierra to accept peonage on the nearest hacienda, 
 and the Mexican soldiers had surprised them. They were 
 destined for the rubber swamps of Yucatan. 
 
 "Thanks to the iron road," muttered Coyote, "they 
 will not have to drag their chains across the desert." 
 
 Krag did not ask Coyote why there had been no rescue. 
 He knew. One cannot wreck a train filled with one's 
 own people. Nor, if the tram be stopped, can one attack 
 with spears, lacking powder and shot. 
 
 A thought, never yet considered, forced itself upward. 
 "There is one way," said Krag; "we will make the Mexi- 
 cans beg yes, for peace, Coyote. And we will say : 
 'Send back to us our people, and let there be no chains 
 on them.'" 
 
 The chief's eyes hardened at the forbidden word, yet 
 bewilderment passed their fury. Here was the strangest 
 of the strange changes that had come over the tribe's 
 good saint. Peace? yet it was the same Lone Oak 
 who had called Cajemi a dog for breaking the splendid 
 Yaqui oath never to cease fighting! The simpler Krag's 
 motives became, the more Coyote shook his puzzled
 
 234 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 head and thought him fathomlessly deep. Coyote shook 
 his head now, and missed the truth. Krag himself all 
 but missed the truth. For the truth was, the sojourner 
 among the Yaquis no longer enjoyed the tribe's death 
 struggle as a magnificent spectacle. He no longer 
 wanted these grim fighters to be as unyielding, as admira- 
 ble as fate. He was willing to admire them less rather 
 than they should utterly perish. Their sufferings 
 troubled him. Their lowering doom revolted him. 
 
 "My Coyote" he spoke in a simple way that be- 
 tokened helpful strength "we will make them cry 
 enough. It shall be an honourable peace. The Yaquis 
 shall have back their lands and homes in the valley. 
 The banished ones shall return. But it is to fight, my 
 Coyote." 
 
 "With spears, my father?" glumly questioned the 
 Indian. 
 
 "No, Coyote, not with spears." Then, as naturally 
 as if the words were not changing his plans for the Veto, 
 Negra, and shattering, perhaps, the plot of all these 
 years, he added: "Turn now, and come with me." 
 
 Whereupon, to his amazement, the Yaqui said: "You 
 are going to the Barranca Quebrante " 
 
 "Am I then?" Krag exclaimed. 
 
 " but there is no need, " continued the other. 
 
 "She is safe. She did not come." 
 
 "She? But Dolores- -" 
 
 "No, no, my father. I speak of the woman who 
 who was the Lone Oak's wife. She is safe, for she 
 did not come into the Barranca with her father." 
 
 Dead ashes of the past lifted by the breeze! Krag
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 235 
 
 listened, plying the Indian to tell of this thing. Maisie 
 was in Mexico. She had come with her father. In a 
 private car she had come, for Hacklette came and went 
 as befitted a large mine owner and railway president, 
 to look over his properties with a sovereign eye and frown. 
 
 Coyote, learning that Maisie was with her father, 
 feared that she might also come with him to the mine 
 in the barranca. Coming that far, she might wander 
 alone among the mountains, climbing to some height 
 for the view, and be shot or captured by Yaqui scouts 
 who always lurked near. To keep this harm from her, 
 Coyote had gone to the barranca, first coming to Chihuitl 
 for Krag to go with him. Despite his jealousy of Maisie 
 the young barbarian meant to give Krag the startling 
 joy or pain of beholding her once more, if only 
 from the cliff's edge above when she stepped from the 
 car in the canon below. But Coyote had to return with- 
 out Krag, and from the cliff's edge he had beheld, instead, 
 scores of his own people herded like, beasts into bondage. 
 
 Krag was poignantly touched by the Yaqui's watch- 
 fulness over Maisie. He suspected that Coyote's spy 
 service at the Great Stack always had comprehended 
 Maisie as well as hostile regiments. "In this saddle 
 bag," said Krag, "there is sun-cured fish. The weight 
 of it will comfort your stomach. Now come, for after all, 
 we go to the barranca. Come!" 
 
 The wondering Yaqui turned, and in scorn of curiosity 
 asked no question. 
 
 That afternoon the mule was left with a palsied Yaqui 
 goatherd, whose one companion was the last survivor of 
 his flock, and from his dismal mountain home both Krag
 
 236 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 and Coyote, retaining only their weapons and a lariat, 
 followed the trail on foot, Indian file. By nightfall they 
 entered the danger zone radiating from Hacklette's 
 railroad terminus in the Barranca Quebrante. Krag 
 told Coyote where he wanted to go, and left the rest to 
 the Yaqui's woodcraft. 
 
 During the night, Coyote leading stealthily, they crossed 
 the barranca near its head, where it was only a shallow 
 arroyo. Beyond they circled widely, leaving the little 
 settlement at Hacklette's mine well within the arc of their 
 course. At a point below the settlement, they came again 
 to the barranca. Here daybreak found them, lying in a 
 craggy nook on the gorge's precipitous wall. They peered 
 over the edge. Far below a resolute little locomotive 
 was puffing and grunting and tugging away at a crawling 
 serpent of empty cars. To the right a steep ravine sloped 
 downward, emptying in the barranca like a great trough 
 aslant. In this ravine, five years ago, Krag had first 
 encountered Coyote, and had then conceived the design 
 of his present quest. There also, that same day long ago, 
 he had located the supposed Veta Negra. A high, dusty, 
 bleak hoist-house now covered what had been the caved- 
 in stope, and a stockade surrounded it. The rumble 
 of the cable was faintly heard. There was a sampling 
 mill, a powder house, a machine shop, an office building, 
 cottages, muckers' bunk-houses, a tramway down to the 
 railroad; all the modern equipment commensurate with 
 a huge ore body beneath. They were a monument to 
 irony. They were many futile golden dollars heaped 
 high. But the one man who could read the epitaph 
 shifted his gaze, and his thoughts likewise.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 237 
 
 "My Coyote," said this man, "I am looking for some- 
 thing that is hard to find. " 
 
 The Indian regarded him sombrely. 
 
 "Somewhere," Krag went on, " in the face of that cliff 
 across the barranca there rests a precious thing. It is 
 Mexican defeat. It is Yaqui salvation. It is a drooling 
 item of private vengeance. We cannot ask so precious 
 a thing to be easy to find, my Coyote. So we will lie 
 here, my Coyote, and all day long we will look." 
 
 "Hungry and athirst, ay," said the Indian, "but the 
 bloodthirsty have the keenest sight, my father. Let us 
 then look. " 
 
 Krag knew already how hard to find was the thing he 
 looked for. Since the Conquest men had searched, and 
 failed. Knowing more than they, Krag had searched 
 and failed. He had challenged every square foot of the 
 canon's banks for vestige of an old working, for a shaft 
 covered over, a discarded stull, a dump, a trace of fortified 
 enclosure. Each jutting rock and loosened pebble he had 
 questioned for outcropping or float. The veil was 
 impenetrable. 
 
 He now believed, however, that to look for surface 
 "sign" or indication was useless. The spurious Veto 
 Negra was overlaid by beds of rock. And if the true 
 Vela Negra were an extension of the same vein, broken 
 by the barranca, then very likely it also was cloaked within 
 the earth, and neither erosion nor outcropping would 
 reveal it. Besides, old Cajemi had said: "in the face of 
 the barranca. " 
 
 To look on the face of the barranca> Krag was here. He 
 had looked before, taking the old chief's clue. He
 
 would look again, because of a babe's prattling. The 
 prattling had eliminated miles of the barranca, and left 
 for scrutiny one small area of cliff. One need only to 
 imagine the spurious Veta Negra projected, like a pipe 
 line, across the chasm, and then locate the entering point 
 opposite. 
 
 But Krag could detect nothing on the face of the cliff 
 that resembled a mineral-bearing discolouration. Whether 
 the earth had split to form the gorge, agreeable to Yaqui 
 fancy, or whether the little brook had done the titan job, 
 was not material, for the mountains were older than the 
 barranca. Once on a time there had been no barranca. 
 The stratification of both cliffs was roughly identical. 
 Because of this little that nature deigned to reveal, Krag 
 would not despair yet of her maddeningly hidden treasure. 
 
 "You, Coyote," he asked, "what do you see?" 
 
 "I? What is there for a poor Indian to see, my 
 father?" 
 
 "Look," said Krag, "for whatever is strange, whatever 
 you cannot understand, and let me have it. " 
 
 "I see," said the Yaqui, "a bush that should be a 
 tree. " 
 
 "Where, Coyote?" 
 
 The Indian pointed across the gorge to a scrubby 
 growth, a blot of dingy green on the bare rock. It was 
 rooted, apparently, in a ledge of the cliff, thirty feet or 
 more from the top. 
 
 "That? "said Krag. "That is a bush. It's chaparral 
 or greasewood. " 
 
 "It is the top of a tree, " said Coyote. "The branches 
 are as thick as a man's arm. "
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 39 
 
 "I cannot see the branches," 
 
 "It is a high tree, of the height of four men." 
 
 "But the trunk of your tree, Coyote, is it in the solid 
 rock?" 
 
 "You asked me for what I do not understand," the 
 Yaqui reminded him. 
 
 Until nightfall Krag wondered what had become of 
 the trunk of that tree. 
 
 The sun of the next day found him and Coyote lying 
 on the edge of the opposite cliff, at a point directly over 
 the bush that should be a tree. 
 
 The edge of the cliff was slightly overhanging, and they 
 could see only a few twig ends and leaves of the tree top 
 below them. But it was a tree, as Coyote had said. 
 Krag recognized the pod and clustered leaflets of the pep- 
 per tree. They waited until dusk, although there was 
 little chance of being seen at that height and distance at 
 any time, and Krag went over the edge by the lariat. He 
 released himself in the tree's upper branches. The 
 mystery was then revealed. 
 
 In effect it was a tree growing behind a wall, and thrust- 
 ing its top above the wall. The wall was an upstanding 
 ledge, some ten feet high that jutted up from the cliff 
 like a slab of marble. The crevice formed between 
 was several feet wide, and had been worn into the cliff 
 by drippings from the overhanging edge above. Into 
 the crevice bits of rock had fallen, which had been rotted 
 by the water and crumbled to powder. Then a lichen 
 had gotten root-hold in the sheltered cranny, and for 
 ages lichens had grown and died and feathered their bed 
 with their decay, until the mosses came. And the mosses
 
 240 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 had deepened the bed greatly, preparing it for the seed 
 of a later invader. The invader had been a pod of the 
 pepper tree, tumbled over the cliff by the wind, or 
 planted there by the hand of man! Certainly the tree 
 had grown, and its top now filled the opening of the 
 crevice, until no one might suspect that a crevice was 
 there. 
 
 However the tree came there, what Krag next saw 
 came only by the hand of man. It was a rude pick, 
 with handle rotted away, driven and left in the face of 
 the cliff behind the upstanding ledge. Krag took from 
 his pocket a candle stub, lighted it, and carefully exam- 
 ined the metallic material which held the pick so 
 fast. 
 
 Krag signalled, by whistling low, and Coyote came 
 sliding down the lariat into the tree, and down the trunk 
 of the tree, and stood beside him in the crevice. 
 
 "My Coyote," said Krag, pointing to the face of the 
 cliff, "there is the Veto, Negro.. Tell me, whose is the 
 Vela Negra?" 
 
 "It is thine, my father." 
 
 "Yes, it is mine," said Krag.
 
 CHAPTER SIX 
 
 The Prosecuting Witness 
 
 WHEN Krag climbed out again by way of the 
 lariat, he stood for a time on the cliff's 
 far edge, and through the starlit night con- 
 templated below him the fringe of the white man's uni- 
 verse. It lay under him, at the bottom of the wild, 
 black gorge a locomotive headlight and the bump- 
 ing of freight cars. It lay beyond, obliquely opposite 
 in the ravine, against the sombre mass of mountain 
 a dull glow in the hoist house, and a yellow twinkling 
 when the cage popped up out of the earth, like a phos- 
 phorescent cork. They, gnomes of the sierra and the 
 night, were very busy getting out ore down there. The 
 gnomes, mine, railroad, the universe of the white man, 
 were one thing Hacklette. 
 
 Krag drew a long breath, and when the breath went 
 from him, the flood gates burst open, burst open to 
 the rush of demon thoughts, to the cherished, banished 
 imps of hatred. Now he could take them to his bosom 
 and nourish them, and let them feed on the vitals of his 
 being. The joy of it, long repressed and savagely earned 
 by repression, was his at last, since the Black Vein, the 
 instrument of his vengeance, was his. 
 
 Like a man whose tongue has blackened for lack of 
 
 841
 
 242 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 water, he awaited the fierce thrill of the quenching 
 draught. He waited and began to wonder. Still 
 he waited, expectant, and now he was startled, and 
 bewilderment, almost fear, grew on him. The thrill had 
 not come ! And, stranger than that, there was no thirst ! 
 
 Where then, were those fiends of darkness? The 
 brooding on supercilious pride, and wrong, and repay- 
 ment where? Krag waited vainly on the threshold, 
 like one defrauded. The evil horde had melted away, 
 had gone, straggling, perishing. The man, remembering 
 how hard it had been to keep them out, was as naively 
 astounded as a child who shuts his eyes at night on the 
 hobgoblin terrors of childhood, and awakes to find them 
 mysteriously vanished before the dazzling glory of early 
 morn. As little did Krag know what to make of it. 
 He was bereft of purpose. He wondered if, instead of 
 fooling Heaven, Heaven had not fooled him. 
 
 "A mighty queer way," he mused, "to be cheated of 
 five years' vassalage to hell!" His mouth twitched into 
 a smile, and the smile was a fugitive wraith of the old* 
 old whimsical grin of Jimmy Krag's boyhood. But his 
 jaws closed. "I'll not be cheated," he resolved. "I 
 will crush him. Yes, it is quite decided that I will 
 crush him. I will." This was entirely intellectual. 
 The animus, the raging lust, was gone. Only the 
 naked power of will, the deep impress of purpose, 
 remained. He would cleave to this matter as to an un- 
 finished task, to a duty he owed the integrity of his will. 
 And meantime he left the floodgates down. Perhaps 
 the impish horde would reassemble. 
 
 He turned to Coyote behind him. The Yaqui chief
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 243 
 
 had picked up a round stone, and was idly tossing and 
 catching it in the darkness, as in the days when he was 
 a lithe, fleet runner. Some such lightness of the spirit 
 had returned to him. The Indian saw his tribe once more 
 armed and formidable, "My Coyote," said Krag, "let 
 us hurry from here. We have salvation to work for." 
 
 He meant Yaqui salvation, all the artful planning to 
 convert lumps of the Black Vein into corn and gunpowder. 
 He turned to it eagerly, though his eagerness surprised 
 him. Hacklette might wait. By Heaven, he would 
 have to wait! Krag confessed that it was weakness, this 
 distress over an Indian tribe. Well, he would indulge the 
 weakness. He had rather earned a little self-indulgence. 
 For years he had been shackled to the man Hacklette, 
 and now the man Hacklette could wait. That was all 
 there was to that. There would be time enough later to 
 attend to the man Hacklette. The present time was for 
 weakness, indulgence, freedom. 
 
 "We will lick the Mexicans to a standstill." He 
 wished that he could say it that way in Yaqui. But 
 Coyote's barbarian heart was already throbbing to the 
 same lilt. 
 
 They got back that night to the goatherd's lone hut, 
 and became straightway the architects of victory. Or 
 rather, like the genie out of the bottle, the structure 
 reared its silvered dome from the crevice of the pepper 
 tree. 
 
 In spite of fable and Mr. Chubbuck and the Spanish 
 archives, the Black Vein was not a hundred feet wide 
 Yet the discount of fact was not unreasonable. Krng 
 found it a dozen feet across, and about the same in depth;
 
 244 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 which, however, in other terms may be the measure of 
 battleships. That is to say, legend had this much right: 
 a pick struck in the lode held fast, because the ore was 
 silver and lead of almost virgin purity. The proof was 
 the pick itself. The rusted metal had crumbled away in 
 flakes as Krag tried to pull it out. It had held there 
 possibly a hundred years; had been last used, one could 
 imagine, to pry away that argentous bowlder with which 
 the grateful Yaquis had rewarded a charitable Mexican 
 widow. 
 
 Except for such a specimen now and then, appearing at 
 rare intervals like a Mahatma to upset the world of men, 
 the Veto, Negra had never been a worked mine. It was 
 not one of the minas tapadas, covered over and aban- 
 doned by the owners as they fled before an Apache or 
 Yaqui raid. Nature had done the hiding, nature and a 
 pepper tree. So here was one clot of cream that the 
 cream-lapping Spaniard had overlooked. Here was a 
 castle, a cathedral, an armada, that he had left behind 
 in the rock. 
 
 Krag examined fragments broken from different parts 
 of the vein. Some were stained like a ruby, with native 
 silver, frost-encrusted wires, clinging to them. Coyote's 
 barbaric eyes were fascinated by their beauty. But Krag 
 thought most of a sordid, blackish piece, one that had 
 surrounded the pick, which was as heavy as its bulk of 
 silver dollars. It would run thousands to the ton. 
 Others carried more gangue material, and were not so 
 superbly enrichened, yet were very rich nevertheless. 
 The vein might widen and deepen, or it might be only a 
 very fat pocket tucked away in the cliff.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 245 
 
 "No matter," said Krag, "we have enough in 
 sight." 
 
 "And many dead Mexicans," whispered the Yaqui. 
 
 Krag looked at him benignly. "My Vale Coyote," 
 he said, "whom have the Yaquis to thank?" 
 
 "My father." 
 
 Krag smiled. "Thank your own son, Coyote. " 
 
 "My " 
 
 Then Krag told him of the little sufferer in the fever 
 swamp. 
 
 The Yaqui sat silent, staring unblinkingly at the moun- 
 tains. At last: "She calls him chief?" he murmured. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Then thou and I, my father, will preserve his tribe to 
 him." 
 
 "U'm," said Krag, "a pretty birthday gift." 
 
 They plotted it with adequate guile, as the days fol- 
 lowing and Mexican mortality plentifully certified. The 
 upstanding ledge that hid the vein also hid their working 
 of it. A rope ladder lowered to the crevice at nightfall; 
 two Yaquis ascending, each with a sack of ore, or of waste; 
 the ladder pulled up again thus was the bonanza 
 scratched. But it was enough, and more would not be 
 safe. Krag mixed the ore with different kinds of country 
 rock, so that the Guaymas broker, or rescatador, might 
 suspect neither its original richness nor that it all came 
 from the same deposit. And he did not. He believed that 
 the stuff was gophered out of exhausted or flooded mines, 
 and he was too crafty a buccaneer in contraband to ask 
 a question. Many Mexican miners driving sack-laden 
 burros brought their rescate ore to his assay office in Guay-
 
 246 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 mas, and it was a matter of easy contrivance that some of 
 them should bring in the Yaqui offering as well. The 
 one thing to bother the rescatador for it touched his 
 purse was that the Yaquis knew what their ore was 
 worth. He had the odd feeling that he dealt with an 
 unseen white man. 
 
 Weeks, months, passed. Effect grew slowly, but 
 realization was abrupt, after the manner of appalling 
 catastrophe. The Mexicans awoke, and noticed that 
 they were being superbly drubbed. They noticed that 
 they had been driven out of the sierra, flying battalions 
 of them, those of them that fled with sufficient haste. 
 Those that did not were overtaken by soft-nosed bullets. 
 Instead of a beaten, famished, skulking foe, a giant had 
 come up refreshed. 
 
 This time the general of the zone did not send soldier 
 caps to the capital. The minister of war might ask 
 where were the heads that had filled the caps. He might 
 fill one of them with a new general of the zone. The 
 general of the zone was careful not to provoke repartee. 
 His despatches were laconic. He often had the honour to 
 regret to report, but that came to smell of monotony. 
 
 Now the president at the capital was deeply embroiled 
 in peace. Divers bills were waxing payable. There were 
 public works. There were subsidies on new railroads, on 
 vast irrigation projects, on beautification and utility. 
 There were trunk lines to pass into the government's 
 exchequer. There was that expensive thing, the gold 
 standard, to be encompassed. Perhaps there were other 
 items. At any rate the president was weary of footing 
 damages for a brawl off in a crooked lane of his kingdom.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 247 
 
 So civilization changed sides at last, and brought forth 
 a smashing wallop in behalf of the poor Indian. Locked 
 in her Pandora box, that bleached-out crow, the dove of 
 peace, fluttered fretfully. Krag perceived that the time 
 drew near when the Yaquis would be asked to ask for 
 what they wanted. 
 
 He was considering what they wanted one morning, 
 a little before sunrise, as he stood on the cliff and 
 gazed down into the Barranca Quebrante. He had 
 just climbed the rope ladder from a visit down in the 
 true Vela Negra. His Yaqui miners had drifted per- 
 ceptibly on the vein. Crowding the mouth of the tunnel 
 as well as the crevice there were now fifty tons of ore, 
 sacked and ready to be marketed. Enough, and over, 
 to release the dove, he believed. For this ore had not 
 been adulterated with country rock. It averaged two 
 thousand four hundred ounces to the ton. All told there 
 were almost eight thousand two hundred pounds of pure 
 silver in those twelve hundred sacks that would hardly 
 fill a hall bedroom. Something like sixty thousand dol- 
 lars yes, that would about do it. 
 
 And then what? After peace, what? Krag did not 
 like to ask himself that. But the question was stubborn, 
 and constantly more imminent. For when the Yaquis 
 should win their fight, the motive was gone for Krag to 
 defer his purpose longer. Naught of activity in this 
 existence remained to him but that purpose. To stay 
 with the Yaquis was to dawdle, and for Krag dawdling 
 was uglier than death. He must, then, go again into 
 the world of men, taking with him what he had come for, 
 and do with it that which had goaded him to come for it.
 
 S48 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 The old fanciful equation again: money equals heart's 
 desire! 
 
 However, he did not want to go back into the world. 
 He pictured the utterly dreary loneliness of crowded 
 pavements, of jostling elbows, of laughter and merry 
 voices, of cheery, brightly lighted homes. Whether he 
 met old-time friends or not, whether they took him along 
 to their firesides or not, it would be the same. No, it 
 would be worse. He would be more alone. He shrank 
 from the bleak solitude out there, and clung to desert and 
 sierra, to his wilderness abode and the wild creatures in it, 
 where the breadth of nature and passion made reverie 
 serene, and the soul calm, unclamorous, because the 
 soul knew itself to be so small. 
 
 Feeling not actually thinking these things, he 
 gazed down into the gorge, which was the fringe of the 
 world where he must soon descend. He often gazed 
 down there, on the quaintly, preposterously busy little 
 locomotives jerking at ore cars, and over to the hoist 
 house in the ravine, listening for the rumble of the cable 
 around the drum. With gazing he would vivify his 
 purpose, invoke the vision of Hacklette in these activ- 
 ities of Hacklette, so that the purpose which had driven 
 him out of the world might violently drag him back again. 
 For he admitted now that possibly, just possibly, naked 
 will power alone might not be enough. But with think- 
 ing of Hacklette, he had merely accustomed himself to 
 the idea of Hacklette, until Hackette and all that in him 
 was had flattened out to an insipid platitude. Krag's intel- 
 lect was the judge, his will the executioner, but his animus, 
 the prosecuting witness, was mute, a supine fat-head.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 249 
 
 "If only I could see him once," Krag muttered grudg- 
 ingly, turning from the cliff. "If I could see that hate- 
 breeding, high-bridged nose of his. If I could hear 
 his rasping snarl, perhaps " 
 
 He stopped. Not fifty yards away, sauntering impor- 
 tantly among the rocks, was a man, a dilettante pros- 
 pector, a human being in these sierras wearing kid gloves!
 
 CHAPTER SEVEN 
 God's Machinery 
 
 MR. F. DEL. HACKLETTE, president and gen- 
 eral manager of the Compania Miner a La Veto, 
 Negra, president and general manager of the 
 Ferrocarril Barranca Quebrante y Desierto, was disturbed 
 by no thought of danger in venturing across the gorge 
 among the cyclopean tumbled rocks on the other side. 
 He went in a smug sense of immunity. For almost three 
 years his property had been singularly exempt from dep- 
 redation. Mr. Hacklette unconsciously accepted this 
 as a tribute from simple-minded savages to his own 
 ubiquitous mightiness. At the present moment he had an 
 idea that, by virtue of his beetle-browned acumen in 
 large business affairs, he might ferret out another bo- 
 nanza where experience and geologic knowledge had failed. 
 A second mine would be uh acceptable. It would 
 give his railroad more tonnage, and convert that little 
 narrow-gauge branch into a persimmon tree of dividends. 
 To bring this about was a matter of pride. Mr. 
 Hacklette would have scorned the suggestion that it was 
 in the least essential to the Hacklette purse. In clutch- 
 ing his cigar between his teeth, in buttoning his gloves, 
 in enduring the annoyance of having to give orders to his 
 private secretary, waiter, butler, chauffeur, mine super- 
 
 250
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 251 
 
 intendent, railroad superintendent, lawyer, and dusky 
 chef of his private car, in each imposing gesture and curt 
 word, Mr. Hacklette was always aware of his tailored 
 figure as a figure of immense riches. He scowled in clan- 
 nish disdain when he read peppery diatribes against 
 malefactors of great wealth. But he read avidly, because 
 he looked for his own name, and was soured because he 
 found it not. He hungered for universal initiation into 
 the gilded caste. It would have to come soon, he told 
 himself. Potentially he was the Big Four of the Corn- 
 stock Lode rolled into F. DeL. Hacklette. The alchemy 
 of another Virginia City was his. Only a little longer, 
 and it would be transmuted into stocks and bonds, 
 transatlantic cables, Raphaels and Corots, foreign titles, 
 a yacht, a French chateau, a scandal, and a swivel chair 
 in the United States Senate he believed it was a swivel 
 chair. 
 
 Financially Hacklette had emerged, puffing like an 
 exhausted swimmer. He had been under more than 
 once. That he pulled himself out at all he attributed to 
 hard-headed business genius, forgetting a certain lifeline. 
 Maisie's little fortune, which he had snatched at the last 
 gasp, was the lifeline. 
 
 Despite a shrewd business man's caution, it had been 
 foolishly easy to be a gullible fool. Once his gaze was 
 fastened on the mirage of bonanza wealth, he had swum 
 for it beyond his depth into the gripping undertow. 
 Krag had calculated unerringly as to that. 
 
 The thing began when he took Maisie's Veta Negra 
 stock. He took it at par, and he paid cash, $230,000. 
 He could not bully Maisie into selling it on any other terms,
 
 252 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 quite simply because it was not Maisie's to sell. She was 
 only Krag's power of attorney, and Krag had dictated 
 the terms. Such exasperating foresight rankled in the 
 Hacklette bosom, and very nearly emptied the Hacklette 
 safe deposit vault of its securities. 
 
 No law, of course, compelled Mr. Hacklette to buy 
 mining stock at all, but here was guileless Bun Chubbuck 
 home on a vacation, and here were Bunny's specimens 
 running four and five hundred ounces of silver to the 
 ton. Also one read the newspaper stories, the 
 Sunday features, with lurid pictures of centuries- 
 old skeletons in a hidden mine. There was the 
 identification of this mine with the fabulous Veto, 
 Negra. There was the psychologically potent nam- 
 ing of this mine as the Vela Negra. Chubbuck in- 
 nocently and ardently described the virgin lode that 
 remained untouched. Krag's prediction came true; 
 people's tongues hung out to lap up the stock. Next 
 came Maisie, widowed, perhaps, and Maisie had prac- 
 tically all the stock. It would have taken a law to com- 
 pel Mr. Hacklette not to buy mining stock. He hired 
 mining engineers. Their report confirmed simple Bun 
 Chubbuck. Then he plunged. 
 
 As Krag likewise foresaw, Hacklette treated his be- 
 reaved daughter with gracious distinction, with insidious 
 kindness. He toadied. But that prescient power of 
 attorney was not to be wheedled or forced. Hacklette 
 grieved to give so much of his fortune to the possible 
 enrichment of Jim Krag, supposing that Krag were still 
 alive, but he exulted in taking from Jim Krag a prospect 
 that would make Jim Krag a Big Four rolled into one.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 253 
 
 Wherefore he paid par, and he paid cash. He had to 
 call in loans to do it, and negotiate paper, and let go some 
 suburban potato patches that he was holding for the tide 
 of population. 
 
 'At once he put a surveying corps in the Sonora desert, 
 and the Yaquis changed surveying into foot races. The 
 Yaquis behaved similarly toward Mr. Hacklette's 
 construction camps. The work stopped again and again, 
 and the desert was as the original desert. Hacklette 
 negotiated more paper, and sold an office building. 
 Finally he mortgaged the Queen Anne mansion, and 
 ceased to look the bronzed mastiff in the face. All the 
 time he could not get out of his head the idea that his 
 daughter was rich. This was unfilial. Her moneyed ease 
 ready-moneyed ease grew into an affront. He 
 distinctly regarded it as an affront at the hands of Jim 
 Krag. Then somebody's toe was caught in Jim Krag's 
 bones. They were surely Jim Krag's. Maisie recognized 
 Jim's ring. Her name was engraved in it. She remem- 
 bered a deep scratch in the ring, when Jim bruised his 
 hand on a rock climbing into the Veto, Negra. Hacklette 
 consoled Maisie. He stepped softly when he heard her 
 weeping. Her money was now her own. She was not 
 a power of attorney. She was a widow. Hacklette 
 took the money. He had to, to finish the railroad, to 
 support an army along the right-of-way. 
 
 The Yaqui discouragements mysteriously ceased, and 
 the railroad was finished. Heavy mining machinery 
 crossed the desert on the first cars. It had to be paid for. 
 It had to be installed. A tunnel had to be dug on the 
 vein, then a shaft, drifts, and winzes. Masses of ore had
 
 254 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 to be blocked out. Such development work had to be 
 paid for. And Maisie's money was gone. On the strength 
 of their own engineer's report, the smelter people wanted to 
 get in on the deal. Hacklette would not sell. But he did 
 have to hypothecate his stock. It was all he had in the 
 world to hypothecate. When he reached the bend in 
 the vein, he would be a ruined man. 
 
 Hacklette, however, knew nothing of that. He did 
 not know that the vein bent. It was an uncommon 
 thing in geology. He could not suspect that a 
 geologic monstrosity lurked under the mountain, had 
 lurked there for millions of years, waiting to make a 
 beggar of Mr. Hacklette. In frenzied ignorance Hack- 
 lette applied every shipment of the rich ore to redeeming 
 his hypothecated stock. He had been shipping now for 
 almost a year, and the stock, to the last share, was home 
 again in his safe deposit vault. He could begin next on 
 the lifting of mortgages, on the rehabilitation of his 
 fortune, on the endless multiplication of his fortune 
 commensurate with the endlessness of the vein. And 
 that vein would wriggle shortly through the boundary 
 line of his claim, and be no more his property! Were 
 the monstrosity a growling beast, the man at the drill in 
 the breast of the vein must have heard it. But the 
 Thing dozed in its lair. 
 
 For Mr. Hacklette, then, to go forth and turn up 
 another bonanza was a little affair of recreation. Be- 
 sides, Mr. Hacklette had awakened as he lay in his private 
 car on a siding, and though it was not yet day, he was 
 preternaturally awake, with millions in silver, a pyramid 
 of silver, on his chest. This often happened, and he
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 255 
 
 knew from experience that sleep was the span of another 
 day beyond recapture. Accordingly he pressed the 
 button for valet, chef, and secretary, and having dressed, 
 breakfasted, and dictated orders, all with caustic dignity, 
 he stepped from his car, and the crisp fragrance of the 
 mountain air tingled in his haughty nostrils as the breath 
 of endeavour. A morning climb, more millions, such 
 was better than sleep. 
 
 Buttoning his gloves, with a cane under his arm, he 
 walked the railroad ties up the gorge. Beyond the 
 terminal of the road, he picked his footing among the 
 stones along the mountain rivulet. He turned to his 
 left, where the barranca's high wall broke into a steep 
 tributary canon; and painfully resentfully, too, for the 
 labour of it he gained the height above, near the edge 
 of the barranca. Here he went poking about with his 
 cane at exposed strata of rock. 
 
 " I shouldn't do that, " a calm voice chided him. " You 
 might get yourself scalped. " 
 
 A quick spasm jerked the muscles along Mr. Hack- 
 lette's spine. He swung round, incensed at being taken 
 unawares. He gathered a scattered reserve force to brow- 
 beat, to awe, the gaunt and battered and burly rough- 
 looking customer who suddenly filled his eye. He was 
 too greatly startled to consider that there was nothing 
 of menace hi the keen and intently curious gaze levelled 
 on him. Mr. Hacklette's discernment rarely penetrated 
 deeper than clothes, and the clothes on the serenely tower- 
 ing individual, to Hacklette's agitated senses, were easily 
 desperado accoutrement limp felt hat on a rugged, 
 rock-hewn head, faded gray woollen shirt laid open to
 
 256 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 a browned, magnificent column of neck, earth-grimed 
 khaki, laced boots rusted and peeled; and all tagged with 
 terror's brand, a sagging cartridge belt and ugly black 
 six-shooters. Yes, and a murderous machete, though it 
 was only for lopping off cactus in the trail. 
 
 The stranger perceived the distress that Mr. Hackette 
 was indignantly trying to hide. The hard, questioning 
 gray eyes of the stranger mellowed to a whimsical light 
 
 whimsical, but saddened and very tired and he half 
 chuckled, half grunted. "There, Hacklette" - and 
 Hacklette felt a hand that seemed as heavy as a bag of 
 sand laid reassuringly on his shoulder "there, I'm 
 Krag you know, little Yellow Jaunders. But I mean, " 
 
 he found English words odd on his tongue " what I 
 say. It isn't safe for you this side the barranca, and you 
 will have to run along back. " 
 
 Krag could not help that attitude. He had no thought 
 of the farcical. He intended nothing belittling. He 
 felt sorry, like a big boy for a little boy. But his attitude, 
 since Hacklette was a man grown and nearly twice his 
 age, was woven of contempt; was bound to be. Krag 
 did not know that he was showing it. He was only 
 abruptly and tragically aware of how absurd it was to 
 dignify this man by an Olympian passion like hatred. He 
 had feared that he might want to kill Hacklette; drop him, 
 in a grandeur of simplicity, over the edge of the canon. 
 But, at sight of him, the high tension of years snapped, 
 broke to ridiculous ease. He simply felt contemptuously 
 indulgent, as for a vain old turkey cock with feathers on 
 end. He was sorely puzzled, and disgusted, that he could 
 ever have felt any other way. But the big boy did not
 
 257 
 
 take stock of how much the big boy had grown. Neither, 
 for that matter, did Mr. Hacklette. The mine owner and 
 railway magnate, reassured, saw only little Yellow Jaun- 
 ders, a worm. He caught an iron-gray bristle of mous- 
 tache between his teeth, and snipped it off. He tightened 
 his grip on his cane, thinking seriously of using it. He 
 became his curt, supercilious self. 
 
 "You?" he sneered. "What what are you doing 
 here?" 
 
 "Saving your life," said Krag. "Go now, go!" 
 
 "But you those your bones? " 
 
 "A man's bones are his own," said Krag talking 
 English again seemed like a resurrection "but you 
 needn't leave yours here. There are Yaquis within 
 gunshot. You must go back. " 
 
 Hacklette did not hear. ' ' You you were not killed ? ' ' 
 
 "No! Do you want an affidavit?" 
 
 A rush of poignant questions, none of which he could 
 ask, swept over Hacklette. What if this tramp were 
 taken with a notion to resume life in the world? What if 
 this inscrutable son-in-law demanded the fortune taken 
 from his wife? Hacklette's composure was outward 
 only. His eyes focussed austerely over the high-bridged 
 nose. "Why," he inquired subtly, "ain't those Yaquis 
 shooting then?" 
 
 "I told them not to. But the next time 
 
 "You booby!" cried Hacklette. "I thought I'd 
 catch you! So the Yaquis are your friends, eh? Well!" 
 His lip curled. "Sunk to dirty Indians, eh? Well! Got 
 a squaw, too, I guess." For a pause he whiffed 
 the stench of it. Then he foreclosed, as hard as
 
 258 
 
 flint. "Now you skut, listen to me." The words 
 were bitten off and spat at him. "We've been shut 
 of you for five years, see, and we want more of the 
 same. Show your head out of these mountains, and I'll 
 make the relief permanent. Get that? Ask me how. 
 Because I'll denounce you to the Mexicans, and they'll 
 shoot you on sight ! Do you you get it all ? ' ' 
 
 Krag listened with intent interest. Here was an honest 
 sample of what had been exasperating in the man, and 
 Krag was not exasperated. He was meditating, instead, 
 on the cruelties of time revealed in the puffy sacks blown 
 under Mr. Hacklette's eyes, the flabby pouches about the 
 corners of the mouth, the lumpy jaws, and little globular 
 belly that would be a capitalistic paunch. Rather than 
 antipathy, Krag felt shame for him. For Krag was the 
 host now. In a way, these sierras expanse, height, 
 breadth, truth were his home, and he was entertaining 
 a stranger here. 
 
 "You heard me?" said Hacklette. 
 
 "Eh, oh, yes," said Krag. "But the Mexicans," he 
 stated, "would give me time, prior to execution, for the 
 recovery of a stolen sum of money, about two hundred 
 thousand dollars. I could always interest the Mexicans 
 in a sum like that, you know. And I suppose they still 
 have penitentiaries up in the States. So if that is why 
 you would have me shot, it is also why you would never 
 ask to have me shot, and I was entirely safe in revealing 
 myself to you just now for the purpose of saving your life." 
 
 "How did you know how " 
 
 "Know what?" 
 
 "That I took that I "
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 259 
 
 "That you stole my two hundred thousand dollars? 
 But I didn't know it. I'd only heard it. But let that 
 pass. The thing now is : you must restore that money to 
 to Maisie and and Bunny. " 
 
 "Bunny?" 
 
 "Yes, BunChubbuck." 
 
 "Chubbuck? What- -" 
 
 "I want him to have that money. She's my baby girl, 
 isn't she? And Chubbuck is the kind to find it hard 
 enough to support Maisie to support two without 
 having my baby girl . . . No matter, you give 
 them back that money. " 
 
 Out of the helpless bewilderment on Hacklette's face 
 there grew a look of relief. He gulped painfully. The 
 look narrowed to craft and cruelty. 
 
 "Yes," he sneered, " she took the precaution to get a 
 divorce first. " 
 
 "Of course she would," said Krag. 
 
 "Precisely," said Hacklette, swallowing hard. He 
 took a cigar from a soft leather case, clipped it with his 
 pearl-handled knife, and rolled it between his lips. 
 " But if she should happen to learn that you're alive 
 the shock " 
 
 "You are not going to tell her, are you?" 
 
 "Hell, no, but you- -" 
 
 "Wait," said Krag. "You will have to pay her back 
 that money. " 
 
 "If " 
 
 "You will," Krag went on, "turn over to her your ore 
 settlements from date, until it is all paid. Then you will 
 send me a receipt, signed by her and Chubbuck. You
 
 260 
 
 will place it, weighted by a stone, on this rock." He 
 laid a hand on the rock he meant. 
 
 "If I do not?" 
 
 "Do you really want the answer to that question?" 
 
 "I no, no!" 
 
 "Then go. Cross the barranca just once more to bring 
 the receipt. Once more than that . . . Anyhow, 
 I don't want the Yaquis to kill you. " 
 
 But Hacklette could not go yet. Somehow the serene 
 outlaw had robbed him, maimed him, trussed him up. 
 Worse than six-shooters was mild indifference. Power 
 and pose must strike one blow before he quit the 
 field. 
 
 He gripped his cigar anew, let the blue smoke cloud 
 his eyes, and frowned smugly through it at Krag. 
 "You recall Cleft Rock, I guess? You ain't forgot it?" 
 
 A shade of annoyance passed over Krag's face. 
 
 "And what you said to me that day?" 
 
 "I was a young, sullen, grudge-hided fool," said Krag. 
 
 "Well, I guess! You - 
 
 "For giving you a word or a thought. " 
 
 "Eh? But you drooled something about taking my 
 money away from me. You was going to ruin me. I 
 think it was to be by the next time we met. " 
 
 "It must have sounded disgusting." 
 
 "You remember, don't you?" 
 
 "Yes, I remember." 
 
 "Well," said Hacklette he waved his hand over the 
 cliff, taking in the railroad below, the mine buildings in 
 the ravine, and particularly the private car on the siding 
 "well, we've met now, ain't we?"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 201 
 
 "Hacklette," said Krag patiently, "I wish you would 
 go. I don't want to leave you while you're in danger. " 
 
 "But you promised to ruin me, you know," Hacklette 
 insisted. 
 
 "A promise?" Krag repeated. "That's a lien on a 
 rational creature's future, isn't it?" 
 
 "Even if the creature welches," Hacklette laughed 
 nastily. 
 
 "Let me ask," said Krag, "how far have you drifted 
 over there?" He pointed to the spurious Veta Negra. 
 
 "Oh, a thousand feet, more or less, on all the levels," 
 said Hacklette proudly. "I'm one to push things." 
 
 "And at this moment you are penniless except for that 
 mine, and the railroad, which is worthless without the mine. 
 
 "Eh, who that's none of your business. " 
 
 "I'm afraid, Hacklette," Krag confessed without 
 triumph, "that I have kept my promise." 
 
 The cigar dropped from the magnate's parted teeth. 
 He tried to laugh at the start the other gave him. " I see," 
 he said, "you're sore. Just sore, and ugly about it. 
 But you couldn't develop a property like that yourself, 
 you know. It took a moneyed man. " 
 
 "But I did try to save you," added Krag. 
 
 "Thank you for not succeeding ! How? " 
 
 "It was nearly three years ago," said Krag, "about the 
 time the Yaquis stopped molesting your railroad. One 
 of your surveyors found my saddle bags, in a clump of 
 chaparral, near where those bones had been found two 
 years before that. Some bits of float, notes, and so on, 
 were in the bags; particularly a memorandum, apparently 
 jotted down during that last and fatal prospecting trip
 
 262 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 of mine. The memorandum was about my claim, your 
 Vela Negra down there. Did you get it?" 
 
 " Never paid any attention to it," grunted Hacklette. 
 "How could you know more'n my experts what's in the 
 ground?" 
 
 "I hoped at the time it wouldn't stop you," said Krag. 
 "But I did try. It was a a system I was playing. " 
 
 "System, eh? Oh, ho, thought you'd scare me off the 
 mine, eh, and come back to work it yourself?" 
 
 "And now," said Krag quietly, "I believe I am sorry 
 it did not stop you. " 
 
 " Shouldn't wonder. Any rat would, that gets poisoned 
 by his own fangs. " 
 
 "That," said Krag, in a voice as low as a whisper, 
 "I know that is true." 
 
 "Shouldn't wonder again," said Hacklette. "You 
 see the results, I guess. " He waved a contemptuous hand 
 back over the wilderness of wandering and man's deso- 
 lation. Then the gloved hand swept his own estate, 
 railroad, mine, private car. Suddenly his eyes contracted 
 malignantly. "Look there!" He pointed direct at a 
 snow-white speck down in the gorge. "Well, I shouldn't 
 wonder, really. " 
 
 Krag saw that it was a child, a little girl, near the 
 private car. She was playing on the edge of the tiny 
 brook, making a dam of pebbles. Krag gestured toward 
 the white speck, mutely questioning. Hacklette noted 
 the dumb suffering in the man's eyes. 
 
 "One guess enough? Well, yes, that is our little Alice 
 Krag uh, Chubbuck, I should say. Confusing to keep 
 the old name, you know. "
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 263 
 
 " It can " the father hesitated "it can be arranged 
 for me to see her. Tell her I'm one of your your 
 muckers. Pass it off casual, that way Come!" 
 
 Hacklette seemed to be weighing the feasibility of the 
 plan. Thus he fed on the other's hunger, and kept him 
 waiting. He loosened stones near the cliff's edge and 
 pried them over with his cane, to hide by lowered, medi- 
 tative head what was on his lips. When he looked up, 
 he flaunted the grinning sneer. 
 
 "You said you remember Cliff Rock, I believe?" 
 
 Slowly Krag got the meaning of the question, and 
 the stricken gray eyes cleared, fixed on this man. 
 
 " I see that you do, " Hacklette v/ent on. " You tricked 
 me out of my daughter that day, and later deserted her. 
 Now answer! Don't you think you've got one ghastly 
 nerve to come whining around me for your daughter? 
 Eh, don't you?" 
 
 But the gray eyes troubled him. They were searching, 
 fathomless, and in judgment over him. Then a bewildered 
 contempt, as for something unbelievably mean and vul- 
 gar, grew into the eyes. But abruptly the man seemed 
 to sicken. Krag saw himself in this unbelievably mean 
 and vulgar thing. The vile code: "An eye for an eye 
 . . . It was this, his past self, that sickened him. 
 
 "And see here," cried Hacklette, "you keep away 
 from my car down there! I've got guards down there 
 and you're the same as a Yaqui. Come where we can 
 pot you once, and 
 
 The wickedest flaw in human society is that one man 
 can ever be in the power of another man. 
 
 "If you had a friend," said Krag, so earnestly that he
 
 264 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 might have been that friend, and sorrowfully, as from a 
 terrible knowledge, "he would implore you, for your 
 own sake, not mine, to keep your soul's fingers out of 
 God's machinery. Man, man, you don't know what you 
 are doing!" 
 
 Hacklette's brows lifted mockingly. "Threats, eh?" 
 But Krag had turned and left him. Alone in the 
 wild silence of the place, Hacklette skulked behind 
 rocks. His spine twitched fearfully until at last he 
 had climbed down safely into the canon. He was not 
 wholly himself until he was under the whisk broom of his 
 valet in his private car.
 
 CHAPTER EIGHT 
 
 A Shipment of Ore 
 
 TWO nights later, when Hacklette's car and Hack- 
 lette and the snow white speck had returned 
 across the desert to the Great Stack, the Yaquis 
 made a terrific attack on Hacklette's mine. Unseen in 
 the dark, they had circled up the ravine above the mine 
 buildings, and opened fire. It was totally unexpected. 
 Terrified peons came tumbling out of the bunk house and 
 cowered in the stone office building, until their American 
 foremen thrust Winchesters into their hands and drove 
 them to the stockade. The Mexican guards, being cursed 
 steadily by the superintendent, fumbled for loopholes 
 and pumped away at random. The shift then down in 
 the mine could not be herded to the cage. They scuttled 
 like rats to the farthermost workings, and huddled there, 
 waiting to be killed. In the canon a half dozen men guard- 
 ing some loaded ore cars tried to escape toward the desert, 
 but Yaquis firing from the cliff above turned them, and 
 they hunted for cover in the stockade. 
 
 "Queer the don't charge," muttered 
 
 the superintendent. Nobody had been hit. But the 
 battle spluttered like a caldron for hours. 
 
 On the brink of the chasm, at the barranca's edge di- 
 rectly over the true Vela Negra, a man stood in the dark- 
 
 865
 
 266 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 ness, and his figure, lone, lost in the night, was itself as a 
 creature, or a prince, of darkness. He had paused for a 
 moment in certain silent toil, and stood there on the wild 
 eminence, head sunken to his chest, a grave spectator of 
 the crackling, spitfire little inferno over in the ravine. 
 For he had created it. Like a calm engineer with thumb 
 on a talismanic button to destroy a fleet, or inundate a 
 domain, or set grinding the mills of the gods, he was the 
 master. The terrific force of nature that he had harnessed 
 to his desire was human passion, and across there the 
 night and the sierra were in labour to bring forth his 
 hidden purpose. 
 
 Here was a knife slash at the very antennae of the 
 republic's power. A railroad was threatened, a mine 
 was attacked, and both were of foreign capital. The 
 spitfire would echo next day on the bourses of the world. 
 Points would crumble of? the apex of Mexican securities. 
 Then there was the sequent colic of the president 
 down at the capital. To throw good money, not to men- 
 tion lives, after once good money, not to mention 
 lives, and bring this disastrous brawl to an end per- 
 haps? Or to ask the brawlers what they wanted? 
 
 But this was not the purpose, not altogether the pur- 
 pose, of the man on the chasm's brink. It was much 
 nearer. A rope dangled before his eyes and on down into 
 the black abyss. Though his outstretched hand grasped 
 the rope, the night was so thick that he could not see it. 
 The certain silent toil was all by feel. The rope grew 
 taut, and strained faintly outward against his grip. 
 At this the man hurried back from the cliff's edge, and 
 came again to the rope, here slanting to the ground.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 267 
 
 He laid his hands on it, and fifty other hands behind him 
 tightened on it, and a line of dark forms in the darkness 
 behind him pulled backward steadily, swiftly, as though 
 playing at a tug of war. A pulley creaked dully some- 
 where in air. 
 
 A dark bulk, dangling at the rope's end and as inert 
 as a corpse, rose slowly out of the black canon to the 
 edge. The man ran to receive it. With a long 
 hook he caught the rope, and by a giant's strength 
 pulled the massive bundle toward him. As it grazed 
 the edge, he whistled. The rope slacked, and the 
 thing descended again, while the man guided it with 
 his hook around the rope. The bundle went down 
 through the top of the pepper tree, whose branches 
 had been partly cut away, and thence into the 
 crevice between the cliff and the upstanding ledge. 
 Naked arms reached for it, and eased it to earth in the 
 mouth of the mine tunnel. The rope net enclosing it 
 was flung open, and piecemeal the cargo was borne into 
 the tunnel. Each piece was a sack of ore. It had come 
 from the ore cars in the gorge below, which was Hack- 
 lette's ore out of the spurious Vela Negra, awaiting 
 shipment. The attack on the mine stockade enabled 
 the silent toilers to do this. 
 
 Yet the drama of forty or four hundred thieves, 
 like the spluttering caldron, was but an essential to the 
 man's purpose, and not yet the purpose itself. When 
 the rope was unhooked from the bundle, it was instantly 
 hooked into a similar bundle, made up and waiting, 
 and the stealthy, block-and-tackle, cargo-shifting pro- 
 cess was reversed. The outgoing bundle was sacked ore
 
 268 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 also, but the ore in the sacks was from the true Veta 
 Negra. Therefore each outgoing sack carried one 
 hundred ounces of silver as against eight or nine 
 ounces in each incoming sack. 
 
 At the bottom of the canon, when the burdened rope 
 deposited its weight, there was another interchange of 
 bundles. Naked, perspiring, powerful forms came and 
 went, each staggering under a heavy sack. They con- 
 stantly varied their path over the gravelly canon 
 bed, so that no marked sprinkling of ore could 
 later betray their operations. To make doubly sure, 
 each sack during its voyage was wrapped in a serape. 
 Finally, when the attack on the stockade had drop- 
 ped off to fitful outbursts, the ore cars in the gorge, 
 three of them, lay deserted and loaded as originally, 
 four hundred sacks to the car; except that each 
 sack now held one hundred ounces of silver instead of 
 eight or nine ounces. 
 
 To return to the man's purpose. The man was not 
 certain of that purpose himself. Now that it was all 
 over, even to the removal of the block-and-tackle scaffold- 
 ing, he stood again on the cliff and wondered what he 
 had really meant. He grappled deep in unfamiliar 
 reaches of thought, or of his soul, and believed at last 
 that he knew why he had done this thing. But after a 
 little he doubted if that were the answer after all, and 
 he searched farther and deeper, and paused, for surely 
 he had it now! The revelation wrought in him a 
 startled sense of amazement, yet no, he must grope 
 deeper yet. 
 
 At first he said: "It's so he can pay Maisie back. A
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 269 
 
 few more such shipments " For quite a time that 
 
 seemed to be the answer; seemed to be. 
 
 Then, he said: "It's restitution. My soul is sick of its 
 own vileness. 'An eye for an eye.' Perhaps restitution 
 will heal. Of course I still hate Hacklette " he paused, 
 doubting, for he must get this thing straightened out. 
 
 At last he murmured: "The poor old bloated, futile 
 peacock. I got him into it, and I'll have to pull him out. " 
 He was dismayed at the discovery. But he smiled 
 whimsically, feeling better. There was no further need 
 to grope and delve. This was rock bottom. This was 
 the purpose. 
 
 As, deeply at peace, he turned now from the cliff, the 
 last of the toilers there, a panther-like body flung itself 
 upon him, and struck, struck, with serpent quickness. 
 He reeled, trying to fend off the steel, but he caught at 
 her, held her. He knew at once who it was. 
 
 "Coyote wants you," he said, gasping. "He wants 
 his boy. He has been searching " 
 
 "While you rob his my boy!" She struggled 
 against him to strike again. "You steal the secret. 
 I follow you. I carry my boy, my little chief. He is 
 sick, and I stop days weeks. And here you have 
 the secret. You steal the silver. You haul it away on 
 the white men's cars. Hunh, good, you are dying 
 now!" 
 
 The world was still, except for these two. The last 
 ember of the battle over in the ravine was cold. 
 
 "Coyote!" cried the wounded man, peering into the 
 darkness as he sank to the ground. "Quick, here's your 
 wife, Coyote!"
 
 CHAPTER NINE 
 
 A Boom in Buttons 
 
 MIKE ELDRIDGE, the smelter's assayer, glared 
 at the tiny silver button to his eyes it was 
 a croquet ball that he had just taken from 
 a cupel. Muttering as though whiskey were in his brain 
 he peered into the other salt-cellar like cups. They were 
 on a tray, and the bone ash was yet glowing from the 
 white heat of his furnace. He squinted incredulously 
 at the seeming drop of quicksilver nested in each, for 
 each button was a bullet, a pebble, a 
 
 "Bowlders!" ejaculated Mike. "If they think this 
 here assay shop is a quarry, why " 
 
 He scraped back his chair, and strode out in long- 
 legged perturbation down to his friend, the foreman of 
 the sampling mill. But Mike was circumspect. "Drib- 
 lets," he said to the foreman, "I fumbled my pulp on 
 that last Vela Negra lot, dropped it on the floor, salted 
 it with last year's deposit of cigarette ashes. Wish 
 you'd snatch another sample for me, and not think to 
 mention it to the Old Man." 
 
 Eldridge watched this resampling himself, from ore 
 bins to bucking board. The mine's representative had 
 not been advised, and was nowhere near. Eldridge 
 left with a new pulp sacked by his own hand. There 
 
 270
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 271 
 
 could be no unchastity about this sample. A day later 
 he drew a second tray of cupels from his incandescent 
 muffle, laying it on the table beside his scales. Again 
 he lifted out a button, brushed off the litharge crust^ 
 and gazed. This time he gazed with a cumulative 
 thoughtfulness. The glistening bead was pure silver 
 carrying gold. It was the silver and gold in an assay- 
 ton of ore, and proportionate representative of the gold 
 and silver in an actual ton. But, as Eldridge conser- 
 vatively protested, there would be so much silver and 
 gold, and so darned little ore. Resignedly he caught 
 up the button in his tweezers, to lay it on the balance, a 
 delicate, glass-encased balance that could weigh a signa- 
 ture to the last dot of an i. Then he rebelled. 
 
 "What this shop needs," he sobbed wrathfully, "is a 
 platform scales and a derrick. When they want a coal 
 heaver on this job " 
 
 He moved to a coarser balance and weighed the button. 
 He weighed the button in each of the other cupels, and 
 struck an average. "Before they grow up into meteor- 
 ites," he grumbled "twenty -four hundred and one 
 ounces, wow!" With acid he consumed the silver in each 
 button, weighed the gold remaining, and again struck an 
 average. "An ounce of gold, leaving just about twenty- 
 four hundred ounces of silver in each ton of this man's ore 
 there, there, Mike, steady now. You know you never 
 did believe in real money, anyhow. It's something that 
 ain't so, and don't you go to getting superstitious 
 
 A footfall was heard in the office. The assayer shot 
 a look over his shoulder. Mike was uncircumspect only 
 in soliloquy. He nodded, and went on figuring out his
 
 272 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 report on this sensational ore lot. It made him feel 
 like a romancer, and he was shamed and peevish. 
 
 "My determinations ready?" spoke the intruder. 
 
 Eldridge shivered. The man's voice always set him on 
 edge. " When they ar^, " he said, "they go to the office. " 
 
 "No matter, I'm in a hurry for my settlement sheet, 
 and you've had two days to assay that last lot. 
 When " 
 
 "Seems to me," said Eldridge to himself in a conver- 
 sational pitch, "that some shippers feel awful sure some- 
 times that nobody's going to call for an umpire assay." 
 
 "Call for an umpire?" exclaimed the intruder. 
 "Look here, you, if you're hinting " 
 
 Eldridge flung down his pencil, and swung in his chair 
 like a locomotive on a turntable. But the Irish in his 
 eye did not get to his tongue. A first glance at the man 
 changed all that. 
 
 "By the way, Hacklette," he asked casually, "what 
 did you people find?" 
 
 "Find? When? What?" 
 
 Eldridge was convinced. "Lord, Lord," he moaned 
 in his breast, "the man don't know what's in his ore 
 yet! For the love of Mike, Mike dear, now be careful!" 
 
 "In that last lot," demanded Hacklette, "that what 
 you mean?" He was beginning to take alarm. His 
 ore had showed a falling off in richness lately. As a check 
 on the smelter, it was sampled and assayed at the mine, 
 and made to run as high as possible by means of a slow 
 furnace. On this last lot he had as yet only the mine's 
 assay from the mine's sample, for Eldridge had thought- 
 fully delayed sending the smelter's pulp to the mine for
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 273 
 
 assay. Consequently, the smelter's assay was of Krag's ore 
 from the true Vetra Negra, and Hacklette's assay was of 
 the spurious Vetra Negra ore, three cars of it, which had 
 never reached the smelter, thanks to Krag and his 
 Yaquis. Hence any remark about an umpire assay was 
 disturbing. Had Eldridge, in that last lot, found a 
 startling drop-off in the ore? Did Eldridge think that 
 he, Hacklette, would demand an umpire in order to be 
 convinced? The least suggestion that his bonanza might 
 be petering out made Hacklette intolerably snappish. 
 It was his first mine, and he had not realized yet that 
 they never do feed from the hand, and that never, never, 
 can they be trained to do the same trick ad infinitum. 
 
 Mike Eldridge, however, not only knew the ways of 
 mines, but the ways of the men who owned mines. And 
 this one was snappish. He had seen that in that 
 first glance. 
 
 "Yep," said Eldridge, "in that last lot, that's what I 
 mean. Was just wondering, that's all, if your assayer 
 was bothered as much to find something in it as . . . 
 By the way, what's V. N. quoted at these days, anyhow?" 
 
 "It's not quoted," Hacklette stiffly retorted. But 
 he was suffering. So people were guessing already that 
 he might want to sell ! "No sir, " he asserted indignantly, 
 "it's not on the market. Not a share, sir. " 
 
 "I wasn't thinking of a share," said Mike, talking 
 sociably as he worked on the sensational report. "You 
 see, some of us poor brow-sweaters around these works 
 could pool enough for a perfectly whole vara. When a 
 thing slumps, drops to our reach a low-grade propo- 
 sition, say why, then we're the easy marks. We're a
 
 274 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 regular philanthropic institution, easy as charity. About 
 the V . N. from the last few shipments I judge it ought 
 to be waxing some less haughty and exclusive. . . . 
 Still," said Mike, rambling, forgetting about it, "as you 
 say, maybe we had better save our money. " 
 
 But Mr. Hacklette would not play the game. One 
 cannot do horse-trading with an arrogant tyro who does 
 not know a spavin when it is pointed out to him. Mike 
 Eldridge pointed out spavins for a half hour, and only 
 insulted Mr. Hacklette the more. It was like bidding 
 for a man's game leg. As Mike reflected that he could 
 not throttle Mr. Hacklette, or anything of that sort, he 
 woefully gathered up his papers, and dragged his steps 
 over to the office. But he went to the Old Man himself, 
 general manager and vice-president, and saw that the 
 door was closed and that they were alone. Without a 
 word he handed over the report, and waited for the 
 explosion. 
 
 The Old Man's eyes bulged for an instant, and then he 
 said: "I'd advise a good night's sleep, Mike." 
 
 But this time Mike would stand for no impeachment 
 of his sobriety. He mentioned the resample. Every- 
 thing checked. One might suppose that the Old Man was 
 beginning to look frightened. It was, though, only 
 mixed feelings; a phenomenon common enough in all 
 mining camps when word passes that some one else has 
 struck a rich lead. The Old Man was mentally wording 
 a telegram to the company's president in New York. 
 Eldridge interrupted. "There's something else," he 
 mused aloud, "that might combine with that report to 
 advantage. "
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 275 
 
 The general manager looked at him steadily. Eldridge 
 shook his head. 
 
 "You're hired here as assayer, " the Old Man 
 began. 
 
 "And," said Eldridge, "you've got there all I can give 
 you as assayer. But I'm not hired as a psychologist." 
 
 "Oh come, Mike, what's the tip?" 
 
 "The word being longer, the fee comes fancy. I'll 
 want ten shares, when you buy the Veta Negra." 
 
 "You whiskey sponge," cried the Old Man, "how did 
 you get it into your fevered brain that we were wanting 
 to buy - - " 
 
 "That," said Eldridge, "is a specimen gratis of expert 
 psychology. Do I get the ten shares?" 
 
 "Mike, you do, if it helps us to buy." 
 
 "Then here's your parcel, neatly wrapped up, tied with 
 baby ribbon to wit : Hacklette don't know yet that 
 this last lot is any different from the rest." 
 
 The Old Man jumped to his feet. "And you stand 
 there with a bonanza like that under your tongue, and 
 don't spit it out! Where's this fellow? You didn't 
 let him get away?" 
 
 "He's hanging around. I told him maybe you'd 
 hurry up his settlement sheet. " 
 
 "Then hustle him right in. No, you psychologist, 
 let's not be abrupt. He'll ask for me, and you tell him 
 you guess I'll be disengaged in seven or eleven minutes." 
 
 Two hours later Mr. Hacklette came out of the general 
 manager's office fraught with emotion. He had just 
 been offered a half, three quarters, then one cold, flat 
 million for his mine and railroad. For the first time in
 
 276 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 his life Mr. Hacklette had had a chance to refuse a million 
 dollars, and he had refused it. 
 
 As for the general manager, in his turn he had found 
 it impracticable to throttle Mr. Hacklette, and on the 
 other hand he had bid as high as he dared on his own 
 responsibility. The instant his door closed behind Mr. 
 Hacklette, he dived into his code book and began digging 
 therefrom a long message to the company's president. 
 Their own engineers, he reminded the president, had 
 already reported favourably on the mine, on the strength 
 of which the company had not only loaned Hacklette 
 money for development work, but had tried to buy it for 
 seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. A further 
 examination of the property now was unadvisable, since 
 it would only give Hacklette time to estimate the real 
 value of his bonanza, beside arousing competitors. 
 He concluded by asking the company to specify a limit. 
 
 Having sent the telegram, the Old Man trotted out 
 and down to the sampling mill. He ordered another 
 resample of the last Veta Negra lot, and himself replaced 
 the foreman while it was being done. Personally, also, 
 he made the assays. Mike was right. Everything 
 checked. By that time came a reply from New York, 
 The president specified two millions. But Hacklette 
 was gone. 
 
 The Old Man was disgusted. Hacklette had ordered 
 out an engine, had hitched it to his car, had approximated 
 express speed and twenty wrecks to get to his mine. 
 However, he came back the next day, and stalked across 
 the Old Man's path. Or the Old Man trotted across 
 Hacklette's path. At any rate, the Old Man aggressively
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 277 
 
 advanced to a million three hundred thousand for mine 
 and railroad, and thereupon aggressively stopped short. 
 And Hacklette accepted, inwardly trembling and gulping 
 hard. The Old Man was self-congratulatory. He 
 believed he had dazzled Hacklette with certified 
 checks, thoughtfully drawn in advance. Hacklette 
 also was self-congratulatory. For out at the mine 
 they had just broken into the lair of the geological 
 monstrosity. 
 
 Hacklette would have returned immediately to the 
 States, except for one thing. There was a ghost to lay. 
 To lay the ghost a certain receipt for moneys paid must 
 be left on a certain rock. Hacklette still wanted very 
 much to comply. True, he had no mine now to be at- 
 tacked by Yaquis, yet his dread of his resourceful son-in- 
 law stayed with him. It was rather greater. For if Krag 
 heard of the sale of the mine, he might hasten to reveal 
 himself and demand the sum due Maisie. He could even 
 blackmail him, with threats of criminal prosecution, for 
 a much greater amount. Beside which, Hacklette had 
 his own private reasons, inclusive of his daughter's 
 opinion of her father, for keeping Krag and Maisie apart 
 by any means whatever. To reimburse Maisie rather 
 than Krag had its advantages, since he could always 
 wheedle the money out of her again. Providentially, 
 he had brought Maisie with him on this trip. He could 
 give her his check, and get her receipt at once. He 
 would account for the absence of Chubbuck's signature 
 by a note to the effect that Chubbuck was in the States 
 and could not be reached conveniently. But to place
 
 278 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the receipt on the certain rock; it was that which troubled 
 Mr. Hacklette. 
 
 In his heart, for all his suspicious nature, the man 
 trusted to Krag's word. Otherwise, he would not have 
 thought twice about a receipt which was to bind Krag, 
 on his promise alone, never to let Maisie know that he was 
 alive. And yet, there was human nature. What of human 
 nature, when one man keeps another man from his own 
 child? What, in human nature, will that second man do, 
 given the chance? Hacklette saw again the look on 
 Krag's face as he gazed down into the canon, and frankly 
 he shuddered. 
 
 Then again, suppose Krag could not restrain the Yaquis. 
 They might hold him, Hacklette, for a ransom. They 
 might kill him outright. No, he could not go alone. He 
 thought of a body-guard. But that was more perilous. 
 It was breaking the compact. It relieved Krag of his 
 word. An armed force would tempt the Yaquis to a 
 wholesale instead of a single killing. 
 
 Finally he thought of Maisie. Yes, Maisie should go 
 with him. If it came to endangering Maisie, Krag would 
 certainly control his Yaquis, would certainly spend his 
 own life doing it. And Hacklette meant to keep close 
 to Maisie. With Maisie, too, he did not fear capture, 
 since Krag, being certain that Maisie was married 
 again, would not reveal himself to her, as he might have 
 to do in case he permitted the Yaquis to capture her. 
 
 Assuredly there was no other way, and this way 
 Hacklette at once put into execution. He gave Maisie 
 his check for two hundred and thirty thousand dollars, 
 forgetting interest, and said playfully that he must have
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 2/9 
 
 her receipt. "Just sign it 'Maisie,' " he said. Next 
 he offered her one last chance to see the Barranca 
 Quebrante. He had to go out there once more, he said, to 
 turn over the property to the smelter people. "You've 
 never come yet," he reminded her. 
 
 She shook her head, smiling, while tear-dimmed eyes 
 pleaded to be let off. The last trip together, Jim's and 
 her's, had been up there in that canon. And it was up 
 there where Jim had been killed. 
 
 "Your last chance," urged her father. "Afterward, 
 you know, we start for the States, and it's good-bye 
 Mexico for good." 
 
 "I'll go, father," she said suddenly. 
 
 She could never be so poignantly reminded of Jim again, 
 and, since she was never more to have the chance, she 
 found that she yearned for the sharp, sweet pain of it.
 
 CHAPTER TEN 
 
 Naming a Celestial Villa 
 
 WEN Krag saw that he could not hold Dolores, 
 is he wanted to do for Coyote's sake, nor even 
 defend himself longer from her stinging poin- 
 ard, he called out. The cry was not consciously a ruse, 
 yet was a ruse nevertheless. His senses told him that 
 there was no help in the darkness, but some desperate 
 cunning of the life instinct made him cry out before he 
 knew. The same instinct made him use Coyote's name. 
 The murderess remembered her young. Lest Coyote 
 take her and so find the boy, she ran. She came to 
 where she had hidden the child, and paused only long 
 enough to wrap him to her breast in her rebosa. 
 
 The padded footfalls died away, and Krag hah 6 lay on 
 the ground. Something a sensation of reeling made 
 him think of the snowy white of a hospital cot, and 
 the restfulness of it, and made him long to close his eyes 
 and shift to others the burden of doing what could be 
 done to save his life. He was surely drooping to earth 
 as into his bed. "Wait, though," he said, putting out a 
 hand to support himself. "I am the doctor, too. Unpro- 
 fessional to forget." And it was the physician, wearily 
 taking up again his old fight with mortality, and not the 
 man thinking of his own life, who with one hand and his 
 
 280
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 281 
 
 teeth bound a handkerchief around his arm, above a 
 deep knife wound. "I hope that's the worst one," he 
 murmured, "and that the others can wait until . 
 Besides I am tired." He let his head sink then, with 
 the fading away of his senses. 
 
 As Dolores ran with her child, the flying end of her 
 rebosa brushed against an organ cactus and a frazzled 
 thread was caught and held in the thorns. The next 
 morning a war party of Yaquis, returning from the 
 feigned attack on Hacklette's mine, dragged her from 
 where she crouched in a lump of chaparral. 
 
 "You know me," she cried to them quickly, "I am 
 Cajemi's daughter." 
 
 Some of the warriors could remember Cajemi's sleek 
 daughter in the draggled woman, and this saved her from 
 a spy's instant fate. 
 
 "The tribe has missed you," said their leader, "and 
 the chief has had every eye watch for you." But when 
 they saw that she carried a child, they were at a loss to 
 understand. 
 
 "You are Chagre, I think," she said. She was al- 
 ready plotting escape. "Where then is Tetibite?" 
 
 The petty chieftain told her that Tetibite had de- 
 parted for Cocorito, a deserted pueblo on the new military 
 highway. He had gone to hear a peace offer from the 
 Mexican general. "But," Chagre added, "the meeting 
 place will be safely ambushed. The Lone Oak thought 
 of that. Let the pelones do more than their peace talk, 
 and " 
 
 "Peace?" repeated Dolores. "Chagre, you lie. The 
 Yaquis do not forget how Cajemi died ! "
 
 282 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 The warriors looked at one another guiltily. The 
 vehemence of her scorn made them ashamed. 
 
 "We cannot always fight," Chagre urged. "Even 
 Tetibite, after many days' talk with the Lone Oak 
 
 "The Lone Oak, the Lone Oak!" Her dark, blinking 
 eyes opened on them. "Truly the Yaquis are the Lone 
 Oak's peons. If not, who loads the cars of the iron 
 road for him?" 
 
 "Why not?" demanded the chieftain, rousing to anger, 
 and the tawny braves around him muttered assent. 
 "Why not? The Lone Oak saves our tribe. The Lone 
 Oak's mine wins our battles." 
 
 "His mine?" she cried. "Hunk, you do not know, 
 then. You do not know that the mine is your own 
 mine. You do not know that you rob your own Vela 
 Negra for him. Ay, ay, friends, the Vela Negra!" 
 
 Their faces grew dark and evil. No, they did not 
 know; and she laughed at them bitterly, mocked them for 
 simple children. The tribe's secrets, so long preserved 
 from chief to chief, had become as inviolate to the Yaqui 
 mind as sanctity itself, and the name of the Vela Negra, 
 most fabulous of the hidden treasure houses, was as the 
 lustre of a shrine. Blinking at them always out of her 
 sleepy eyes, Dolores denounced this white man, this 
 Lone Oak, for he had come seeking their buried mines, 
 and at last he had stolen from her the secret of the Vela 
 Negra, while pretending to cure her babe of the calen- 
 tura. Might they not now understand why the Lone 
 Oak wanted peace? She broke again into her gurgling 
 laugh. Why, if not to work his stolen mine in quiet? 
 He could not long smuggle his ore into the cars of
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 283 
 
 his wife's father before the Mexicans found him out. 
 He must sell the Yaquis into the bondage of peace, and 
 so buy his own peace to enjoy the Yaquis' treasure 
 hoards. 
 
 What the dangerous woman saw then in their faces 
 killed her desire of escape. The chief's absence from his 
 tribe gave her a chance for deadlier artistry. 
 
 "We are not children," spoke Chagre. "Yet are 
 we only warriors. The Lone Oak has truly saved the 
 tribe, but if it was to rob us, then must our elders in their 
 wisdom say how to pay him off both as saviour and thief. 
 Now I seem to know why he talked with the Americano, 
 who is the father of his wife, for did they not need to 
 plan the loading of the Americano's cars with the stolen 
 Yaqui ore? And we, fools for one long night, laboured 
 as they had planned. But the man, who is the wife's 
 father, is to come again. We are to watch, says the Lone 
 Oak, and keep harm from the man, and bring to the Lone 
 Oak the paper that the man will leave on a rock. We 
 are not always fools, Dolores, for we will bring the paper 
 to the elders. It may have to do with the pay at the 
 Great Stack for this treasure which they have stolen." 
 
 "Bring the man, too!" she said. "Bring him, since 
 he likes walking in the Yaqui country, so we may cut 
 off the soles of his feet. And as for the Lone Oak, you 
 may find him with his reward already." From her 
 rebosa, sheathed in leather next her warm burden, she 
 drew her knife and showed them the blade. "I left 
 him at his mine," she said. "But go. Make sure." 
 
 Chagre with ten of the warriors returned and found Krag 
 ying on his back, with his eyes open. Eyes and eyelids
 
 284 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 were all that had power of motion; the soul yet kept its 
 windows open, and peered out musingly. He looked 
 up at the softest of blue skies. His senses were softened 
 in the sweet blessedness of rest. In the deep blue he 
 seemed to read one word written against him. But he 
 contemplated it with eyes serene and a peaceful smile. 
 The word stood for the crime he had most loathed, which 
 had made him despise his species. Now he saw it written 
 against himself Futility ! 
 
 He had been as relentless as Fate, as remorseless as 
 stone. He had given years, diabolic calculation, a 
 patience unmatched in hell. And he lay here defeated, 
 and yet by no failure in calculation, by no unvanquished 
 circumstance, by no thing of flesh, by no fear of God. 
 He lay here defeated by a spark of simple decency in his 
 own heart, which for all his incarnate cunning he had 
 not foreseen. The structure of his villainy was ashes. 
 From the burning had come the murderess with her 
 knife Futility ! But he saw that it was the name of 
 his mansion in the skies, and he believed that he was 
 going home. 
 
 When the Yaquis came so that they could look down 
 on his face, they saw the calm, white peace on his brow, 
 and he smiled up at them. After all, judgment was 
 matter for the elders, they thought, for they were troub- 
 led within themselves as they met the kind gray eyes. 
 They were simple warriors, and it should be as though 
 they had come upon a wounded friend. 
 
 To each chieftain, and as many others as he could, 
 Krag had taught such first aid measures as were possible 
 in the field, especially the staunching of wounds and
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 285 
 
 aseptic dressings; and now Chagre, with awkward 
 diffidence because of the eyes of the master, recited 
 those lessons by performance. 
 
 For two days Krag lay, not moving, the mountain under 
 him, the sky above, with eleven Indians for nurses. 
 Then, on a litter of boughs and thongs, they bore him 
 by easy stages across the sierra, to his own hut in the 
 distant village of Chihuitl. The elders, and many of 
 the tribe, prodded by the insidious barb of a woman's 
 tongue, were gathered there already. Chagre and his 
 ten braves kept them from the litter, but the wounded 
 man felt menace and static hate in the air.
 
 CHAPTER ELEVEN 
 
 Maisie 
 
 SHE stood on the eerie crest of the barranca, as 
 Krag had so often done, and gazed over into the 
 ravine opposite, scarred now by the ugly mine 
 buildings, and far down to the edge of the mountain 
 brook, where they had camped that last time so long 
 ago. The narrow beach was obliterated by railroad 
 tracks and freight cars and smutty ore siftings. All 
 the past was smeared over by a mean present. 
 
 Five years had put a ripening plumpness on Maisie, 
 and as she stood wind-blown, high above the wild canon, 
 she was still a pleasing, girlish figure, though seemingly a 
 bit of another girl, a rounded, rosy cheeked, Highland lass 
 sort of a girl, just turned a woman. But a gravity seemed 
 to hallow the once joyous, vibrant being. The gravity 
 was about the mouth that used to smile and laugh in 
 shy eagerness to be on happy terms with every living 
 creature, and one was smitten with tenderness now be- 
 cause of the bright red lips that smiled very sweetly, 
 very bravely. The big blue eyes were grave, too, and 
 deep in them was a settled sorrow, grown there from 
 keenest pain that changed with the years to wistfulness. 
 The long lashes were moist as she tried to decide exactly 
 where it was that Jim had put up her tent that day. 
 
 286
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 287 
 
 She believed she had come to realize the loneliness of 
 her husband's heart, and the pathos of it was the more 
 awful because she alone might have filled that yearning, 
 and yet did not. Her love was not then informed with 
 the understanding that thinking of him, always thinking 
 of him, had since brought to her. 
 
 Her abstraction gave her father the opportunity, while 
 her back was turned, to place the receipt on the desig- 
 nated rock, and cover it with a stone. 
 
 " That scenery ain't so interesting, is it, May? " he said, 
 though not without a constraint that might have passed 
 for gentleness. " Come, let's be getting back." A sen- 
 sitiveness about his spine kept him aware of unseen eyes, 
 perhaps of levelled rifles. 
 
 "Yes, father," said Maisie, turning. "You must be 
 
 hungry, and just to give me this walk too." 
 ***** 
 
 It was as though a torpid peon, no more to be noticed 
 than a lizard, were sunning himself on the cathedral 
 steps in the plaza. In Mexican towns there were always 
 torpid peons. One did not speak to them, unless to have 
 an errand done. If the peon spoke, it was subserviently, 
 with bared head. He could be dismissed with a gesture, 
 a centavo, or nothing at all. The seeming peon in tat- 
 tered mania so stamped the mountain wilderness with 
 the local colour of a Mexican town that Hacklette forgot 
 for the instant that he was alone with Maisie in the sierras. 
 Hacklette frowned, to let the native know that any begging 
 was useless. The man detached himself as a chameleon 
 from the gray rock where he was lying, and stood in 
 their path.
 
 288 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "He say you come 'long." The native spoke in apolo- 
 getic English, yet with naive pride in his English. 
 
 Hacklette did not feel the weight of the truth. He 
 shook his head curtly. He was not to be bothered. 
 But Maisie in a pang of yearning thought of Alice, 
 her precious darling, left behind with the smelter ladies. 
 
 The native involuntarily put a hand to his sombrero 
 brim. "Plees senor, come 'long." 
 
 And this was capture by Indians! Hacklette realized 
 it from his daughter's white face. 
 
 Other mania and leather-clad figures gathered near. 
 They, too, might have been peons, because of their meek 
 and insignificant garb, but their skin was clearer, more 
 copper than brown, and their black eyes were quick and 
 intelligent, and they were taller, and deep chested, of 
 seasoned, magnificent physique. Yet, try as he might, 
 Hacklette could see only peons. Because no brandished 
 weapon gave him thought for his life, he thought of his 
 outraged dignity. But the first protest on his lips died 
 there. It would not do to invoke Krag's name, and 
 Maisie there to hear. Then the dumfounding conviction 
 came that Krag had ordered this. 
 
 Maisie touched his arm. "We must go with them," 
 she said. "They are Yaquis. And father," she whis- 
 pered, her lips tense and white, "when you have the 
 chance, give me your pistol." 
 
 As if answering the despair in her thought, one of the 
 braves drew near, passed his hands over her indignant 
 father, and brought from his hip pocket the short bar- 
 relled revolver concealed there. Yet, instead of keeping 
 it, he handed the weapon to Maisie, and motioned to
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 289 
 
 the Yaqui who spoke a little English. The latter was a 
 pacifico who when a boy had taken service as house 
 mozo with an American family of Hermosillo, and since 
 had worked mostly under Gringo bosses. He was now 
 Coyote's runner and spy between the sierras and the 
 Great Stack. 
 
 "Tell her, Fesco," said the brave to the interpreter, 
 "she must come too, and we are sorry. Tell her the 
 wounded Yaqui she helped one time is Chief Tetibite 
 now, and to be not afraid, and with the pistola to kill the 
 first Yaqui who comes near her." And Fesco told her, 
 while Hacklette hung on his words, dreading to hear 
 the name of Kr g. 
 
 "An' manana" added Fesco of his own accord, "there 
 is one mula. The senorita ride him." Krag's mule 
 it was, left at the goatherd's hut. 
 
 At the goatherd's, too, when they came there, Maisie 
 found one of her own sex, a mother likewise, waiting 
 for them. More like a great bedraggled cat, with blink- 
 ing eyes whose pupils grew luminous and exultant as 
 she saw Maisie, was the woman crouching in wait there. 
 Maisie was so glad to see a woman at all that at first 
 she had no feeling of real peril in this woman's malignant 
 triumph. 
 
 The woman sat sluggishly in the hut's door-way, and 
 a two-year-old boy, naked, lean, of silken coppery skin, 
 played about her. She did not rise when she saw there 
 were two captives instead of one, but as they plodded 
 wearily nearer, the Yaquis behind, her dilating pupils 
 did the part of eager greeting. 
 
 "You the Americano' 's daughter?" she demanded in
 
 290 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 broken Spanish, avidly making sure first of Maisie's 
 identity. 
 
 Maisie, on the arm of her frowning, travel-stained 
 father, had stopped before the door to look at the child. 
 The sight was vaguely comforting. Where there were 
 little children, there must be heart strings attuned to 
 humanity, she thought. 
 
 Nodding to reply that she was indeed the Americano 's 
 daughter in other words, the pale-faced girl for whom 
 the Lone Oak twisted the nose of the daughter of a chief, 
 for whom Chief Tetibite on occasion was as stone against 
 his tribe nodding unsuspectingly to all this, Maisie 
 stooped and cupped a soft palm under the baby boy's 
 chin. The little fellow looked at her, wonder-eyed; 
 then imperiously gripped her sleeve, to be taken up. 
 
 "Thou, too, rat!" cried the mother, snatching the 
 child and bringing him a box on the head. Maisie re- 
 coiled before the malevolence of the look darted on 
 herself. 
 
 Hacklette listened uneasily as the Yaqui woman 
 flayed Maisie in her Spanish jargon. He understood 
 nothing, but when have two women ever met who did 
 not contrive speech? And Maisie had not forgotten 
 her Spanish. Hacklette listened for that which might 
 sound like Krag's name. One need was uppermost in 
 his flurried state, and this was to bring Maisie through 
 their adventure ignorant of Krag's existence. He gave 
 agonized attention to the Yaqui woman's strange rage, 
 yet made naught of the gurgling menace that rasped at 
 times into a curdling snarl. Then he began to wonder 
 at the rage itself, and to ask himself the why of it, for
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 291 
 
 surely the two had never met before. A denser intel- 
 ligence than Hacklette's would have known. The woman 
 was jealous. Hacklette guessed that there was a man. 
 What man? Inspiration flashed on him then. He 
 recalled his own scornful jibe at Krag. So it was true! 
 And this was the woman. Surely, surely! And the 
 child? 
 
 At the moment the child slipped from his mother's 
 fingers, and ran and clung again to Maisie's skirts, while 
 Maisie rested her hand on his head. This time it was 
 Hacklette, with a look of sickened horror, who tore the 
 child away, as though he were unclean and Maisie were 
 defiled by his touch. 
 
 "Father!" Maisie cried in protest. 
 
 Hacklette seized her arm. "Come away from it," 
 he muttered gruffly. "Come here, into the hut Now 
 then, what was that woman saying to you?" 
 
 "Poor thing," sighed Maisie, "it's only because she 
 can't bear the sight of an honest woman. Of course it 
 hurt her because her boy seemed to turn from her to me, 
 though I suppose this pretty dress pretty now, isn't 
 it? caught his eye, or my gold belt buckle, or some- 
 thing or other." 
 
 "What did she say? Who is the " 
 
 "Why, you saw her; she was raving, that's all. Even 
 a poor Indian girl may be crazed by shame. And she 
 did try to kill him, she said, but now he is getting well, 
 and of course that makes her, being an Indian, so much 
 more bitter. . . . Why father, you look 
 
 "Killed?" he repeated. " Almost killed? Who did 
 she almost kill?"
 
 292 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Why, the man," said Maisie a little impatiently. 
 "We don't know any Yaquis, so what difference can it 
 make?" 
 
 "No, oh, no no, of course not." 
 
 "Yet she told me his name, too." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "Yes, and I remember it because somehow it pictured 
 to me a desolate, tragic, storm-swept figure; the dim 
 outline of a man, of course. These Indians" she 
 sighed again. "How we should pity ourselves when 
 nature utters her poetry by the unconscious tongues of 
 her own children. The Lone Oak, father, that's the name. 
 The Lone Oak. Oh," she cried in wistful exasperation, 
 "you would be so much better company, father, if you 
 had the the heart to see things!" 
 
 Hacklette was seeing so well with his intellect that his 
 tongue was leaden. His relief was overpowering, for 
 he saw that the Lone Oak was Krag's Indian name, and 
 Mr. Hacklette blessed Indian poesy for that cloak. Also 
 he saw a by-path, though a loathsome one, out of the 
 slough. For if Maisie should learn that Krag lived, 
 then Krag, revealed to her as the Lone Oak, would be 
 worse than dead through the damning horror of a squaw's 
 claim. But, in quick, unfamiliar pity for his daughter, 
 Hacklette hoped to evade a recourse so disgusting. 
 
 "Listen to me," he commanded, "I want you to keep 
 away from her and from that brat of hers." 
 
 "But she is going with us, father," Maisie protested. 
 "They the old men of the tribe are going to hold some 
 kind of trial, and she says they will give the man the 
 Lone Oak a chance to right the wrong done her, or
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 293 
 
 or " Maisie shuddered, and her father, to his credit, 
 shuddered also. 
 
 But the Hacklette intellect was soon at work again. 
 Why, he asked himself, had not the Yaqui woman revealed 
 the identity of the Lone Oak to Maisie? Hacklette took 
 hope. The woman's purposes, like his own, required that 
 Krag and Maisie should not meet. Hacklette believed 
 he knew why. That hideous star chamber of old men 
 would be less likely to prevail on Krag to take the Yaqui 
 woman if Krag knew that Maisie were near. 
 
 Hacklette had found an ally, he ruefully thought, in 
 this squaw. But what vengeance, he asked himself 
 again and again, did the woman in her tigerish hate 
 intend for Maisie?
 
 CHAPTER TWELVE 
 
 "Artless Persuasion" 
 
 EACH, with his scrape under him, as a sheik of 
 Arabia would have his rug, the old men sat 
 in council, sombre and cross-legged, under the 
 hadow of the peaks. During three mornings and 
 two afternoons they had sat, but stopped always 
 to go to the oil pots, before the voracious young 
 braves should fish out the larger bits of goat flesh or wild 
 goose. No doubts afflicted them as to the guilt of the 
 Lone Oak. It was the punishment that taxed their 
 wisdom. For punishment must be tinctured with 
 reward. And to lash a man with a laurel wreath was 
 difficult. Solomon, Daniel, and all the sachems were 
 never so beset. 
 
 Treachery alone was simple. Gratitude was not quite 
 so simple, yet simple. But to take life for the one 
 and show the other, that was complex, because a dead 
 man lies cold to thanks, and the Yaquis knew nothing 
 of monuments and statuary. 
 
 Accordingly the old men would not cut off the soles of 
 Krag's feet, and gouge out his eyes, and pad his hands 
 and knees in leather, and leave him thus in the desert, 
 an untethered burro near him, laden with tortillas and a 
 filled water jar, and a tinkling bell around its neck. 
 
 294
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 295 
 
 They would not, because when the victim drags himself 
 near the tinkling bell, the beast edges off to crop tumble- 
 weeds elsewhere, and when the beast dies, the tinkling 
 of the bell dies also, even though the victim still lives to 
 listen for it. Yet that was good for simple treachery. 
 
 Nor would the old men give Krag the Veta Negru 
 for saving the tribe, because that would enrich him who 
 had sought peace with their foes to possess the stolen 
 mine. Yet that was none too good in simple gratitude. 
 
 Then came great Cajemi's daughter of the serpent 
 tongue. She came, her full breast heaving from the 
 cruel climb up the mountain, her arms trembling under 
 the weight of her child. She had come painfully, partly by 
 night as well as day, while the two white captives behind her 
 slept. Her guaraches, or cowhide sandals, were rotting 
 from her feet, as wandering by stealth and consuming 
 hate had worked their ravages on her. But she had 
 bathed in the pool of a cascade, and she had washed 
 her poor, scarlet-striped petticoats and white chemise, 
 and her black hair, streaming and wind dried, hung 
 luxuriantly over her shoulders. Passion's greed, too, 
 was reawakening in the smouldering jet of her eyes, so 
 that somewhat of the old opulence of her sleek, barbaric 
 beauty was come back on her. She had dipped the 
 child as well in the cold, blue waters of the pool, and 
 when she set him down in the commons of the village, 
 his soft, satin skin gave back a sunbeam slanting off the 
 peak in the living tints of flame playing on burnished 
 copper. 
 
 She stood blinking for a time over the circle of shaggy 
 gray heads. She looked first for the Lone Oak, a quick-
 
 296 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 ening in her sleepy eyes, a tinge of rust under the bright, 
 tawny skin. The Lone Oak was not before the council. 
 She saw him nowhere in the village out of doors, certainly 
 not among the women squatted round the steaming pots, 
 nor among the idling warriors or playing children. Her 
 half-closed eyes rested on his hut, where Chagre sat in 
 the door- way. She had a cat-like curiosity to know how 
 deeply her claws had sunk. The Oak, then, for all his 
 great, silent strength, lay prostrate. 
 
 The old men were aware that she was there. They 
 hoped she brought that which might help them in their 
 quandary, but they gave her no heed until she 
 spoke. When she did, it was with a virago's scorn. 
 Why were they so long? Was it more proof they 
 wanted? 
 
 The elder of San Marcial shook his head. This elder 
 and all his village had been driven long since from their 
 Rio Matape homes by the Mexicans. No, they needed 
 no more proof, said the elder with chiding gravity. The 
 Lone Oak had told them all, and enough was as Dolores 
 had charged against him. At points there was conflict, 
 yes, but the Lone Oak would not name the only one who 
 might say his words were true. 
 
 This was Chief Tetibite that Krag would not name, 
 for Krag understood that the chief himself had much to 
 answer for, when he should return from his supposedly 
 traitorous pow-wow with the Mexicans. Krag would 
 not imperil further his friend and accomplice. Yet 
 he had told them that the mine was indeed the Veto, 
 Negra. He told them how he had found it, by meddling 
 where meddling was sacrilege, by meddling in the
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 297 
 
 secrets of treasure which the tribe had guarded as its 
 life and salvation from the days of the Spaniard. 
 
 "And he told you," asked Dolores," that he stole " 
 
 "Of the mine's silver, of the Yaqui war funds?" 
 The elder shrugged his shoulders, for did they need to 
 hear that from the Lone Oak, when forty warriors had 
 carried the sacked ore for him? 
 
 "But how much?" persisted Dolores in her gurgling 
 whine. "He told you how much he stole? Hunk, 
 look!" She flung Maisie's receipt, like a bone, into the 
 circle. "See on the paper, the money that is written 
 there." 
 
 An elder, priest educated, told off the numerals, one 
 by one: a 2, a 3, and four naughts. He told them off 
 one by one because he could not formulate the sum 
 they stood for. That was beyond arithmetic. But 
 they pondered it ruefully, like decrepit old men robbed of 
 a precious hoard. They could, at least, think in terms 
 of things that cost untold sums, of belching cannon to 
 kill one hundred Mexicans at a loading, of impregnable 
 fortresses cresting their mountain heights, of uniformed 
 ranks and epaulettes. These the Lone Oak had stolen. 
 
 "'Twas paid to the woman that was his wife," said 
 Dolores, her voice purring voluptuously. "Ay, there 
 is her name. Ask Fesco when he comes. Ask the 
 woman herself, and her father who is the Americano, 
 for they also are coming. Ask yourselves, if she does not 
 keep the money for the Lone Oak until he goes back to 
 her. Ask yourselves, and you will say that the Lone Oak 
 waits among us only until the Veta Negra is his own by 
 the peace which he sends Tetibite to beg of the Mexicans.
 
 298 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 Ask yourselves, for you need too much of woman's help, 
 my simple fathers. Or if I must, I will tell you this: 
 hasten your work on the Lone Oak, before our splendid 
 chief brings a Mexican army to Chihuitl. Oo-ee, you 
 do not know Tetibite has gone to the capital! Ay, it is 
 true. He went from Cocorito to Mexico City. As guest 
 or prisoner, no matter; either is the tribe's shame. O my 
 fathers, have done, then, have done with the one traitor 
 of the two in your hands, while your hands are free!" 
 
 They listened because they must. They were saddened 
 because she talked at all, and they were saddened because 
 she talked what seemed to them truth. When she ceased, 
 they seemed like gray beards interrupted in learned con- 
 verse by a child. They took up again the thread of their 
 deliberations, unmindful that she had spun a new thread 
 into the web. 
 
 The old, muddied eyes of the elder of San Marcial 
 peered gropingly around the circle. "Let the Lone Oak 
 be brought," he said. They should wait; they should 
 hear the Lone Oak once more. The elder of the Mesquite 
 Forest, the oldest, most weazend there, and by that token 
 the patriarch of the council board, nodded his head. 
 The elder of Chihuitl burned his finger and thumb on his 
 cigarette, and required a fresh one from the ragged som- 
 brero of the aged man on his left. Of another he asked, 
 with a grunt and a stately manner, a light; and mean- 
 time the Lone Oak was brought before them. 
 
 Krag could walk, though painfully, and stout Chagre 
 kept at his elbow. Two warrior nurses bore the empty 
 litter, and set it across two bundles of fagots within the 
 council circle. The wounded man was clothed in khaki
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 299 
 
 and linen. He was coatless, and as white as his shirt 
 was the superb neck rising from the open collar. 
 The face in its clean, squared outline was bloodless. 
 The once furrowed brow was like marble, and as 
 smooth as marble. No hint of the old glint of steel 
 was left in the piercing eyes. That piercing quality 
 of them was gone too. The gray was the soft gray of 
 kindliness, and yet there was a benign austerity, a look 
 of pain and rebuke, in the eyes. The white man did 
 not wish these old children, of whom he was fond, to do 
 aught to make them question their wisdom afterward. 
 One sort of remorse, which was that of ingratitude, 
 would hurt them, and he did not want them hurt. As he 
 stepped into their circle, and sat upon the litter, a certain 
 hopefulness that they would find their right minds 
 brightened in his friendly survey of them. 
 
 Dolores stirred restively where she stood outside the 
 circle. He felt her eyes on him like a waiting snake's. 
 It had all been unreasoning jealousy for her child, he 
 told himself, and one pities the blind. He met her look, 
 and smiled. But murderous waywardness must be 
 restrained; she read that clearly in his smile. 
 
 Krag's hope for their right minds grew when he saw 
 that the word was with the elder of San Marcial. Krag 
 had brought him through the small-pox, and that mottled 
 and pitted Solon from the Matape made gratitude a 
 shrine for Quixotic worship. 
 
 "The Americano," said he, "the father of the woman 
 who was your wife, is captured." Krag started. In- 
 stantly the kind eyes were shot with anger. "They 
 bring him here," said the elder.
 
 300 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Then," said Krag, in a voice weakened and hollow, 
 "you can free him the quicker." 
 
 "They bring him here," repeated the elder, "and I 
 say now to the council, let him stand in the Lone Oak's 
 place. He is as guilty as the Lone Oak, but to that man 
 we owe nothing." 
 
 "What you owe the Lone Oak, then," Krag interposed, 
 quick to humour them on that turn, "pay what you 
 owe the Lone Oak by saving his honour with the Ameri- 
 cano. Send the man safely back, and you owe the Lone 
 Oak nothing." 
 
 The old man of San Marcial had crinkled his forehead 
 terribly to silence the fateful words, but they were seized 
 on already by his brethren of the council. Even in this 
 quandary the Lone Oak had calmly pointed the way out. 
 In a breath he had showed them how to be quit of the 
 debt to himself, and relieved the tangle of all vexation. 
 They pledged themselves to the Americano's safety, 
 whereupon the case became one of simple treachery, 
 and susceptible of dosing with precedent. 
 
 Chagre put his brown, thick-fingered hands on the 
 shoulders of the condemned, and forced him, with the 
 slow gentleness of iron strength, to his back on the litter. 
 Something never thought of before, yet recognized 
 as one recognizes one's old hat, caught familiarly 
 in Krag's mind: the touch was an executioner's. 
 Chagre's Indian face was an Indian's. Deep- 
 seamed flesh overspread jutting knobs of skull; black 
 beads of eyes glowed in bony sockets; teeth vented a 
 hissing rage. 
 
 "Do it, Chagre," Krag spoke to him reproachfully,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 301 
 
 "but do it without anger against me." He supposed 
 that they would begin with his eyes. 
 
 The Indian head over him blackened at the words, and 
 the palm of Chagre's hand, horned from the machete's 
 grip, closed over his forehead. 
 
 "And Cajemi's daughter?" It was a wheedling voice, 
 reminding him of clotted cream. 
 
 Dolores had stolen into the circle, and was looking 
 down on him. Her body was rigid in devouring intensity. 
 
 "What of Cajemi's daughter, my fathers?" 
 
 She gazed down on the Lone Oak as one already dead. 
 This her ferocity had demanded, because of her child 
 robbed of a supposed birthright. But that passion was 
 sated now in anticipation, and another craved gratifica- 
 tion. The whelp of the tigress was weaned. With 
 the cooling of the animal maternal instinct, old fires were 
 kindling anew. She saw again the man who had taken 
 her nose between his fingers. Coming was the woman, 
 for whom he had done that thing. Where, then, would 
 be the Indian girl's triumph, if she was not to flaunt the 
 man before that other woman as the Indian girl's own? 
 
 "I have told you, my fathers, of the shame that drove 
 your old chief's daughter from her tribe," she moaned, 
 cunningly letting sobs bear her plaint. "I have told 
 you what brings her back. Say now, must she go again, 
 hiding her face, because her own people have not the 
 pity to right her wrong? This man 
 
 The aged sagamore of the Mesquite Forest stopped her, 
 "Enough, Dolores," he said, his shrewd old eyes mocking 
 her. "We understand that you want the man." 
 
 The deep rose flamed red beneath her skin, but before
 
 302 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 she could retort the elder of San Marcial took the word, 
 speaking coaxingly. He saw in her plea one other chance 
 to save Krag from the extreme conclusion of their logic. 
 What she said offered a premise for a different logic, 
 and he worked it out subtly. While he spoke, he kept 
 both court and condemned in mind, for his task was to 
 win both over. 
 
 It began, he reminded them, when the pains of dying 
 had so blurred old Cajemi's craft that he babbled secrets 
 to a woman. Folly thrived, as Cajemi might have known, 
 for then came Dolores hawking her wares, hallooing that 
 she would give the secrets with herself, and who would 
 have her? The Lone Oak, she comes now and wails. 
 And because the tribe wanted the Lone Oak to take a 
 wife among them, and so turn a tribesman, she thought 
 to be the tribe's lure and true daughter in this, and gave 
 ear to the white man's promises. Here the crow's feet 
 about the eyes of the forest philosopher grew alive, and 
 his mouth twitched, so that he shaded his face behind 
 his hand. He of San Marcial proceeded gravely. At 
 last, he said, she gave faith to the promises of the Lone 
 Oak, and for the tribe's sake, she yielded. But having 
 got from her one precious tribal secret, which was the Veta 
 Negra, the Lone Oak was content to forego the others 
 rather than make good his word to the girl. 
 
 The elder added then what evidence there was to sus- 
 tain the case. Dolores had fled, but who should know 
 whither she had gone if not the Lone Oak? Who would 
 go to her, perhaps hoping for other secrets, if not he? 
 And that he did go, once at least, was certain, when the 
 child was near to death.
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 303 
 
 Krag lay quietly, a little frown playing between his 
 eyes. He had heard it all already, but not quite all that 
 was to come. In this that was to come the mercy- 
 courting lawgiver of San Marcial sought the harmo- 
 nizing efficacy of his Indian's logic. The Lone Oak, 
 he said, was giving his life to keep faith with a white man. 
 Let him, then, hold his honour as high for a poor Yaqui 
 woman. Let him do that, and the council would trust 
 him thereafter as true to his word in all things. They 
 would know him for a tribesman, and know their secret 
 in fit hands. Else, scorning a chieftain's daughter, the 
 Lone Oak must find in that pilfered secret his fate. Let 
 the Lone Oak then speak. 
 
 Krag did not rise from where he lay on the litter. He 
 did not glance toward that door of life opened to him. He 
 had told them already that he owed Dolores nothing. 
 He could only bid them again to pause. They were 
 headstrong, and he would shield them from ugly regret. 
 
 He spoke, looking up at the sky, and they heard him. 
 His voice sounded a long way off, or was a disembodied 
 voice, the hollow accents born oracle-like in mid-air. 
 
 The council was roused to stubbornness. The hearts 
 of the old men beat as the heart of the tribe, and each, 
 unknown to its neighbour, began to palpitate with mis- 
 givings. The old men saw how they had come to 
 depend on the white man, and fear left them cold as 
 they beheld themselves and their tribe, unschooled in 
 white men's craft, bereft of this white man, their pro- 
 tector. They glanced mutely at one another as though 
 they had heard an oracle of doom. 
 
 Yet, it seemed, the white man's craft was turned against
 
 304 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 them. No, surely, they must know his loyalty better 
 before they could let him live. Such guarantee, they 
 believed in their stress and blind groping, would issue 
 from his adoption into the tribe by marriage. A woman's 
 grievance served as a pretext of state, and on it they 
 doggedly fastened their hopes. 
 
 The elder of Chihuitl, in his youth a scout and in his 
 age full of cunning, voiced with smooth tongue their 
 common thought. His brother from the Rio Matape, 
 he said, had spoken words as clear as the spring waters 
 of justice, and he for one would no believe that the Lone 
 Oak could spurn the pleasant draught. For all that 
 the Lone Oak had done for the tribe, they must give him 
 yet a chance. They must even plead with him. They 
 owed him and the old man bent his brows hideously 
 round the circle the one last plea in their power to 
 make. 
 
 Krag's eyes, as he heard, widened on the heavens above. 
 "Tell them, Chagre, to kill me at once. I'm afraid I 
 cannot bear " 
 
 A hand fell wrathfully over his mouth. "Do as they 
 say, do as they say!" Chagre snarled. 
 
 Krag impatiently shook his head. 
 
 "He will not?" The elder of Chihuitl swept the circle 
 with a glance, and resignedly shrugged his shoulders. 
 "Then " he said, and stopped. His pause was the 
 council's decision. 
 
 The elder of the Mesquite Forest, holding up a finger for 
 the grunt and nod of assent of the others, then sharply 
 clapped his hands, and gestured to the first three young 
 braves who looked his way.
 
 305 
 
 Withered grandams stood by, scolding raucously, while 
 men robbed the fires under the pots. Into earthen 
 jars they scooped up the hottest coals. Men, when their 
 lordly affairs demanded, ever trod roughshod on woman's 
 domestic convenience. The coals were heaped on the 
 ground within the council circle, near the litter where 
 Krag lay. Warriors, women, and children, noticing 
 these preparations, gave over other pursuits to watch. 
 They fringed the circle of old men, expectant and enter- 
 tained. Such occasions were of particular interest to 
 the children, much as is hog-killing time on the farm 
 to other children. 
 
 Chagre, being so ordered, thrust his machete into the 
 coals with its point under the glowing heap. On his 
 knees, his high cheek-bones reddening like coals them- 
 selves, he blew into the mass. The women and children 
 stared while the steel slowly took another hue, the hue 
 slowly deepening and spreading toward the handle. If 
 their eyes lifted, they lifted to the still form in khaki 
 and white linen on its couch of boughs. 
 
 "See' Chagre's face, how angry black it is," said a 
 warrior, laughing. "But fire does make a machete soft, 
 and it is Chagre's machete, poor boy." 
 
 Gripped by Chagre's knotted fist, the blade was slip- 
 ping from the coals when there came a strange inter- 
 ruption that disappointed eager expectancy and stirred 
 the elders to indignation . It was Dolores, brushing her 
 way into the circle, catching up Chagre's serape from the 
 ground, and hurriedly spreading it over Krag, so that 
 he was covered from head to foot. 
 
 But before the elders could rebuke her, she ran and
 
 306 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 stood before the patriarch of the Mes quite Forest, since 
 he was the head man of the council, and pointed back 
 along the lane between the thatched huts to where 
 the trail entered the village. 
 
 "There," she whispered excitedly, "there, the captives! 
 The Americano and his daughter, they are coming. 
 They are here, but" she turned swiftly, and pointed 
 to Krag "he must not see her. He must not see the 
 woman who was his wife. He must not know that she 
 is near. And she she must not look on his face or hear 
 his voice." 
 
 "This wench is crazy," exclaimed the village elder. 
 
 "Don't you understand?" she urged. "Why, why," 
 she laughed wildly, "why, my fathers, do you not know 
 that Tetibite lied to the Lone Oak? Lied yes, Tetibite 
 telling him that the woman was married to another 
 man. It was a lie, because Tetibite could not bear to 
 see the love of the Lone Oak go even to a woman. Yet, 
 though he believes the woman lost to him, the Lone Oak 
 welcomes the torture rather than take another woman. 
 Now do you know that he must not learn that she is 
 near? Once he sees her " 
 
 " he will have no ears for our prayer. Is that it, 
 
 Dolores?" 
 
 "Yes, and no flesh to feel, no bones to break, no blood 
 to oh, dig his grave and have done, unless " 
 
 The patriarch waved his hand. "Go, Dolores," he 
 said, "and see to it. Take care that she does not come 
 near."
 
 CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
 
 Treasure Trove 
 
 OH," EXCLAIMED Maisie breathlessly, swaying 
 from the climb up the precipitous trail, " isn't 
 it beautiful up here ! See, father, you come 
 on it so suddenly, like discovering a cool grotto among 
 the rocks, only," she added, gazing up at the peaks, 
 "each rock is a mountain. Look, those clustering huts. 
 Why, we're in an Indian village." 
 
 "Call Fesco, won't you?" snapped her father. He 
 rode the mule. Maisie trudged behind him on foot. 
 "Call him, for I'm thirsty, and the lazy brute's lagging 
 behind again with the water bottle. Scenery?" he 
 complained. "May, I don't seem to be able to make 
 you understand what a damnable outrage this is to me." 
 
 If he were able, she thought, all cheer might well take 
 wing into gloom. He had said that a thousand times, 
 at least, until even a filial, gentle soul like Maisie vaguely 
 suspected that his saying it was the worst outrage to 
 bear, especially when she was sinking in weariness, when 
 she could almost hear her baby Alice asking for her, 
 when she wanted so badly just to give over and cry. 
 To keep trying to be buoyant and comforting was very 
 hard, and it occurred to her that her father might have 
 made it easier for her. 
 
 807
 
 308 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "I may yet, father. Don't lose hope of me." She 
 smiled up at him, but a little bit quizzically, as she quick- 
 ened her steps and steadied her body by a hand on his 
 stirrup. She had insisted on sharing the mule with him 
 and, as though to have an end of her clamour, he had 
 crossly accepted. 
 
 Dolores came running to them, and spoke a few words 
 with the leader of their captors, and they were taken to 
 one of the huts of the village. Like most Yaqui huts, 
 it was swept clean, as though a comb had passed over the 
 earth floor, and there was a low stone corral in front for 
 the household goats and pigs. 
 
 "Why, they're having a fiesta," exclaimed Maisie, 
 taking a survey from the door-way. " You know father, 
 it's a sort of country fair, only a Yaqui fiesta must be 
 different and especially interesting. Look, I wonder if 
 they're having games over there. See them all crowded 
 round in a ring. What's going on inside? Oh father, 
 let s 
 
 Hacklette caught her wrist. He exchanged a look with 
 Dolores. "You stay here. They don't want you in- 
 truding." 
 
 "But don't you see, father through that gap 
 pshaw, now it's closed again. Weren't they funny, 
 though, all those old men squatted round on the ground 
 as solemn as a a spook seance? Look, there's another 
 gap! Why, they've got a little fire, and a man seems to 
 be stirring it. Now he's holding the poker or what- 
 ever it is up like a torch . . . Oh dear, they're 
 packed close again, and I " 
 
 Hacklette's face was putty white. "Never mind,"
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 309 
 
 he cut her short. "It's none of your business. You go 
 inside. I suppose they're only trying that fellow - 
 that the one Dolores said fooled her." 
 
 "Oh!" she looked pityingly at Dolores "I do 
 hope he will listen to reason. She looks so woe-begone, 
 as forsaken and as as a gutter cat. Do they need 
 the fire to keep warm? . . . Father, I can see the man 
 now she stabbed him, she said. That must be why 
 he's lying on a cot, because he's wounded, poor, horrid 
 creature. And that man who had the poker, he's lean- 
 ing over him, asking him, I suppose, ques 
 
 "Maisiel" In the unreasoning anger of horror, her 
 father caught her and pushed her into the hut. 
 But being himself drawn irresistibly, he ran stumbling, 
 panting, toward that living arena. Dolores remained 
 behind, to look on the white woman's face when the 
 triumphant time should come that she awaited. 
 
 Krag, as he lay with shirt cut away from his breast, 
 saw in vivid detail flashing pictures that are common- 
 place: a little boy on a hearth rug with building blocks 
 scattered round; a boarding-house table some one, 
 a man with eyeglasses, asked for the bread; a porter 
 making up a berth; a clerk with polka-dotted tie meas- 
 uring off two yards of ... Abruptly a noose, a 
 hundred, his own muscles, tightened round his body, 
 and his body strained till it lifted, answering a magic 
 touch and forked tongues of pain. 
 
 "Fire meets flesh!" a voice intoned over him. 
 
 A shrivelled hand, that of the aged forest elder in the 
 council circle, raised at the first syllable. 
 
 But now a dispute went up in the fringe outside
 
 310 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 the circle. "I saw the smoke first," cried a Yaqui 
 child. 
 
 "You did not. But I hear it. S-s-s, there, a sizzling. 
 
 "Of course," clamoured a third youngster, "but who 
 has the quickest nostril? Wait, who can smell . ' 
 
 The shrivelled hand of the patriarch fell, the touch 
 lifted, and the white, seared body relapsed to its couch. 
 A face, mottled and pitted, that of the elder of San 
 Marcial, bent over the tortured man, putting a question. 
 Krag's head rolled on its pallet, answering the question. 
 The elder straightened if reluctantly none might know 
 from his stoic countenance and his voice intoned: 
 
 "But the spirit is rock" 
 
 Chagre thrust his machete back into the coals, drew 
 it out, and went back to the litter, again lifting an edge 
 of the serape and baring a surface of white gleaming 
 flesh. It was then that Hacklette was crazed. A wildly 
 agitated intrusion of tailored commonplace, he burst 
 on the scene as from bedlam just escaped. Hands 
 clutched for him vainly as he hurtled through the fringe 
 of villagers. The squatted sachem in his path toppled 
 forward, and he broke the rim of the council circle, reel- 
 ing. He flung himself between the poised machete and 
 the tender white flesh. "I cain't stand it! I cain't! 
 I cain't! " He had a vision of Krag's face, of locked jaws, 
 of lips and blood-flecked foam, of purpled eyeballs. It 
 made his rage and indignation tenfold greater. He 
 shook his palsied fists over the face on the pallet. "Don't 
 you see I cain't stand it? I cain't! I cain't!" 
 
 Krag's set jaws relaxed, and the lower jaw dropped. 
 But at once the gaping mouth closed, and the lips curled,
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 311 
 
 in almost a smile. If a sneer, it was sublime. The lips 
 moved. "Don't worry. You're safe They'll take 
 you back, but they're busy now." 
 
 "No, it's this thisl" cried Hacklette. He pointed 
 in a frenzy to the bared flesh, discoloured by an angry ? 
 livid stripe. "Make 'em stop! You got to! I cain't 
 stand it. Do what they want. Make 'em stop. I 
 
 "Chagre oh, Chagre," Krag's lips moved faintly, 
 ' ' take him away . ' ' 
 
 Until now the elders had not interfered. Fesco the 
 interpreter had whispered to them that the Americano 
 would only try to bend the Lone Oak to their will. 
 Chagre seemed not to hear Krag feebly calling to him, 
 though he stood near with the machete ready. 
 
 Hacklette realized that they were going to be- 
 gin again, and frantically he tried to think out this 
 thing. He was aware of something fine, and beyond 
 his ken, in a man enduring this for constancy to 
 a woman; for a woman, moreover, whom he could hope 
 never to see again. But Hacklette's soul knew nothing 
 of homage. He preceived in it only his despair. Dolores 
 had lied. The man was now the proof of that. He 
 would never yield, and Hacklette felt his mind slipping 
 away. The craven faced the unspeakable horror of 
 going mad. He must save himself. He must stop 
 them. 
 
 Truculent Chagre, impatient seemingly to be back 
 at his work, elbowed Hacklette out of the way, so closely 
 indeed that Hacklette felt the heat of the machete blade 
 on his cheek. He uttered an incoherent cry, staggered 
 to the other side of the litter, and bent over Krag.
 
 312 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "You got to know," he muttered hoarsely, "y u gt 
 to ! You got to know that May Maisie that she 
 is here. Yes don't speak. There ain't time she's 
 right over yonder. Listen. Now you tell 'em she's 
 your wife. They'll kill you then, knowing that this 
 ain't no more use. They got to stop. I tell you 
 I cain't stand it." 
 
 The tortured man, tortured in what he just heard 
 as he alone could know, slowly shook his head. He could 
 not tell them that. They would call Maisie to ask if 
 it were true. Maisie would learn that he was still alive. 
 He shook his head. No! 
 
 Hacklette was infuriated. "You don't understand," 
 he cried. " She'd tell them it's true. Man, man 
 he wavered, but saw no other way "it is true! It is, 
 I tell you. She is she is still your wife." 
 
 Krag looked steadily into his face. "You are lying," 
 he said. "And why let her know I am here? Why 
 make her see me die? Chagre," he called, " go, tell the 
 council that its promise to save this the Americano 
 must be given to save the any one who came 
 with him. Go, Chagre. Tell them also to keep this 
 the Americano where he cannot trouble us. Go, 
 go." 
 
 The council's hope of the Americano, and its patience, 
 were gone. Two warriors came and dragged Hack- 
 lette back into the crowd. Krag heard his own 
 plea, or his last command, repeated by Chagre, and 
 heard their answer. They agreed, and in thankfulness 
 he closed his eyes to await the end. Of all that seemed 
 hardest to bear was the thought that she was not to look
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 313 
 
 on his dead face. He believed he would surely know, 
 and know comfort, if she did. 
 
 Will and tendons strained, and were braced against 
 the coming of the touch. He heard the faint spitting 
 hiss of the metal, and his jaws sank into their locked 
 embrace. But his eyes opened, wide and wondering. 
 They opened on two heads over him, each facing the 
 other, and two pairs of eyes, each on the other; eyes in 
 the mottled, pitted face of the elder of San Marcial, 
 incredulous, full of question, awed; and Chagre's eyes, 
 sullen, defiant, silently menacing the elder. As in a 
 trance, the elder's lips moved: 
 
 "Fire meets flesh!" 
 
 Krag lifted his head, staring. It was thrust roughly 
 back on the pallet. 
 
 "Chagre, Chagre," he moaned in tones of heart- 
 rending rebuke, "what are you doing?" 
 
 He gathered a deep breath, to cry out protest to the 
 council. A corner of the scrape was pressed down on 
 his face, smothering the cry. 
 
 A murmuring of disappointment rose among the Ya- 
 quis around the circle. They could not see, for Chagre was 
 doing his work under a lifted fold of the serape. They 
 had not looked for weakness from the Lone Oak. Yet 
 they could not mistake those sobs of agony. Perhaps he 
 wanted to yield, but was Chagre stifling his words 
 that he might prolong the ordeal? The murmuring grew 
 to anger. What added torment was Chagre inflicting, 
 that their Lone Oak, near death already from opening 
 wounds, should groan with pain? And it was this 
 unspeakable devil, Chagre, who had healed those wounds !
 
 314 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 It was this same Chagre, of distorted, grimacing visage, 
 of the horrible Death's head even now breaking into sweat, 
 for whom the Lone Oak was marked by a Mexican bullet 
 across the temple, when going back to look for him after 
 a skirmish. They remembered that the Lone Oak 
 never left a Yaqui for dead until he saw that he was 
 dead, and that day the Lone Oak had saved Chagre. 
 
 "Chagre, Chagre! You only make it worse, Chagre!" 
 They could hear that rebuke again, terrible as the an- 
 guish of the Crucified One whose lips were moistened with 
 vinegar. 
 
 Yet they could laugh at Hacklette, going mad. This 
 white man repaid them. The Yaquis round him made 
 merry. "Eh, Senor Americano, thy soul hath a weak 
 stomach!" They hoisted him up, so that he must see. 
 He turned his head, covered his eyes, but looked again, 
 enthralled by the hideous fascination. He mumbled 
 to himself, clutching at Reason. "It cain't be, it cain't 
 be! It's too outrageous. No, no, it cain't be!" His 
 eyes were becoming glassy. His words fell away to 
 noiseless mouthing. As though the crazed mind gath- 
 ered demoniac strength from terror, he burst into a shriek 
 "Maude!" 
 
 She heard. But nothing except intuition could have 
 made her know that the horrid screech was her father's 
 voice. She was inside the hut, unsuspecting, talking 
 to Dolores near the door. It came over her in an instant 
 that her father was being torn limb from limb. Dolores 
 would have stopped her, but before Dolores knew, she 
 was outside and running like a deer toward the Yaquis. 
 
 She caught glimpses of her father's face. It was a
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 315 
 
 spectral face above the tawny throng. He was wildly 
 gesticulating to her. She saw that he was not being 
 harmed, nor threatened, yet something terrible must 
 have happened, or was happening. Then, when she had 
 almost joined him, he seemed to wave her away, and 
 she half stopped, bewildered, not understanding. But 
 he waved his arm yet more frantically, and his lips 
 worked speechlessly. He was waving her past him 
 where? 
 
 The Yaquis understood before she did. The elder pre- 
 siding over the council saw her coming and sent a warrior 
 to hold her. Dolores was running to overtake her. But 
 the nearest Yaquis crowded round. They kept Dolores 
 from her. They kept the council's messenger from her. 
 Their murmuring centred here on something definite. 
 Their wrath became coherent. They would have swept 
 away the council itself and every grayhead there. Maisie 
 saw a path opening before her, a path to an open space 
 hedged round by squatting old men. In the open space 
 were two men leaning over a blanket-covered form on a 
 litter. She looked back at her father. His gesture was 
 frenzy itself; he waved her on. She knew only that her 
 father was going insane, and to humour him she must 
 do as he said. 
 
 Still looking back at him, to be certain that she was 
 doing as he wanted, and seeing him wildly nod his head, 
 she kept on, like one in sleep. Chagre stood aside, drop- 
 ping a machete, and hastily thrust his left hand in his 
 blouse. The other man, the elder of San Marcial, stepped 
 back. Still her father waved his hand. He must mean 
 the figure on the cot. She went and stood beside the
 
 316 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 cot. Mechanically she turned back a corner of the 
 serape a still, white face, rugged, serene; carved, 
 it seemed, in marble! 
 
 Men breathed while she looked, it seemed so long; 
 so long while the blood left her cheeks, and the pain 
 of joy and grief widened her eyes; and long, too, as she 
 sank to her knees, and laid her face against his face, and 
 her lips to his lips, and as she sobbed: "My darling . . . 
 My darling!" 
 
 He lay unconscious, and she in her unutterable tender- 
 ness was oblivious of all the world, and then it was that 
 Coyote the chief Tetibite rode into the village. 
 
 Straight among them he rode, this fierce and barbaric 
 war lord of the Yaquis. He was superbly mounted. 
 He was dazzling in charro splendour. Instead of 
 a Mexican army at his heels, he brought a ban- 
 ished people to their homes. They were the Yaqui 
 pacificos, the women, children, and feeble men who 
 had been captured by Mexicans and condemned to 
 Yucatan. Yet here they were, restored to their tribe 
 and kin. The village's amazement changed to rapture. 
 Sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, here a father, 
 there a mother^ flocked around the banished ones, ming- 
 ling shouts of rejoicing. 
 
 The young chief understood instantly the scene he 
 interrupted. He had been hearing news on his way 
 hither of charges against the Lone Oak, against himself, 
 of two white captives, of all the treacherous mischief 
 set on foot by the catamount Dolores. A glance at the 
 council circle, at the prostrate form on the litter, and 
 the sobbing woman, a few words from the warriors
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 317 
 
 crowded about his horse's head, these were enough. The 
 cold glitter lay deadly and still and viper-like in his 
 eyes. 
 
 "I am hungry," he cried in lordly insolence. "Let 
 these old men tend the pots and kettles. Hereafter 
 they who do the fighting will do the talking." He 
 swerved his horse, a vicious, fiery mustang, and scattered 
 the elders headlong before the dancing hoofs. Much of 
 hoary dignity sulked in the huts the rest of that day. 
 
 Riding thus into the council circle, the war lord of the 
 Yaquis leaped to the ground beside the litter and its 
 burden, and raised his hand, and the tribe gathered 
 round him. He bared his white teeth as he spoke, 
 and the glittering viper eyes held every Yaqui there. 
 
 He had gone to the enemy's capital city, he said, 
 neither as prisoner nor guest. As victor he had gone. 
 To his enemy's teeth he had said what the Yaquis must 
 have. He had spoken as the Lone Oak had counselled 
 him to speak. To the president in his palace he had 
 spoken. Let the tribe say, then, if it would have, or 
 would not have, the peace he brought. He brought 
 them their valley, their sierra, their homes. He brought 
 them farms, grazing lands, metal-bearing ledges, hunting 
 grounds. He brought them all they fought for, and more. 
 If they wanted that for which they fought, let them take 
 it. If their enemy did not keep faith, they could always 
 fight again. But as sign of the Mexican's faith, he 
 brought the banished kinsmen. While whips cracked 
 over them, while they were going into the slave-ships, 
 the president's word came and changed all that. But if 
 the tribe wanted nothing of peace, then must farewells
 
 318 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 be said, for each banished one had pledged his honour 
 to return if there were no peace. 
 
 The whining of old men? He answered the whining of 
 old men as chief. He answered with a beaten foe. He 
 answered with the fruit of victory. He answered with 
 what, since the first Spaniard, other chiefs had fought 
 for and had not won. He, Tetibite, was not greater 
 than those great chieftains before him. The tribe 
 he led was less than the tribe they had led. Yet he 
 had won! But why had he won? He laid his hand on 
 the body of the unconscious, wounded, tortured man. 
 Like that, he said, Yaquis thanked him who showed 
 them how to win. 
 
 His hand raised. He would not hear murmuring 
 protest. He went on. There was lamentation because 
 of a mine, he had heard. But the mine was the Lone 
 Oak's own. The mine was the Lone Oak's because the 
 Lone Oak had found it. The mine had been lost to the 
 tribe, but the Lone Oak found it again. The Lone Oak 
 gave the mine to the saving of the tribe, and they 
 grudged him a few sacks of the ore for his wife and child 
 who had been robbed. But the Lone Oak meant to 
 give the mine to the tribe when peace should come. 
 He meant to care for it for them so that the white men 
 of the Great Stack would not cheat them; and thus he 
 meant to dwell among them as their physician always. 
 
 "And the Lone Oak told me," said the chief, "to go 
 to the books of the Mexicans, when I might do so be- 
 cause of the new peace, and take the papers he gave me, 
 and ask the Mexicans to write down the mine in their 
 books in the name of the Tribe of the Yaquis, so I '
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 319 
 
 "No, no, rose an old, strident voice from the throng, 
 "the mine is the Lone Oak's own. Let it then be in 
 his name." 
 
 The tribe was a troubled sea, and looking over his 
 people whence the voice came, the chief saw that the 
 speaker was the elder of Chihuitl. His words might have 
 been a signal, for they were echoed turbulently.' 
 
 Coyote's tongue, the bright red tip of Ms tongue, 
 darted out and touched his coppery lips. "Thou withered 
 fool "he pointed a lean finger at the elder "keep 
 to thy pots and kettles." Then they knew that the 
 Veto, Negra was written already in the Lone Oak's name, 
 in his name of an American of the North, and that the 
 chief had had it written so. 
 
 The form on the litter lay as the dead. The 
 woman kneeling there, covering the still face with 
 her own, gave no heed to those around her, even 
 when her father came and lifted her to her feet and 
 led her away, her face buried in her hands against 
 his shoulder. Until now the Yaqui chief had kept from 
 him, by a savage's will, the thought of his friend lying 
 there dead. The Indian in him shunned the recog- 
 nition of that thing. He feared to give it voice, fearing 
 his voice must quaver. But when he saw the 
 futile relenting about him, a tide of anger swept grief 
 with it. 
 
 "What good now, what good now," he cried, "when 
 ye have killed him?" 
 
 Chagre, his left hand in his blouse as though clasping 
 a weapon, confronted the chief. "You do not know he 
 is dead," he said.
 
 320 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 
 
 "Chagre!" The chief raised his hand to strike. 
 "But thou knowest. Thou " 
 
 Sullen voices grumbled in the throng. "It was 
 Chagre," they muttered, "Chagre, who held the 
 machete! Chagre, who killed him!" They clamoured 
 for Chagre's blood, all except the elder of San Mar- 
 cial, who only stood and gazed, inscrutably, at the im- 
 perilled Chagre. 
 
 "You do not know that he is dead," Chagre repeated, 
 his beads of eyes deep and evil in their sockets. 
 
 They would have struck him down had not the 
 accents of murder beat upon the walls of the tomb. Krag's 
 eyes opened. He awakened from that swoon-like death. 
 "Chagre" had been the moan on his lips as he sank under 
 the waters. "Chagre" was the questioning plaint when 
 he rose again. Above him he saw Chagre's face, and a 
 clenched fist raised over it for the first blow. 
 
 Krag's arm lifted waveringly from his side. Lines 
 of pain between his eyes showed the force of will that was 
 needed. This time no rough hand thrust him back, 
 and his own hand fell on Chagre's left wrist and drew 
 Chagre's left hand from his blouse. The chief looked. 
 Those nearest looked. The eyes of all who might see 
 were fixed on Chagre's left hand. The fingers of that 
 hand were seared to the bone, where hot steel had lain 
 across them. 
 
 A cold light grew in the black pupils of Coyote's eyes. 
 It was jealousy, like that which had inspired his lie to 
 Krag. This jealousy was murderous, because another 
 than himself was given the chance to do for the Lone 
 Oak what Chagre had done. He heard the murmuring
 
 TRANSFORMATION OF KRAG 321 
 
 that exalted Chagre. Chagre's act was a Yaqui act, 
 and they exalted that. Their chief would be first in that. 
 
 "Be proud, ay, be proud, Chagre," said the chief, 
 "and I call thee brother, but keep thyself far from me." 
 
 Some one led to Coyote a child, a naked, satin-skinned, 
 two-year-old willow of manhood. It was the Americano, 
 the man Hacklette, who led the child. The Yaqui chief 
 stooped until he looked into a pair of little, round, bright, 
 lustrous black eyes. Every grandam there, and even the 
 men, were caught by the same thought; their chief was 
 gazing on himself. The resemblance had caught 
 Hacklette already. There was no mistaking those eyes, 
 the lean skull, the straight body a splinter off the same 
 arrow the timber wolf's own cub. There was no mis- 
 taking Coyote's salutation: "Hail, the little chief!" 
 No mistaking the way he gathered the warm little body 
 of copper to him ! 
 
 Dolores, all fierceness and snarls and claws, would 
 have snatched the child away, but Coyote rose and 
 caught both her w.ists under the fingers of one hand. 
 He laughed gleefully, wickedly. 
 
 "My mountain cat," he cried, bending her to him, 
 while high on his shoulder he poised the boy. "My 
 mountain cat, mine to tame! And I was afraid," he 
 laughed, "of growing sluggish in the fat days of peace!" 
 
 Maisie saw, but gave it no heed. Krag slept, or had 
 swooned again, and she had crept again to his pillow. 
 Suddenly an awed, whispered cry thrilled her. 
 
 "The angels ... No, Maisie!" 
 
 Jim's eyes were open.
 
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