Larkin when he recalled this odd
tale. He had forgotten the particulars, but he said you would be able
to supply them. The pool was supposed to be located somewhere around
here, wasn't it?"

"Anywhere within a radius of two hundred miles." His host drained his
glass and settled back comfortably. "I judge it about that, for I've
been pretty much over this whole country and it's only around these
parts that you hear of the Lost Souls' Pool. I got the tale from a
hunchbacked half-breed and he got it from his grandmother.

"It seems that away back in the times when the Spaniards were scrapping
with the Indians for a foothold, an old grandee named Del Reyes had
staked out a claim hereabout. Mighty poor judgment he showed, too, for
he wouldn't have known what to do with oil if he'd found it in those
days and by all accounts the land couldn't have been much good for
anything else; swampy and low-lying, without even timber. He had a
beautiful daughter, Dolores, of course. Funny how that gal Dolores
manages to get herself mixed up in every yarn below the border, ain't
it? There was a kid brother, Jose, too, but he don't figure much.

"Dolores must have been some Jane for all the male population, what
there was of it, went plumb loco about her, among 'em a young Spanish
explorer and the son of the chief of the tribe, whose claims Del Reyes
and the rest had jumped. Dolores favored the explorer, but the young
chief had seen her first, and being a simple-hearted child of nature,
he decided that the way to get what he wanted was to go right out after
it.

"Accordingly, he showed up unexpected at the Del Reyes hacienda with
his outfit one moonlight night and laid hands on the gal. Dolores was
packing a knife, though, and she let him have it, full to the hilt.
His outfit vamoosed, taking the corpse with them, and the settlement
got ready for trouble.

"Nothing happened, howsomever, until the night of the fiesta for
Dolores' marriage to the explorer. Then the old chief dropped in,
informal like, and wiped out the whole wedding party. He macheted all
but the bride, throwing the bodies into a shallow pool on the claim.
Her he roped up, tied heavy weights to and stood up in the pool; the
water came about to her shoulders. Then he held the knife before her
eyes, the knife she'd stuck his son with, and waited for the weights to
drag her down. I reckon he waited some time, for Dolores must have
been a right-strong young