The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

the den of thieves. Kneeling behind this barricade they were sure not to be surrounded, had enough elbow play, and could await the issue complacently enough. The banditti had barked their shins against the table, and recoiled on being faced by the two men, shielded from the knee to the chin, with flashing eyes between four revolver muzzles. They consulted in an undertone for a few instants. "They see the tables are turned indeed!" observed Mr. Gladsden. Meanwhile the cause of this disturbance, the tall varlet, had scrambled to his feet, clinging to the doorpost; he was bruised all along his body by the shock, and he came in among his fellows limping, foaming with pain and rage, and aching for revenge. "You are pretty mates o' mine to shrink!" he sneered, "Afeard of a couple of Yankees!" "Who's afeard?" retorted the precious crew, pushing one another. "It looks so," went on he, with a grin of pain. "You are ten to two, and you plot and plan together when I, at least, pitched into them alone. If this be not fear it is an extreme prudence, which is its sister. Are you not bound to avenge La Gallina's death?" "Yes, we are bound to avenge a comrade's death; but just count the shots in those pepperboxes. It is not the question of our getting killed, but of smashing those, our enemies. We're in a lump here, in the open, and they are covered. I conjecture our order of battle is very defective." "Right he is," chorused the fellows of this orator. "You are a flock of prairie hens! Haven't you firearms as well?" "You won't see that they have those cursed repeating rifles also at their backs! Besides, these Yanks have longer heads than us. Ah, if the Captain were here! He knows all the tricks of the norteamericanos, and can match their cards at any game." "That's very true; but _El Manco_ (the Maimed) is not at hand. He is not due yet. We must do our own work--so, have at them with what heart ye may!" "Oh, we're choking with our hearts, Valentacho; but we don't care to be shot down like buffalo." "Well, if it comes to that--if I must show you the lead again, here! Lo! I lead; only, let's have you stick to me." "Like wax! Lead on." "It's understood?" "Plain as the Creed!" "Then forward! And death to the gabachos--curse them!" yelled the tall rogue, waving his rapier as high as the ceiling would permit. They all rushed forward with exceeding fury. "Take heed!" muttered Oliver; "Two shots apiece, and fire low!" Four shots of the revolvers stretched two Mexicans on the floor never to rise again; another brace that had been "winged," removed themselves out of the room altogether, probably to find the nearest surgeon. But the fillip had been given to flagging spirits; the rogues were excited by the pistols' flash and smoke. Their rage redoubled, and they fell upon the edge of the oaken rampart and tried to chop down the two whites within. It was a horrible medley with the firearms spitting fire in all directions, as hands were jostled and the eager ruffians interfered with one another's movements. Acting on Oliver's advice, the two besieged men wasted no more powder. Their rampart was the higher by three or four dead bodies hanging, bent in the middle, over the edge, and, standing up now, they met the contestants' machetes with their scarcely less long hunting knives. The robbers fairly howled with impotent rage, having never met such a provoking resistance. Valentacho was the most persistent of any. He clung to the table with one hand, trying to pull it over on its top, snarling like a wild animal, and showering blows of the cutlass on the foe too active to receive one of them save on their own blades. "See here!" cried Oliver, "You that's so n'isy! Wasn't that first lesson good enough? Don't you know I'm keeping school here? Yes, Oregon Ol. is the schoolmaster right down hyar in Sonora, and it looks like I'll have to send you home on one e-tarnal holiday!" The bandit ceased to yell, and, leaning forward, managed to clutch the _frazada_ (blanket) of the speaker, which he had rolled round his left arm, _more Hispanico_, and drew him towards him, in order that he might, shortening his sword, stab him through and through. "You are a liar, dog!" said he, fiercely, through his gritting teeth; "'Tis you who are about to die!" With an upward sweep of his right hand, in which he had reversed his revolver and seized it by the barrel, Oliver dashed the coming rapier aside, and, with a downward blow of the pistol thus converted into a hammer, he visited the Mexican's skull so violently with a concussion to the brain that the outlaw let go the grasp on the blanket and of his sword, and fell back among his comrades without even a groan. No ox could have been felled more swiftly. The defeated and horrified rabble melted away in disorder. They had had their dose. They would have been only too glad to leave the scene of combat, but for shame's sake, and the dread of their captain not finding them at this tryst. Oliver kicked away the cask which had prevented a flank attack, stepped clear from the corpses and his defences, and quietly going up to the bar, behind which the keepers had tranquilly watched as much of the action as the smoke permitted, he said: "Another bottle! As for you _gentecilla_, clear away your dead, and sit you down and clear up your glasses, too. If any man goes out without finishing his liquor to my health, I'll not leave a mouth on him if a rifle be any utility in my claws." The cowed mob obeyed the double order grudgingly but faithfully. The smoke was wafted out and up the hole in the roof, which was the chimney, and a little order reigned in the barroom. But still the landlord did not believe it healthy to make his appearance, though his place was surely here. The two visitors took their seats at another table, almost in the midst of the prairie depredators, but no one interrupted their conversation this time, and the other customers, without conferring with one another, soon glided out of the Rancho Verde, and finally all had disappeared. "We've a clean ship, Oliver," said Mr. Gladsden; "our merry associates have vacated this hall of rosy light." "We kin histe in our nightcaps, then," replied the guide. "With such a gap made in One-leg's band, always provided it is his cuadrilla, we need not fear they will come in the night to serenade us. By the way, that endless fellow has left his guitar. Shall I play something skippy?" "You can play what you please," returned the Englishman. "Only I vote for a dance tune. It is my belief that we shall not want for dancers." Indeed, there was a clatter of horses' hoofs, without. "Correct you air, Injin!" said Oliver, lending his ear interestedly. "Put fresh cartridges in! There seems an agreement by all hands that we shall not be let sleep in peace this night!" CHAPTER XVII. THE PUREST OF PEARLS. By the noise of the cavalcade it could be calculated to be numerous. Uncle Sweet Potato, who had so completely kept to himself whilst the scuffle had lasted, now appeared suddenly at the ranch door, with the alacrity of a man close to whose rear a red-hot branding iron was being approached. At the same time, the riders stopped their horses there. Tío Camote had closed the thick door smartly, and held a colloquy through a small wicket in its centre, in a language which was not known to Mr. Gladsden. On the other hand, Oliver had started as the dialogue progressed, and bending towards his companion, said in his ear: "Indians! Hostile Indians, Apaches!--_Mimbres_ Apaches!" he concluded, as the speech revealed more and more particularities. "All men--they are 'bad'--I can smell they are charcoal'd--blackened for war! I tell 'er what, mighty slim chance but in strategem agen sich a powerful squad to whop. That's the voice of an old acquaintance--big chief--ah, he's head chief now! We hev swapped hosses, an' we've exchanged shots, but never draw'd blood, an' we may be considered neutrals on Spanish territory, but all the same, be on your guard. That fool is too much afeard on 'em not to let 'em in. Our hosses are not worth a red cent's purchase apiece, wuss luck! Those 'Paches are as fond of hoss flesh as a Spanish gal of peanut candy. Still, if in a wuss squeeze than afore, you reckon on me pulling you out clean." "I am puzzled again. Is the Indian a friend or foe?" "Both or neither. But, lor', in the wildest parts, I have gone to sleep with my heels to the same fire as my deadliest enemy, and woke up--well, I still live. It's 'cordin' to sarkimstances; and this here is a pertickler sarkimstance--crammed with liveliness to the lid, like a tin o' them Italian sprats." "Serious! Worse than before." "Jess so. But don't show any surprise; keep _your_ tongue out of the tongue fire, and don't gainsay me in any way." "I'm your puppet again." "You'll not repent it." "I am convinced of that." "Hush, right thar! He's going to let them in. And they're big fool Injin enough to git off their hosses, wharon they'm as easy of movement as an eagle, and come down to common ground, whar they waddle like geese. These hoss Ingins are no beauties, seen so, hobbling up to a bar in a doggery, but they air fond o'white man's pison, and no two ways about that." Indeed, Camote, who probably was not insured and preferred running the risk of being butchered in his house to being certainly baked when it should be fired over his head for his resistance to the command to open, bowed in the chiefs of the new customers' party, and their bodyguard. These six or eight red men silently placed themselves on the floor by one of the tables in a squatting position near the door, pulled out every man a tomahawk pipe which they filled with _morrichee_, or sacred tobacco, which proved that they were members of an upper class, past masters in the council lodges, lit up and set to smoking, without any observations, though the pools of blood, and the shattered and bullet perforated furniture, revealed that there had recently been a disturbance there. They even betrayed no token of having perceived the two other persons at their table, and the men behind the bar, who were exchanging dubious, uneasy glances, whilst they felt gooseflesh under their scalp. But the American knew that a secret, quick glance had "counted" them, for he whispered: "We're reckoned up, and they don't stomach _our_ looks. Tell 'ee, sir, they don't like close shooting and tough chawing." After a few moments, one of the Indians smote the table with his hatchet pipe. Tío Camote ran over to the spot, with the most obsequious of hotelkeepers' smiles on his lips. "Heap big drink!" "Mezcal!" uttered the savages. "Sí, sí, sí, Señor Camicho" (for _cacique_, Aztec for chieftain), was the celeritous answer, as the ranchero hastened to set half a dozen bottles of spirit and some horn cups on the bench, to be nearer their reach than the table, before them. They filled up and drank with a gusto that proved they had overcome the counsels of their wise men not to let the firewater be their tempter. They resumed smoking and the puffs crossed one another in the dreariest silence. Yet this silence was more appalling than the riot of the late brawlers in the Green Ranch. These Apache chiefs were attired much like their leader and resembled him in build, being picked warriors, or rather, more probably, chiefs who had attained rank for fighting and marauding alone. They were large men for Apaches, and but for their legs being bowed by life on horseback from boyhood up, would have overtopped six feet. They were well built too, and their features not ignoble, though rapacity moulded