The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California
the prominent traits, as well as could be ascertained beneath the
streaks of grey, blue, yellow and red plastered on in accordance with
laws or convention, in what space was left by a prodigious smearing
with the war colour in preeminence, black. As there were no signs of
mourning, they had so far been perfectly successful in their incursion
into Sonora, and had not lost a man. Their large dark eyes, deep and
gloomy, sparkled now and anon with cunning.
Taking one as an example, he wore his hair gathered up so as to form
a kind of pad on the top of his head, a very good idea for defence;
some pendent plaits were not his own hair and had buffalo hair twined
in them, too; to each was hung at the end some little charm, pebble
fangs, precious stone in the rough, gold or silver nugget, and so on.
A long line of eagle and vulture feathers, varied in hue, possibly
dyed, stood up on his head and out from him right down his back, whence
the line flowed free quite to his neck. Through the actual topknot,
a long eagle feather, in special signification of commandership, was
stuck slantingly. This one in particular whom we are depicting, had
mounted a pair of buffalo horns adorned with ribbons and human hair,
very fair or bleached, not unlike the headgear of the ancient Britons.
Being out on the warpath, he had laid aside collar of claws, porcupine
quills and teeth, and bracelets, so that the war jacket of deerskin,
beautifully dressed, gathered in at the waist by a simple thong, looked
plain indeed. His buckskin breeches were ornamented with embroidery,
and his stockings of American make were decorated similarly by the
patient squaws. His moccasins were bright with beadwork and quite clear
of entanglement, though it seemed otherwise, from the artfully arranged
knee knot of dangling feathers and animal tails.
For weapons they had the tomahawk pipe of bronze, and scalping knife,
one or two bows and arrows, the lustre of the black strings showing
human hair was twisted in them as a trophy; the guns were not very
good, being cast-off army pieces, for which they had powder horns and
bullet bags, quite old fashioned. Their spears were left without;
they had rawhide whips hanging by a loop to the wrist, and ornamented
usefully with a war whistle for the issue of commands, more clearly
sounded and distantly heard than by voice, a system known among the
Southern Indians from time out of mind though only of recent years
adopted by European armies.
Strange and picturesque to the Englishman, though their odour of smoke
and rancid grease and horses would have been less unendurable in the
open air, Gladsden owned that they were manly fellows enough who
inspired reasonable respect and almost consideration.
Unfortunately for appearances, whatever their nation may have been
in ancient days, now these Apaches are about the most plundering,
murderous, ferocious rovers of the Southwest, especially hating all the
whites. Liars and thieves, they are a scourge who must be crushed out
by the civilisation to which they will not truly bow the knee.
Whilst these unpleasant guests smoked and drank, our friends pretended
to doze. Camote would have liked to have shut up shop; but he was
not the man, with only two assistants, to undertake to clear out the
horde before he retired to his virtuous pillow. The mere prospective
of a wrangle with these ugly customers made his hair imprudently rise
like a cockatoo's crest. He sat up on his counter, with dangling legs
that swung in concord with his agitation, with folded arms to look
undaunted, but not losing sight of the reds. He smoked cigarette after
cigarette, and gulped large draughts of _pulque_ by way of consolation
and to nourish his patience.
Meanwhile the night advanced; the stars were paling away in the
celestial depths, and the moon "downing." It was nearly three in the
morning, and yet the humbler Indians and the numerous horses without
hardly betrayed their proximity by a sound. For upwards of three hours
the Apaches had gone on smoking and imbibing without their hard heads
giving way or any tongue being loosened.
All of a sudden the chief, who wore the odd diadem of horns, shook the
ashes out of his pipe on his left thumbnail, and spoke in a loud enough
voice, though he still stared into vacancy. At the words, the American
ranger started slightly, opened his eyes fully, and in a measure made a
nod of courtesy.
"My brother the Ocelot," said the chief, "seems to be pretty much worn
out to sleep so soundly. Were his eyes not sealed with sleep, he must
have taken notice that a friend has come into the lodge of the 'Spanish
Dog,' and has seated himself not far from the Hunter of the North,
along with several braves of his grand nation."
"Resting the sight ain't sleeping, not by a long heap! No, Tiger Cat,
the Ocelot never owns on to being wore out, I opine. If the Ocelot
wa'n't staring at the chiefs, 'tis jest 'cause he has seen 'em, most on
'em, afore now, ginerally when thar was smoke in the air, blood drops
as plenty as rain up North, and ha'r in rich plenty--you could stuff a
buffalo hide plump out. The Ocelot knows his place in this part of the
kentry--he don't shove his claws into no chief's mush and milk. He sort
o' keeps low till a question aimed at him, hits him fa'r and squar';
that's the kind of ginuine Ocelot, this Ocelot air."
"_Wagh!_ The hunter speaks well," remarked the Apache, wagging his
head with apparent satisfaction, "there's no split in his tongue.
_Bueno_--good!"
"No, _sir!_ 'Tis a straight, whole, single tongue."
"The Wacondah has opened a slit in his bosom for the smoke of his heart
to steal forth pure. His sayings fall sweet and soft on the ear of the
Mimbres Apaches, for they are the words of a friend. Let the Ocelot
talk on. It is so long since the Mimbres heard the music of his voice
that the papoose that was at the back of the squaw now stands alone,
so high,"--making an imaginary line in the air with a wave of the pipe
hatchet,--"and plays at shooting with bow and arrow at the dogs. But
his whole heart has not sprung forward to shake hands with his brother.
His face is carved out of white flint. Is there no smile? Is he not
glad to see the best warriors on the Apache roving ground? Is he not
surprised to see them here?"
"Considering, chief," returned Oregon O., nudging with his knee that
of the Englishman under the table, quite imperceptibly, "considering
the Ocelot knew the Apaches were 'warm' round here, and that a call
was down in the programme of the dance, the Ocelot has no grounds for
opening his eyes any wider."
"U-wagh!" ejaculated the chief, evincing some astonishment himself,
"The Apache chiefs were expected by the great pale hunter?"
"They jess was," answered the other laconcially.
"Arrrh!" sighed the Indian with pretended awe and an insinuating smile.
"The hunter has met _the Book medicine men_ (preachers, missionaries)
in the land of the beaver and white bear--he has been initiated into
their lodge--he has a heap big medicine, he knows everything."
"The chief is making merry, he is no longer straight with his friend.
Whether I carry good or bad medicine, it don't help me much in this
nick, as my brother ought to know."
"The Tiger Cat has been 'playing--,' with the Spaniards!" said the
Apache, with an emphasis on the English word he used, which caused
the hotelkeeper to shrink, "And a cloud has settled on his mind. He
cannot make out what the white hunter is driving at. He looks. He see
_Nada_--nothing."
"If one of them stirs a finger towards me, shoot into the mass,"
whispered Oliver, rising leisurely, to his comrade.
He left the table, and strode up to the Indians, among whom he stopped,
his back to the edge of the table they disdained, leaning on his rifle,
of which the beauty and value (for a breechloader is a miracle to their
eyes) made their nervous tongues lick their thin upper lip and thick
lower one like a snake when the game is presented.
"See here, chief," said he, "the Ocelot has hearing as fine as they
make 'em, and the faintest sounds tell their story in his ear. Did I
not know you and your cavalyada were down to'rds the Smoking Mountain,
and have I not heard the amble of those mules out thar, a-toting a
litter between them? In that litter is a white woman. I'm atter her,
for her family's sake--what's the price of the captive?"
The Indians exchanged a look of amazement, but they were not
disconcerted. Indeed, Tiger Cat answered without wincing:
"Who can make (dead) meat of the white hunter? Beside the Ocelot, the
Tiger Cat is a prairie cricket."
"Speak out plain, then, chief. If you have the woman along with you,
guarded by your _soldiers_ (the young warriors) so carefully, it is to
claim much price. What's the figure?"
"The Ocelot has all the wit of the palefaces, all the cunning of the
red men. The Tiger Cat does not debate. He has a captive of worth--ay,
'the purest of pearl' is worth her weight in dressed buffalo robes.
But the prize is his. Why should the Ocelot hunger for the prey of the
Tiger Cat?"
"You'll jess let me back out about now, chief," said Oregon Oliver,
negligently. "If we cannot trade, we'll take the back paths apart from
one another, and no bad blood."
He half turned as if to go away, but not without a glance of sympathy
in bitterness at the certainly strange palanquin, draped with Navajo
waterproof blankets, suspended elastically between two mules, now
visible to him without.
But the wily redskin was evidently perplexed. The guides who have
intimate relations with the United States army always are looked upon
peculiarly by the Indians who have been thrashed by the blue cape
coats. He detained the hunter by gently plucking at his blanket.
"The Ocelot bounds away too quickly," he observed, as if offended. "Has
anger flamed up between us brothers?"
"Ne'er a flame," replied the other, who was far from seeking a quarrel
just then and there, with such overpowering odds in his disfavour, "but
when we can't trade, let's sleep on it; we'll see it sure 'nuff, how
the _dicker_ promises."
"The white hunter has a stranger friend with him," remarked the Apache,
with the abrupt change of conversation which is natural to men of no
great conversational powers, and perhaps to let his interlocutor see
that the previous subject was exhausted; "he is no hunter; I daresay he
is a chief of many gold buttons."
He alluded to the quantity of eagle buttons which adorn the uniform of
the United States officers, who, of course, dress up as if for parade,
in "talks" with the savages.
"You are out thar', chief; he is no friend of mine, no military
ossifer; only some traveller coming over the mountains to get into
Greaser land."
"And you are his guide?"
"Who says so?"
"The Tiger Cat's eyes are sharp; he sees what goes on over the prairie
and plains. Did not the hunter's ten-shoot gun (he could express only
so many units by twice throwing up his extended hand) speak, and some
mixed blooded dog bite the river bank?"
"It is so! I struck a _coup_ (French Canadian hunter word for a stroke
of war, a blow). It's nothing to crow over; it's nothing to _cache_.
When a mosquito stings, you slap, don't you? Same when a mestizo buzzes
close; you can have his topknot as much as you like. But why," added
he, repeating the other's phrase, "why does the Tiger Cat hanker after
the Ocelot's dead?"
"The Tiger Cat kills his own game. What he says, he says to let the
paleface hunter see that he has eyes upon the land and the river. Now,"
he concluded, releasing the flap of the blanket, "my brother can go,
and sleep, if he be ready to drop."
Oliver went back to his seat, carelessly enough to all appearances.
"What's that about a woman," inquired Mr. Gladsden, eagerly in a low