The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California
All were kneeling now, and many a sob broke forth, with echoes, along
the corridor, out to the very patio where the faithful peons mourned.
Two days afterwards, the American hunter, repulsing any reward but a
watch from doña Perla, a silver mounted revolver from her brother, and
an Indian scarf, enriched with pearls, inwrought by doña Dolores, the
donor, for display on holidays, or "for a sweetheart" (at which he
smiled), started, jauntily as ever, on the best horse on the farm of
Treasure Hill to return to the American army posts.
"Not a mossle of fear," he replied to Gladsden at his stirrups to the
last moment, "did you not hear that Apache, whom don Benito slashed,
call me 'Comes-Whooping-with-Fire'--a good enough Injin name to keep
this big chief clear of bruises till the next fall buffalo surround.
You'll hev' a letter from me in the Frisco post office by the time you
git round to Californy."
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BEST BAIT TO CATCH APACHES.
The farewell to the American was still "warm," when don Jorge, spite of
his grief, begged Mr. Gladsden to await his return, as he felt bound to
"go up the country" to make sure the rebellion was over. He had spoken
in such a matter-of-fact way that the Englishman shared with his wife
and sister, and don Benito's widow, much wonder at his absence being
protracted. To have clearly known the reason, and to see him again,
they would have been compelled to follow him to the very border of
Sonora and Arizona.
The _Sierra de Pájaros_, a broken side piece of the Sierra Madre, may
be said to divide on its double water shed the feeders of the Yaqui
River and the San Pedro, which courses north and west to supply the
Gila. It has the most picturesque and striking aspect of any mountains
in those regions, of old forests and cloud-capped peaks. Under the
majestic bluffs, the ruins of ancient Spanish settlements crumble away,
and the mysterious Pimas Indians prowl.
Nothing so rests the sight and rejoices the heart of wayworn
adventurers, saddened and wearied by the sandy and salty plains, as
these verdant heights. Almost ignored, and perhaps not mapped down in
ordinary atlases, this Sierra preserves to this very day its primeval
wildness; only very few "traces," formed more often by wild beasts than
woodsmen, vaguely and widely apart appears in the brush. Very hard to
penetrate, and then to move about in with certainty, none but Indians
and hunters care to have anything to do with its mazes.
Nevertheless, not far from the Cascade of the Cave, a solitary hunter
was tranquilly making a meal. It was don Jorge. In Europe, things
are different, for we are astonished at a soldier making a good meal
before the battle, and a condemned criminal regaling on the eve of
execution. Nevertheless, the care of the body is logical and conforms
to natural laws. If joy or grief is allowed to cut the appetite short,
the physique weakens, and the mind being counteracted upon, again
deters the body, and illness, if not death, is the consequence of this
deplorable folly. I prefer the hunter's habit.
Don Jorge finished his ration, and proceeded to smoke cigarettes, in a
lounging attitude, which recreation he certainly deserved if only to
remark the tired state of three excellent horses, which were picketed
near him, and which, alternately shifted on and off from whilst in
gallop (a fact not remarkable among Mexicans), had borne him almost
without check to this remote spot.
No investigation of the desert which his eyrie commanded, had answered
his expectations, and he was soon after his third cigarette deep in a
slumber _pierna suelta_, or with legs at ease, as his countrymen say.
There was not a breath in the air; the heat was overpowering, so that
the birds were sleeping with heads under the wing, and the wild beasts
could almost be heard panting and lolling out their tongues in their
lairs.
Only one continuous sound disturbed the profound calm, and that was the
noise of those infinitely little beings which never, anywhere, cease to
accomplish their mysterious missions.
Two hours thus passed, with don Jorge slumbering, his face hidden by
his handkerchief and sombrero to keep off the sun and the gnats, of
which myriads played catch-who-can with the sand flies.
All of a sudden the horses, which had stopped grazing and had been
motionless with lowered heads, as if also taking a nap, shuddered all
over, and abruptly tossed their manes and pointed their ears. With
their fineness of hearing they were aware of some suspicious sounds.
One of them, whose lariat allowed the approach, stalked up to his
master and uttered a soft and plaintive whinny, as if demanding help.
However soundly a ranger sleeps, he must be able to wake up immediately
and with all his senses clear, and the son of don Benito did so at
once. The next moment, turning over on his breast, too wary to rise on
his feet, he had his rifle in hand, ready for action.
Listening and staring was of no avail. There was nothing far or near to
justify the animals in their still evident fears.
It might be a jaguar or a grizzly only that they scented, if not a
hostile man, but, in any case, don Jorge took his safeguards. He hid
his horses in the brush, and, crawling to the very brink of the bluff,
scrutinised the plain, his finger on the trigger, his ears well opened.
But a quarter of an hour passed, whilst he remained as if moulded out
of the clay and merely drying there.
But unexpectedly a tiny black spot under a shining speck which
ever accompanied it, flashed on the view afar out of a straggling
timberland. Soon the watcher could be sure it was a mounted man, his
rifle gleaming, speeding towards him in the maddest haste. He had been
clearing obstacles or bursting through them without any daintiness as
to his garments, for they were torn by the thorns into tatters, and no
doubt the swaying from side to side was as much weakness from loss of
blood as the mere dodging to avoid a pursuer's missiles. No one else
was perceptible to the young Mexican; but there must have been enemies
in the woodland, running along parallel with the fugitive, for, turning
without an anticipatory gesture, and stopping his horse with a terrible
tug of the Mexican bit, he fired two shots into the cover, bent low,
and rode on once more.
"'Tis a white man," observed don Jorge, knitting his brow, "a hunter!
Oh, my gracious saint!" he ejaculated, at the height of amazement and
pain, "It is none other than don Olivero! I thought he had taken the
regular route for the Pass, whilst the Apaches, with our stock, struck
off for this trail, and they have met him! I do not need that plumed
head to recognise he is the prey of the Apaches now."
He sprang up, regardless of being spied now, and quickly but
comprehensively studied the scene.
Oregon Oliver's last two shots had galled the Indians into unusual
daring. Three of them, on excellent horses, which the young hacendero
might have known as his own, left the wood and sought to keep the
hunter in the open, whilst gradually bearing down upon him. As they
flanked him it was not easy for him to escape falling victim to one of
the three when they saw fit to stop and fire or even risk a snap shot
in mid-career.
The Mexican's rifle would not carry that distance. To mount and ride as
far around as the steepness of the mountain sides compelled was equally
as nugatory.
Instantly a new idea struck him, and he was carrying it out. Drawing
his cutlass he severed the lariats of all three horses close to the
picket pin, unfastened the other ends at the hobbled hoofs, and spliced
the three into one long rope. Securing the last loop round a basalt
column which a whale's rush would not have shaken, he flung the loose
coils over the edge of the cliff, and, ere the end had fallen into the
perpendicular, his machete between his teeth, the brave quick-witted
youth was sliding down into the abyss.
There were some twenty feet to drop at the last thong, but he had
remarked the crumbling sandstone to be a soft bed and he let go without
a pause.
Meanwhile, the American swinging about like a drunken man, seemed in
a despairing state. Either his ammunition was exhausted at last, or
his only hope was to reserve his final cartridge for the hand-to-hand
encounter, but a matter of moments.
The emboldened Apaches, at a signal from Iron Shirt, who formed the
point of the angle of which they were the opening ends, and of which
the hunted white marked the closing base's centre, began closing in.
But at the instant when they levelled their guns under their horses'
necks, as they rode suspended on the off side in precaution of the
dreaded breechloader, the sudden appearance of the Mexican, like a
spider on its thread, sliding down the face of the bluff, only remarked
by the Apache chief, in whose direct front the feat was performed, gave
the latter a start and he uttered an outcry despite himself. The two
savages, surprised in turn, suspended their shots, and all three, as
well as Oliver, none slackening their headlong pace, however, gazed at
the man fallen from the clouds, and after striking the soft, dry ground
with a force that sent up a cloud of sand, rebounding and dashing
towards them, his bright steel waving overhead and his fresh young
voice shouting:
"_Amigo_! Friend, it is I who am here, praise to God!"
"Well, I'm durned!" roared the ranger.
But, not accustomed to let even so extreme a surprise alter any plan
he had traced out, he only thought to profit by the brief but deep
confusion of the enemies. With a nimbleness that perfectly revealed how
assumed was his air of lassitude and despair, he sat up in the saddle
and fired two shots, one to the right, one to the left, by a graceful
turn of the hips which a queen of the ballet could not have surpassed,
controlling his steed simply by the pressure of his knees.
Spite of the emergency, don Jorge could not repress a cry of admiration.
One of the Apaches, his horse's throat cut by the same bullet that
penetrated his head beyond, fell in a heap under the side of the
animal, also thrown and floundering in the death agony. The other,
perforated in the eye by the lead scattering along his own gun which
had split the ball, emitted a horrid scream, as he was borne, still
held by the horsehair loop which detained his foot to the crupper, and
which is there placed to enable the rider to hang alongside the pony,
back towards the thicket, where his brains would soon be knocked out by
the masterless mustang.
Iron Shirt was dismayed. He lifted his horse in order to turn and seek
the covert. But already the unerring marksman was covering him, and
he held his horse rearing, afraid to fire his last load with two foes
before him, and to expose himself in the riding away.
"Spare him!" cried don Jorge, hoarsely, "Murderer of my father,
murderer of my little son, I--I, alone, must have his life!"
"Lucky you spoke," returned Oliver, firing.
The horse of the chief, struck in the shoulder, roared with pain, so
intense was the anguish whilst being tortured with the bit, wrenched
its head away and fell forward, ere rolling on one side.
The Apache did not lose his command of sense at the disaster, for he
leaped clear. But his shield, his lance, and his gun were flung from
him, and before he could reach the latter, don Jorge had made a series
of prodigious bounds, like a tiger, and placed his foot on it. The
baffled Indian sprang back as rapidly and seized his spear and shield.
But instantly, careless of ammunition, and fearful lest the lance, cast
as a javelin, would transfix the Mexican only armed with a sword, the
hunter fired again. The spear, split in half, was left a mere stump in
the redskin's feverish, quivering grasp.