For the second time within a week, Texas Smith found himself upon the
brink of opportunity, without being able (as he had phrased it to
Coronado) to do what was right.
He levelled at Thurstane, and then it did not seem to be Thurstane; he had
a dead sure sight at Kelly, and then perceived that that was an error; he
drew a bead on Shubert, and still he hesitated. He could distinguish the
Lieutenant's voice, but he could not fix upon the figure which uttered it.
It was exasperating. Never had an assassin been better ambuscaded. He was
kneeling behind a little ridge of sandstone; about a foot below its edge
was an orifice made by the rains and winds of bygone centuries; through
this, as through an embrasure, he had thrust his rifle. Not a chance of
being hit by a return shot, while after the enemy's fire had been drawn he
could fly down the ravine, probably without discovery and certainly
without recognition. His horse was tethered below, behind another rock;
and he felt positive that these men had not come upon it. He could mount,
drive their beasts before him into the plain, and then return to camp. No
need of explaining his absence; he was the head hunter of the expedition;
it was his business to wander.
All this was so easy to do, if he could only take the first step. But he
dared not fire lest he should merely kill a soldier, and so make an uproar
and rouse suspicions without the slightest profit. It was not probable
that Coronado would pay him for shooting the wrong man, and setting on
foot a dangerous investigation. So the desperado continued to peer through
the dim night, cursing his stars and everybody's stars for not shining
better, and seeing his opportunity slip rapidly away. After Thurstane and
the others had passed, after the chance of murder had stalked by him like
a ghost and vanished, he left his ambush, glided down the ravine to his
horse, waked him up with a vindictive kick, leaped into the saddle, and
hastened to camp. To inquiries about the lost couple he replied in his
sullen, brief way that he had not seen them; and when urged to go to their
rescue, he of course set off in the wrong direction and travelled but a
short distance.
Meantime Ralph had found the captives of the cañon. Clara, wrapped in her
blankets, was lying at the foot of a rock, and crying while she pretended
to sleep. Coronado, unable to make her talk, irritated by the faint sobs
which he overheard, but stubbornly resolved on carrying out his stupid
plot, had retired in a state of ill-humor unusual with him to another
rock, and was consoling himself by smoking cigarito after cigarito. The
two horses, tied together neck and crupper, were fasting near by. As
Coronado had forgotten to bring food with him, Clara was also fasting.
Think of Apaches, and imagine the terror with which she caught the sounds
of approach, the heavy, stumbling steps through the darkness. Then imagine
the joy with which she recognized Thurstane's call and groped to meet him.
In the dizziness of her delight, and amid the hiding veils of the
obscurity, it did not seem wrong nor unnatural to fall against his arm and
be supported by it for a moment. Ralph received this touch, this shock, as
if it had been a ball; and his nature bore the impress of it as long as if
it had made a scar. In his whole previous life he had not felt such a
thrill of emotion; it was almost too powerful to be adequately described
as a pleasure.
Next came Coronado, as happy as a disappointed burglar whose cue it is to
congratulate the rescuing policeman. "My dear Lieutenant! You are heaven's
own messenger. You have saved us from a horrible night. But it is
prodigious; it is incredible. You must have come here by enchantment. How
in God's name could you find your way up this fearful cañon?"
"The cañon is perfectly passable on foot," replied the young officer,
stiffly and angrily. "By Jove, sir! I don't see why you didn't make a
start to get out. This is a pretty place to lodge Miss Van Diemen."
Coronado took off his hat and made a bow of submission and regret, which
was lost in the darkness.
"I must say," Thurstane went on grumbling, "that, for a man who claims to
know this country, your management has been very singular."
Clara, fearful of a quarrel, slightly pressed his arm and checked this
volcano with the weight of a feather.
"We are not all like you, my dear Lieutenant," said Coronado, in a tone
which might have been either apologetical or ironical. "You must make
allowance for ordinary human nature."
"I beg pardon," returned Thurstane, who was thinking now chiefly of that
pressure on his arm. "The truth is, I was alarmed for your safety. I can't
help feeling responsibility on this expedition, although it is your train.
My military education runs me into it, I suppose. Well, excuse my
excitement. Miss Van Diemen, may I help you back through the gully?"
In leaning on him, being guided by him, being saved by him, trusting in
him, the girl found a pleasure which was irresistible, although it seemed
audacious and almost sinful. Before the cañon was half traversed she felt
as if she could go on with him through the great dark valley of life,
confiding in his strength and wisdom to lead her aright and make her
happy. It was a temporary wave of emotion, but she remembered it long
after it had passed.
Around the fires, after a cup of hot coffee, amid the odors of a plentiful
supper, recounting the evening's adventure to Mrs. Stanley, Coronado was
at his best. How he rolled out the English language! Our mother tongue
hardly knew itself, it ran so fluently and sounded so magniloquently and
lied so naturally. He praised everybody but himself; he praised Clara,
Thurstane, and the two soldiers and the horses; he even said a flattering
word or two for Divine Providence. Clara especially, and the whole of her
heroic, more than human sex, demanded his enthusiastic admiration. How she
had borne the terrors of the night and the desert! "Ah, Mrs. Stanley! only
you women are capable of such efforts."
Aunt Maria's Olympian head nodded, and her cheerful face, glowing with tea
and the camp fires, confessed "Certainly!"
"What nonsense, Coronado!" said Clara. "I was horribly frightened, and you
know it."
Aunt Maria frowned with surprise and denial. "Absurd, child! You were not
frightened at all. Of course you were not. Why, even if you had been
slightly timorous, you had your cousin to protect you."
"Ah, Mrs. Stanley, I am a poor knight-errant," said Coronado. "We Mexicans
are no longer formidable. One man of your Anglo-Saxon blood is supposed to
be a better defence than a dozen of us. We have been subdued; we must
submit to depreciation. I must confess, in fact, that I had my fears. I
was greatly relieved on my cousin's account when I heard the voice of our
military chieftain here."
Then came more flattery for Ralph, with proper rations for the two
privates. Those faithful soldiers--he must show his gratitude to them; he
had forgotten them in the basest manner. "Here, Pedronillo, take these
cigaritos to privates Kelly and Shubert, with my compliments. Begging
_your_ permission, Lieutenant. _Thank_ you."
"Pooty tonguey man, that Seenor," observed Captain Phineas Glover to Mrs.
Stanley, when the Mexican went off to his blankets.
"Yes; a very agreeable and eloquent gentleman," replied the lady, wishing
to correct the skipper's statement while seeming to assent to it.
"Jess so," admitted Glover. "Ruther airy. Big talkin' man. Don't raise no
sech our way."
Captain Glover was not fully aware that he himself had the fame of
possessing an imagination which was almost too much for the facts of this
world.
"S'pose it's in the breed," he continued. "Or likely the climate has
suthin' to do with it: kinder thaws out the words 'n' sets the idees
a-bilin'. Niggers is pooty much the same. Most niggers kin talk like a
line runnin' out, 'n' tell lies 's fast 's our Fair Haven gals open
oysters--a quart a minute."
"Captain Glover, what do you mean?" frowned Aunt Maria. "Mr. Coronado is a
friend of mine."
"Oh, I was speakin' of niggers," returned the skipper promptly. "Forgot we
begun about the Seenor. Sho! niggers was what I was talkin' of. B' th'
way, that puts me in mind 'f one I had for cook once. Jiminy! how that man
would cook! He'd cook a slice of halibut so you wouldn't know it from
beefsteak."
"Dear me! how did he do it?" asked Aunt Maria, who had a fancy for kitchen
mysteries.
"Never could find out," said Glover, stepping adroitly out of his
difficulty. "Don't s'pose that nigger would a let on how he did it for ten
dollars."
"I should think the receipt would be worth ten dollars," observed Aunt
Maria thoughtfully.
"Not 'xactly here," returned the captain, with one of his dried smiles,
which had the air of having been used a great many times before. "Halibut
too skurce. Wal, I was goin' to tell ye 'bout this nigger. He come to be
the cook he was because he was a big eater. We was wrecked once, 'n' had
to live three days on old shoes 'n' that sort 'f truck. Wal, this nigger
was so darned ravenous he ate up a pair o' long boots in the time it took
me to git down one 'f the straps."
"Ate up a pair of boots!" exclaimed Aunt Maria, amazed and almost
incredulous.
"Yes, by thunder!" insisted the captain, "grease, nails, 'n' all. An' then
went at the patent leather forepiece 'f his cap."
"What privations!" said Aunt Maria, staring fit to burst her spectacles.
"Oh, that's nothin'," chuckled Glover. "I'll tell ye suthin' some time
that 'll astonish ye. But jess now I'm sleepy, 'n' I guess I'll turn in."
"Mr. Cluvver, it is your durn on card do-night," interposed Meyer, the
German sergeant, as the captain was about to roll himself in his blankets.
"So 'tis," returned Glover in well feigned astonishment. "Don't forgit a
feller, do ye, Sergeant? How 'n the world do ye keep the 'count so
straight? Oh, got a little book there, hey, with all our names down. Wal,
that's shipshape. You'd make a pooty good mate, Sergeant. When does my
watch begin?"
"Right away. You're always on the virst relief. You'll fall in down there
at the gorner of the vagon bark."
"Wal--yes--s'pose I will," sighed the skipper, as he rolled up his
blankets and prepared for two hours' sentry duty.
Let us look into the arrangements for the protection of the caravan. With
Coronado's consent Thurstane had divided the eighteen Indians and
Mexicans, four soldiers, Texas Smith, and Glover, twenty-four men in all,
into three equal squads, each composed of a sergeant, corporal, and six
privates. Meyer was sergeant of one squad, the Irish veteran Kelly had
another, and Texas Smith the third. Every night a detachment went on duty
in three reliefs, each relief consisting of two men, who stood sentry for
two hours, at the end of which time they were relieved by two others.
The six wagons were always parked in an oblong square, one at each end and
two on each side; but in order to make the central space large enough for
camping purposes, they were placed several feet apart; the gaps being
closed with lariats, tied from wheel to wheel, to pen in the animals and
keep out charges of Apache cavalry. On either flank of this enclosure, and
twenty yards or so distant from it, paced a sentry. Every two hours, as we
have said, they were relieved, and in the alternate hours the posts were
visited by the sergeant or corporal of the guard, who took turns in
attending to this service. The squad that came off duty in the morning was
allowed during the day to take naps in the wagons, and was not put upon
the harder camp labor, such as gathering firewood, going for water, etc.
The two ladies and the Indian women slept at night in the wagons, not only
because the canvas tops protected them from wind and dew, but also because
the wooden sides would shield them from arrows. The men who were not on
guard lay under the vehicles so as to form a cordon around the mules.
Thurstane and Coronado, the two chiefs of this armed migration, had their
alternate nights of command, each when off duty sleeping in a special
wagon known as "headquarters," but holding himself ready to rise at once
in case of an alarm.
The cooking fires were built away from the park, and outside the beats of
the sentries. The object was twofold: first, to keep sparks from lighting
on the wagon covers; second, to hide the sentries from prowling archers.
At night you can see everything between yourself and a fire, but nothing
beyond it. As long as the wood continued to blaze, the most adroit Indian
skulker could not approach the camp without exposing himself, while the
guards and the garrison were veiled from his sight by a wall of darkness
behind a dazzle of light.
Such were the bivouac arrangements, intelligent, systematic, and military.
Not only had our Lieutenant devised them, but he saw to it that they were
kept in working order. He was zealously and faithfully seconded by his
men, and especially by his two veterans. There is no human machine more
accurate and trustworthy than an old soldier, who has had year on year of
the discipline and drill of a regular service, and who has learned to
carry out instructions to the letter.
The arrangements for the march were equally thorough and judicious. Texas
Smith, as the Nimrod of the party, claimed the right of going where he
pleased; but while he hunted, he of course served also as a scout to nose
out danger. The six Mexicans, who were nominally cattle-drivers, but
really Coronado's minor bravos, were never suffered to ride off in a body,
and were expected to keep on both sides of the train, some in advance and
some in rear. The drivers and muleteers remained steadily with their
wagons and animals. The four soldiers were also at hand, trudging close in
front or in rear, accoutrements always on and muskets always loaded.
In this fashion the expedition had already journeyed over two hundred and
twenty miles. Following Colonel Washington's trail, it had crossed the
ranges of mountains immediately west of Abiquia, and, striking the Rio de
Chaco, had tracked its course for some distance with the hope of reaching
the San Juan. Stopped by a cañon, a precipitous gully hundreds of feet
deep, through which the Chaco ran like a chased devil, the wagons had
turned westward, and then had been forced by impassable ridges and lack of
water into a southwest direction, at last gaining and crossing Pass
Washington.
It was now on the western side of the Sierra de Chusca, in the rude,
barren country over which Fort Defiance stands sentry. Ever since the
second day after leaving San Isidore it had been on the great western
slope of the continent, where every drop of water tends toward the
Pacific. The pilgrims would have had cause to rejoice could they have
travelled as easily as the drops of water, and been as certain of their
goal. But the rivers had made roads for themselves, and man had not yet
had time to do likewise.
The great central plateau of North America is a Mer de Glace in stone. It
is a continent of rock, gullied by furious rivers; plateau on plateau of
sandstone, with sluiceways through which lakes have escaped; the whole
surface gigantically grotesque with the carvings of innumerable waters.
What is remarkable in the scenery is, that its sublimity is an inversion
of the sublimity of almost all other grand scenery. It is not so much the
heights that are prodigious as the abysses. At certain points in the
course of the Colorado of the West you can drop a plumb line six thousand
feet before it will reach the bosom of the current; and you can only gain
the water level by turning backward for scores of miles and winding
laboriously down some subsidiary cañon, itself a chasm of awful grandeur.
Our travellers were now amid wild labyrinths of ranges, and buttes, and
cañons, which were not so much a portion of the great plateau as they were
the _débris_ that constituted its flanks. Although thousands of feet above
the level of the sea, they still had thousands of feet to ascend before
they could dominate the desert. Wild as the land was, it was thus far
passable, while toward the north lay the untraversable. What course should
be taken? Coronado, who had crimes to commit and to conceal, did not yet
feel that he was far enough from the haunts of man. As soon as possible he
must again venture a push northward.
But not immediately. The mules were fagged with hard work, weak with want
of sufficient pasture, and had suffered much from thirst. He resolved to
continue westward to the pueblas of the Moquis, that interesting race of
agricultural and partially civilized Indians, perhaps the representatives
of the architects of the Casas Grandes if not also descended from the
mound-builders of the Mississippi valley. Having rested and refitted
there, he might start anew for the San Juan.
Thus far they had seen no Indians except the vagrants who had robbed
Phineas Glover. But they might now expect to meet them; they were in a
region which was the raiding ground of four great tribes: the Utes on the
north, the Navajos on the west, the Apaches on the south, and the
Comanches on the east. The peaceful and industrious Moquis, with their gay
and warm blankets, their fields of corn and beans, and their flocks of
sheep, are the quarry which attracts this ferocious cavalry of the desert,
these Tartars and Bedouin of America.
Thurstane took more pains than ever with the guard duty. Coronado,
unmilitary though he was, and heartily as he abominated the Lieutenant,
saw the wisdom of submitting to the latter's discipline, and made all his
people submit. A practical-minded man, he preferred to owe the safety of
his carcass to his rival rather than have it impaled on Apache lances.
Occasionally, however, he made a suggestion.
"It is very well, this night-watching," he once observed, "but what we
have most to fear is the open daylight. These mounted Indians seldom
attack in the darkness."
Thurstane knew all this, but he did not say so; for he was a wise,
considerate commander already, and he had learned not to chill an
informant. He looked at Coronado inquiringly, as if to say, What do you
propose?
"Every cañon ought to be explored before we enter it," continued the
Mexican.
"It is a good hint," said Ralph. "Suppose I keep two of your
cattle-drivers constantly in advance. You had better instruct them
yourself. Tell them to fire the moment they discover an ambush. I don't
suppose they will hit anybody, but we want the warning."
With two horsemen three or four hundred yards to the front, two more an
equal distance in the rear, and, when the ground permitted, one on either
flank, the train continued its journey. Every wagon-driver and muleteer
had a weapon of some sort always at hand. The four soldiers marched a few
rods in advance, for the ground behind had already been explored, while
that ahead might contain enemies. The precautions were extraordinary; but
Thurstane constantly trembled for Clara. He would have thought a regiment
hardly sufficient to guard such a treasure.
"How timorous these men are," sniffed Aunt Maria, who, having seen no
hostile Indians, did not believe there were any. "And it seems to me that
soldiers are more easily scared than anybody else," she added, casting a
depreciating glance at Thurstane, who was reconnoitring the landscape
through his field glass.
Clara believed in men, and especially in soldiers, and more particularly
in lieutenants. Accordingly she replied, "I suppose they know the dangers
and we don't."
"Pshaw!" said Aunt Maria, an argument which carried great weight with her.
"They don't know half what they claim to. It is a clever man who knows
one-tenth of his own business." (She was right there.) "They don't know so
much, I verily and solemnly believe, as the women whom they pretend to
despise."
This peaceful and cheering conversation was interrupted by a shot ringing
out of a cañon which opened into a range of rock some three hundred yards
ahead of the caravan. Immediately on the shot came a yell as of a hundred
demons, a furious trampling of the feet of many horses, and a cloud of the
Tartars of the American desert.
In advance of the rush flew the two Mexican vedettes, screaming, "Apaches!
Apaches!"