When the race for life and death commenced between the emigrants and the
Apaches, it seemed as if the former would certainly be able to go two
miles before the latter could cover six.
But the mules were weak, and the soil of the plain was a thin loam into
which the wheels sank easily, so that the heavy wagons could not be
hurried beyond a trot, and before long were reduced to a walk. Thus, while
the caravan was still half a mile from its city of refuge, the foremost
hornets of Delgadito's swarm were already circling around it.
The chief could not charge at once, however, for the warriors whom he had
in hand numbered barely a score, and their horses, blown with a run of
over five miles, were unfit for sharp fighting work. For a few minutes
nothing happened, except that the caravan continued its silent, sullen
retreat, while the pursuers cantered yelling around it at a safe distance.
Not a shot was fired by the emigrants; not a brave dashed up to let fly
his arrows. At last there were fifty Apaches; then there was a hurried
council; then a furious rush. Evidently the savages were ashamed to let
their enemies escape for lack of one audacious assault.
This charge was led by a child. A boy not more than fourteen years of age,
screaming like a little demon and discharging his arrows at full speed
with wicked dexterity, rode at the head of this savage _hourra_ of the
Cossacks of the American desert. As the fierce child came on, Coronado saw
him and recognized him with a mixture of wonder, dread, and hate. Here was
the son of the false-hearted savage who had accepted his money, agreed to
do his work, and then turned against him. Should he kill him? It would
open an account of blood between himself and the father. Never mind;
vengeance is sweet; moreover, the youngster was dangerous.
Coronado raised his revolver, steadied it across his left arm, took a calm
aim, and fired. The handsome, headlong, terrible boy swayed forward,
rolled slowly over the pommel of his saddle, and fell to the ground
motionless. In the next moment there was a general rattle of firearms from
the train, and the mass of the charging column broke up into squads which
went off in aimless caracolings. Barring a short struggle by half a dozen
braves to recover the young chief's body, the contest was over; and in two
minutes more the Apaches were half a mile distant, looking on in sulky
silence while the train crawled toward the protecting bluff.
"Hurrah!" shouted Thurstane. "That was quick work. Delgadito doesn't take
his punishment well."
"Reckon they see we had friends," observed Captain Glover. "Jest look at
them critters pile down the mounting. Darned if they don't skip like
nanny-goats."
Down the huge steep slope, springing along rocky, sinuous paths or over
the walls of the terraces, came a hundred or a hundred and fifty men,
running with a speed which, considering the nature of the footing, was
marvellous. Before many in the train were aware of their approach, they
were already among the wagons, rushing up to the travellers with
outstretched hands, the most cordial, cheerful, kindly-eyed people that
Thurstane had seen in New Mexico. Good features, too; that is, they were
handsomer than the usual Indian type; some even had physiognomies which
reminded one of Italians. Their hair was fine and glossy for men of their
race; and, stranger still, it bore an appearance of careful combing.
Nearly all wore loose cotton trousers or drawers reaching to the knee,
with a kind of blouse of woollen or cotton, and over the shoulders a gay
woollen blanket tied around the waist. In view of their tidy raiment and
their general air of cleanliness, it seemed a mistake to class them as
Indians. These were the Moquis, a remnant of one of the semi-civilizations
of America, perhaps a colony left behind by the Aztecs in their
migrations, or possibly by the temple-builders of Yucatan.
Impossible to converse with them. Not a person in the caravan spoke the
Moqui tongue, and not a Moqui spoke or understood a word of Spanish or
English. But it was evident from their faces and gestures that they were
enthusiastically friendly, and that they had rushed down from their
fastness to aid the emigrants against the Apaches. There was even a little
sally into the plain, the Moquis running a quarter of a mile with amazing
agility, spreading out into a loose skirmishing line of battle,
brandishing their bows and defying the enemy to battle. But this ended in
nothing; the Apaches sullenly cantered away; the others soon checked their
pursuit.
Now came the question of encampment. To get the wagons up the bluff, eight
hundred feet or so in height, along a path which had been cut in the rock
or built up with stone, was obviously impossible. Would there be safety
where they were, just at the base of the noble slope? The Moquis assured
them by signs that the plundering horse-Indians never came so near the
pueblos. Camp then; the wagons were parked as usual in a hollow square;
the half-starved animals were unharnessed and allowed to fly at the
abundant grass; the cramped and wearied travellers threw themselves on the
ground with delight.
"What a charming people these Monkeys are!" said Aunt Maria, surveying the
neat and smiling villagers with approval.
"Moquis," Coronado corrected her, with a bow.
"Oh, Mo-kies," repeated Aunt Maria, this time catching the sound exactly.
"Well, I propose to see as much of them as possible. Why shouldn't the
women and the wounded sleep in the city?"
"It is an excellent idea," assented Coronado, although he thought with
distaste that this would bring Clara and Thurstane together, while he
would be at a distance.
"I suppose we shall get an idea from it of the ancient city of Mexico, as
described by Prescott," continued the enthusiastic lady.
"You will discover a few deviations in the ground plan," returned
Coronado, for once ironical.
Aunt Maria's suggestion with regard to the women and the wounded was
adopted. The Moquis seemed to urge it; so at least they were understood.
Within a couple of hours after the halt a procession of the feebler folk
commenced climbing the bluff, accompanied by a crowd of the hospitable
Indians. The winding and difficult path swarmed for a quarter of a mile
with people in the gayest of blankets, some ascending with the strangers
and some coming down to greet them.
"I should think we were going up to the Temple of the Sun to be
sacrified," said Clara, who had also read Prescott.
"To be worshipped," ventured Thurstane, giving her a look which made her
blush, the boldest look that he had yet ventured.
The terraces, as we have stated, were faced with partially dressed stone.
They were in many places quite broad, and were cultivated everywhere with
admirable care, presenting long green lines of corn fields or of peach
orchards. Half-way up the ascent was a platform of more than ordinary
spaciousness which contained a large reservoir, built of chipped stone
strongly cemented, and brimming with limpid water. From this cistern large
earthen pipes led off in various directions to irrigate the terraces
below.
"It seems to me that we are discovering America," exclaimed Aunt Maria,
her face scarlet with exercise and enthusiasm.
Presently she asked, in full faith that she was approaching a metropolis,
"What is the name of the city?"
"This must be Tegua," replied Thurstane. "Tegua is the most eastern of the
Moqui pueblos. There are three on this bluff. Mooshaneh and two others are
on a butte to the west. Oraybe is further north."
"What a powerful confederacy!" said Aunt Maria. "The United States of the
Moquis!"
After a breathless ascent of at least eight hundred feet, they reached the
undulated, barren, rocky surface of a plateau. Here the whole population
of Tegua had collected; and for the first time the visitors saw Moqui
women and children. Aunt Maria was particularly pleased with the specimens
of her own sex; she went into ecstasies over their gentle physiognomies
and their well-combed, carefully braided, glossy hair; she admired their
long gowns of black woollen, each with a yellow stripe around the waist
and a border of the same at the bottom.
"Such a sensible costume!" she said. "So much more rational and convenient
than our fashionable fripperies!"
Another fact of great interest was that the Moquis were lighter
complexioned than Indians in general. And when she discovered a woman with
fair skin, blue eyes, and yellow hair--one of those albinos who are found
among the inhabitants of the pueblos--she went into an excitement which
was nothing less than ethnological.
"These are white people," she cried, losing sight of all the brown faces.
"They are some European race which colonized America long before that
modern upstart, Columbus. They are undoubtedly the descendants of the
Northmen who built the old mill at Newport and sculptured the Dighton
Rock."
"There is a belief," said Thurstane, "that some of these pueblo people,
particularly those of Zuni, are Welsh. A Welsh prince named Madoc, flying
before the Saxons, is said to have reached America. There are persons who
hold that the descendants of his followers built the mounds in the
Mississippi Valley, and that some of them became the white Mandans of the
upper Missouri, and that others founded this old Mexican civilization. Of
course it is all guess-work. There's nothing about it in the Regulations."
"I consider it highly probable," asserted Aunt Maria, forgetting her
Scandinavian hypothesis. "I don't see how you can doubt that that
flaxen-haired girl is a descendant of Medoc, Prince of Wales."
"Madoc," corrected Thurstane.
"Well, Madoc then," replied Aunt Maria rather pettishly, for she was
dreadfully tired, and moreover she didn't like Thurstane.
A few minutes' walk brought them to the rampart which surrounded the
pueblo. Its foundation was a solid blind wall, fifteen feet or so in
height, and built of hewn stone laid in clay cement. Above was a second
wall, rising from the first as one terrace rises from another, and
surmounted by a third, which was also in terrace fashion. The ground tier
of this stair-like structure contained the storerooms of the Moquis, while
the upper tiers were composed of their two-story houses, the entire mass
of masonry being upward of thirty feet high, and forming a continuous line
of fortification. This rampart of dwellings was in the shape of a
rectangle, and enclosed a large square or plaza containing a noble
reservoir. Compact and populous, at once a castle and a city, the place
could defy all the horse Indians of North America.
"Bless me! this is sublime but dreadful," said Aunt Maria when she learned
that she must ascend to the landing of the lower wall by a ladder. "No
gate? Isn't there a window somewhere that I could crawl through? Well,
well! Dear me! But it's delightful to see how safe these excellent people
have made themselves."
So with many tremblings, and with the aid of a lariat fastened around her
waist and vigorously pulled from above by two Moquis, Aunt Maria clutched
and scraped her way to the top of the foundation terrace.
"I shall never go down in the world," she remarked with a shuddering
glance backward. "I shall pass the rest of my days here."
From the first platform the travellers were led to the second and third by
stone stairways. They were now upon the inside of the rectangle, and could
see two stories of doors facing the plaza and the reservoir in its centre,
the whole scene cheerful with the gay garments and smiling faces of the
Moquis.
"Beautiful!" said Aunt Maria. "That court is absolutely swept and dusted.
One might give a ball there. I should like to hear Lucretia Mott speak in
it."
Her reflections were interrupted by the courteous gestures of a
middle-aged, dignified Moqui, who was apparently inviting the party to
enter one of the dwellings.
Pepita and the other two Indian women, with the wounded muleteers, were
taken to another house. Aunt Maria, Clara, Thurstane, and Phineas Glover
entered the residence of the chief, and found themselves in a room six or
seven feet high, fifteen feet in length and ten in breadth. The floor was
solid, polished clay; the walls were built of the large, sunbaked bricks
called adobes; the ceilings were of beams, covered by short sticks, with
adobes over all. Skins, bows and arrows, quivers, antlers, blankets,
articles of clothing, and various simple ornaments hung on pegs driven
into the walls or lay packed upon shelves.
"They are a musical race, I see," observed Aunt Maria, pointing to a pair
of painted drumsticks tipped with gay feathers, and a reed wind-instrument
with a bell-shaped mouth like a clarionet. "Of course they are. The Welsh
were always famous for their bards and their harpers. Does anybody in our
party speak Welsh? What a pity we are such ignoramuses! We might have an
interesting conversation with these people. I should so like to hear their
traditions about the voyage across the Atlantic and the old mill at
Newport."
Her remarks were interrupted by a short speech from the chief, whom she at
first understood as relating the adventures of his ancestors, but who
finally made it clear that he was asking them to take seats. After they
were arranged on a row of skins spread along the wall, a shy, meek, and
pretty Moqui woman passed around a vase of water for drinking and a tray
which contained something not unlike a bundle of blue wrapping paper.
"Is this to wipe our hands on?" inquired Aunt Maria, bringing her
spectacles to bear on the contents of the tray.
"It smells like corn bread," said Clara.
So it was. The corn of the Moquis is blue, and grinding does not destroy
the color. The meal is stirred into a thin gruel and cooked by pouring
over smooth, flat, heated stones, the light shining tissues being rapidly
taken off and folded, and subsequently made up in bundles.
The party made a fair meal off the blue wrapping paper. Then the meek-eyed
woman reappeared, removed the dishes, returned once more, and looked
fixedly at Thurstane's bloody sleeve.
"Certainly!" said Aunt Maria. "Let her dress your arm. I have no doubt
that unpretending woman knows more about surgery than all the men doctors
in New York city. Let her dress it."
Thurstane partially threw off his coat and rolled up his shirt sleeve.
Clara gave one glance at the huge white arm with the small crimson hole in
it, and turned away with a thrill which was new to her. The Moqui woman
washed the wound, applied a dressing which looked like chewed leaves, and
put on a light bandage.
"Does it feel any better?" asked Aunt Maria eagerly.
"It feels cooler," said Thurstane.
Aunt Maria looked as if she thought him very ungrateful for not saying
that he was entirely well.
"An' my nose," suggested Glover, turning up his lacerated proboscis.
"Yes, certainly; your poor nose," assented Aunt Maria. "Let the lady cure
it."
The female surgeon fastened a poultice upon the tattered cartilage by
passing a bandage around the skipper's sandy and bristly head.
"Works like a charm 'n' smells like peach leaves," snuffled the patient.
"It's where it's handy to sniff at--that's a comfort."
After much dumb show, arrangements were made for the night. One of the
inner rooms was assigned to Mrs. Stanley and Clara, and another to
Thurstane and Glover. Bedding, provisions, and some small articles as
presents for the Moquis were sent up from the train by Coronado.
But would the wagons, the animals, and the human members of the party
below be safe during the night? Young as he was, and wounded as he was,
Thurstane was so badgered by his army habit of incessant responsibility
that he could not lie down to rest until he had visited the camp and
examined personally into probabilities of attack and means of defence. As
he descended the stony path which scored the side of the butte, his
anxiety was greatly increased by the appearance of a party of armed Moquis
rushing like deer down the steep slope, as if to repel an attack.