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LONE PINE
* * * * *
New Fiction
SMITH BRUNT
United States Navy. By WALDRON K. POST, author of "Harvard Stories,"
etc. 12º, 459 pages, $1.50.
"A rattling good story of the Old Navy.... The book recalls Harry
Gringo by its breadth and interest of plot; which means it is a
first-class sea story. It is not an imitation, however.... The
prevailing thought of the book is the unity of aims, ideals and
race between Englishmen and Americans, and this idea is brought out
so well that, even though the reader enjoys the story of the fierce
sea-fights, he deplores the shedding of blood by brothers'
hands."--_Buffalo Courier._
BEARERS OF THE BURDEN
Being Stories of Land and Sea. By Major W. P. DRURY, Royal Marines. 12º,
286 pages, $1.00.
"Major Drury's stories combine pathos and humor with an underlying
earnestness that betrays a clear moral vision. The whole volume is
of a rare and wholesome quality."--_Chicago Tribune._
ROSALBA
The Story of Her Development. By OLIVE PRATT RAYNER (Grant Allen),
author of "Flowers and Their Pedigrees," etc. Hudson Library, No. 39.
12º, 396 pages, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00.
"A story which holds the reader with profound interest to the
closing lines."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean._
ABOARD "THE AMERICAN DUCHESS"
By HEADON HILL. Hudson Library, No. 41. 12º, paper, 50 cts.; cloth,
$1.00.
NOTE.--This is a reprint of a work previously published under the
title of "Queen of the Night"--with certain changes of names.
"He has certainly given to the reading public a capital story full
of action. It is a bright novel and contains many admirable
chapters. Life on the ocean is well depicted, many exciting
episodes are well told, and it will interest readers of all
classes."--_Knoxville Sentinel._
THE PRIEST'S MARRIAGE
By NORA VYNNE, author of "The Blind Artist's Picture," etc. Hudson
Library, No. 42. 12º, paper, 50 cts.; cloth, $1.00.
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, NEW YORK AND LONDON
* * * * *
LONE PINE
The Story of a Lost Mine
by
R. B. TOWNSHEND
[Illustration: Decoration]
G. P. Putnam's Sons
New York & London
The Knickerbocker Press
1900
Copyright, 1899
by G. P. Putnam's Sons
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
TO
MY FRIENDS IN SANTIAGO
RED AND WHITE
AND
IN MEMORY OF
A BRINDLED BULLDOG
I have to thank Señor F. de Arteaga y Pereira, Reader of Spanish in the
University of Oxford, for the Spanish version of Heine's poem which
appears in Chapter XXIX.
A lone pine stands in the Northland
On a bald and barren height.
He sleeps, by the snows enfolded
In a mantle of wintry white.
He dreams of a lonely palm-tree,
Afar in the morning-land,
Consumed with unspoken longing
In a waste of burning sand.
_After Heine._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--INDIAN LOVERS 1
II.--A LONE HAND 12
III.--BLASTING THE ACEQUIA 22
IV.--A RACE WITH A MULE 38
V.--"OJOS AZULES NO MIRAN" 46
VI.--AN OLD WOUND REOPENED 59
VII.--DESDEMONA LISTENS 74
VIII.--CHILDREN OF THE SUN 90
IX.--A SQUAW FOR A FEE 105
X.--AN ELOPEMENT 119
XI.--MY DUCATS AND MY DAUGHTER 131
XII.--PACIFYING A GHOST 144
XIII.--A GIRL'S TEARS 163
XIV--A STERN CHASE 180
XV.--THE ROD DESCENDS 188
XVI.--THE FEE IS ACCEPTED 197
XVII.--MADAM WHAILAHAY 214
XVIII.--HUNTING A TRAIL 229
XIX.--RUN TO GROUND 244
XX.--THE WOLF'S LAIR 258
XXI.--DRIVING A BARGAIN 269
XXII.--A WOUNDED MAN 285
XXIII.--A PICNIC PARTY 297
XXIV.--WEIGHING THE SILVER 308
XXV.--A PREHISTORIC HEARTH 323
XXVI.--THE SNAKE'S VERDICT 340
XXVII.--AULD ACQUAINTANCE 353
XXVIII.--ELEVEN TO ONE 366
XXIX.--PEACE WITH HONOUR 384
LONE PINE
CHAPTER I
INDIAN LOVERS
A moon just past its first quarter was shining on the Indian pueblo of
Santiago, so that one side of the main street (it only boasted four) was
in deep shadow, while on the other the mud-built houses were made almost
beautiful by the silver light. The walls on the bright side were
curiously barred with the slanting shadows cast by low, broad ladders,
which led from storey to storey of the terrace-like buildings, and by
the projecting ends of the beams which supported their flat roofs.
Outside each house, clear away from the wall, stood a great clay oven,
in shape exactly like a gigantic beehive as tall as a man. In the
deepest shadow on the dark side of the street, between one of these
ovens and the wall, something was crouching. The street was deserted,
for the Indians, who practise the precept "early to bed and early to
rise," had long ago lain down to sleep on their sheepskins. But if
anyone had gone up to the crouching something, he would have found a
young Indian, with a striped blanket drawn completely over and around
him so as to conceal everything except the keen eyes that peered
watchfully out of the folds. There was no one to disturb him, however,
and the bright moon of New Mexican skies sank lower and lower in the
west, and yet he remained there motionless, except when now and again
the night air, growing colder, caused the blanket to be gathered more
closely to the body it was protecting.
Just as the moon dipped behind the western hills, the figure sprang up
and darted forward. The long, untiring watch was over at last. From a
hole in the opposite wall, a good deal higher than a man's head from the
ground, a little hand and wrist were seen waving.
In a moment the boy--he was hardly more--was underneath. He threw back
the blanket from his head, and it fell down to his waist, where it was
supported by a belt, leaving his body and arms free. His answering hand
crept up the cold, rough surface of the wall till at its utmost stretch
he felt a smooth, warm skin rub against his finger-tips, and instantly
the two hands interlocked.
"Is that you, Felipe?" breathed a low voice from inside.
"Yes, my love, it is," came back a whisper as low from the Indian boy
who had waited so long and so patiently for his sweetheart's signal.
"Why did you look so sad," he continued, "when you gave me the signal
to-day? Is there anything new?"
"Oh, Felipe, yes," she sighed. "I do not know how to tell you. My father
spoke to me this morning and said it should be in three days. He has
sent for the padre to come. In three days, Felipe! What shall I do? I
shall die!"
The young Indian groaned under his breath. "In three days!" he said.
"Ah, that is too cruel! Is it really true?"
"Oh yes," came the whispered answer. "My father said he would beat me to
death if I did not consent. I should not so much mind being beaten,
Felipe--it would be for you; but he would kill me, I believe. I am
frightened."
Felipe felt the shiver that ran through the finger-tips clasped in his.
"Do not be so afraid, Josefa," he said, trying to keep up her courage.
"Can you not tell the padre that you hate old Ignacio and that you will
not marry him?"
"Yes," replied she, "but he will say, 'Oh, nonsense, nonsense; girls are
always afraid like that.' As long as my father is cacique the padre is
bound to please him to make sure of getting his dues. He'll do what my
father wants. He will not mind me."
"There is only one thing for us to do," said the boy; "we must run away
together."
"But where?" said she, "and how? They will catch us, and they will beat
us, and they will marry me all the same to that ugly old Ignacio. I hate
him from the bottom of my heart; and if ever he dares to try to master
me, I'll do him a mischief."
"Ah, but he is going to bribe your father with three cows," said her
lover disconsolately. "He can do it, too, easy enough. He is the very
richest man of all the Eagles, and I suppose the Eagles are the
strongest family in the pueblo next to the Snakes. Anyway the cacique
always favours them, so he has a double reason for wanting to hand you
over to that old miser. Alas! I have no cows to give him, not even one
little calf. We Turquoises are so few and so poor! The cacique would
never hear of your marrying one of us. He is so proud of having married
a Snake himself, that he thinks nobody good enough for his daughter who
isn't able----" He was silenced by the girl.
"Hush!" said she quickly in a smothered tone, "I hear him moving about
in the farther room"; and the Indian lad listened, motionless as a
statue, with all the wary concentration of his race in the moment of
danger.
The red Indian has often been represented as apathetic. He is not. His
loves and his hatreds are intense, only, both by birth and bringing up,
he is endowed with extraordinary power of controlling their expression.
Underneath their outward self-restraint these simple folk of Santiago
were capable enough of feeling all the emotions of humanity pulsing
through their veins and plucking at their heart-strings. Felipe and
Josefa, exchanging hand-clasps and vows of fidelity through a hole in an
adobe wall, were as passionate and as miserable as if the little drama
which meant so much to them was being played on the wider stage of the
great world outside. When the girl whispered "hush" to her lover, both
held their breath and listened, each conscious of the pulse that
throbbed in the other's hand. It was a noise from inside the house that
had startled the girl. She could hear that someone in a farther room had
got up and was throwing a stick of wood on the fire. With a gentle
pressure her finger-tips were withdrawn from her lover's, and her hand
disappeared back through the hole. Felipe sank down into the crouching
position he had been in till she came, drawing the blanket over him for
concealment and warmth as before. For nearly half an hour he remained
perfectly still. Then a slight rubbing on the inner side of the wall
became audible, and presently looking up he saw not a hand only, but a
whole arm reaching down to him from the opening. Up he sprang, and
stretching himself on tiptoe against the wall he succeeded in bringing
his lips up to the little hand, which he kissed silently again and
again.
"It was my father," said she. "He must be asleep again now; he lay down
again quite soon. They put a new stone," she continued, "in the
hand-mill to-day, for I have quite worn out the old one with grinding
corn on it for my step-mother. But they have brought the old one into
the storeroom here, and I have taken it to stand on, so that I can see
you now if I take my hand in and put my head to the hole. But, Felipe,
let us settle what to do."
"I've been thinking," said Felipe, "we must run; we must. Of course it
is no use for us to go to our padre. He is on their side, just as you
say, so we will not go to him. We will try another padre, who has
nothing to do with the pueblo and won't care for your father. I'll tell
you. Let us go to Padre Trujillo at Ensenada. They say he is good and
kind to his Indians. He will marry us. I have the money to pay his fee.
When we are once married, my joy, we are safe. They cannot separate us
when the padre has joined us for ever. They cannot do anything to us
then; our own padre himself would forbid it."
"We would be safe then, indeed," sighed Josefa. "Oh, if we could only
manage it! What shall we do for a horse? the horse herd is away in the
sierra, and they will not bring it down till Sunday."
"Sunday will be too late for us," said Felipe sadly. "We want a horse
now, at once; I could go out to the horse herd and get my father's horse
if he would give me leave to get him. But you know this new captain of
the horse herd is that bullying Rufino of the Eagles. He and his
helpers have the herd now on the other side of the Cerro de las Viboras,
the Mountain of the Snakes. I'm sure they'd never let me have the horse
unless my father gave them the order or came to fetch him himself. But
he won't do that, I know; the horse is thin after the cold winter, and
he wants him to eat green grass now and grow fat. It won't do."
"Ask El Americano, then," suggested the girl quickly, as if a sudden
thought had struck her. "Yes, why don't you ask him? Ask Don Estevan to
lend you a horse or a mule; you work for him, and he seems so friendly
with you, perhaps he'll let you have one of his."
"What!" exclaimed the young Indian, "ask him! Ask Turquoise-eyes to lend
a horse! Ask Sooshiuamo to do that! That's no sort of use." He spoke
hopelessly, as if surprised at her even thinking of such a thing.
El Americano, as the girl had first called him, otherwise known as Don
Estevan or Sooshiuamo, was a solitary white man, a prospector who had
obtained permission to spend the past winter in the village of the
Indians of Santiago, and by them was often referred to as El Americano,
the American _par excellence_, because he was the only one within fifty
miles.
"You might just ask him once, though," she persisted, in spite of
Felipe's attitude. "Oh yes, Felipe, go and ask him. Do try. Go now. It
can't do any harm even if he won't."
"But I know he won't," returned the boy, unconvinced; "and I shall have
to tell him what it's for, and if I go and tell Sooshiuamo our secret,
what's to prevent him telling the chiefs? He's very friendly with them
all."
"Oh, but of course you mustn't tell him our plan," she answered; "we
must keep that dark. But he's very kind to all our folk. Perhaps he'd do
it for us out of kindness. It's all out of kindness, isn't it, that he's
going to make the rocks fly away out of the acequia to-morrow? They say
he's going to do a miracle for the pueblo. I heard my father talking
about it."
"Yes, I know that," said Felipe; "I know he told me himself he would
make the rocks jump out of the ditch, and that then we should have twice
as much water as ever we had before. I know he's a good friend to us.
But I know, too, he hates ever to lend any of his animals to any of us.
He thinks we would ride them to death if he did. I will try him, though,
anyway. I will beg very hard. Don't be afraid, dear heart; I will get
one somehow, if you will really come--yes, if I have to take one of the
Mexicans' horses."
"Oh no, not that!" cried she. "They will shoot you or hang you if you
touch their horses. Don't do it. I will not go if you take a horse of
the Mexicans. I would rather go afoot."
"No, dear heart, you couldn't. It isn't possible. It is ten leagues to
Ensenada from here, and we must do it between moonset and daylight, or
they will catch us. Do not talk of going afoot. Trust me, I will get a
horse. But you will really come, Josefa _mia_? Do you really mean it?
What other woman would be so brave?"
"I do mean it, indeed," she answered. "Oh, how I wish we could be
married here in our own church by the padre! but my father wouldn't hear
of it. He wouldn't even let me speak to you, you know, or let me go out
without being watched."
"Yes, I wish we could," said the young Indian wistfully. "I spoke to my
father to ask for you for me, but he only said, 'We are too poor. It is
no use. We have only one horse and two cows. Ignacio has several horses
and thirty cows.' As if that was a reason, when I want you so much!" he
added indignantly. "If I had the whole world I would give it to
Salvador, and he might be cacique of it all, if he would only let me
have you." He drew himself up to the wall again and kissed the little
warm hand eagerly. "My sweetheart!" he exclaimed, "I shall die if I do
not get you! Oh, if I could only tear down this hateful wall! How can I
talk to you properly when I cannot see you? May not I get in by the
terrace roof? Let me try."
"Hush, Felipe," she said. "Don't be foolish, you silly boy. You would be
sure to be heard, and then everything will be ruined. You must be
patient." Here she gave his hand a little squeeze, which of course had
just the contrary effect to her advice, for he kissed the fingers with
redoubled ardour. Then he broke in--
"But if I can't get in without disturbing them, how will you be able to
get out?"
"Oh, I can manage that," said the girl. "I will slip into this storeroom
when they are asleep, as I always do, and from here I can get through
the trap-door into the room above, and so out on to the terrace. There
is an old ladder I can get up by."
The villages of the Pueblo Indians are built in terraces, each
house-storey standing back from the one below it like a flight of
gigantic steps. From terrace to terrace people ascend by ladders, and
many of the lower rooms are without any door but a trap-door in the
ceiling. The system is a relic of the times when their villages were
castles for defence against their deadly enemies, the marauding Navajos
and Apaches.
"How brave you are, Josefita _mia_!" he cried. "Will you really dare to
run away from them, and come with me? How sweet it will be! we shall be
together for the first time--think of it! Oh, I will make you happy, I
will indeed!"
"If they rob me of you, I shall die," said the girl in a low, sad voice.
"One thing, Felipe, I promise you, I will not be Ignacio's wife. Never!
You need not fear that."
"Oh, my darling," he sighed, "how can I be content with that? I want you
for my very own. In my eyes you are more beautiful than the saints in
the church, and they are not more wise and good than you. Why are things
made so hard for us?"
"I do not know," she said softly; "nobody seems to be so unhappy as we
are. But we can comfort each other ever so much. My step-mother will
make me work like a slave all to-morrow, I know, but I shall have the
thought of you to comfort me."
"My sweetheart!" said he. "You have a thousand times more to bear than I
have. But I will try to think for you. You must take some rest. I know
how they treat you." He ground his teeth. "We must part now, but I will
come to-morrow night. I will bring a horse if I can get one. If not, we
have one day left still, and we will settle what to do."
"Till to-morrow night, then," said she.
"To-morrow night at moonset," said Felipe; and with many final pressures
of hands, each one intended to be the very last, the lovers parted.
Silently the moccasined feet of the boy stole up the wide street, as he
ran homeward under the clear starlight. He lifted the latch of his
mother's door and entered. The fire was low, and he put on another stick
of cedar wood, and lying down on the sheepskins spread upon the floor,
covered himself with his blanket and lay still. His father, old
Atanacio, woke up when he came in, but said nothing to him; and soon
sleep reigned again supreme in the Indian house. The Indians are early
risers as well as light sleepers, and before daylight they were up and
stirring. After their breakfast of bread and dried mutton, Atanacio
said, "When you have taken care of the horses of the Americano, Felipe,
you had better weed the wheat patch by the meadow. Tomas and I are going
to the patch up by the orchard."
"I wanted," said Felipe, somewhat timidly, "to go to the herd and get
the horse."
"Bad luck take the boy!" snarled the old Indian. "What does he want with
the horse? Does he think we keep a horse for him to wear him to a
skeleton flying round the country on him? Let him be. Let him get fat on
the green grass."
"But I shall want him if I go with Sooshiuamo," answered Felipe
diplomatically. "The Americano told me that he was going off to the
sierra for a hunt to get meat as soon as he had made the rocks jump out
of the acequia for us as he has promised. He said when he went on a hunt
he wanted me to go along and help him to pack the meat down. His rifle
never misses, and then when he kills a wild bull he will give me
meat--fresh meat--father."
"Bad luck take the Americano, too," growled the old man, as crossly as
ever. "Whose cattle are they that he wants to kill? The wild cattle in
the mountain are the children of ours, though they have no brands. Why
should he come and kill them?"
"The cacique gave him leave, father."
"Well, I suppose he says so," was the ungracious response. "But if he
wants to take you, he can give you a beast to ride. He has two mules
besides the mare, and they do nothing, and eat maize all the time. They
ought to be fat."
"But if he kills a bull he will want them to carry the meat," said
Felipe. "One mule can't carry it all."
"Very well, then, you can ride one of his up and walk back," snapped the
stern parent. "Want to ride the horse indeed! Lazy young rascal! Go
afoot."
Felipe felt rebellious. He was getting to be a man now, and his father
still wanted to treat him with as little consideration as a child.
Instead of showing increasing respect to his tall son, the old man grew
crosser and crosser every day. But Felipe had never rebelled against the
parental yoke, though he had said to himself a hundred times that he
would not stand it any longer. Yet in plotting to elope with Josefa he
was plotting a rebellion far more venturesome against the code of the
community of which he was a member.
"There isn't much hope there," said he to himself as he left the house,
"but I knew that before. Now for Don Estevan." It was no use to try to
borrow from any of the other Indians, for every man of them had his
horse out at the herd--except, indeed, the cacique himself--and the herd
was a day's journey away. With an anxious heart the boy wended his way
to the next street of the village, which was the one where the American
lodged.