MY DUCATS AND MY DAUGHTER
The grey dawn that awoke the household of the cacique did so to some
purpose. "Josefa," called the step-mother as she arose, "Josefa"--but no
answer came. "Why, where can she be?" exclaimed the Indian woman,
looking round and calling her other daughters. Salvador himself rushed
into the inner room to look for her. In a moment he sprang out again.
"She has gone!" he shouted. "She has got through the trap-door and
escaped. Oh, the wretch!"
"Where can she be?" wondered his wife helplessly.
"Where can she be?" he echoed scornfully. "Why, with that pauper
scoundrel of a Felipe. I know her. Oh, I'll make her pay for this!"
He seized his revolver and slipped his belt through the loop of its
case, and grasping a horsewhip he darted from the house. The rest of the
family followed him somewhat timidly, anxious to see what was going to
happen, wishing, perhaps, that he would punish her a little for not
being so good and steady as they were, hoping, too, to intervene and
save her from the extremity of his passion, for they knew how pitiless
he was when roused.
The cacique flew straight to Atanacio's dwelling, and thrusting the
door open burst rudely into the apartment.
"Where is Felipe? Where is my daughter?" shouted he in tones of fury.
"I don't know. I don't know anything about it," said the old man humbly.
"Isn't your daughter at home? Perhaps she is over at Sahwaquiu's."
Sahwaquiu was Josefa's uncle, her own mother's brother, and Josefa was a
pet of his.
"Where's Felipe, I ask you? Answer me, you old reprobate!" roared the
angry cacique.
"I don't know," said the old man again, in the humblest tones. "I have
not seen him. He was here last night when we lay down, but he got up and
went out. I don't know where he is."
"He's run off with my daughter, that's where he is," shouted the
indignant parent; "and I believe you know about it too," he added,
threatening the old man with his whip. "You had better say what you
know, or I'll make you."
He was a thick-set, muscular man, and looked well able to carry out his
threat, as he stood over old Atanacio, who remained passive, seated on a
sheep skin near the hearth, neither attempting to defend himself nor to
escape. The cacique's black eyes flashed fury, and his coarse features
worked with passion, as with taunts and threats he cowed the helpless
being before him.
But meanwhile the news of the elopement had spread, and the Indians were
buzzing about their village like a swarm of bees round the hive. Up
dashed one of the younger men with news. "Cacique, Cacique," he cried,
"the stable! Your horse has gone, but the stable is locked. His tracks
go all up by the acequia"; and he pointed to where two Indians, with
their heads bent low almost to the ground, were busily questing from
side to side like sleuth-hounds on a scent.
"Oh, the villain!" roared Salvador. "He's got my horse. He shall be
hanged." And he ran first of all to the stable to satisfy himself by
seeing with his own eyes what had happened.
It was true. The stable was locked, but the steed was stolen, as could
be seen by lying down and peeping under the door. The cacique got up
with his white shirt and buckskins all dusty from the ground, and
turning to the crowd called out:
"Here, get me a horse, some of you--Tito, Miguel, Alejandro. Go get me
the mare of the Americano, and mount yourselves, too." And he himself
started out towards the acequia to look at the tracks. Several Indians
ran towards the corrals.
"The saddle," said one; "we want a saddle; go get yours, Alejandro. You
live nearest."
"Hadn't we better tell the Americano," said Tito, "before we take his
mare? Maybe he won't like to lend her."
"But he must lend her," retorted Miguel impatiently. "The cacique wants
her. Isn't that enough?"
By this time they had arrived at the bars of the corral where the
prospector kept his stock, and they stopped to wait for Alejandro to
bring the saddle. Tito took advantage of the delay to act on his own
motion, and darting over to the door of Stephens's dwelling began to
knock vigorously.
"Hullo! who's there?" called out Stephens in response to the knocking.
He was still between the blankets, and had not yet turned out.
"The cacique wants your mare," cried Tito through the keyhole.
"Wants my what?" exclaimed Stephens, who failed to catch his words
exactly. "Open the door, can't you, and let me hear what you've got to
say," he added, sitting up in bed.
Tito held the door ajar and put half his face into the aperture. He had
a wholesome respect for Faro and did not care to adventure farther.
"The cacique wants to take your mare to ride, to go after his daughter,"
he explained.
"Well, he can't have her, that's all about it," said Stephens, getting
out of bed and beginning to put on his moccasins. He had adopted the
Indian foot-covering as more comfortable as well as more economical than
boots. "Just tell him," he continued, "that I'm not lending horses just
now. When I am I'll let him know. But why can't he take his own?"
"He hasn't got it. It's gone," said Tito, at the same time signalling
with the half of him outside the doorway to Miguel not to take the mare.
"It's gone. Felipe's run away with the cacique's horse and his
daughter."
"The dickens he has!" said Stephens. "When did he do that?" As he spoke
he recollected Felipe's midnight visit to him for the purpose of
borrowing the saddle, and a light dawned on him. But under the
circumstances it seemed better to say nothing about the matter.
He put on his hat and came to the door. Tito volubly expounded all he
knew of the story. Presently Salvador himself came bustling up from the
acequia, whip in hand and revolver on hip.
"Looks considerable on the war-path," said the prospector to himself.
"Wonder what he means to do about it."
"Here," said the cacique in a loud voice to the Indians round, "where's
the horse? why isn't it saddled?"
Stephens stood leaning carelessly against the doorpost, but took no
notice of his speech. There was silence for a moment, and then Tito said
in a apologetic tone, "Don Estevan says he doesn't want to lend her."
"Oh, nonsense!" said the cacique; and then turning to the American and
mastering his passion as well as he could, he said, "Lend me your mare,
Don Estevan."
"I can't do it, Salvador," said the prospector deliberately. "I want to
go to the sierra to-day."
"Oh, the sierra!" said the cacique impatiently. "That will do to-morrow.
My daughter is gone and my horse is gone and there's nothing else to go
after them on. You must lend yours for once."
"Not to be ridden to death after them," said Stephens. "Why, they're
leagues away by this time. You'll have to ride like the very mischief to
catch them." There was an accent of contempt in his voice which
infuriated the Indian. Stephens valued the mare, which he had brought
with him from Denver, above all earthly things, and the idea of letting
an Indian ride her near to death in a long, stern chase seemed to him
the blankest absurdity. "Why, I wouldn't do it for my own brother!" he
went on. "You can't have her, Cacique, and that's flat."
"But I must," said the Indian, enraged at an opposition he had not
expected. "I must and I will. What's a horse for but to ride?" He turned
to the crowd of Indians behind him, and called out, "Saddle her up, will
you, quick!"
Two or three began instantly to run towards the corral, and the rest
were starting to follow when the loud, clear voice of the prospector
arrested their movement.
"Stop right there!" were his words. "You do no such thing. If anyone
touches my stock without my leave I'll shoot him."
The Indians stopped.
"I'll drive you out of here, you Americano," said the angry cacique,
laying his hand upon the butt of his revolver and advancing directly
towards Stephens, who was of course quite unarmed.
"Drive away then, and be d----d to you," returned the American. "I've
hired these rooms from old Reyna till the end of April, and I sha'n't
budge before." And his eyes flashed back defiance.
Salvador kept advancing in a threatening manner, and the younger Indian
men, of whom there were thirty or forty on the spot, closed up behind
their leader; they half felt that he was wrong, but still he was their
chosen cacique.
Stephens stood his ground, and faced the mob with dauntless coolness. An
odd thing struck him. He knew them all personally quite well, but now he
hardly seemed to recognise them. The expression of their faces, usually
so peaceful, was entirely altered. It gave him quite a turn to think
that people who had crowded round him so full of fun, and so eager to
show their friendship and gratitude only the day before, should change
so quickly to a cruel mob. Yesterday's momentary outburst of suspicion
excited by the dreaded charge of witchcraft had revealed to him the
explosive forces that lay hidden under their quiet exterior, but that
had been dissipated by his own prompt repudiation of the charge, and by
the cacique's influence. Now it was the cacique himself who was
assailing him, and there was none to help, nor hope of anyone. A hundred
black, flashing eyes were fixed on him with an angry glare. He felt as
if he were shut up in a den of wild beasts. He was quite alone; the new
storekeeper at San Remo was the only other American within sixty miles.
"Take your hand off that pistol, Salvador," said he quietly. "You can't
scare me, so don't you try it on."
The Indian stopped, but his hand plucked nervously at the hilt of the
weapon. Stephens observed his opponent's indecision, and continued: "A
pretty lot of fellows you are, to come crowding round me as you did
yesterday, and call me your best friend, and say how you'll sing my
praises to the third generation, and now this morning you're ready to
cut my throat before breakfast, all about nothing! I've heard of the
gratitude of Indians before now," he continued, "but this beats all."
The Indians visibly winced at this taunt, the justice of which they
could not but acknowledge, and began to interchange rapid words in their
own language, thereby making themselves unintelligible to Stephens.
Just at this moment came a most welcome diversion. Round the corner
dashed Miguel full charge on a fiery steed. The Indians scattered right
and left before him. With a jerk on the terrible Spanish bit he set the
horse on his haunches, and as he sprang to the ground he cried, "Here,
Cacique! Here's the horse of the new storekeeper at San Remo. I've got
him for you."
Salvador never spoke, but seizing the rein offered him by Miguel he
sprang to the saddle, turned his back on Stephens and the crowd, and
dashed wildly forwards to the trail.
All eyes were bent on his rapid course. The trackers on foot had
already traced the hoof-marks from the acequia across to the Ensenada
trail, and were running half a mile off like hounds in full cry. In less
than two minutes the galloping horseman overtook them, and cantered
alongside to hear what they had to tell. They reported that the tracks
were several hours old and that the horse carried double.
"I could have told you that," said Salvador, as he plied the whip
freshly, and galloping ahead disappeared in the direction of the mesas
from the sight of those who were watching him.
"Wonder what he'll do if he catches Felipe!" said Stephens to himself as
he saw him vanish over the hills. "That young man'll have to look out
for himself, as sure as he's a foot high. Rather lucky for me," he
ruminated, turning to go in, "that chap Miguel's coming up with Backus's
horse! I wonder, by the way, how he came to get him. I don't know what I
should have done if Mr. Salvador had gone for me with that six-shooter,
and he was just about mad enough to try it on. Blamed if it wasn't the
suddenest scare I ever did get let in for! Why, hallo, Faro, old man,"
said he aloud, on finding the dog at his heels, "what's up with you? I
don't often see you out of the blankets before breakfast. Blamed if I
don't believe you heard me a-talkin' to them fellers and just come out
to take a hand!" He was right. The dog's quick ear had caught the note
of danger in his master's voice, and he had flown to his assistance.
Stephens took another look at the Indians around. Some were still
watching the mesas; others were going about their daily business. It
seemed as if those who knew him best kept aloof, feeling ashamed to come
up and speak to him. However, an old man whom he hardly knew, and who
spoke Spanish badly, approached him in an apologetic sort of way, and
said, "Salvador very angry!"
"Well," answered Stephens, with a grim laugh, "I should think he's gone
mad."
"Yes, mad, silly," assented the old man; "for why get angry? No good, no
good,"--and he stood there wagging his old head and saying "no good" in
a way that the prospector quite understood to be intended for an _amende
honorable_ on the part of his fellows.
Nor was he the only one. "Señor Americano," said a cracked voice close
beside him, and Stephens felt a light touch on his elbow. He turned and
found himself face to face with Reyna, the Turquoise squaw from whom he
rented his rooms. She and her husband lived next door to him, and from
her he often bought eggs and meal. She of course had been a witness of
the whole affair. She now produced two eggs, and holding them out to him
said, "See, two."
"Yes, I see," said Stephens, "but I don't want 'em to-day. Haven't got
the five cents."
"No, no!" she cried. "No money--two."
Her Spanish was weaker even than the old man's. Stephens turned to him.
"What does she mean?" he asked. "I can't make out what she's up to."
The two Indians exchanged some words in their own language.
"She means, your honour," said the old Indian man, speaking with painful
elaboration, "that this is for the gratitude of the Indians. Excuse her,
your honour, she does not speak much in Spanish--that is, not like us,
the men"--he added explanatorily, "but she can understand, and she heard
you say the Indians got no gratitude, and this is for her."
Stephens turned to the old squaw and took the eggs, thanking her as
well as he knew how. "And I'm going now to cook them for breakfast,"
said he, as he went back to his room.
"Well, who'd have thought that?" he said to himself, as he began to
whittle shavings from a piece of fat pine to light his fire with.
"They're a queer lot, Indians are, but I suppose it takes all sorts of
people to make a world." His thoughts wandered back to Salvador and the
fugitives. "Wonder what Salvador'll do," he said half aloud. "He's mad
enough to kill the boy, if he gets close enough. Blamed if I don't think
he was about mad enough to kill me! He's real ugly when he's mad, and
it's no foolin' when it comes to six-shooters." He went over the scene
of the early dawn again in his mind. "It does beat cock-fightin'," he
continued to himself, "how folks like these Indians, that's as quiet and
decent and orderly as can be, should flare up all in a moment and glare
at you like a lot of wildcats, and all for nothing. Why, if I'd gone and
killed somebody, or run off with somebody's wife, there'd be some sense
in it, but to burst out just because I wouldn't lend my mare to be rode
plumb to death! It does beat all."
The fire now burned up brightly, and after setting the coffee-pot on to
boil he filled the nose-bags himself, and went out to feed his stock.
"Confound that boy, running off like this," he grumbled, "and leaving me
this job! Told his little brother Tomas, indeed! I don't see him around
yet; not much; don't expect to neither."
He leaned up against the fence waiting while the stock ate their feed.
Someone must keep watch in order to drive off the hungry Indian pigs,
who prowled around and would have disputed their corn with the horses.
The sun had just risen, and his level rays lit up like a flame the red
cliffs crowned with dark pines, which formed the western side of the
valley. But Stephens did not see them. He was facing east, with the
sunlight full in his face, and his eyes fixed on the bare, flat-topped
table-lands which divided the Santiago valley from the Rio Grande.
"Confound him!" he growled again. "What a fool trick for him to play!
I'm mighty glad it isn't my mare he's playing it on. He'll find himself
in a muss, too, if he don't mind out, sure. I don't more than half like
the notion of that ugly savage of a cacique getting after him with a
six-shooter."
He waited till the stock had finished feeding, and then went back to his
rooms. But he decided not to start for the sierra till the next day.
"Confound the boy!" said he the third time. "I can't take that little
fool, Tomas, and I want somebody to help me dry the meat and pack it
down. Why the dickens couldn't he run off some other time! He want a
wife! He wants a nurse and a birch rod, I should say."
Thoroughly vexed, he prepared to put in the rest of his morning, or at
least as much of it as he could spare from swearing at Felipe's
escapade, in fixing up pack-saddles, mending his tent, cleaning his
beloved repeating rifle, and generally getting ready for the trip he so
unwillingly postponed.
But his plans for the day were destined to be interfered with for the
second time. The inquisitive face of Mr. Backus appeared suddenly in the
open door.
"Mornin', Mr. Stephens," he began; "can I come in? So this is where you
live when you're at home." He dragged a heavy saddle across the
threshold and took a seat. "I told you I wouldn't be long before comin'
up to take a squint at your white squaw."
"She's no squaw of mine, Mr. Backus," said Stephens with rising anger.
"I think I told you so already. And if you want to see her you can't,
for it so happens that she has just eloped." He turned his back on the
storekeeper, kneeling down to arrange his pack-cinches with a
preoccupied air.
"Oh," returned the other, "is that it? I didn't tumble to it that she
was the one who had bolted." His eye wandered around Stephens's modest
abode, taking in every detail, as he tried to gratify his curiosity
concerning the prospector's domestic arrangements. It seemed to him an
incredible thing that a man should settle down like this among the
Indians and not provide himself with at least a temporary wife. But in
these bachelor's quarters there was no sign of feminine occupation,
temporary or permanent. The one novelty that puzzled him was the neatly
built assaying furnace, which he at first took for a new sort of bread
oven, until he detected the parcels of ore beside it and its true nature
dawned upon him. But postponing the idea of asking questions about it
for the present, he went babbling on: "And here I've been and loaned my
horse to a chief to go chasing after her upon, and left myself afoot.
Guess I'll have to try and borrow that mule of yourn to get back to San
Remo on." Stephens's face at this suggestion became the picture of
disgust. "Say, though," he went on, "I was forgetting. You're badly
wanted down there. I come up partly just to tell you that. Don
Nepomuceno is in a mighty awkward fix. What do you think that son of
his, Andrés, has been up to? You'll never guess in a month of Sundays.
He's bin and had a fuss with a Navajo up yonder in the mountains over a
game of cards, and killed him, and half burned the body in the camp-fire
to try and get rid of the thing. And the Navajos have got right up on
their ear about it and there's a whole band of 'em now down at San Remo
wanting old Sanchez to turn 'em over his whole sheep herd to pay for it.
How's that for high, eh?"
Stephens leaped to his feet. "Who told you this?" he cried.
"Why, Andrés himself," replied the storekeeper. "I've seen him. He's
hidden away now in an inner room down at the house. The Indians are
having a big pow-wow outside. Oh, they'd just murder him if they could
get their hands on him once."
Without a word Stephens caught up his saddle and his Winchester and
started for the door.
"Where are you off to so quick?" asked Backus, rising also.
"To get my mare," was the answer, "and go straight down there. And you'd
best come along, too. You can have that mule."