WEIGHING THE SILVER
Twilight was falling as the armed band of Mexicans who had waited since
noon around Don Nepomuceno's house saw through the dusk a long cavalcade
approaching from the sierra, and in the front of it a lady mounted on a
horse, and a man running at her side. It was Manuelita returning,
accompanied by Stephens and the Navajos. There were muttered threats and
sonorous Spanish curses, deep if not loud, hurled against the raiders,
and pistols were loosened in their holsters, and belts drawn tighter and
adjusted, as the party drew near. There were men among the Mexicans who
burned to avenge the insult of the abduction, and were ready and eager
for the signal to fight. All they waited for was the word to begin.
But their ardour was momentarily checked by the older and more
experienced among them. The cavalcade was suffered to approach
peaceably, and Don Nepomuceno running forward received his daughter in
his arms. No sooner was she seen to be safe out of the hands of the
enemy, than the anger of the high-spirited young Mexicans broke forth in
spite of their elders, and they raised the war-cry.
At this juncture the voice of the American was heard above the tumult.
"Peace! peace!" he proclaimed loudly for all to hear, "it is peace. I
am responsible. A bargain has been made, and I am bound to see that
Mahletonkwa and his people come to no harm at your hands. Anyone who
touches them attacks me now. My honour is pledged, so take notice all."
"I do not see what right you have to bind us," cried a young Mexican,
one of the two who had brought the news in the morning.
Stephens handed the mare's rein to Pedro, who came running from the
house, whither Don Nepomuceno had already conducted his daughter; he
held his Winchester at the ready, and ranged himself alongside of
Mahletonkwa, who was in the saddle in front of his band.
"I have the right of discovery," he declared boldly. "It was I who found
her with them, and made terms for her release. Those terms shall be
satisfied to the last dollar in my pocket and the last cartridge in my
belt. Come, my friends," and he changed his tone a little here, "let us
show ourselves honourable men. Faith must be kept."
His appeal was hardly needed by the older and more experienced Mexicans,
who had dealt with the wild Indians too often before this not to agree
with him fully, and their influence quickly reduced the young hotheads
to reason. Assurances were given that the terms he had made should be
kept, and the Navajos be freed absolutely from molestation.
Don Nepomuceno hurried back from the house when he had restored
Manuelita to the arms of her aunt, and embraced Stephens with effusion,
calling him her saviour and deliverer.
"Come aside with me one moment, my friend," said the American, holding
him by the hand, and checking, as politely as might be, the flow of
thanks poured upon him, "there is something I must speak with you about
at once." They moved a little apart from the spectators. "I made a
bargain with Mahletonkwa," said Stephens, "to guarantee him against any
injury or retaliation for what has happened, and that has already been
accepted by your good friends here. We were quite in the Indians' power,
you know, and of course I was obliged to promise this. But I also
promised Mahletonkwa a sum of money. In fact I must tell you that I
promised him silver dollars enough to weigh down the rifle he carries;
that will mean two hundred or two hundred and fifty, I expect. Now, I
have not got them here, but I could easily get them by going to Santa
Fé, only that would take so much time; and what I wanted to ask is, who
is there among the San Remo people, do you think, that could advance me
the amount? I should like to settle Mahletonkwa's business right away."
"But, my dear friend," cried Don Nepomuceno, "I will pay the money, of
course. Thank goodness, it is only a quarter of what he asked at first."
"But it's my debt," interrupted the American. "I made the terms on my
own hook entirely."
"Impossible, dear friend," cried the Mexican, "absolutely impossible and
out of the question! You touch on my honour. I am most grateful to you
for having succeeded in reducing his ridiculous demand by three-fourths,
but not one _medio real_ can I suffer you to pay. I should be disgraced
for ever in the eyes of myself and of my people. Thank God, the Sanchez
family can still pay their scot, if they are not so rich as they were.
The silver shall be forthcoming immediately. Oh, there are ways and
means,"--he nodded his head mysteriously,--"you shall see. How much did
you say will be needed?"
"About twelve or thirteen pounds' weight of silver," returned Stephens;
"at least so I guessed when I hefted his rifle."
"Very well," said Sanchez, "if you will remain here and keep the
peace--I see some of our young men are hardly to be restrained--then I
will go in and bring out the scales and the money, and he shall have his
price."
He went into the house, and in a few minutes Pedro appeared with three
long cottonwood poles and a rope. The poles were bound together at the
top so as to form a tripod higher than a man's head, and a piece of rope
was left hanging down from the apex. Then he brought out a beam with a
pair of large rude scales, and the middle of the beam being attached to
the rope the balance was formed. By this time it was dark, and Pedro
returned once more for some torches of pine, which were lit and threw
their weird lights flickering over the faces of the bystanders. The
lurid glare lit up the swarthy, bearded faces of the Mexicans who
crowded round, and the dark, smooth cheeks and flashing eyes of the
Indians, who, recognising that Stephens had power to protect them from
attack, dismounted and closed up the ring.
Then from the darkness appeared Don Nepomuceno with a heavy leathern
sack, and approached the scales.
"Now, then, Mahletonkwa," said Stephens, "put your rifle in one of those
scales, put it on whichever side you choose, and my agreement is to put
silver enough in the other to pull it down."
The Indian came forward, and stooping down placed his rifle on one side
of the balance. Don Nepomuceno stepped forward with the bag of silver
towards the other.
"Wait one moment, señor, if you please," said Stephens to the latter.
"There is one little matter I wish to settle first. I think,
Mahletonkwa," he addressed the Indian, "we agreed that I should give
your rifle's weight in silver, was it not so?"
The Indian assented.
"Is your rifle loaded?"
"It is."
"And was that in the bargain?"
"It was loaded when we made the bargain," answered the Navajo.
"And is it loaded now in the same way?"
The Indian remained silent.
"I'm willing you should have the full weight of it loaded," said
Stephens, "I don't make any objection to that. Will you, then, fire off
the load that's in it now, and put in another here before us all, that
we may see how big a load you use?"
The Indian sullenly indicated dissent.
"We wish to have everything fair," said Stephens. "Why do you refuse?"
"It is very well as it is," muttered Mahletonkwa, looking singularly
disconcerted.
"Then will you put the ramrod into the bore and let us see how big a
load you have got in it?" persisted the American. "Or would you prefer
that I should do it for you?"
He put out his hand as if to take the rifle for the purpose, but the
Navajo sulkily caught it up himself. He spoke not a single word, and
maintained an impassive face as he picked out a little tuft of rag that
was wedged inside the muzzle of the gun, and, tilting the barrel
slightly forward, allowed sixty or seventy small round bullets to run
out one after the other, plop, plop, plop, into the scale.
A roar of scornful laughter went up from the Mexicans at this
demonstration of the American's 'cuteness and the Indian's baffled
cunning.
Mahletonkwa deliberately swept the bullets back into his pouch, and
replaced the rifle in the scale.
"Thank you," said Stephens, with quiet sarcasm; "now I think we can
begin. Don Nepomuceno, will you pour in the silver?"
The bag was untied, and from the mouth of it a stream of big white round
coins rattled into the opposite scale. Bigger and bigger grew the heap;
the flickering torchlight played on dollars from Mexico and dollars that
bore the image and superscription of many an old Spanish king who
reigned before Mexico was a republic, on coins stamped in the United
States Mint, and on five-franc pieces that displayed the head of Louis
Napoleon--pieces that had come over with the French army that for a
while had supported the rickety throne of ill-fated Maximilian. And now
the stream ran slower and slower, and the rifle began to lift; the
Mexican stopped pouring, and taking a handful from the bag tossed them
on to the pile one at a time. Gradually the rifle rose, the beam turned,
the silver scale descended; yet one more dollar was thrown in and it
touched the earth. The tale was complete.
"There's your silver, Mahletonkwa," said the American; "your rifle kicks
the beam. Are you satisfied now?"
"I am satisfied," said the Navajo; "it is enough." He took a sack from
one of his men and poured the glittering stream into it.
"_Basta!_" said Stephens. "Then it is settled. You acknowledge that my
tongue is not double. I have done what I said I would do."
"And now," he went on, addressing the bystanders, "I have only one word
more to say to you. Let bygones be bygones. The señorita has been
brought back safe and unharmed, and the matter is over and done with.
Let no man molest these people in any way for it, now or at any future
time. If any man among you does so, he makes himself my enemy, for I am
surety to the Indians in this. If he touches them, he must walk over my
dead body. And to you, Navajos, I have one more word to say,"--he had
caught sight while he was speaking of the sinister face of Backus among
the crowd,--"be advised and go straight back to your own country. Don't
hang about here; and above all don't touch whiskey. Take my advice and
let the sun of to-morrow find you ten leagues from San Remo--and sober.
I have spoken."
He turned away, and in company with Don Nepomuceno and his son retired
to the house, while the Indians remounted their horses and filed off in
the moonlight, and the assembly gradually dispersed.
Inside the house Stephens found Manuelita in the sitting-room, with
various female friends and relations who had gathered to see the heroine
of such an adventure and to hear her story. Her shining eyes and flushed
cheeks made her look more bewitching than ever, but he saw how
overstrained were her nerves, and he longed to turn out the cackling
crowd and carry her off far away to some peaceful retreat where no fear
or grief should ever dare to come near her again. But no sooner had he
shown himself in the room than a stout old lady who had been
Manuelita's nurse in childhood arose and fell upon his neck and kissed
him heartily.
"Blessings on you!" she cried, with tearful loquacity, "and may the
_Madre de Dios_ and all the blessed saints be with you and reward you
for your goodness." She clasped him to her heart. "You are a hero," she
said, "a perfect hero! you have brought us back my dear child safe and
unharmed from the clutches of those anathematised Indians, whom may the
devil fly away with!"
Poor Stephens felt weak; he was helplessly taken aback.
And then a second old lady, the mother of Pedro the peon it was this
time, who had been devoted to Manuelita for years, felt it incumbent on
her also to demonstrate her gratitude to the deliverer of her darling,
and she too bore down on him, and precipitated herself upon his shoulder
to mingle her tears, her kisses, and her blessings with the other's.
Stephens's feelings were indescribable.
"'It never rains but it pours,'" he thought. "It's ten years since I've
been kissed by a woman, and now I'm hugged by two at once." He
endeavoured to extricate himself with becoming gratitude from these
entangling embraces, that he might advance to receive the thanks of Don
Nepomuceno's sister and her relations. Their expressions of gratitude
and admiration were not less ardent than those which had already been
showered upon him, but to his immense relief they took a more decorous
form. He acknowledged their compliments and their thanks as gracefully
as he could, longing all the time to escape from this ordeal and get
away as quickly as possible in order to take in hand the matter of the
burial of the dead prospector.
As soon as he could decently do so, he took the first opportunity again
to call Don Nepomuceno apart. "I want to get you to lend me a spade," he
said; "it will save me the journey of going back to the pueblo for one.
I have a little trip to make up into the sierra to-night"; and he
explained to the Mexican how he had discovered almost by chance where
the bones of the nameless victim of the Navajos were lying.
Don Nepomuceno urged him to put it off. "_Mañana, por la mañana; porque
ahora es tarde_"--"Leave it till to-morrow; it is too late now," he
said. "Rest to-night; there is no hurry."
"There's a good moon," said Stephens, "and I don't want to delay about
it. It's all in a day's work anyhow. But can you lend me the spade, for
if not I must go home after one?"
"But certainly, my dear friend, assuredly I can. Everything I have is at
your service. Let me lend you a horse too, for your mare has done her
work; leave her here with me to eat corn, and to-morrow she will be
fresh."
Stephens very willingly availed himself of this offer, and half an hour
later the sharp eyes of Felipe, watching hungrily for his enemy, saw the
figure he knew so well riding away quietly from Don Nepomuceno's house
in the direction of the sierra, and he detected by the light of the moon
that he carried an unusual burden in the shape of a spade across the
saddle in front of him. Here in the open the boy did not see his chance
to make a sudden attack and take him by surprise at close quarters as he
had planned, and being puzzled by the sight of the spade, and full of
wonder as to what his errand could be, he ran full speed to the
storekeeper's house to inform him of it.
As he arrived there, he saw another mysterious horseman ride away from
the corral at the back of the house into the night, and had he been able
to get close enough to him he might have seen that he, too, bore a
burden, for the rider was no other than the Navajo chief himself, and
the burden that he bore consisted of several bottles of Mr. Backus's
fiery whiskey, while a round number of what had lately been a part of
Don Nepomuceno's precious hoard of dollars were now lining the interior
of the storekeeper's wallet.
Stephens's counsel had been disregarded. The Spaniards have a riddling
proverb which asks, "What is the cheapest thing on earth?" and the
answer is, "Good advice." In the eyes of the Navajo the advice to let
whiskey alone was very cheap indeed. The morrow's sun would find him
neither ten leagues from San Remo nor sober.
Felipe encountered Backus at his own door, and hastily recounted to him
how he had just seen the prospector ride off in the direction of the
sierra with a spade across his saddle.
"Be after him then, man," cried the storekeeper; "there's your chance,
if you haven't lost it. He's gone after something with that spade, you
bet. Keep him in sight, and don't ever let your eye be off him till he
begins to use it, and when he's busy at work with it, there's your
opportunity. Or if you like to risk a fuss, show yourself boldly, and go
up to him and mebbe he won't suspect what you mean to do. But don't miss
your chance."
Felipe was gone like a shot.
No sooner had the boy disappeared than Backus began to regret it. He had
been rather flustered, before Felipe came up to him, by his interview
with the Navajo chief, for Mahletonkwa had begun by taxing Backus with
not having kept Stephens from sending for the soldiers, by making away
with his letters to the governor and the general, and he had retorted by
declaring that he had done so, that no soldiers were coming, and that if
Mahletonkwa had allowed himself to be bluffed he had only himself to
thank for his idiocy. But they did not waste much time in disputing, for
Mahletonkwa's visit to him had not been to quarrel but to obtain liquor,
while Backus's strongest desire was to become the possessor of a goodly
lot of those shining dollars of Don Nepomuceno that had attracted his
cupidity.
Now, however, on thinking over what Felipe had reported, a possible
explanation of the spade flashed upon him. Suppose Stephens had got the
secret of the mine from the Navajos! He had remarked the vigour and
determination with which the prospector had placed himself apparently on
the side of the Navajos as against the Mexicans when they arrived.
Probably this was a return for their having shown him the mine, which,
moreover, would account for the unaccountable delay of the party in
arriving that afternoon.
The idea of the prospector having stolen a march on him like this, in
the matter of the mine, irritated him intensely; he knew so little
practically of mining that he thought it quite possible that Stephens
had started off thus in the night with a spade to dig up silver out of
an old mine, as a man might dig up the coins of a buried hoard. Filled
with this idea, he took a sudden resolution to follow Felipe and see
what took place, and, if there was any secret worth getting hold of, to
do his best to make himself master of it.
He hastily belted on his revolver, caught up an overcoat, as he
recognised that he might have to lie in wait for an indefinite time, and
the night air in the sierra was chill, and started forth on Felipe's
track. He knew the direction; and assuming that Stephens had taken the
trail for the sierra, according to the information Felipe had brought,
he decided to take the same line.
There were plough-lands across on this side of the Santiago River also,
and the trail led through a part of these. Where it crossed the ditch
that supplied them with water he found the ground wet on the farther
bank, and fresh hoof-prints of a horse in the soft earth. Someone had
crossed there on horseback not more than fifteen or twenty minutes
before; yes, and there, close alongside, was the sharp-toed,
inward-curved print of an Indian moccasin. Stephens and Felipe were both
ahead of him.
It was only in a place like this, where the soft earth retained a deep
impression, that he could pretend to recognise their tracks by the light
of the moon, but the fact that he had judged so accurately the course
they were steering gave him confidence as he pressed forward, still
following the line. And now the foot of the sierra was reached, and the
trail plunged abruptly into broken and rugged defiles. Onward he pushed
without halting, encouraged again and again by detecting at intervals
the tracks of the horse going ahead. At last, however, there came a long
interval, when he no longer saw the tracks. For a while he tried to
persuade himself that it was only a chance that had caused him to fail
to notice them, but he came finally to where the trail crossed a little
creek, and the ground was soft and the trees were open enough to let the
moonlight fall clearly on the spot. The sign of the Indian horses that
had crossed it coming to San Remo during the afternoon was evident, but
the footprints of the horse he was following in the other direction were
not there. It was undeniable that he must have quitted the trail.
"Now, whereabouts did the son of a gun leave it?" asked Backus of
himself; "and how far back was it that I got a squint of his track
last?" He pulled out a cold lunch, that he had brought along in his
pocket, put on his overcoat, and sat down to take a rest and think
things over. If Stephens had simply turned off and camped near the
trail, he might have missed him by very little. Perhaps Felipe had been
able to keep him in sight, and had stuck to him.
He started to take the back track, keeping a sharp watch out for likely
places for a rider to turn out on one side or other of the trail. There
were plenty of them, but he found no sign in any of those that he
examined. And he had the exasperating sense, that trying to hit off a
lost trail by moonlight was as futile a job as a man ever undertook. By
daylight a master of woodcraft may assure himself that he has not walked
over a hoofprint for which he is searching without seeing it, but the
best trailer that ever stepped can miss a thing by moonlight that by day
would be as plain to him as a printed book.
"A fool's errand," he said to himself, "that's what I'm on. Here I might
be comfortably at home and snug in bed, and instead of that I'm lost up
here in the sierra away along after midnight, and nary chance of finding
what I come out after." He was thoroughly out of temper by this time,
and his language was according. "Mine! d----n the mine! I believe the
whole thing is a holy fraud, and if anyone ever again catches me out in
the dark, on top of a rugged range of hills hunting for a mine that
never existed, I'll give him leave to cut me into slices and fry me like
so much bacon." He sat down to rest a moment before deciding finally
whether to make any further effort, or just chuck and make the best of
his way home.
At this moment, faint but distinct, came the sound of a shot fired
somewhere in the mountain off to the south. Backus sprang to his feet
instantly, shaking himself free from his despondency like a cloak.
"By the jumping Jemini!" he ejaculated, "there they are, I'll wager.
Felipe must have managed to stick to the trail. Good for him! I wonder
if he's managed to plug him? I'll just take a scout round that way and
see if I can spot anything."
The moon was beginning to sink in the west, but there was light enough
for him to pick his way through the trees and rocks in the direction of
the shot. Suddenly he heard five shots in quick succession. They were
nearer and clearer than before. But they were followed by absolute
silence. Again and again he paused to listen, but no sounds greeted his
ear save those that belonged to the woods at night, till at last, after
scrambling up a rocky ridge, he became aware of a reflected light
shining at the foot of a cliff. That meant a camp-fire. Hist! was that
somebody talking? If Felipe had killed his man properly, there was no
one for him to talk to. He advanced a step or two cautiously, and paused
again. He fancied he could hear a voice; he would put his ear to the
ground and see if he could not hear better so; he stooped, and sank on
all fours as if he was after a deer, bending his head towards the earth,
and as he did so he received a hard blow on his face, and a smart pang
shot through his cheek, and at the same moment his ears were assailed
by an angry, buzzing rattle.
"My God!" he cried, "I'm stung by a snake!" He threw up his hand to his
wounded cheek and staggered to his feet, while the snake, having
delivered his blow, slithered away to his home in the rocks. The agony
of the poison began to dart through his veins. He struggled blindly
forward towards the light, which now seemed ever so far away; he stopped
and drew out his knife, with the idea of cutting out the venom, but it
was right in his cheek; had it been in a finger he might have chopped it
off, but he could not slash away half his own face. He flung the knife
wildly from him and reeled forward again, knocking against the trees as
he went like a blinded wolf. He had been struck by a big rattler with a
full dose of venom in him after his winter's rest. His knees grew weak,
and tottered under him; he fell, and struggled up again, only to fall
once more; fearful pains ran through him, and his body seemed too big
for his skin.
"Help," he cried, in a spent and broken voice; "help me! oh, help!" and
he pitched forward and lay prone on his face, writhing and digging his
nails into the ground.