I soon managed to make myself a favorite with this motley assemblage;

my natural aptitude to pick up language, aided by what I already knew of

French and German, assisted me to a knowledge of Spanish and Portuguese;

while from a "half-breed" I acquired a sufficiency of the Indian dialect

in use throughout the Lower Prairies. I was fleet of foot, besides

being a good shot with the rifle,--qualities of more request among my

companions than many gifts of a more brilliant order; and, lastly,

my skill in cookery, which I derived from my education on board the

"Firefly," won me high esteem and much honor. My life was therefore far

from unpleasant. The monotony of the tract over which we marched was

more than compensated for by the marvellous tales that beguiled the way.

One only drawback existed on my happiness; and yet that was sufficient

to embitter many a lonely hour of the night, and cast a shade over

many a joyous hour of the day. I am almost ashamed to confess what that

source of sorrow was, the more as, perhaps, my kind reader will already

fancy he has anticipated my grief, and say, "It was the remembrance of

Donna Maria; the memory of _her_ I was never to see more." Alas, no! It

was a feeling far more selfish than this afflicted me. The plain fact

is, I was called "The Lépero." By no other name would my companions

know or acknowledge me. It was thus they first addressed me, and so they

would not take the trouble to change my appellation. Not that, indeed, I

dared to insinuate a wish upon the subject; such a hint would have

been too bold a stroke to hazard in a company where one was called

"Brise-ses-fers," another, "Colpo-di-Sangue," a third, "Teufel's Blut,"

and so on.

It was to no purpose that I appeared in all the vigor of health and

strength. I might outrun the wildest bull of the buffalo herd; I might

spring upon the half-trained "mustang," and outstrip the antelope in

her flight; I might climb the wall-like surface of a cliff, and rob the

eagle of her young: but when I came back, the cry of welcome that met me

was, "Bravo, Lépero!" And thus did I bear about with me the horrid badge

of that dreary time when I dwelt within the Lazaretto of Bexar.

The very fact that the name was not used in terms of scoff or reproach

increased the measure of its injury. It called for no reply on my

part; it summoned no energy of resistance; it was, as it were, a simple

recognition of certain qualities that distinguished me and made up my

identity; and at last, to such an extent did it work upon my imagination

that I yielded myself up to the delusion that I was all that they styled

me,--an outcast and a leper! When this conviction settled down on

my mind, I ceased to fret as before, but a gloomy depression gained

possession of me, uncheered save by the one hope that my life should not

be entirely spent among my present associates, and that I should yet be

known as something else than "The Lépero."

The prairie over which we travelled never varied in aspect save with

the changing hours of the day. The same dreary swell, the same yellowish

grass, the same scathed and scorched cedars, the same hazy outlines of

distant mountains that we saw yesterday, rose before us again to-day,

as we knew they would on the morrow,--till at last our minds took the

reflection of the scene, and we journeyed along, weary, silent, and

footsore. It was curious enough to mark how this depression exhibited

itself upon different nationalities. The Saxon became silent and

thoughtful, with only a slight dash of more than ordinary care upon

his features, the Italian grew peevish and irritable, the Spaniard was

careless and neglectful, while the Frenchman became downright vicious in

the wayward excesses of his spiteful humor. Upon the half-breeds, two

of whom were our guides, no change was ever perceptible. Too long

accustomed to the life of the prairie to feel its influence as peculiar,

they plodded on, the whole faculties bent upon one fact,--the discovery

of the Chihuahua trail, from which our new track was to diverge in a

direction nearly due west.

Our march, no longer enlivened by merry stories or exciting narratives,

had become wearisome in the extreme. The heavy fogs of the night and the

great mist which arose at sunset prevented all possibility of tracing

the path, which often required the greatest skill to detect, so that we

were obliged to travel during the sultriest hours of the day, without

a particle of shade, our feet scorched by the hot sands, and our heads

constantly exposed to the risk of sunstroke. Water, too, became each day

more difficult to obtain; the signs by which our guides discovered its

vicinity seemed, to to me, at least, little short of miraculous; and

yet if by any chance they made a mistake, the anger of the party rose

so near to mutiny that nothing short of Halkett's own authority could

restore order. Save in these altercations, without which rarely a

day passed over, little was spoken; each trudged along either lost in

vacuity or buried in his own thoughts.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE PLACER

As for myself, my dreamy temperament aided me greatly. I could build

castles forever; and certainly there was no lack of ground here for the

foundation. Sometimes I fancied myself suddenly become the possessor

of immense riches, with which I should found a new colony in the very

remotest regions of the West. I pictured to myself the village of my

workmen, surrounded with its patches of cultivation in the midst of

universal barrenness; the smiling aspect of civilized life in the

very centre of barbarism; the smelting furnaces, the mills, the great

refining factories, of which I had heard so much, all rose to my

imagination, and my own princely abode looking down upon these evidences

of my wealth.

Then, I fancied the influences of education diffusing themselves among

the young, who grew up with tastes and habits so different from those of

their fathers. How pursuits of refinement by degrees mingled themselves

with daily requirements, till at last the silent forests would echo with

the exciting strains of music, or the murmuring rivulet at nightfall

would be accompanied by the recited verses of poetry.

The primitive simplicity of such a life as I then pictured was a perfect

fascination; and when wearied with thinking of it by day, as I dropped

asleep at night the thoughts would haunt my dreams unceasingly.

This castle-building temperament--which is, after all, nothing but

hope engaged practically--may, when pushed too far, make a man dreamy,

speculative, and visionary, but if restrained within any reasonable

limits, cannot fail to support the courage in many an hour of trial, and

nerve the heart against many a sore infliction. I know how it kept me up

when others of very different thews and sinews were falling around me.

Independently of this advantage, another and a greater one accompanied

it. These self-created visions, however they may represent a man in

a situation of greatness or power, always do so to exhibit him

dispensing--what he imagines at least to be--the virtues of such a

station! No one, I trust, ever fancied himself a monarch for the sake

of all the cruelties he might inflict, and all the tyrannies he might

practise; so that, in reality, this "sparring against Fortune with the

gloves on" is admirable practice, if it be nothing else.

It was on the seventeenth day of our wanderings that the guide announced

that we had struck into the Chihuahua "trail"; and although to our eyes

nothing unusual or strange presented itself, Hermose exhibited signs

of unmistakable pride and self-esteem. As I looked around me on the

unvarying aspect of earth and sky, I could not help remembering my

disappointment on a former occasion, when I heard of the "Banks of

Newfoundland," and fancied that the Chihuahua trail might have some such

unseen existence as the redoubtable "Banks" aforesaid, which, however

familiar to codfish, are seldom visited by Christians.

"The evening star will rise straight above our heads to-night," said

Hermose,--and he was correct; our path lay exactly in the very line with

that bright orb. The confidence inspired by this prediction increased

as we found that an occasional prickly pear-tree now presented itself,

with, here and there, a dwarf-box or an acacia. As night closed in, we

found ourselves on the skirt of what seemed a dense wood, bordered by

the course of a dried-up torrent. A great wide "streak" of rocks and

stones attested the force and extent of that river when filled by the

mountain streams, but which now trickled along among the pebbles with

scarcely strength enough to force its way. Hermose proceeded for some

distance down into the bed of the torrent, and returned with a handful

of sand and clay, which he presented to Halkett, saying, "The rains have

not been heavy enough; this is last year's earth."

Few as were the words, they conveyed to me an immense impression of his

skill, who, in a few grains of sand taken at random, could distinguish

the deposits of one year from those of another.

"How does it look, Halkett?" cried one.

"Is it heavy?" asked another.

"It is worthless," said Halkett, throwing the earth from him. "But we

are on the right track, lads, for all that; there 's always gold where

the green snake frequents."

It was a mystery at the time to me how Halkett knew of the serpent's

vicinity; for although I looked eagerly around me, I saw no trace of

one.

"I vow he's a-sarchin' for the Coppernose," said a Yankee, as he laughed

heartily at my ignorance.

"Do you see that bird there upon the bough of the cedar-tree?" said

Halkett. "That's the 'Choyero;' and wherever he's found, the Coppernose

is never far off." The mystery was soon explained in this wise: the

"Choyero" is in the habit of enveloping himself in the leaves of a

certain prickly cactus called "Choya," with which armor he attacks the

largest of these green serpents, and always successfully,--the strong,

thorny spines of the plant invariably inflicting death-wounds upon the

snake. Some asserted that the bird only attacked the snake during his

season of torpor, but others stoutly averred that the Choyero was a

match for any Coppernose in his perfect vigor.

The approach of the long-sought-for "Placer" was celebrated by an extra

allowance of rum, and the party conversed till a late hour of the

night, with a degree of animation they had not exhibited for a long time

previous. Stories of the "washings" resumed their sway,--strange, wild

narratives, the chief interest in which, however striking at the time,

lay in the manner of those who related them, and were themselves the

actors. They nearly all turned upon some incident of gambling, and were

strong illustrations of how completely the love of gain can co-exist

with a temperament utterly wasteful and reckless, while both can render

a man totally indifferent to every feeling of friendship. There was

mention, by chance, of a certain Narvasque, who had been the comrade of

many of the party.

"He is dead," cried one.

"Caramba!" cried another, "that is scarcely true; they told me he was at

the Austin fair this fall."

"You may rely on it he's dead," said the first, "for I know it; he died

on the Sacramento, and in this wise. We had had a two months' run of

luck at the Crestones of Bacuachez,--such fortune as I only hope we

may soon see again; none of your filthy wash and sieve work, nor any

splintering of a steel barreta on a flint-rock, but light digging along

the stream, and turning up such masses of the real shining metal

as would make your heart leap to look at,--lumps of

thirty,--thirty-five,--ay, forty pounds."

"There, there, Harispe!" said an old fellow, with a long pipe of

sugar-cane, "if we are to swallow what's a-comin', don't choke us just

now."

"What does an old trapper know of the diggin's?" said Harispe,

contemptuously. "'T is a bee-huntin' and a birds'-nestin' you ought

to be. Smash my ribs! if he ever saw goold, except on the breast of a

gooldfinch." Having silenced his adversary, he resumed:--

"We were all rich by the time we reached Aranchez. But what use is

metal? One can't eat it, nor drink it, nor even sleep on't; and the

fellows up there had got as much as we had ourselves. Everything cost

twenty--no, but two hundred and twenty times its value! I used to cut a

goold button off my coat every morning for a day's grub, so that we

had to make ourselves a kind of log-hut outside the village, and try

to vittal ourselves as best we could. There war n't much savin' in that

plan neither, for we drank brandy all day long, and it cost half an

ounce of goold every bottle of it! Then we stayed up all night and

played brag, and it was that finished Narvasque. He was a-betting with

Shem Avery, and Shem, who felt he was in for a run of luck, layed it

on a bit heavy like; and the end o' it was, he won all Narvasque's two

months' diggin's, all to a twenty-eight 'ouncer' that he would n't bet

for anybody,--no, nor let any one see where he hid it. Shem had his

heart on that lump, and said, 'I 'll go fifty ounces against your lump,

Narvasque;' and the other did n't take it at first, but up he gets and

leaves the hut. 'Honor bright,' said he, 'no man follows me.' They all

gave their words, and he went out a short distance into the wood, where

he had a sheep's heart hanging near a rock, in the centre of which he

had concealed his treasure. He was n't three yards from the spot, when

a great spotted snake darts through the long grass, and, making a spring

at the piece of meat, bolts it and away! Narvasque followed into the

deep jungle, unarmed as he was; there a deadly combat must have ensued,

for when his cries aroused us, as we sat within the hut, we found him

bitten on every part of the body, and so near death that he had only

time to tell how it happened, when he expired."

"And the snake?" cried several, in a breath.

"He got clear away; we gave chase for four days after him in vain. But a

fellow with as much spare cash about him must have come to bad ere now."

"The Injians has ripped him open afore this, depend on't," said another.

"There 's scarce a snake of any size hasn't an emerald or splice of gold

in him."

"There's more gold lies hidden by fellows that have never lived, or come

back to claim it, than ye know of," said the old trapper; "and that's

the kind of 'Placer' _I'd_ like to chance upon, already washed and

smelted."

"They talk of martyrs!" said a tall, sallow Spaniard, who had been

educated for a priest: "let me tell you that those Injians, ay, even the

negroes, have endured as much torture for their gold as ever did

zealot for his faith. There was a fellow in my father's time up at

Guajuaqualla, who, it was said, had concealed immense treasures, not

only of gold, but gems, emeralds, diamonds, and rubies: well, he not

only refused all offers from the Gobernador of the mines to share the

booty, but he suffered his toes to be taken off by the smelting nippers,

rather than make a confession. Then they tried him with what the miners

call a 'nest-egg,' that is, a piece of gold heated almost red, and

inserted into the spine of the back; but it was all to no use, he never

spoke a word."

"I heard of him; that was a nigger called Crick," cried another.

As for me, I heard no more. The sound of that name, which brought up the

memory of my night at Anticosti and all its terrors, filled my heart,

besides, with a strange swelling of hope, vague and ill-defined, it is

true, but which somehow opened a vision of future wealth and greatness

before me. The name, coupled with the place, Guajuaqualla, left no doubt

upon my mind that they were talking of no other than the Black Boatswain

himself. If I burned to ask a hundred questions about him, a prudent

forbearance held me back. I knew that of all men living, none are so

much given to suspicion and mistrust as the Gambusinos. The frauds and

deceits eternally in practice among them, the constant concealments of

treasure, the affected desertion of rich "Placers," in order to return

to them later and alone,--these and many like artifices suggest a

universal want of confidence which is ever at work to trace motives or

attribute intentions for every chance word or accidental expression. I

retained my curiosity therefore; but from that hour forward, the negro

and his hidden gold were ever before me. It mattered not where I was, in

what companionship, or how engaged. One figure occupied the foreground

of every picture. If my waking thoughts represented him exactly as I saw

him at Anticosti, my sleeping fancies filled up a whole history of his

life. I pictured him a slave in the "Barracoons" of his native land,

heavily ironed and chained. I saw him on board the slaver, with

bent-down head and crippled limbs, crouching between the decks. I

followed him to the slave-market and the sugar plantation. I witnessed

his sufferings, his sorrows, and his vengeance. I tracked him as he fled

to the woods, with the deep-mouthed bloodhounds behind him; and I

stood breathless while they struggled in deadly conflict, till, pale,

bleeding, and mangled, the slave laid them dead at his feet, and

tottered onward to stanch his wounds with the red gum of the liana.

Then came an indistinct interval; and when I saw him next, it was as a

gold-washer in the dark stream of the "Rio Nero," his distorted limbs

and mangled flesh showing through what sufferings he had passed.

Broken, incoherent incidents of crime and misery, of tortured agonies

and hellish vengeance, would cross my sleeping imagination, amidst

which one picture ever recurred,--it was of the negro as I saw him at

Anticosti, crouching beast-like on the earth, and while he patted the

ground with his hand, throwing a stealthy, terrified glance on every

side to see that he was not observed. That he fancied himself in the

act of concealing the gold for which he had bartered his very blood,

the gesture indicated plainly enough; and in the same attitude my fancy

would depict him so powerfully, so truthfully, too, that when I awoke,

I had but to close my eyes again, and the vision would come back with

every color and adjunct of reality.

My preoccupation of mind could not have escaped the shrewd observation

of companions, had not the unexpected discovery of gold in the sands

of the river effectually turned every thought into another and more

interesting channel. At first it was mere dust was detected; but, later

on, small misshapen pieces of dusky yellow were picked up, which showed

the gold in its most valuable form, in combination with quartz rock.

Up to the moment of that discovery, all was lassitude and indifference.

A few only gave themselves the trouble to wet their feet, the greater

number sitting lazily down upon the river's bank, and gazing on the

"washers" with a contemptuous negligence. The failures they experienced,

even their humble successes, were met with sneers and laughter; till at

last Hermose held up aloft a little spicula of gold about the thickness

of a pencil. No sooner had the brilliant lustre caught their eyes, than,

like hounds at the sight of the stag, they sprung to their feet and

dashed into the stream.

What a sudden change came over the scene! Instead of the silence of

that dark river, through whose dull current three or four figures waded

noiselessly, while in lazy indolence their companions lay smoking or

sleeping near, now, in an instant, the whole picture became animated.

With plashing water and wild shouts of various import, the deep glen

resounded, as upwards of thirty men descended into the river; and while

some examined the bed of the stream with the "barretas," others dived

beneath the water to explore it with their hands, and bring up mingled

masses of earth and dust, over which they bent with earnest gaze for

many minutes together.

Then what cries of joy or disappointment broke forth at every instant!

There seemed at once to come over that hardened, time-worn group of men

all the changing fickleness of childhood,--the wayward vacillations of

hope and despair, bright visions of sudden wealth, with gloomy thoughts

of disappointment,--when, suddenly, one brought up from the bed of the

stream something which he showed to his neighbor, then to another and

another, till a knot had gathered close around him, among which I found

myself. "What is it?" said I, disappointed at not seeing some great mass

of yellow gold.

"Don't you see? It is the fossil bone of the antelope," said Hermose;

"and when the floods have penetrated deep enough to unbury that, there

's little doubt but we shall find gold enough."

"Who says enough?" cried a Mexican, as, emerging half-suffocated from

the water, he held aloft a pure piece of metal, nearly the size of a

small apple. "Of such fruit as this, one never can eat to indigestion!"

Halkett's whistle was soon heard, summoning the whole party to a council

on the bank; nor was the call long unanswered. In an instant the tanned

and swarthy figures were seen emerging, all dripping as they were,

from the stream, ascending the banks, and then throwing themselves in

attitudes of careless ease around the leader.

A short discussion ensued as to the locality upon which we had chanced,

some averring that it was an unexplored branch of the "Brazo," others

that it was one of those wayward courses into which mountain streams

are directed in seasons of unusual rain. The controversy was a warm, and

might soon have become an angry, one, had not Halkett put an end to all

altercation by saying, "It matters little how the place be called, or

what its latitude; you know the Mexican adage, 'It's always a native

land where there's gold.' That there is _some_ here, I have no doubt;

that there is _as much_ as will repay us for the halt, is another

question. My advice is, that we turn the river into another course,

leave the present channel dry and open, and then explore it thoroughly."

"Well spoken and true," said an old white-headed Gambusino. "That is the

plan in the Far West; and they are the only fellows who go right about

their work."

The proposal was canvassed ably on all sides, and adopted with scarcely

anything like opposition; and then parties were "told off," to carry

into execution different portions of the labor. The section into which I

fell was that of the scouts, or explorers, who were to track the course

of the stream upwards, and search for a suitable spot at which to

commence operations. Hermose took the command of this party, and named

the "Lépero" as his lieutenant.

The "sierra" through which our path lay was singularly wild and

picturesque. The rocks, thrown about in every fantastic shape, were

actually covered with the tendrils of the liana, whose great blue

flowers hung in luxuriant clusters from every cliff and crag. Wild fig

and almond trees--loaded with fruit, red guavas and limes, met us as

we advanced, till at length we found ourselves in the very centre of

a tract rich in every production of our gardens, and all growing in

spontaneous freedom and wildness. The yellow-flowering cactus and

the golden lobelia, that would have been the choicest treasures of a

conservatory in other lands, we here broke branches off to fan away the

mosquitoes and the gallinippers.

The farther we went, the more fruitful and luxuriant did the tract seem.

Oranges, peaches, and grapes, in all the profusion of their wildest

abundance, surrounded us, and even littered the very way beneath our

feet. To feel the full enchantment of such a scene, one should have been

a prairie traveller for weeks, long-wearied and heart-sore with the dull

monotony of a tiresome journey, with fevered tongue and scorching feet,

with eyeballs red from the glaring sun, and temples throbbing from the

unshaded lustre. Then, indeed, the change was like one of those wondrous

transformations of a fairy tale, rather than mere actual life. In the

transports of our delight we threw ourselves down among the flowering

shrubs, and covered ourselves with blossoms and buds; we bound the grape

clusters on our foreheads like bacchanals, and tied great branches of

the orange-tree round us as scarfs. In all the wantonness of children,

we tore the fruit in handfuls, and threw it around us. The wasteful

prodigality of nature seemed to suggest excess on our part, prompting us

to a hundred follies and extravagances. As if to fill up the measure of

our present joy by imparting the brightness of future hope, Hermose told

us that such little spots of luxuriant verdure were very often found in

the regions richest with gold, and that we might be almost certain

of discovering a valuable Placer in our immediate vicinity. There was

another, and that no inconsiderable, advantage attending these "Oases"

of fertility. The Indians never dared to intrude upon these precincts;

their superstition being that the "Treasure God," or the "Genius of

the Mine," always had his home in these places, and executed summary

vengeance upon all who dared to invade them. This piece of red-man

faith, however jocularly recorded, did not meet that full contempt from

my comrades I could have expected. On the contrary, many cited instances

of disasters and calamities which seemed like curious corroborations

of the creed. Indeed, I soon saw how naturally superstitious credences

become matter of faith to him who lives the wild life of the prairies.

"Then you think we shall have to pay the price of all this enjoyment,

Hermose?" said I, as I lay luxuriously beneath a spreading banana.

"Quien sabe? who knows?" exclaimed he, in his Mexican dialect, and with

a shrug of the shoulders that implied doubt.

Although each event is well marked in my memory, and the incidents of

each day indelibly fixed upon my mind, it is needless that I should

dwell upon passages, which, however at the time full of adventure and

excitement, gave no particular direction to the course of my humble

destiny. We succeeded in finding a spot by which the bed of the river

might be changed; and after some days of hard labor we accomplished the

task.

The course of the stream thus left dry for a considerable distance

became the scene of our more active exertions. The first week or two

little was discovered, save gold dust, or an occasional "spicula" of

the metal, heavily alloyed with copper; but as we followed up the course

towards the mountain, a vein of richest ore was found, lying near the

surface too, and presenting masses of pure gold, many of them exceeding

twenty ounces in weight.

There could be no doubt that we had chanced upon a most valuable Placer;

and now orders were given to erect huts, and such rude furnaces for

testing as our skill stood in need of. A strict scale of profits was

also established, and a solemn oath exacted from each, to be true and

faithful to his comrades in all things. Our little colony demanded

various kinds of service; for, while the gold-seeking was our grand

object, it was necessary, in order to subsist the party, that a corps

of trappers and hunters should be formed, who should follow the buffalo,

the red-deer, and the wild hog over the prairies.

Many declined serving on this expedition, doubtless suspecting that

the share of treasure which might be allotted to the absent man would

undergo a heavy poundage. Hermose, however, whose adventurous spirit

inclined more willingly to the excitement of the chase than the

monotonous labor of a washer, volunteered to go, and I offered myself to

be his companion. Some half-dozen of the youngest agreed to follow us,

and we were at once named--The Hunters to the Expedition.

The rivalry between the two careers, good-natured as it was, served to

amuse and interest us; and while _our_ blank days were certain to obtain

for us a share of scoffs and jibes, _their_ unsuccessful ones did not

escape their share of sarcasm. If one party affected to bewail the

necessity of storing up treasure for a set of walking gentlemen who

passed the day in pleasure-rambles about the country, the other took

care to express their discontent at returning loaded with spoils for a

parcel of lazy impostors that lounged away their time on the bank of a

river. Meanwhile, both pursuits flourished admirably. Practice had made

us most expert with the rifle; and as we were fortunate enough to secure

some of the "mustangs," and train them to the saddle, our "chasse"

became both more profitable and pleasant. By degrees, too, little

evidences of superfluity began to display themselves in our equipment:

our saddles, at first made of a mere wooden trestle, with a strip

of buffalo hide thrown across it, were now ornamented with black

bear-skins, or the more valuable black fox-skin; our own costume, if

not exactly conformable to Parisian models, was comfortable and easy,--a

brown deerskin tunic, fastened by a belt around the waist; short

breeches, reaching to the knee-cap, which was left bare, for climbing;

"botas vaqueras," very loose at top, and serving as holsters for our

pistols; and a cap of fox or squirrel, usually designed by the wearer,

and exhibiting proofs of ingenuity, if not taste: such was our dress.

Our weapons of rifle, and bowie-knife, and pistols, giving it a

character, which, on the boards of a minor theatre, would have been a

crowning "success." We were also all mounted,--some, Hermose and myself

in particular, admirably so. And although I often in my own heart

regretted the powers of strength and endurance of poor "Charry,"

my little mustang steed, with his long forelock and his bushy

moustaches,--a strange peculiarity of this breed,--was a picture of

compactness and agility.

We had also constructed a rude wagon--so rude that I can even yet laugh

as I think on it--to carry our spoils, which were far too cumbrous for a

mere horse-load, and when left on the prairies attracted such numbers

of prairie-wolves and vultures as to be downright perilous. If this same

wagon was not exactly a type for "Long Acre," it was at least strong and

serviceable; and although the wheels were far nearer oval than circular,

they _did_ go round; the noise they created in so doing might have been

disagreeable to a nervous invalid, being something between the scream

of a railway train and the yell of a thousand peacocks. But I believe

we rather liked it,--at least, I know that when some luckless Sybarite

suggested the use of a little bear's fat around the axle, he was looked

on as a kind of barbarian to whom nature denied the least ear for music.

As for the "chasse" itself, it was glorious sport,--glorious in the

unbounded freedom to wander whither one listed; glorious in the sense of

mastery we felt that we alone of all the millions of mankind had reached

this far-away, unvisited tract; glorious in its successes, its dangers,

and its toils!

There was, besides, that endless variety of adventure prairie-hunting

affords. Now, it was the heavy buffalo, lumbering lazily along, and

tossing his huge head in anger as the rifle-ball pierced his dense hide.

Now, it was the proudly antlered stag, careering free over miles and

miles of waste. At another time the grizzly bear was our prey, and our

sport lay in the dense jungle or among the dwarf scrub, through which

the hissing rattlesnake was darting, affrighted at the noise. In more

peaceful mood, the antelope would be the victim; while the wild turkey

or the great cock of the wood would grace with his bright wavy feathers

the cap of him whose aim was true at longest rifle range.

And these were happy days,--the very happiest of my whole life; for if

sometimes regrets would arise about that road of ambition from which I

had turned off, to wander in the path of mere pleasure, I bethought me

that no career the luckiest fortune could have opened to me would have

developed the same manly powers of endurance of heat and cold and of

peril in a hundred shapes. In no other pursuit could I have educated

myself to the like life of toils and dangers, bringing me daily, as

it were, face to face with Death, till I could look on him without a

shudder or a fear.

I will not say that Donna Maria may not have passed across the picture

of my mind-drawn regrets; but if her form did indeed flit past, it was

to breathe a hope of some future meeting, some bright time to come, the

recompense of all our separation. And I thought with pride how much more

worthy of her would I be as the prairie-hunter,--the fearless follower

of the bear and buffalo, accustomed to the life of the wild woods,--than

as the mere adventurer, whose sole stock in trade was the subterfuge and

deceit he could practise on the unwary.

It was strange enough all this while that I seemed to have lost sight of

my old guide-star,--the great passion of my earlier years, the desire to

be a "gentleman." It was stranger still, but after-reflection has shown

me that it was true, I made far greater progress toward that wished-for

goal when I ceased to make it the object of my ambition.

CHAPTER XXIV. THE FATE OF A GAMBUSINO

"The life of the prairie," with all its seeming monotony, was very far

from wearisome. The chase, which to some might have presented the same

unvarying aspect, to those who passionately loved sport abounded in new

and exciting incidents. If upon one day the object of pursuit was the

powerful bison bull, with his shaggy mane and short straight horns, on

another, it was the swift antelope or the prairie fox, whose sable skin

is the rarest piece of dandyism a hunter's pelisse can exhibit; now and

then the wide-spread paw of a brown bear would mark the earth, and

give us days of exciting pursuit; or, again, some Indian "trail"--some

red-man "sign"--would warn us that we were approaching the

hunting-grounds of a tribe, and that all our circumspection was needed.

Besides these, there were changes, inappreciable to the uninitiated,

but thoroughly understood by us, in the landscape itself, highly

interesting. It is a well-known fact that the shepherd becomes

conversant with the face of every sheep in his flock, tracing

differences of expression where others would recognize nothing but

a blank uniformity; so did the prairie, which at first presented one

unvarying expanse, become at last marked by a hundred peculiarities,

with which close observation made us intimate. Indeed, I often wondered

how a great stretching plain, without a house, a tree, a shrub, or a

trickling brook, could supply the materials of scenic interest; and the

explanation is almost as difficult as the fact. One must have lived the

life of solitude and isolation which these wild wastes compel, to feel

how every moss-clad stone can have its meaning,--how the presence of

some little insignificant lichen indicates the vicinity of water,--how

the blue foxbell shows where honey is to be found,--how the faint spiral

motion of the pirn grass gives warning that rain is nigh at hand. Then

with what interest at each sunset is the horizon invested, when the eye

can pierce space to a vast extent, and mark the fog-banks which tower

afar off, and distinguish the gathering clouds from the dark-backed herd

of buffaloes or a group of Indians on a march. Every prairie "roll,"

every dip and undulation of that vast surface, had its own interest,

till at length I learned to think that all other prospects must be tame,

spiritless, and unexciting, in comparison with that glorious expanse,

where sky and earth were one, and where the clouds alone threw shadows

upon the vast plain.

The habit of a hunter's life in such scenes, the constant watchfulness

against sudden peril, inspire a frame of mind in which deep

reflectiveness is blended with a readiness and promptitude of

action,--gifts which circumstances far more favorable to moral training

do not always supply. The long day passed in total solitude, since very

often the party separates to rendezvous at nightfall, necessarily calls

for thought,--not, indeed, the dreamy revery of the visionary, forgetful

of himself and all the world, but of that active, stirring mental

operation which demands effort and will. If fanciful pictures of

the future as we would wish to make it, intervene, they come without

displacing the stern realities of the present, any more than the far

distances of a picture interfere with the figures of the foreground.

Forgive, most kind reader, the prolix fondness with which I linger on

this theme. Fortune gave me but scant opportunity of cultivation, but

my best schooling was obtained upon the prairies. It was there I learned

the virtue of self-reliance,--the only real independence. It was there

I taught myself to endure reverses without disappointment, and bear

hardships without repining. It was there I came to know that he who

would win an upward way in life must not build upon some self-imagined

superiority, but boldly enter the lists with others, and make

competitorship the test of his capacity. They were inferior

acquirements, it is true; but I learned also to bear hunger and cold,

and want of rest and sleep, which in my after-life were not without

their value. It would savor too much of a "bull" for him who writes his

own memoirs to apologize for egotism; still, I do feel compunctions of

conscience about the length of these personal details,--and now to my

story.

While we pursued our hunting pastime over the prairies, the "expedition"

was successful beyond all expectation. No sooner was the bed of the

river laid bare, than gold was discovered in quantities, and the

"washers," despising the slower process of "sifting," betook themselves

to the pick and the "barreta," like their comrades. It was a season of

rejoicing, and, so far as our humble means permitted, of festivity; for

though abounding in gold, our daily food was buffalo and "tough doe,"

unseasoned by bread or anything that could prove its substitute. If the

days were passed in successful labor, the evenings were prolonged with

narratives of the late discoveries, and gorgeous imaginings of the

future as each fancied the bright vista should be. Some were for a life

of unbounded excess and dissipation,--the "amende," as they deemed

it, for all their toil and endurance; others anticipated a career of

splendor and display in the Old World. The Frenchman raved of Paris and

its cafés and restaurants, its theatres and its thousand pleasures. A

few speculated upon setting forth on fresh expeditions with better means

of success. Halkett alone bethought him of home and of an aged mother,

in the far-away valley of Llanberris, whose remainder of life he longed

to render easy and independent.

Nor was it the least courageous act of his daring life to avow such a

feeling among such associates. How they laughed at his humility! how

they scoffed at the filial reverence of the Gambusino! Few of them had

known a parent's care. Most were outcasts from their birth, and started

in life with that selfish indifference to all others which is so often

the passport to success. I saw this, and perceived how affection and

sympathy are so much additional weight upon the back of him "who enters

for the plate of Fortune;" but yet my esteem for Halkett increased from

that moment. I fancied that his capacity for labor and exertion was

greater from the force of a higher and a nobler impulse than that which

animated the others; and I thought I could trace to this source the

untiring energy for which he was conspicuous above all the rest. It

was evident, too, that this "weakness," as they deemed it, had sapped

nothing of his courage, nor detracted in aught from his resolute

daring,--ever foremost, as he was, wherever peril was to be confronted.

I ruminated long and frequently over this, to me, singular trait of

character,--whole days as I rambled the prairies alone in search of

game; the tedious hours of the night I would lie awake speculating upon

it, and wondering if it were impulses of this nature that elevated men

to high deeds and generous actions, and--to realize my conception in one

word--made them "gentlemen."

To be sure, in all the accessory advantages of such, Halkett was most

lamentably deficient, and it would have been labor in vain to endeavor

to conform him to any one of the usages of the polite world; and yet, I

thought, might it not be possible that this rude, unlettered man might

have within him, in the recesses of his own heart, all those finer

instincts, all those refinements of high feeling and honor that make

up a gentleman,--like a lump of pure virgin gold encased in a mass of

pudding-stone. The study of this problem took an intense hold upon me;

for while I could recognize in myself a considerable power for imitating

all the observations of the well-bred world, I grieved to see that these

graces were mere garments, which no more influenced a man's real actions

than the color of his coat or the shape of his hat will affect the

stages of an ague or the paroxysms of a fever.

To become a "gentleman," according to my very crude notions of that

character, was the ruling principle of my life. I knew that rank,

wealth, and station were all indispensably requisite; but these I

also fancied might be easily counterfeited, while other gifts must be

absolutely possessed,--such as a good address; a skill in all manly

exercises; a personal courage ever ready to the proof; a steady

adherence to a pledged word. Now I tried to educate myself to all these,

and to a certain extent I succeeded. In fact, I experienced what all men

have who have set up a standard before them, that constant measurement

will make one grow taller. I fancied that Halkett and myself were on

the way to the same object, by different roads. Forgive the absurd

presumption, most benevolent reader; for there is really something

insufferably ludicrous in the very thought; and I make the "confession"

now only in the fulness of a heart which is determined to have no

concealments.

That I rode my "mustang" with a greater air; that I wore my black fox

pelisse more jauntily; that I slung my rifle at my back with a certain

affectation of grace; that I was altogether "got up" with an eye to the

picturesque,--did not escape my companions, who made themselves vastly

merry at pretensions which, in their eyes, were so supremely ridiculous,

but which amply repaid me for all the sarcasm, by suggesting a change of

their name for me,--my old appellation, "Il Lépero," being abandoned for

"Il Condé," the Count. It matters little in what spirit you give a man a

peculiar designation: the world take it up in their own fashion, and he

himself conforms to it, whether for good or evil.

As the "Condé," I doubtless displayed many a laughable affectation, and

did many things in open caricature of the title; but, on the other hand,

the name spurred me on to actions of most perilous daring, and made me

confront danger for the very sake of the hazard; till, by degrees, I saw

that the designation conferred upon me--at first in mockery--became a

mark of honorable esteem among my comrades.

The prairie was fruitful in incidents to test my courage. As the season

wore on, and game became more scarce, we were compelled to pursue the

"bison" into distant tracks, verging upon the hunting-grounds of an

Indian tribe called the Camanches. At first our "rencontres" were

confined to meeting with a scout or some small outlying party of the

tribe; but later on we ventured farther within their frontier, and upon

one occasion we penetrated a long and winding ravine which expanded into

a small plain, in the midst of which, to our amazement, we beheld their

village.

The scene was in every way a striking one. It was a few minutes after

sunset, and while yet the "yellow glory" of the hour bathed the earth,

that we saw the cane wigwams of the "Camanches" as they stood at either

side of a little river that, with many a curve, meandered through the

plain. Some squaws were seated on the banks, and a number of children

were sporting in the stream, which appeared too shallow for swimming.

Here and there, at the door of the wigwams, an old man was sitting

smoking. Some mustangs, seemingly fresh caught, were picketed in a

circle, and a few boys were amusing themselves, tormenting the animals

into bounds and curvets, the laughter the sport excited being audible

where we stood. The soft influence of the hour, the placid beauty of the

picture, the semblance of tranquil security impressed on everything,

the very childish gambols,--were all images so full of home and homelike

memories that we halted and gazed on the scene in speechless emotion.

Perhaps each of us at that moment had traversed in imagination half a

world of space, and was once again a child! As for myself, infancy

had been "no fairy dream," and yet my eyes filled up, and yet my lip

quivered, as I looked.

It was evident that the warriors of the tribe were absent on some

expedition. The few figures that moved about were either the very

old, the very young, or the squaws, who, in all the enjoyment of that

gossiping, as fashionable in the wild regions of the West as in the

gilded boudoirs of Paris, sat enjoying the cool luxury of the twilight.

Our party consisted of only four and myself; and standing, as we did,

in a grove of nut-trees, were perfectly concealed from view: no sense

of danger then interfered with our enjoyment of the prospect; we gazed

calmly on the scene on which we looked.

"Senhor Condé," whispered one of my party, a swarthy Spaniard from the

Basque, "what a foray we might make yonder! Their young men are absent;

they could make no defence. Caramba! it would be rare sport."

"Condé mio!" cried a Mexican, who had once been a horse-dealer, "I see

mustangs yonder worth five hundred dollars, if they are worth a cent;

let us have a dash forward and carry them off."

"There is gold in that village," muttered an old Ranchero, with a white

moustache; "I see sifting-sieves drying beside the stream."

And so, thought I to myself, these are the associates who, a moment

back, I dreamed were sharing my thoughts, and whose hearts, I fancied,

were overflowing with softest emotions. One, indeed, had not pronounced,

and to him I turned in hope. He was a dark-eyed, sharp-featured Breton.

"And you, Claude," said I, "what are your thoughts on this matter?"

"I leave all in the hands of my captain," said he, saluting in military

fashion; "but if there be a pillage, I claim the woman that is sitting

on the rock yonder, with a yellow girdle round her, as mine."

I turned away in utter disappointment. The robber-spirit was the only

one I had evoked, and I grew sick at heart to think of it. How is it

that, in certain moods of mind, the vices we are conversant with assume

a double coarseness, and that we feel repugnance to what daily habit had

seemed to have inured us?

"Is it to be, or not?" growled the Spaniard, who, having tightened his

girths and examined the lock of his rifle, now stood in somewhat patient

anxiety.

"Since when have we become banditti," said I, insultingly, "that we are

to attack and pillage helpless women and children? Are these the lessons

Halkett has taught us? Back to the camp. Let us have no more of such

counsels."

"We meet nothing but scoffs and jibes when we return empty-handed,"

muttered the Spaniard. "It is seldom such an opportunity offers of a

heavy booty."

"Right-about," said I, imperiously, not caring to risk my ascendency by

debating the question further. They obeyed without a word; but it was

easy to see that the spirit of mutiny was but sleeping. For some miles

of the way a dreary silence pervaded the party. I tried all in my power

to bring back our old good understanding, and erase the memory of the

late altercation; but even my friend Narvasque held aloof, and seemed to

side with the others. I was vexed and irritated to a degree the amount

of the incident was far from warranting; nor was the fact that we were

returning without any success without its influence. Moody and sad, I

rode along at their head, not making any further effort to renew their

confidence, when suddenly a spotted buck started from the shelter of a

prairie roll, and took his way across the plain. To unsling my rifle and

fire at him was the work of half a minute. My shot missed; and I heard,

or thought I heard, a burst of contemptuous laughter behind me. Without

turning my head, I spurred my horse to a sharp gallop, and proceeded to

reload my rifle as I went. The buck had, however, got a "long start"

of me; and although my mustang had both speed and endurance, I soon saw

that the chase would prove unrewarding; and, after a hot pursuit of half

a mile, I pulled up and wheeled about. Where was my party? Not a trace

of them was to be seen. I rode up a little slope of the prairie, and

then, at a great way off, I could descry their figures as with furious

speed they were hastening back in the direction of the Camanche village.

I cannot express the bitterness of the feeling that came over me.

It was no longer the sense of outraged humanity which filled my heart.

Selfishness usurped the ground altogether, and it was the injured honor

of a leader whose orders had been despised. It was the affront to

my authority wounded me so deeply. Then I fancied to myself their

triumphant return to the camp, laden with the spoils of victory, and

full of heroic stories of their own deeds; while I, the captain of

the band, should have nothing to contribute but a lame narrative of

misplaced compassion, which some might call by even a harsher name. Alas

for weak principle! I wished myself back at their head a hundred times

over. There was no atrocity that, for a minute or two, I did not feel

myself capable of; I really believe that if any other course were open

to me, I had never turned my steps back toward the camp. Crest-fallen

and sad indeed was I as I rode forward,--now cursing the insubordinate

rabble that deserted me; now inveighing against my own silly efforts

to change the ferocious instincts of such natures. In my bitterness of

spirit I attributed all to my foolish ambition of being "the gentleman."

What business had such a character there? or what possible link could

bind him to such companionship? In my discontent, too, I fancied that

these "gentlemen" traits were like studding-sails, only available in

fine weather and with a fair wind, but that for the storms and squalls

of life such fine-spun canvas was altogether unsuited. Is it needful I

should say that I lived to discover this to be an error?

To reach the camp ere nightfall, I was obliged to ride fast, and the

quick stride of my "half-breed" did more to rally my spirits than all my

philosophizings.

The slight breeze of sunset was blowing over the prairie, when I came

in sight of the skirting of nut-wood which sheltered the camp to the

"south'ard." It was like home, somehow, that spot. The return to it each

evening had given it that character, and one's instincts are invariably

at work to make substitutes for all the "prestiges" that tell of family

and friends. I experienced the feeling strongly now, as I entered the

wood and spurred my nag onward, impatient to catch a glimpse at the

watch-fires. As I issued from the copse, and looked up towards the

little table-land where the camp used to stand, I saw nothing that spoke

of my friends. There were no fires; not a figure moved on the spot. I

pressed eagerly forward to ascertain the reason, my mind full of its

own explanation of the fact, in which, I own it, fears were already

blending. Perhaps they had removed somewhat higher up the stream;

perhaps the Camanches had been there, and a battle had been fought;

perhaps--But why continue? Already I stood upon the spreading surface of

tableland, and was nearing the spot where all our huts were built, and

now a deep, booming noise filled my ears,--a hollow, cavernous sound,

like the sea surging within some rocky cave. I listened; it grew fuller

and louder, or seemed to do so, and I could mark sounds that resembled

the crashing of timber and the splintering of rocks.

My suspense had now risen to torture, and my poor mustang, equally

frightened as myself, refused to move a step, but stood with his ears

flattened back, fore-legs extended, and protruded nostril, sniffing, in

a very paroxysm of fright.

I dismounted, and, fastening his head to his fore-leg, in Mexican

fashion, advanced on foot. Each step I made brought me nearer to the

sounds, which now I perceived were those of a fast-rolling river. A

horrid dread shot through my heart, my senses reeled as it struck me;

but with an effort I sprang forward, and there, deep below me, in a

boiling ocean of foam, rolled the river along the channel which we had

succeeded in damming up, on the mountain side, and in whose dry bed all

our labors had been followed. In an instant the whole truth revealed

itself before me: the stream, swollen by the rain falling in the distant

mountains, had overborne the barrier, and, descending with all its

force, had carried away village, mines, and every trace of the ill-fated

"Expedition." The very trees that grew along the banks were at first

undermined, and then swept away, and might be seen waving their great

branches above the flood, and then disappearing forever, like gigantic

figures struggling in the agony of drowning. The rude smelting-house,

built of heavy stones and masses of rock, had been carried down with

the rest. Trees whose huge size attested ages of growth reeled with the

shock that shook the earth beside them, and seemed to tremble at their

own coming destiny.

The inundation continued to increase at each instant, and more than once

the "yellowest" waves compelled me to retire. This it was which first

led me to despair of my poor comrades, since I inferred that the torrent

had burst its barrier only a short space before my arrival; and as the

sunset was the hour when all the gold discovered during the day was

washed, before being deposited in the smelting-house, I conjectured that

my companions were overtaken at that moment by the descending flood, and

that none had escaped destruction.

However the sad event took place, I never saw any of them after; and

although I tracked the stream for miles, and spent the entire of two

days in search of them, I did not discover one trace of the luckless

expedition. So changed had everything become--such a terrible alteration

had the scene undergone--that whenever I awoke from a sleep, short and

broken as my feverish thoughts would make it, it was with difficulty I

could believe that this was once the "Camp;" that where that swollen

and angry torrent rolled, had been the dry, gravelly bed where joyous

parties labored; that beneath those cedars, where now the young

alligator stirred the muddy slime, we used to sit and chat in pleasant

companionship; that human joys and passions and hopes once lived and

flourished in that little space where ruin and desolation had now set

their marks, and where the weariest traveller would not linger, so

sorrow-struck and sad was every feature of the scene.

Poor Halkett was uppermost in my thoughts,--his remembrance of his

old mother, his plans for her future happiness and comfort, formed,

doubtless, many a long year before, and only realized to be dashed

forever! How many a wanderer and outcast, doubtless, like him, have sunk

into unhonored graves in far-away lands, and of whom no trace exists,

and who are classed among the worthless and the heartless of their

families; and yet, if we had record of them, we might learn, perhaps,

how thoughts of home--of some dear mother, of some kind sister, of some

brother who had been more than father--had spirited them on to deeds of

daring and privation, and how, in all the terrible conflict of danger in

which their days were spent, one bright hope, of returning home at last,

glittered like a light-ship on a lonely sea, and shed a radiance when

all around was dark and dreary.

The third day broke, and still found me lingering beside the fatal

torrent, not only without meeting with any of my former comrades, but

even of that party who had returned to the Indian village not one came

back. In humble imitation of prairie habit, I erected a little cross on

the spot, and with my penknife inscribed poor Halkett's name. This done,

I led my horse slowly away through the tangled underwood till I reached

the open plain, then I struck out in a gallop, and rode in the direction

where the sun was setting.

The mere detail of personal adventures, in which the traits of character

or the ever-varying aspects of human nature find no place, must always

prove wearisome. The most "hair-breadth 'scapes" require for their

interest the play of passions and emotions; and in this wise the perils

of the lonely traveller amid the deserts of the Far West could not vie

in interest with the slightest incident of domestic life, wherein human

cares and hopes and joys are mingled up.

I will not longer trespass on the indulgence of any one who has

accompanied me so far, by lingering over the accidents of my prairie

life, nor tell by what chances I escaped death in some of its most

appalling forms. The "Choctaw," the jaguar, the spotted leopard of the

jungle, the cayman of the sand lakes, had each in turn marked me for its

prey, and yet, preserved from every peril, I succeeded in reaching the

little village of "La Noria," or the "Well," which occupies one of the

opening gorges of the Rocky Mountains, at the outskirts of which some

of the inhabitants found me asleep, with clothing reduced to very rags,

nothing remaining of all my equipment save my rifle and a little canvas

pouch of ammunition.

My entertainers were miners, whose extreme poverty and privation would

have been inexplicable, had I not learned that the settlement was formed

exclusively of convicts, who had either been pardoned during the term of

their sentence, or, having completed their time, preferred passing

the remainder of their lives in exile. As a "billet of conduct" was

necessary to all who settled at the village, the inhabitants, with a

very few exceptions, were peaceable, quiet, and inoffensive; and of

the less well disposed, a rigidly severe police took the most effective

charge.

Had there been any way of disposing of me, I should not have been

suffered to remain; but as there was no "parish" to which they could

"send me on," nor any distinct fund upon which to charge me, I was

retained in a spirit of rude compassion, for which, had it even been

ruder, I had been grateful. The "Gobernador" of the settlement was an

old Mexican officer of Santa Anna's staff called Salezar, and whose

"promotion" was a kind of penalty imposed upon him for his robberies

and extortions in the commissariat of the army. He was not altogether

unworthy of the trust, since it was asserted that there never was a

convict vice nor iniquity in which he was not thoroughly versed, nor

could any scheme be hatched, the clew to which his dark ingenuity could

not discover.

I was summoned before him on the day of my arrival, and certainly a

greater contrast could not have been desired than was the bravery of his

costume to the rags of mine. A Spanish hat and feathers, such as is only

seen upon the stage, surmounted his great red and carbuncled face; a

pair of fiery red moustaches, twisted into two complete circles, with a

tail out of them like an eccentric "Q;" a sky-blue jacket covered

with silver buttons; tight pantaloons of the same color; and Hessian

boots,--made up the chief details of a figure whose unwieldy size the

tightness of the dress did not by any means set off to advantage. He

wore besides a quantity of daggers, pistols, and stilettos suspended

around his person, and a huge Barcelona blade hung by two silver chains

from his side, the rattle and jingle of which, as he spoke, appeared to

give him the most lively pleasure. I was ordered to stand before a

table at which he sat, with a kind of secretary at his side, while

he interrogated me as to who I was, whence I came, the object of my

journey, and so forth. My account of myself was given in the very

briefest way I could devise,--totally devoid of all coloring or

exaggeration, and, _for me_, with a most singular avoidance of the

romantic; and yet, to my utter discomfiture, from the very announcement

of my name, down to the last incident of my journey, he characterized

every statement by the very short and emphatic word "a lie," desiring

the secretary to record the same in his "Ledger," as his own firm

conviction; "and add," said he, solemnly, "that the fellow is a spy

from the States of North America,--that he probably belonged to some

exploring party into our frontier,--and that he will most certainly

be hanged whenever the smallest offence is proved against him." These

benign words were most royally spoken, and I made my acknowledgments for

them by taking off my tattered and greasy cap and, with a most urbane

bow, wishing him health and happiness for half a century to come, to

pronounce similar blessings upon many others.

The bystanders did look, I confess, somewhat terrified at my impromptu

courtesy; but Salezar, upon whom my rags, and my grotesque appearance

generally, produced a rather amusing effect, laughed heartily, and bade

them give me something to eat. The order, simple and intelligible as it

was, at least to me, seemed to evoke the strangest signs of surprise and

astonishment, and not unreasonably; for, as I afterwards came to know,

no Lazarus eat of the crumbs which fell from this "rich man's table,"

while from the poor herd of the settlers not a crust nor a parched pea

could be expected, as they were fed by rations so scantily doled out as

barely to support life. The order to feed me was therefore issued

pretty much in the same spirit which made Marie Antoinette recommend the

starving people to eat "brioche." As no one was to be found, however,

bold enough to express a doubt as to the facility of the measure, I was

led away in silence.

A very animated little discussion arose in the street as to what I was

to get, where to have it, and who to give it,--difficulties which none

seemed able to solve by any explanation save the usual Mexican one of

"Quien sabe?" or "Who knows?"--having uttered which in accents of very

convincing embarrassment, each went his way, leaving me standing with

an old mule-driver, the only one who had not delivered himself of this

speech.

Now, it chanced that the well from which the village derived its name of

"La Noria" had originally been worked by two mules, who having died

off, their places were supplied by two miserable asses of the prairie

breed,--creatures not much bigger than sheep, and scarcely stronger.

These wretched beasts had been for years past stimulated to their daily

labor by the assiduous persecutions of a fierce English bull-dog, who

with bark and bite made their lives a very pretty martyrdom. Either

worn-out by his unremitting exertions, or that asses' flesh (of which,

from their hocks and hind quarters generally, he freely partook)

disagreed with him, the animal sickened and died, leaving the poor

Mulero to his own unaided devices to drive the donkeys round the charmed

circle. I believe that he did all that mere man was capable of,--in

fact, in everything save using his teeth he imitated closely the

practices of the illustrious defunct. But asses though they were, they

soon discovered that the "great motive principle" was wanting, and

betook themselves to a far easier and more congenial mode of doing the

day's work.

Now, the Mulero was a man of thought and reflection, and it occurred

to him that if asses, however inadequately, could yet, in some sort,

perform the functions of mules, there was no reason why a man, even a

very poor-looking and ragged one, should not replace a bull-dog. There

was that hungry, half-starved look about me, too, that vouched my

temper would not be of the sweetest; and he eyed me with the glance of a

connoisseur. At last Mijo--for such was he called--made the proposal

to me in all form, explaining that my predecessor had had his rations

allowed him like a colonist, and was entitled to sleep under cover at

the house of his former mistress, La Senhora Dias, "who," he added, with

a sly wink, "was my countrywoman." Well knowing a Mexican never boggles

at a lie, no matter how broad and palpable, I took no notice of what I

at once concluded to be impossible, but proceeded to inquire as to the

precise functions I might be expected to perform in my canine capacity.

"A mere nothing," said he, with a shrug of his shoulders; "we harness

the beasts at daybreak,--say three o'clock; by eight the water is all

up; then you can sleep or amuse yourself till four of the afternoon,

when the Commandante Salezar likes to have cool water for his

bath,--that only takes an hour; then you are free again till night

closes in."

"And what then?" asked I, impatiently.

"You have your rounds at night."

"My rounds! where, and what for?"

"Against the prairie wolves, that now and then are daring enough to come

down into the very settlement, and carry off kids and lambs,--ay, and

sometimes don't stop there."

He winked with a terrible significance at the last words.

"So, then, I am not only to bark at the asses all day, but I am to bay

the wolves by night?" said I, half indignantly.

"Lupo did it," responded he, with a nod.

"_He_ was a dog, Señhor Mijo," said I.

"Ah, that he was!" added he, in a tone very different from my remark,

accompanying it with a most disparaging glance at my ragged habiliments.

I read the whole meaning of the look at once, and hung my head, abashed

at the disparaging comparison.

He waited patiently for my reply, and, perceiving that I was still

silent, he said, "Well, is it a bargain?"

"Agreed," said I, with a sigh; and wondering if Fortune had yet any

lower depths in store for me, I followed him to his hut. Mijo proceeded

to acquaint me with all the details of my office, and also certain

peculiarities of the two beasts for whose especial misery I was engaged.

If compassion could have entered into my nature, it might have moved me

at sight of them. Their haunches and hocks were notched and scored with

the marks of teeth, while their tails were a series of round balls, like

certain old-fashioned bell-ropes, the result of days of suffering.

"I am so accustomed to the name, I must call you 'Lupo,'" said Mijo;

"you have no objection?"

"Not in the least," said I; "if a 'dog in office,' why not a dog in

name?"

That same day I was conducted to the "Tienda del Gato," the shop of

"The Cat," at the sign of which animal La Señhora Dias resided. It was a

small cottage at the very extremity of the village, in a somewhat pretty

garden; and here a kind of canteen was held, at which the settlers

procured cigars, brandy, and other like luxuries, in exchange for their

"tickets of labor."

Of the Señhora, some mystery existed: the popular rumor was, that she

had been the favorite mistress of Santa Anna, whose influence, however,

could not rescue her from the fate of a convict, to which she was

sentenced for forgery. Her great patron contrived, however, to release

her from the indignity of a penal settlement, and placed her at "La

Noria," where she had resided two years. Some said that it was to

conceal herself from the prying curiosity of the vulgar; another, that

it was to hide the brand of the letter "F," burned with a hot iron in

her forehead; others, again, that it was by Santa Anna's express order

(but what the reason?) she always wore a black velvet mask, which, since

her arrival at the village, none had seen her remove.

A hundred stories, one more absurd than another, were circulated

about her high birth and condition, and the vast wealth she had once

possessed; the only real clew I could discover to these narratives

being the simple fact that her dog, a fierce English bull-dog,--my

own predecessor, and who by peculiar favor was permitted to accompany

her,--used to wear a massive silver collar, richly chased and

ornamented: fiction, indeed, had invested it with precious stones

and gems; but these were purely imaginative ornaments. Even devoid of

jewels, such was deemed an unequivocal proof of riches among those whose

poverty was of the very lowest order, and La Señhora Dias bought her

"millionnaire" character at a cheap price. To me, the most interesting

part in her story was that which called her my countrywoman; and yet

this seemed so unlikely, and was coupled with so much that I knew to be

impossible, that I did not venture to believe it.

It was the hour of the siesta when we reached "The Cat," so that I had

no opportunity of seeing the Señhora. Mijo conducted me to a little

building in the garden, originally built as a hut for a man who watched

the fruit, but latterly inhabited by Lupo. There I was installed at

once. Some chestnut-leaves were my bed; a small spring afforded me

water; I was to receive eight ounces of maize bread each day, with half

an ounce of coffee,--Lupo had "taken" the latter "out" in sausages.

Of the fruit of the garden, consisting of limes, oranges, peaches,

and mangoes, I was free of whatever fell to the ground,--a species

of black-mail that never failed me at the dessert. These were my

perquisites,--my duties I already knew; and so Mijo left me to recruit

myself by one day's rest, and on "the morrow" to begin my labors.

I shall never forget the strange _mélange_ of feelings, pleasurable and

the reverse, which came over me as I first found myself alone, and had

time to think over my condition. Many would perhaps have said that the

degradation would have mastered all other thoughts, and that the life to

which I was reduced would have tended to break down all self-respect

and esteem. Whether to my credit or otherwise, I know not, but I did

not feel thus,--nay, I even went so far as to congratulate myself that

a source of livelihood was open to me which did not involve me in forced

companionship, and that I might devote so many hours of each day to my

own undisturbed thoughts, as I wandered about that vast garden, in which

no other than myself appeared ever to set foot.

Culture it had none, nor seemed to need, it; one of my duties was to

pluck the ripe fruit every day, ere I issued forth to the "Well," and

place the baskets at the Señhora's door; and, save this, I believe all

was left to nature. What a wilderness of rank luxuriance it was! The

earth had become so fertilized by the fallen fruit left to rot as it

fell, that the very atmosphere was loaded with the odor of peaches and

oranges and pomegranates. A thousand gaudy and brilliant flowers, too,

glittered among the tall grass that tried to overtop them; and insects

and creatures of colors still more beauteous fluttered and chirped among

the leaves, making a little chorus of sounds that mingled deliciously

with the rippling stream that murmured near.

CHAPTER XXV. LA SEÑHORA

To this very hour I am unable to say how long I remained at the village

of La Noria. Time slipped away unchronicled; the seasons varied little,

save for about two winter mouths, when heavy snows fell, and severe cold

prevailed; but spring followed these with a suddenness that seemed

like magic, and then came summer and autumn, as it were, blended into

one,--all the varied beauties of the one season vying with the other.

This was all that was wanting to complete the illusion which

the monotony of my daily life suggested; for me there was no

companionship,--no link that bound me to my fellow-men; the "Sunday,"

too, "shone no Sabbath-day for me." The humble range of my duties never

varied; nor, save with Mijo, did I ever exchange even a passing word.

Indeed, the hours of _my_ labor were precisely those when all others

slept; and whether I tracked the wayworn asses at their dreary round,

or pursued my solitary path at night, my own was the only voice I ever

heard. It was the "life of a dog;" but, after all, how many states of

existence there are far less desirable! I had always wherewithal to

subsist upon; I had no severe labor, nor any duty incompatible with

health; and I had--greatest blessing of all--time for self-communing

and reflection; that delicious leisure, in which the meanest hovel ever

raised by hands become one's "Home." I was happy, then, after my own

fashion; various little contrivances to lighten my tasks amused and

occupied my thoughts. To bring the garden into order was also a passion

with me; and although necessitated to invent and fashion the tools to

work with, I was not deterred by this difficulty, but manfully overcame

it. I greatly doubted if Watt ever gazed at a new improvement in steam

machinery with half the delight I looked upon my first attempt at

a rake. Then, what pleasure did I experience as I saw the trim beds

covered with blooming flowers, the clearly raked walks, the grass-plots

close-shaven and weedless! How the thoughts of changes and alterations

filled my mind as I wandered in the dreary night! What trellises did I

not invent; what festoons of the winding vine-branches; what bowers of

the leafy banana! Like the old gardener, Adam, I began at last to think

that all these things were too beautiful for one man's gaze, that such

ecstasies as mine deserved companionship, and that the selfishness of

my enjoyment was the greatest blot upon its perfection. When this notion

caught hold of me, I wandered away in fancy to the "Donna Maria de los

Dolores;" and how fervently did I believe that, with her to share it, my

present existence had been a life of Paradise!

These thoughts at last exhausted themselves, and I fell a thinking why

the Señhora Dias never had the curiosity to visit her garden, nor

see the changes I had wrought in it. To be sure, it was true she knew

nothing of them: how, then, was I to make the fact reach her ears? The

only hours that _I_ was at liberty were those when every close-drawn

curtain and closed shutter proclaimed the "siesta."

It was clear enough that a whole life might slip over in this fashion

without my ever seeing her. There was something in the difficulty that

prompted a desire to overcome it; and so I set myself to plan the means

by which I might make her acquaintance. Of the windows which looked

towards the garden, the blinds were always closed; the single door that

led into it as invariably locked; I bethought me of writing a humble and

most petitionary epistle, setting forth my utter solitude and isolation;

but where were pen and ink and paper to come from? These were luxuries

the Gobernador himself alone possessed. My next thought was more

practicable: it was to deposit each morning upon her basket of fruit a

little bouquet of fresh flowers. But, then, would they ever reach her

hands?--would not the servant purloin and intercept my offering?--ay,

that was to be thought of.

By most assiduous watching, I at last discovered that her bedroom looked

into the garden by a small grated window, almost hidden by the gnarled

branches of a wild fig-tree. This at once afforded me the opportunity I

desired, and up the branches of this I climbed each morning of my life,

to fasten to the bars my little bouquet of flowers.

With what intense expectancy did I return home the first morning of my

experiment! what vacillations of hope and fear agitated me as I came

near the garden, and, looking up, saw, to my inexpressible delight, that

the bouquet was gone! I could have cried for very joy! At last I was no

longer an outcast, forgotten by my fellows. One, at least, knew of my

existence, and possibly pitied and compassionated my desolation.

I needed no more than this to bind me again to the love of life; frail

as was the link, it was enough whereupon to hang a thousand hopes and

fancies, and it suggested matter for cheering thought, where, before,

the wide waste of existence stretched pathless and purposeless before

me. How I longed for that skill by which I might make the flowers the

interpreters of my thoughts! I knew nothing of this, however; I could

but form them into such combinations of color and order as should please

the senses, but not appeal to the heart; and yet I did try to invent a

language, forgetting the while that the key of the cipher must always

remain with myself.

It chanced that one night, when on my rounds outside the village,

I suddenly discovered that I had forgotten the caps for my rifle. I

hastened homeward to fetch them, and entered the garden by a small door

which I had myself made, and of which few were cognizant. It was a night

of bright moonlight; but the wind was high, and drifted large masses

of cloud across the sky, alternately hiding and displaying the moon.

Tracking, with an instinct too well trained to become deceptive, the

walks of the garden, while a dark mass shut out the "lamp of night," I

reached my hut, when suddenly, on a little stone bench beside the door,

I beheld a female figure seated. She was scarcely four yards from

where I stood, and in the full glare of the moonlight as palpable as at

noonday. She was tall and elegantly formed; her air and carriage, even

beneath the coarse folds of a common dress of black serge, such as

bespoke condition; her hands, too, were white as marble, and finely and

delicately formed; in one of them she held a velvet mask, and I watched

with anxiety to see the face from which it had been removed, which was

still averted from me. At last she turned slowly round, and I could

perceive that her features, although worn by evident suffering and

sorrow, had once been beautiful; the traits were in perfect symmetry;

the mouth alone had a character of severity somewhat at variance with

the rest, but its outline was faultless,--the expression only being

unpleasing. The dark circles around the eyes attested the work of years

of grief, bitter and corroding.

What should I do,--advance boldly, or retire noiselessly from the spot?

If the first alternative presented perhaps the only chance of ever

speaking to her, it might also prevent her ever again visiting the

garden. This was a difficulty; and ere I had time to solve it, she arose

to leave the spot. I coughed slightly: she halted and looked around,

without any semblance of terror or even surprise, and so we stood face

to face.

"You should have been on your rounds on this hour!" said she, with a

manner of almost stern expression, and using the Spanish language.

"So I should, Señhora; but having forgot a part of my equipment, I

returned to seek it."

"They would punish you severely if it were known," said she, in the same

tone.

"I am aware of that," replied I; "and yet I would incur the penalty

twice over to have seen one of whom my thoughts for every hour these

months past have been full."

"Of me? You speak of me?"

"Yes, Señhora, of you. I know the presumption of my words; but bethink

you that it is not in such a spirit they are uttered, but as the cry of

one humbled and humiliated to the very dust, and who, on looking at you,

remembers the link that binds him to his fellows, and for the instant

rises above the degradation of his sad condition."

"And it is through _me_,--by looking at me,--such thoughts are

inspired!" said she, in an accent of piercing anguish. "Are you an

English youth?"

"Yes, Señhora, as much as an Irishman can call himself."

"And is this the morality of your native land," said she, in English,

"that you can feel an elevation of heart and sentiment from the

contemplation of such as I am? Shame, sir,--shame upon your falsehood,

or worse shame upon your principle."

"I only know you as my day and night dreams have made you, lady,--as the

worshipper creates his own idol."

"But you have heard of me?" said she, speaking with a violence and

rapidity that betokened a disordered mind. "All the world has heard of

me, from the Havannah to Guajuaqualla, as the poisoner and the forger!"

I shook my head dissentingly.

"It is, then, because you are less than human," said she, scoffingly,

"or you _had_ heard it. But mind, sir, it is untrue; I am neither." She

paused, and then, in a voice of terrible emotion, said, "There is enough

of crime upon this poor head, but not that! And where have you lived,

not to have heard of La Señhora Dias?" said she, with an hysteric laugh.

In a few words I told her how I had made part of a great gold-searching

expedition, and been utterly ruined by the calamity which destroyed my

companions.

"You would have sold yourself for gold wherewith to buy pleasure!"

muttered she to herself.

"I was poor, lady; I must needs do something for my support."

"Then why not follow humble labor? What need of wealth? Where had you

learned its want, or acquired the taste to expend it? You could only

have imitated rich men's vices, not their virtues, that sometimes

ennoble them."

The wild vehemence of her manner, as with an excessive rapidity she

uttered these words, convinced me that her faculties were not under

the right control of reason, and I followed her with an interest even

heightened by that sad impression.

"You see no one, you speak to none," said she, turning round suddenly,

"else I should bid you forget that you have ever seen me."

"Are we to meet again, Señhora?" said I, submissively, as I stood beside

the door, of which she held the key in her hand.

"Yes--perhaps--I don't know;" and, so saying, she left me.

Two months crept over--and how slowly they went!--without my again

seeing the Señhora. Were it not that the bouquets which each morning

I fastened to the window-bars were removed before noon, I could have

fancied that she had no other existence than what my dreamy imagination

gave her. The heavy wooden "jalousies" were never opened; the door

remained close locked; not a foot-tread marked the gravel near it. It

was clear to me she had never crossed the threshold since the night I

first saw her.

I fell into a plodding, melancholy mood. The tiresome routine of my

daily life, its dull, unvarying monotony, began to wear into my soul,

and I ceased either to think over the past or speculate on the future,

but would sit for hours long in a moody revery, actually unconscious of

everything.

Sometimes I would make an effort to throw off this despondency, and try,

by recollection of the active energy of my own nature, to stir up myself

to an effort of one kind or other; but the unbroken stillness, the vast

motionless solitude around me, the companionless isolation in which

I lived, would resume their influence, and with a weary sigh I would

resign myself to a hopelessness that left no wish in the heart save for

a speedy death.

Even castle-building--the last resource of imprisonment--ceased to

interest. Life had also resolved itself into a successsion of dreary

images, of which the voiceless prairie, the monotonous water-wheel, the

darkened path of my midnight patrol, were the chief; and I felt myself

sinking day by day, hour by hour, into that resistless apathy through

which no ray of hope ever pierces.

At last I ceased even to pluck the flowers for the Señhora's window.

I deemed any exertion which might be avoided, needless, and taxed my

ingenuity to find out contrivances to escape my daily toil. The garden I

neglected utterly; and in the wild luxuriance of the soil the rank weeds

soon effaced every sign of former culture. What a strange frame of mind

was mine! Even the progress of this ruin gave me a pleasure to the full

as great as that once felt in witnessing the blooming beauty of its

healthful vegetation. I used to walk among the rank and noisome weeds

with the savage delight of some democratic leader who saw his triumph

amid the downfall of the beautiful, the richly-prized, and the valued,

experiencing a species of insane pleasure in the thought of some fancied

vengeance.

How the wild growth of the valueless weed overtopped the tender

excellence of the fragrant plant; how the noisome odor overpowered

its rich perfume; how, in fact, barbarism lorded it over civilization,

became a study to my distorted apprehension; and I felt a diabolical joy

at the victory.

A little more, and this misanthropy had become madness; but a change was

at hand. I was sitting one night in the garden: it was already the hour

when my "patrol" should have begun; but latterly I had grown indifferent

to the call of duty: as Hope died out within me, so did Fear also, and

I cared little for the risk of punishment,--nay, more, a kind of

rebellious spirit was gaining upon me, and I wished for some accident

which might bring me into collision with some one. As I sat thus, I

heard a footstep behind me: I turned, and saw the Señhora close to me.

I did not rise to salute her, but gazed calmly and sternly, without

speaking.

"Has the life of the dog imparted the dog's nature?" said she,

scoffingly. "Why don't you speak?"

"I have almost forgotten how to do so," said I, sulkily.

"You can hear, at least?"

I nodded assent.

"And understand what you hear?"

I nodded again.

"Listen to me, then, attentively, for I have but a short time to stay,

and have much to tell you. And, first of all, do you wish to escape from

hence?"

"Do I wish it!" cried I; and in the sudden burst, long dried-up sources

of emotion opened out afresh, and the heavy tears rolled down my cheeks.

"Are you willing to incur the danger of attempting it?"

"Ay, this instant!"

"If so, the means await you. I want a letter conveyed to a certain

person in the town of Guajuaqualla, which is about two hundred miles

distant."

"In which direction?" asked I.

"You shall see the map for yourself; here it is," said she, giving me

a small package which contained a map and a mariner's compass. "I only

know that the path lies over the prairie and by the banks of a branch of

the Red River. There are villages and farmhouses when you have reached

that region."

"And how am I to do so, unmolested, Señhora? A foot-traveller on the

prairie must be overtaken at once."

"You shall be well mounted on a mustang worth a thousand dollars; but

ride him without spurring. If he bring you safe to Guajuaqualla he has

paid his price." She then proceeded to a detail which showed how well

and maturely every minute circumstance had been weighed and considered.

The greatest difficulty lay in the fact that no water was to be met

with nearer than eighty miles, which distance I should be compelled to

compass on the first day. If this were a serious obstacle on one side,

on the other it relieved me of all apprehension of being captured after

the first forty or fifty miles were accomplished, since my pursuers

would scarcely venture farther.

The Señhora had provided for everything. My dress, which would have

proclaimed me as a runaway "settler," was to be exchanged for the gay

attire of a Mexican horse-dealer,--a green velvet jacket and hose, all

slashed and decorated with jingling silver buttons, pistols, sabre, and

rifle to suit.

The mustang, whose saddle was to be fitted with the usual accompaniment

of portmanteau and cloak, was also to have the leathern purse of the

"craft," with its massive silver lock, and a goodly ballast of doubloons

within. Two days' provisions and a gourd of brandy, completed an

equipment which to my eyes was more than the wealth of an empire.

"Are you content?" asked she, as she finished the catalogue.

I seized her hand, and kissed it with a warm devotion.

"Now for the reverse of the medal. You may be overtaken; pursuit is

almost certain,--it may be successful; if so, you must tear the letter I

shall give you to fragments so small that all detection of its contents

may be impossible. Sell your life dearly; this I counsel you, since a

horrible death would be reserved for you if taken prisoner. Above all,

don't betray me."

"I swear it," said I, solemnly, as I held up my hand in evidence of the

oath.

"Should you, however, escaping all peril, reach Guajuaqualla in safety,

you will deliver this letter to the Señhor Estavan Olares, a well-known

banker of that town. He will present you with any reward you think

sufficient for your services, the peril of which cannot be estimated

beforehand. This done,--and here, mark me! I expect your perfect

fidelity,--all tie is severed between us. You are never to speak of me

so long as I live; nor, if by any sun of Fortune we should chance to

meet again in life, are you to recognize me. You need be at no loss for

the reasons of this request: the position in which I am here placed--the

ignominy of an unjust sentence, as great as the shame of the heaviest

guilt--will tell you why I stipulate for this. Are we agreed?"

"We are. When do I set out?"

"To-morrow by daybreak; leave this a little before your usual time, pass

out of the village, and, taking the path that skirts the beech wood,

make for the Indian ground,--you know the spot. At the cedar-tree close

to that you will find your horse all ready,--the letter is here." Now

for the first time her voice trembled slightly, and for an instant

or two she seemed irresolute. "My mind is sometimes so shaken by

suffering," said she, "that I scarcely dare to trust its guidance; and

even now I feel as if the confidence I am about to place in an utter

stranger, in an--"

"Outcast, you would say," said I, finishing what she faltered at.

"Do not fear, then, one humbled as I have been can take offence at an

epithet."

"Nor is it one such as I am who have the right to confer it," said she,

wiping the heavy drops from her eyes. "Good-bye forever!--since, if you

keep your pledge, we are never to meet again." She gave me her hand,

which I kissed twice, and then, turning away, she passed into the house;

and before I even knew that she was gone, I was standing alone in the

garden, wondering if what had just occurred could be real.

If my journey was not without incident and adventure, neither were they

of a character which it is necessary I should inflict upon my reader,

who doubtless ere this has felt all the wearisome monotony of prairie

life, by reflection. Enough that I say, after an interesting mistake

of the "trail" which led me above a hundred miles astray! I crossed

the Conchos River within a week, and reached Chihuahua, a city of

considerable size, and far more pretensions than any I had yet seen in

the "Far West."

Built on the narrow gorge of two abrupt mountains, the little town

consists of one great straggling street, which occupies each side of a

torrent that descends in a great tumbling mass of foam and spray along

its rocky course. It was the time of the monthly market, or fair, when

I arrived, and the streets were crowded with peasants and muleteers in

every imaginable costume. The houses were mostly built with projecting

balconies, from which gay-colored carpets and bright draperies hung

down, while female figures sat lounging and smoking their cigarettes

above. The aspect of the place was at once picturesque and novel. Great

wooden wagons of melons and cucumbers, nuts, casks of olive-oil and

wine; bales of bright scarlet cloth, in the dye of which they excel;

pottery ware; droves of mustangs, fresh caught and capering in all their

native wildness; flocks of white goats from the Cerzo Gorde, whose wool

is almost as fine as the Llama's; piles of firearms from Birmingham and

Liège, around which groups of admiring Indians were always gathered;

parroquets and scarlet jays, in cages; richly ornamented housings for

mule teams; brass-mounted saddles and a mass of other articles littered

and blocked up the way so that all passage was extremely difficult.

Before I approached the city, I had been canvassing with myself how best

I might escape from the prying inquisitiveness to which every stranger

is exposed on entering a new community. I might have spared myself the

trouble, for I found that I was perfectly unnoticed in the motley throng

with which I mingled.

My strong-boned, high-bred mustang, indeed, called forth many a

compliment as I rode past; but none had any eye, nor even a word, for

the rider. At last, as I was approaching the inn, I beheld a small knot

of men whose dress and looks were not unfamiliar to me; and in a moment

after, I remembered that they were the Yankee horse-dealers I had met

with at Austin, some years before. As time had changed me far more than

them, I trusted to escape recognition, not being by any means desirous

of renewing the acquaintance. I ought to say that, besides my Mexican

costume, I wore a very imposing pair of black moustaches and beard, the

growth of two years at "La Noria," so that detection was not very easy.

While I was endeavoring to push my way between two huge hampers of

tomatoes and lemons, one of this group, whom I at once recognized

as Seth Chiseller, laid his hand on my beast's shoulder and said, in

Spanish, "The mustang is for sale?"

"No, Señhor," said I, with a true Mexican flourish, "he and all mine

stand at your disposal, but I would not sell him."

Not heeding much the hackneyed courtesy of my speech, he passed his

hands along the animal's legs, feeling his tendons and grasping his neat

pasterns. Then, proceeding to the hocks, he examined them carefully;

after which he stepped a pace or two backwards, the better to survey

him, when he said, "Move him along in a gentle trot."

"Excuse me, Señhor, I came here to buy, not to sell. This animal I do

not mean to part with."

"Not if I were to offer you five hundred dollars?" said he, still

staring at the beast.

"Not if you were to say a thousand, Señhor," said I, haughtily; "and

now pray let me pass into the court, for we are both in need of

refreshment."

"He an't no Mexican, that 'ere chap," whispered one of the group to

Chiseller.

"He sits more like a Texan," muttered another.

"He'll be the devil, or a Choctaw outright, but Seth will have his beast

out of him," said another, with a laugh; and with this the group opened

to leave me a free passage into the inn-yard.

All the easy assurance I could put on did not convince myself that my

fears were not written in my face as I rode forward. To be sure, I did

swagger to the top of my bent; and as I flung myself from the saddle, I

made my rifle, my brass scabbard, my sabretache, and my spurs perform

a crash that drew many a dark eye to the windows, and set many a fan

fluttering in attractive coquetry.

"What a handsome Caballero! how graceful and well-looking!" I thought

I could read in their flashing glances; and how pleasant was such an

imaginary _amende_ for the neglect I had suffered hitherto.

Having commended my beast to the hands of the ostler, I entered the inn

with all the swaggering assurance of my supposed calling, but, in good

earnest, with anything but an easy heart at the vicinity of Seth and

his followers. The public room into which I passed was crowded with

the dealers of the fair in busy and noisy discussion of their several

bargains; and had I been perfectly free of all personal anxieties, the

study of their various countenances, costumes, and manners had been

most amusing, combining as they did every strange nationality,--from

the pale-faced, hatchet-featured New Englander to the full-eyed, swarthy

descendant of old Spain. The mongrel Frenchman of New Orleans, with

the half-breed of the prairies, more savage in feature than the

Pawnee himself, the shining negro, the sallow Yankee, the Jew from the

Havannah, and the buccaneer-like sailor who commanded his sloop and

accompanied him as a species of body-guard,--were all studies in their

way and full of subject for after-thought.

In this motley assemblage it may easily be conceived that I mingled

unnoticed, and sat down to my mess of "frijoles with garlic" without

even a passing observation. As I ate on, however, I was far from pleased

by remarking that Seth and another had taken their seats at a table

right opposite, and kept their eyes full on me with what in better

society had been a most impudent stare. I affected not to perceive this,

and even treated myself to a flask of French wine, with the air of a man

revelling in undisturbed enjoyment. But all the rich bouquet, all the

delicious flavor, were lost upon me; the sense of some impending danger

overpowered all else; and let me look which way I would, Seth and

his buff-leather jacket, his high boots, immense spurs, and enormous

horse-pistols rose up before me like a vision.

I read in the changeful expression of his features the struggle between

doubt and conviction as to whether he had seen me before. I saw what was

passing in his mind, and I tried a thousand little arts and devices to

mystify him. If I drank my wine, I always threw out the last drops of

each glass upon the floor; when I smoked, I rolled my cigar between my

palms, and patted and squeezed it in genuine Mexican fashion. I turned

up the points of my moustache like a true hidalgo, and played Spaniard

to the very top of my bent.

Not only did these airs seem not to throw him off the scent, but I

remarked that he eyed me more suspiciously, and often conversed in

whispers with his companion. My anxiety had now increased to a sense

of fever, and I saw that if nothing else should do so, agitation alone

would betray me. I accordingly arose, and called the waiter to show me

to a room.

It was not without difficulty that one could be had, and that was a

miserable little cell, whitewashed, and with no other furniture than a

mattress and two chairs. At least, however, I was alone; I was relieved

from the basilisk glances of that confounded horse-dealer, and I threw

myself down on my mattress in comparative ease of mind, when suddenly

I heard a smart tap at the door, and a voice called out, with a very

Yankee accent, "I say, friend, I want a word with you."

I replied, in Spanish, that if any one wanted me, they must wait till I

had taken my "siesta."

"Take your siesta another time, and open your door at once; or mayhap I

'll do it myself!"

"Well, sir," said I, as I threw it open, and feigning a look of angry

indignation, the better to conceal my fear, "what is so very urgently

the matter that a traveller cannot take his rest, without being

disturbed in this fashion?"

"Hoity-toity! what a pucker you're in, boy!" said he, shutting the door

behind him; "and we old friends too!"

"When or where have we ever met before?" asked I, boldly.

"For the 'where,'--it was up at Austin, in Texas; for the

'when,'--something like three years bygone."

I shook my head, with a saucy smile of incredulity.

"Nay, nay, don't push me farther than I want to go, lad. Let bygones be

bygones, and tell me what's the price of your beast, yonder."

"I 'll not sell the mustang," said I, stoutly.

"Ay, but you will, boy! and to me, too! And it's Seth Chiseller says

it!"

"No man can presume to compel another to part with his horse against his

will, I suppose?" said I, affecting a coolness I did not feel.

"There's many a stranger thing than _that_ happens in these wild parts.

I've known a chap ride away with a beast,--just without any question at

all!"

"That was a robbery!" exclaimed I, in an effort at virtuous indignation.

"It war n't far off from it," responded Seth; "but there 's a reward for

the fellow's apprehension, and there it be!" and as he spoke he threw

a printed handbill on the table, of which all that I could read with

my swimming eyes were the words, "One Hundred Dollars Reward,"--"a mare

called Charcoal,"--"taking the down trail towards the San José."

"There was no use in carrying that piece of paper so far," said I,

pitching it contemptuously away.

"And why so, lad?" asked he, peering inquisitively at me.

"Because this took place in Texas, and here we are in Mexico."

"Mayhap, in strict law that might be something," said he, calmly; "but

were I to chance upon him, why should n't I pass a running-knot over his

wrists, and throw him behind me on one of my horses? Who's to say 'You

sha' n't?' or who's to stop a fellow that can ride at the head of thirty

well-mounted lads, with Colt's revolvers at the saddle-bow?--tell me

that, boy!"

"In the first place," said I, "the fellow who would let himself be taken

and slung on your crupper, like a calf for market, deserves nothing

better; and particularly so long as he owned a four-barrelled pistol

like this!"--and here I drew the formidable weapon from my breast, and

held it presented towards him, in a manner that it is rarely agreeable

to confront.

"Put down your irons, lad," said he, with the very slightest appearance

of agitation in his manner; "we'll come to terms without burning

powder."

"I ask for nothing better," said I, putting up my weapon; "but I 'll not

stand being threatened."

He gave a short, dry laugh, as though the conceit of my speech amused

him, and said, "Now, to business: I want that mustang."

"You shall have him, Seth," said I, "the day he reaches Guajuaqualla,

whither I am bound in all haste."

"I am a-going north," said Seth, gruffly, "and not in that direction."

"You can send one of your people along with me, to fetch him back."

"Better to leave him with me now, and take a hack for the journey," said

he.

This was rather too much for my temper; and I ventured to say that he

who was to receive a present should scarcely dictate the conditions

accompanying it.

"It's a ransom, boy,--a forfeit,--not a present," said he, gravely.

"Let us see if you can enforce it, then," said I, instinctively

"There, now, you're angry again!" said he, with his imperturbable smile;

"if we're to have a deal together, let us do it like gentlemen."

Now, probably a more ludicrous caricature of that character could not

have been drawn than either in the persons, the manners, or the subject

of the transaction in hand; but the word was talismanic, and no

sooner had he uttered it than I became amenable to his very slightest

suggestion.

"Let me have the beast,--I want him; and I see your holsters and

saddle-bags have a jingle in them that tells me dollars are plenty with

you; and as to this,"--he threw the piece of paper offering the reward

at his feet,--"the man who says anything about it will have to account

with Seth Chiselier, that's all."

"How far is it from this to Guajuaqualla?"

"About a hundred and twenty miles by the regular road; but there 's a

trail the miners follow makes it forty less. Not that I would advise

you to try that line; the runaway niggers and the half-breeds are always

loitering about there, and they 're over ready with the bowie-knife, if

tempted by a dollar or two."

Our conversation now took an easy, almost a friendly tone. Seth knew the

country and its inhabitants perfectly, and became freely communicative

in discussing them and all his dealings with them.

"Let us have a flask of 'Aguadente,'" said he, at last, "and then we 'll

join the fandango in the court beneath."

Both propositions were sufficiently to my taste; and by way of showing

that no trace of any ill-feeling lingered in my mind, I ordered an

excellent supper and two flasks of the best Amontillado.

Seth expanded, under the influence of the grape, into a most agreeable

companion. His personal adventures had been most numerous, and many of

them highly exciting; and although a certain Yankee suspiciousness of

every man and his motives tinged all he said, there was a hearty tone of

good-nature about him vastly different from what I had given him credit

for.

The Amontillado being discussed, Seth ordered some Mexican "Paquaretta,"

of delicious flavor, of which every glass seemed to inspire one with

brighter views of life; nor is it any wonder if my fancy converted the

rural belles of the courtyard into beauties of the first order.

The scene was a very picturesque one. A trellised passage, roofed

with spreading vines in full bearing, ran around the four sides of the

building, in the open space of which the dancers were assembled. Gay

lamps of painted paper and rude pine-torches lit up the whole, and gave

to the party-colored and showy costumes an elegance and brilliancy which

the severer test of daylight might have been ungenerous enough to

deny. The olive-brown complexion--the flashing dark eyes--the graceful

gestures--the inspiriting music--the merry voices--the laughter--were

all too many ingredients of pleasure to put into that little

crucible, the human heart, and not amalgamate into something very like

enchantment,--a result to which the Paquaretta perhaps contributed.

Into this gay throng Seth and I descended, like men determined, in

Mexican phrase, to "take pleasure by both horns." It was at the very

climax of the evening's amusement we entered. The dance was the Mexican

fandango, which is performed in this wise: a lady, stepping into the

circle, after displaying her attractions in a variety of graceful

evolutions, makes the "tour" of the party in search of the Caballero she

desires to take as her partner. It is at his option either to decline

the honor by a gesture of deferential humility, or, accepting it,

he gives her some part of his equipment,--his hat, his scarf, or his

embroidered riding-glove, to be afterwards redeemed as a forfeit;

the great amusement of the scene consisting in the strange penalties

exacted, which are invariably awarded with a scrupulous attention to the

peculiar temperament of the sufferer. Thus, a miserly fellow is certain

to be mulcted of his money; an unwieldy mass of fears and terrors is

condemned to some feat of horsemanship; a gourmand is sentenced to a

dish of the least appetizing nature; and so on: each is obliged to an

expiation which is certain to amuse the bystanders. While these are

the "blanks" in the lottery, the prizes consist in the soft, seductive

glances of eyes that have lost nothing of Castilian fire in their

transplanting beyond seas; in the graceful gestures of a partner to whom

the native dance is like an expressive language, and whose motions are

more eloquent than words,--in being, perhaps, the favored of her whose

choice has made you the hidalgo of the evening; and all these, even

without the aid of Paquaretta, are no slight distinctions.

Were the seductions less attractive, it is not a man whose Irish blood

has been set a-glowing with Spanish wine who is best fitted to

resist them, nor assuredly ought Con Cregan to be selected for such

self-denial. I stood in the circle with wondering admiration, delighted

with everything. Oh, happy age! glorious hour of the balmy night!

excellent grape-juice! how much of delicious enjoyment do I owe you all

three! I suppose it is the case with every one, but I know it to be with

me, that wherever I am, or however situated, I immediately single

out some particular object for my especial predilection. If it be a

landscape, I at once pitch upon the spot for a cottage, a temple, or a

villa; if it be a house, I instantly settle in my mind the room I would

take as my own, the window I would sit beside, the very chair I'd

take to lounge in; if it be a garden, I fix upon the walk among whose

embowering blossoms I would always be found: and so, if the occasion be

one of festive enjoyment, I have a quick eye to catch her whose air and

appearance possess highest attractions for me. Not always for me the

most beautiful,--whose faultless outlines a sculptor would like to

chisel,--but one whose fair form and loveliness are suggestive of

the visions one has had in boyhood, filling up, in rich colors, the

mind-drawn picture we have so often gazed on, and made the heroine of

a hundred little love-stories, only known to one's own heart. And, oh,

dear! are not these about the very best of our adventures? At least,

if they be not, they are certainly those we look back on with fewest

self-reproaches.

In a mood of this kind it was that my eye rested upon a slightly formed

but graceful girl, whose dark eyes twice or thrice had met my own,

and been withdrawn again with a kind of indolent reluctance--as I

fancied--very flattering to me. She wore the square piece of scarlet

cloth on her head, so fashionable among the Mexican peasantry, the

corners of which hung down with heavy gold tassels among the clusters

of her raven locks; a yellow scarf, of the brightest hue, was gracefully

thrown over one shoulder, and served to heighten the brilliancy of her

olive tint; her jupe, short and looped up with a golden cord, displayed

a matchless instep and ankle. There was an air of pride--"fierté,"

even--in the position of the foot, as she stood, that harmonized

admirably with the erect carriage of her head, and the graceful

composure of her crossed arms made her a perfect picture. Nor was I

quite certain that she did not know this herself; certain is it,

her air, her attitude, her every gesture, were in the most complete

"keeping" with her costume.

She was not one of the dancers, but stood among the spectators, and, if

I were to pronounce from the glances she bestowed upon the circle,

not one of the most admiring there; her features either wearing an

expression of passive indifference, or changing to a half smile of

scornful contempt. As, with an interest which increased at each moment,

I watched her movements, I saw that her scarf was gently pulled by a

hand from behind; she turned abruptly, and, with a gesture of almost

ineffable scorn, said some few words, and then moved proudly away to

another part of the "court."

Through the vacant spot she had quitted I was able to see him who had

addressed her. He was a young, powerfully built fellow, in the dress of

a mountaineer, and, though evidently of the peasant class, his dress and

arms evinced that he was well to do in the world; the gold drop of his

sombrero, the rich bullion tassels of his sash, the massive spurs of

solid silver, being all evidences of wealth. Not even the tan-colored

hue of his dark face could mask the flush of anger upon it as the girl

moved off, and his black eyes, as they followed, glowed like fire. To my

amazement, his glance was next bent upon me, and that with an expression

of hatred there was no mistaking. At first, I thought it might have been

mere fancy on my part; then I explained it as the unvanished cloud still

lingering on his features; but at last I saw plainly that the insulting

looks were meant for myself. Let me look which side I would, let me

occupy my attention how I might, the fellow's swarthy, sullen face never

turned from me for an instant.

I suppose something must have betrayed to my companion what was passing

within me, for Seth whispered in my ear, "Take no notice of him,--he's a

Ranchero; and they are always bad uns to deal with."

"But what cause of quarrel can he have with me?" said I; "we never saw

each other before."

"Don't you see what it is?" said Seth. "It's the muchacha: she's his

sweetheart, and she's been a-looking too long this way to please him."

"Well, if the girl has got such good taste," said I, with a saucy laugh,

"he ought to prize her the more for it."

"She _is_ a neat un, that's a fact," muttered Seth; and at the same

instant the girl walked proudly up to where I stood, and, making a low

courtesy before me, held out her hand. I suppose there must have been a

little more than the ordinary enthusiasm in the manner I pressed my lips

upon it, for _she_ blushed, and a little murmur ran round the circle.

The next moment we were whirling along in the waltz,--I, at least, lost

to everything save the proud pleasure of what I deemed my triumph. The

music suddenly changed to the fandango, of which dance I was a perfect

master; and now the graceful elegance of my partner and the warm

plaudits of the company called forth my utmost exertions. As for her,

she was the most bewitching representative of her native measure it is

possible to conceive, her changeful expression following every movement

of the dance: now retiring in shrinking bashfulness, now advancing

with proud and haughty mien, now enticing to pursuit by looks of

languishment, now, as if daring all advances, her flashing eyes would

almost sparkle with defiance.

What a terrible battery was this to open upon the defenceless breastwork

of a poor Irishman! How withstand the showering grape-shot of dark

glances?--how resist the assault of graces that lurked in every smile

and every gesture? Alas! I never attempted a defence; I surrendered, not

"at," but "without," discretion; and, tearing off the great embroidered

scarf which I wore, all heavy with its gold fringe, I passed it round

her taper waist in a very transport of enthusiasm.

While a buzz of approbation ran round the circle, I heard the words

uttered on all sides, "Destago!" "A forfeit!"

"I'll try his gallantry," said the girl, as, darting back from my arms,

she retired to the very verge of the circle, and, holding up the rich

prize, gazed at it with wondering eyes; and now exclamations of praise

and surprise at the beauty of the tissue broke from all in turn.

"The muchacha should keep the 'capotillo,'" said an old lynx-eyed

duenna, with a fan as large as a fire-board.

"A Caballero rich as that should give her a necklace of real pearls,"

said another.

"I 'd choose a mustang, with a saddle and trappings all studded with

silver," muttered a third in her ear.

"I 'll have none of these," said the girl, musing; "I must bethink me

well if I cannot find something I shall like to look at with pleasure,

when mere dress and finery would have lost their charm. I must have

that which will remind me of this evening a long time hence, and make me

think of him who made it a happiness; and now what shall it be?"

"His heart's blood, if that will content you!" cried the mountaineer,

as, springing from his seat, he tore the scarf from her hands and dashed

it on the ground, trampling it beneath his feet, and tearing it to very

rags.

"A fight--a fight!" shouted out a number of voices; and now the crowd

closed in upon the dancing space, and a hundred tongues mingled in

wild altercation. Although a few professed themselves indignant that a

stranger should be thus insulted, I saw plainly that the majority were

with their countryman, whom they agreed in regarding as a most outraged

and injured individual. To my great astonishment, I discovered that

my friend Seth took the same view of the matter, and was even more

energetic than the others in reprobation of my conduct.

"Don't you see," cried he to me, "that you have taken his sweetheart

from him? The muchacha has done all this to provoke his jealousy."

"Oui, oui," said a thin, miserable-looking Frenchman, "vous avez tiré la

bouteille; il faut payer le vin."

In all probability, had not the crowd separated us most effectually,

these comments and counsels had been all uttered "after the fact;" for

I dashed forward to strike my antagonist, and was only held back by main

force, as Seth whispered in my ear, "Take it coolly, lad; it must be a

fight now, and don't unsteady your hand by flying into a passion."

Meanwhile the noise and confusion waxed louder and louder; and from the

glances directed towards me there was very little doubt how strongly

public opinion pronounced against me.

"No, no!" broke in Seth,--in reply to some speech whose purport I could

only guess at, for I did not hear the words,--"that would be a downright

shame. Let the lad have fair play. There's a pretty bit of ground

outside the garden, for either sword or pistol-work, whichever you

choose it to be. I 'll not stand anything else."

Another very fiery discussion ensued upon this, the end of which was

that I was led away by Seth and one of his comrades to my room, with the

satisfactory assurance that at the very first dawn of day I was to meet

the Mexican peasant in single combat.

"You have two good hours of sleep before you," said Seth, as we entered

my room; "and my advice is, don't lose a minute of them."

It has been a mystery to me, up to the very hour I am writing in, how

far my friend Seth Chiseller's conduct on this occasion accorded with

good faith. Certainly, it would have been impossible for any one to have

evinced a more chivalrous regard for my honor, and a more contemptuous

disdain for my life, than the aforesaid Seth. He advanced full one

hundred reasons for a deadly combat, the results of which, he confessed,

were speculative matters of a most dreamy indifference. Now, although it

has almost become an axiom in these affairs that there is nothing like a

bold, decided friend, yet even these qualities may be carried to excess;

and so I began to experience.

There was a vindictiveness in the way he expatiated upon the gross

character of the insult I had received, the palpable openness of the

outrage, that showed the liveliest susceptibility on the score of my

reputation; and thus it came to pass, I suppose, from that spirit of

divergence and contradiction so native to the human heart that the

stronger Seth's argument ran in favor of a most bloody retribution, the

more ingenious grew my casuistry on the side of mercy; till, grown weary

of my sophistry, he finished the discussion by saying: "Take your own

road, then; and if you prefer a stiletto under the ribs to the chance of

a sabre-cut, it is your own affair, not mine."

"How so? Why should I have to fear such?"

"You don't think that the villano will suffer a fellow to take his

muchacha from him, and dance with her the entire evening before a whole

company, without his revenge? No! no! they have different notions on

that score, as you 'll soon learn."

"Then what is to be done?"

"I have told you already, and I tell you once more: meet him

to-morrow,--the time is not very distant now. You tell me that you are

a fair swordsman: now, these chaps have but one attack and one guard.

I 'll put you up to both; and if you are content to take a slight

sabre-cut about the left shoulder, I'll show you how to run him through

the body."

"And then?"

"Why, then," said he, turning his tobacco about in his mouth, "I guess

you'd better run for it; there'll be no time to lose. Mount your beast,

and ride for the Guajuaqualla road, but don't follow it long, or you'll

soon be overtaken. Turn the beast loose, and take to the mountains,

where, when you 've struck the miner's track, you 'll soon reach the

town in safety."

Overborne by arguments and reasons, many of which Seth strengthened

by the pithy apothegm of "Bethink ye where ye are, boy! This is not

England, nor Ireland neither!" all my scruples vanished, and I set about

the various arrangements in a spirit of true activity. The time was

brief, since, besides taking a lesson in the broadsword, I had to make

my will. The reader will probably smile at the notion of Con Cregan

leaving a testament behind him; but the over-scrupulous Seth would have

it so, and assured me, with much feeling, that it would "save a world of

trouble hereafter, if anything were to go a bit ugly."

I therefore bequeathed to the worthy Seth my mustang and his equipments

of saddle, holsters, and cloak-bag; my rifle and pistols and bowie-knife

were also to become his, as well as all my movables of every kind. I

only stipulated that, in the event of the "ugly" termination alluded to,

he would convey the letter with his own hands to Guajuaqualla,--a pledge

he gave with the greater readiness that a reward was to be rendered for

the service. There was some seventy dollars in my bag, which, Seth

said, need not be mentioned in the will, as they would be needed for the

funeral. "It 's costly hereabouts," said he, growing quite lively on the

theme. "They put ye in a great basket, all decked with flowers, and they

sticks two big oranges or lemons in your hands; and the chaps as carry

you are dressed like devils or angels, I don't much know which,--and

they do make such a cry! My eye for it, but if you was n't dead, you 'd

not lie there long and listen to 'em!"

Now, although the subject was not one half so amusing to me as it

seemed to Seth, I felt that strange fascination which ever attaches to a

painful theme, and asked a variety of questions about the grave and

the ceremonies and the masses, reminding my executor that, as a good

Catholic, I hoped I should have the offices of the Church in all

liberality.

"Don't distress yourself about that," said he; "I 'll learn a lot of

prayers in Latin myself,--' just to help you on,' as a body might say.

But, as I live, there goes the chaps to the 'Molino';" and he pointed to

a group of about a dozen or more, who, wrapped up in their large cloaks,

took the way slowly and silently through the tall wet grass at the

bottom of the garden.

I have ever been too candid with my kind reader to conceal anything from

him. Let him not, therefore, I beg, think the worse of me if I own

that, at the sight of that procession, a strange and most uncomfortable

feeling pervaded me. There seemed something so purpose-like in their

steady, regular tramp. There was a look of cold determination in their

movement that chilled me to the heart. "Only to think!" muttered I,

"how they have left their beds on this raw, damp morning, at the risk of

colds, catarrhs, and rheumatism, all to murder a poor young fellow who

never injured one of them!"

Not a thought had I for the muchacha,--the cause of all my trouble; my

faculties were limited to a little routine of which I myself was the

centre, and I puzzled my brain in thinking over the human anatomy, and

trying to remember all I had ever heard of the most fatal localities,

and where one could be carved and sliced with the fullest impunity.

"Come along!" said Seth; "we 've no time to lose. We must look out for

a cheap mustang to wait for you on the Guajuaqualla road, and I have to

fetch my sword; for this thing of yours is full eight inches too short."

Seth now took my arm, and I felt myself involuntarily throwing a glance

at the little objects I owned about the room,--as it were a farewell

look.

"What are you searching for?" said he, as I inserted my hand into my

breast-pocket.

"It's all right," said I; "I wanted to see that I had the Señhora's

letter safe. If--if--anything--you understand me--eh?"

"Yes, yes; I'll look to it. They sha' n't bury you with it," said he,

with a diabolical grin which made me positively detest him, for the

moment.

If Mr. Chiseller was deficient in the finer sympathies of our nature, he

was endowed with a rare spirit of practical readiness. The "mustang"

was found in the very first stable we entered, and hired for a day's

pleasure,--so he called it,--for the sum of two crowns. A mountain lad

was despatched to hold him for my coming, at a certain spot on the road.

The sabre was fetched from his chamber, and in less than five minutes we

were on our way to the Molino, fully equipped and "ready for the fray."

"Don't forget what I told you about the face-guard: always keep the hilt

of your weapon straight between your eyes, and hold the elbow low."

This he kept repeating continually as we went along, till I found myself

muttering the words after him mechanically,--without attaching the

slightest meaning to them. "The villain is a strong muscular chap,

and perhaps he 'll be for breaking down your guard by mere force, and

cleaving you down with a stroke. If he tries it, you 've only to spring

actively to one side and give him your point, anywhere about the chest."

From this he proceeded to discuss a hundred little subtleties and

stratagems the Mexicans are familiar with, so that at last I regretted,

from the very bottom of my soul, that the gage of battle had not fallen

upon Seth himself, so much more worthy in every way of the distinction.

If I seemed full of attention to all he was saying, my thoughts, in

truth be it spoken, were travelling a vastly different road. I was

engaged in the performance of a little mental catechism, which ran

somewhat in this wise: "If you escape this peril, Master Con, will it

not be wise to eschew fandangoes in future,--or, at least, not indulge

in them with other men's sweethearts? Beware, besides, of horse-dealers,

of Xeres and Paquaretta; and, above all, of such indiscretions as may

make the 'Seth Chisellers' of this world your masters!" Ay, there was

the sum and substance of my sorrows: that unlucky step about "Charry"

and the lottery-ticket placed me in a situation from which there was no

issue. I now saw, what many have seen before, and many will doubtless

see again, that crime has other penalties besides legal ones, and that

the difficulty of conforming to an assumed good character, with even

_one_ lapse from the path of honesty, is very considerable.

"Are you attending to me, lad?" cried Seth, impatiently. "I was telling

you about the cross-guard for the head."

"I have not heard one word of it," said I, frankly; "nor is it of the

least consequence. All the talk in the world could n't make a swordsman,

still less would a few passing hints like those you give me. If the

villano be the better man, there's an end of the matter."

Seth, less convinced by my reasonings than offended at them, spoke no

more, and we approached the Molino in silence. As we neared the spot, we

perceived the party seated in a little arbor, and by their gestures,

as well as by a most savory odor of garlic, evidently eating their

breakfast.

"The fellows are jolly," said Seth: "had we not better follow their

example? Here is a nice spot, and a table just at hand." At the same

time he called out, "Muchacho, pan el vino en la mesa, and we 'll think

of somewhat to eat."