MODERN WITCHCRAFT.
Of all the murderous chiefs of the Apaches, including in the list
such demons as Victorio, Nachez, Chato, Loco, and Juh, perhaps none
had given the military authorities more trouble than Geronimo.
Certainly none was more warlike, for at the age of sixteen
Geronimo had become a chief. From that time his raiding began, his
blood-thirsty operations being carried on in Northern Mexico and
Southern New Mexico and Arizona.
When one side of the border became too hot for him, Geronimo would
slip across to the other, repeating and repeating the maneuver until
finally run to earth and driven to the place where he belonged.
Watching his chances, he would again dig up the hatchet stealthily,
evade the vigilance of his guards, “jump” the reservation and
continue his old tactics.
That hair-raising cry, “The Apaches are up!” was to be expected
at any moment, and never failed to inspire panic among the white
settlers of the arid lands.
Among his lesser accomplishments Geronimo was said to be a past
master in the art of manufacturing illegal _tizwin_, a native
beverage, of which there is more fight and deviltry in a single glass
than in a whole barrel of ordinary fire-water.
Not only was he reported adept in _tizwin_ production, but also it
was said that he had extensive knowledge of poisonous herbs, and of
others with purely narcotic properties--such as those which science
calls of the _datura_ family--indigenous to the soil over which he
roamed.
How much of all this was true and how much false will probably never
be known; but that a part, at least, was reliable, the weird disaster
which befell the scout and his pards will bear testimony.
From the northern outlet of Bonita Cañon Little Cayuse led the way
directly westward through a spur of the Chiricahuas.
Traveling was rough and difficult, and toward nightfall the scout
deemed it essential that they should locate a spring or water-hole
and rest their mounts for a few hours. Silver Heels and Navi, despite
the vaunts of their owners, had begun to show unmistakable traces of
weariness.
Cayuse’s service with the army had given him a good knowledge of the
topography of that part of the country, and he lead the scout and
Dell toward a spring with which he was well acquainted.
The spring was in a little valley, hemmed in on all sides by granite
bluffs.
Before descending into the valley, the scout and his pards made
a careful survey of the spring from a safe distance. Water was a
precious quantity in those parts, and its presence was quite apt to
draw the roving bands of red trouble-makers.
Careful scouting failed to reveal the presence of any Apaches, and
the three riders picked their way down the valley’s slope and reached
the spring.
The spring was merely a scant dribble of water from a crevice in one
of the bluffs. Under it, however, a basin-shaped rock formed a pool.
This reservoir had filled, and there was sufficient water for the
horses as well as their riders.
The riders, naturally, drank first. Buffalo Bill, Dell, and Cayuse
all knelt at the brim and assuaged their thirst at the same time.
“Queer taste to the water, don’t you think?” remarked Dell.
The scout had noticed the acrid taste, but supposed that it was
perhaps due to a touch of alkali.
“Do you remember, Cayuse,” Buffalo Bill asked, as he straightened up
at the brink of the pool, “whether this particular spring always has
this peculiar taste?”
Cayuse shook his head.
“Him Arizona spring all kind tastes, all kinds smell,” observed the
boy philosophically. “Better so you drink and be glad what you drink
is _wet_. Huh?”
“I reckon that about hits it,” laughed the scout, leading up his
horse.
Bear Paw, the scout’s black charger, nosed about in the pool for
some time, slapping the water with his muscular upper lip. Thirsty
as he was, for several moments the horse refused to drink, but at
last, apparently deciding to make the best of it, took a few sparing
swallows.
Silver Heels and Navi acted very much in the same way, but cut short
their objections and went to their refreshment much more quickly than
had Bear Paw.
“The animals don’t like it, either,” commented Dell.
“I don’t blame them,” said Buffalo Bill, “but water is water in this
region, and, as Cayuse says, if it’s wet, neither man nor beast
should demand more.”
The horses, freed of their saddles, were roped out in the scant grass
which grew along the overflow from the pool. While they grazed, the
scout and his companions took their first meal off their rations.
Dell, with a piece of jerked meat in one hand and a cracker in the
other, leaned back against a rock and became exceedingly loquacious.
“Lawn-tennis!” she exclaimed. “It’s all the go at the post, Nomad--I
mean Buffalo Bill. It’s a great game, for those who like it. They
play it on snow-shoes--I should say overshoes----” She stopped with
a grimacing twist of her pretty face. “What am I trying to say,
anyhow?” she demanded.
“Pass the ante, Lolita--I mean Dell,” Buffalo Bill returned, and
wondered why he could feel no surprise at the way both he and the
girl were handling their English.
“I thought you were Buffalo Bill, for a minute,” cried Dell, almost
choking with laughter.
“So did I,” roared the scout. Then added, quite serious: “I wonder
who’s running this _baille_, anyhow?”
“That’s one too many for me,” answered Dell. “Who owns the honkatonk?
Where’s the music?”
Little Cayuse, leaping up suddenly, raised his arms high and held up
his head. He began to mutter, and the muttering gave way to a sort of
crooning song:
“Tu-wip pu-a tu-wip pu-a
Av-wim-pai-ar-ru-wip pu-a
Tu-ra-gu-ok tu-ra-gu-ok
Kaiv-wa mu-tu-rai-ka-nok.”[1]
[1] Piute song, meaning:
“In that land, in that land,
In that glittering land;
Far away, far away,
The mountain was shaken with pain.”
The little Piute’s attitude was rapt and ecstatic. His eyes were
raised to the darkening sky, where the stars were already beginning
to shine dimly. But what he meant, or what he was trying to get at,
was altogether more than the scout or the girl could fathom.
“There’s the music,” said Dell. “That’s Geronimo; he’s furnishing the
music.”
“Good boy, Geronimo!” cried Buffalo Bill, clapping his hands. “Give
us another! Where’s your fiddle?”
Little Cayuse dropped his arms and stood scowling at Buffalo Bill and
Dell.
Suddenly the scout sprang erect and struck his clenched fist against
his forehead.
“Merciful heavens!” he gasped hoarsely. “Dell! What’s the matter
with you, with me, with Little Cayuse? Let us get the horses and
ride--_ride_, do you hear? This valley is bewitched, bewitched!”
He ran toward the horses, conscious that he had a lucid interval in
the midst of a horrible, uncanny madness. Midway between the pool and
the horses he stopped, staring.
Bear Paw was backing slowly around in a circle at the end of his
picket-rope, backing with the methodical rhythm of a trick-horse,
stamping his hoofs as he went.
Silver Heels appeared to be trying to up-end himself on his fore
feet, while Navi was giving an exhibition of what is technically
known as the “bedpost buck.”
The scout staggered, dug at his throat and twisted his fingers in his
long hair. What was this sensation that filled him and robbed him of
reason? Even as he tried to fight against it, the last thin barrier
of sense was broken down. He burst into a loud laugh, and whirled
back toward Dell and Little Cayuse.
He pulled the handcuffs from his pocket and flourished them in the
air.
Dell came up to him, smiling. She put away the revolver and reached
out her hand.
“One belongs to me,” she said coaxingly.
“Certainly,” answered the scout, snapping one of the handcuffs about
his right wrist. “There’s yours, Calamity Jane;” and he snapped the
other cuff about Dell’s left wrist. “It’s a good long way to town,
sis,” he added, in a kindly tone, “and we’d better be moving.”
Without paying the slightest attention to Little Cayuse or the
horses, Buffalo Bill started to climb the rough valley wall, dragging
Dell with him.
The secret of the spring--Geronimo’s secret--had wrought its folly in
the usually well-balanced brain of the scout.
He was going to town, and he was taking his sister with him. Obsessed
with this one idea, which he clung to with all the morbid earnestness
of a man deranged, he went on and on.
Night deepened, the stars in the Arizona sky brightened against the
velvet vault like so many diamonds. One star guided Buffalo Bill; the
“pointers” in the “Dipper” showed it to him, and he followed as he
would have followed a compass.
From somewhere, far away, came the wild, shrill chant of the Indian
boy. The chant died out like a lisping of waves on a rocky beach.
But the scout and his sister went on and on, following the star.