THE BEST BAIT TO CATCH APACHES.
The farewell to the American was still "warm," when don Jorge, spite of
his grief, begged Mr. Gladsden to await his return, as he felt bound to
"go up the country" to make sure the rebellion was over. He had spoken
in such a matter-of-fact way that the Englishman shared with his wife
and sister, and don Benito's widow, much wonder at his absence being
protracted. To have clearly known the reason, and to see him again,
they would have been compelled to follow him to the very border of
Sonora and Arizona.
The _Sierra de Pájaros_, a broken side piece of the Sierra Madre, may
be said to divide on its double water shed the feeders of the Yaqui
River and the San Pedro, which courses north and west to supply the
Gila. It has the most picturesque and striking aspect of any mountains
in those regions, of old forests and cloud-capped peaks. Under the
majestic bluffs, the ruins of ancient Spanish settlements crumble away,
and the mysterious Pimas Indians prowl.
Nothing so rests the sight and rejoices the heart of wayworn
adventurers, saddened and wearied by the sandy and salty plains, as
these verdant heights. Almost ignored, and perhaps not mapped down in
ordinary atlases, this Sierra preserves to this very day its primeval
wildness; only very few "traces," formed more often by wild beasts than
woodsmen, vaguely and widely apart appears in the brush. Very hard to
penetrate, and then to move about in with certainty, none but Indians
and hunters care to have anything to do with its mazes.
Nevertheless, not far from the Cascade of the Cave, a solitary hunter
was tranquilly making a meal. It was don Jorge. In Europe, things
are different, for we are astonished at a soldier making a good meal
before the battle, and a condemned criminal regaling on the eve of
execution. Nevertheless, the care of the body is logical and conforms
to natural laws. If joy or grief is allowed to cut the appetite short,
the physique weakens, and the mind being counteracted upon, again
deters the body, and illness, if not death, is the consequence of this
deplorable folly. I prefer the hunter's habit.
Don Jorge finished his ration, and proceeded to smoke cigarettes, in a
lounging attitude, which recreation he certainly deserved if only to
remark the tired state of three excellent horses, which were picketed
near him, and which, alternately shifted on and off from whilst in
gallop (a fact not remarkable among Mexicans), had borne him almost
without check to this remote spot.
No investigation of the desert which his eyrie commanded, had answered
his expectations, and he was soon after his third cigarette deep in a
slumber _pierna suelta_, or with legs at ease, as his countrymen say.
There was not a breath in the air; the heat was overpowering, so that
the birds were sleeping with heads under the wing, and the wild beasts
could almost be heard panting and lolling out their tongues in their
lairs.
Only one continuous sound disturbed the profound calm, and that was the
noise of those infinitely little beings which never, anywhere, cease to
accomplish their mysterious missions.
Two hours thus passed, with don Jorge slumbering, his face hidden by
his handkerchief and sombrero to keep off the sun and the gnats, of
which myriads played catch-who-can with the sand flies.
All of a sudden the horses, which had stopped grazing and had been
motionless with lowered heads, as if also taking a nap, shuddered all
over, and abruptly tossed their manes and pointed their ears. With
their fineness of hearing they were aware of some suspicious sounds.
One of them, whose lariat allowed the approach, stalked up to his
master and uttered a soft and plaintive whinny, as if demanding help.
However soundly a ranger sleeps, he must be able to wake up immediately
and with all his senses clear, and the son of don Benito did so at
once. The next moment, turning over on his breast, too wary to rise on
his feet, he had his rifle in hand, ready for action.
Listening and staring was of no avail. There was nothing far or near to
justify the animals in their still evident fears.
It might be a jaguar or a grizzly only that they scented, if not a
hostile man, but, in any case, don Jorge took his safeguards. He hid
his horses in the brush, and, crawling to the very brink of the bluff,
scrutinised the plain, his finger on the trigger, his ears well opened.
But a quarter of an hour passed, whilst he remained as if moulded out
of the clay and merely drying there.
But unexpectedly a tiny black spot under a shining speck which
ever accompanied it, flashed on the view afar out of a straggling
timberland. Soon the watcher could be sure it was a mounted man, his
rifle gleaming, speeding towards him in the maddest haste. He had been
clearing obstacles or bursting through them without any daintiness as
to his garments, for they were torn by the thorns into tatters, and no
doubt the swaying from side to side was as much weakness from loss of
blood as the mere dodging to avoid a pursuer's missiles. No one else
was perceptible to the young Mexican; but there must have been enemies
in the woodland, running along parallel with the fugitive, for, turning
without an anticipatory gesture, and stopping his horse with a terrible
tug of the Mexican bit, he fired two shots into the cover, bent low,
and rode on once more.
"'Tis a white man," observed don Jorge, knitting his brow, "a hunter!
Oh, my gracious saint!" he ejaculated, at the height of amazement and
pain, "It is none other than don Olivero! I thought he had taken the
regular route for the Pass, whilst the Apaches, with our stock, struck
off for this trail, and they have met him! I do not need that plumed
head to recognise he is the prey of the Apaches now."
He sprang up, regardless of being spied now, and quickly but
comprehensively studied the scene.
Oregon Oliver's last two shots had galled the Indians into unusual
daring. Three of them, on excellent horses, which the young hacendero
might have known as his own, left the wood and sought to keep the
hunter in the open, whilst gradually bearing down upon him. As they
flanked him it was not easy for him to escape falling victim to one of
the three when they saw fit to stop and fire or even risk a snap shot
in mid-career.
The Mexican's rifle would not carry that distance. To mount and ride as
far around as the steepness of the mountain sides compelled was equally
as nugatory.
Instantly a new idea struck him, and he was carrying it out. Drawing
his cutlass he severed the lariats of all three horses close to the
picket pin, unfastened the other ends at the hobbled hoofs, and spliced
the three into one long rope. Securing the last loop round a basalt
column which a whale's rush would not have shaken, he flung the loose
coils over the edge of the cliff, and, ere the end had fallen into the
perpendicular, his machete between his teeth, the brave quick-witted
youth was sliding down into the abyss.
There were some twenty feet to drop at the last thong, but he had
remarked the crumbling sandstone to be a soft bed and he let go without
a pause.
Meanwhile, the American swinging about like a drunken man, seemed in
a despairing state. Either his ammunition was exhausted at last, or
his only hope was to reserve his final cartridge for the hand-to-hand
encounter, but a matter of moments.
The emboldened Apaches, at a signal from Iron Shirt, who formed the
point of the angle of which they were the opening ends, and of which
the hunted white marked the closing base's centre, began closing in.
But at the instant when they levelled their guns under their horses'
necks, as they rode suspended on the off side in precaution of the
dreaded breechloader, the sudden appearance of the Mexican, like a
spider on its thread, sliding down the face of the bluff, only remarked
by the Apache chief, in whose direct front the feat was performed, gave
the latter a start and he uttered an outcry despite himself. The two
savages, surprised in turn, suspended their shots, and all three, as
well as Oliver, none slackening their headlong pace, however, gazed at
the man fallen from the clouds, and after striking the soft, dry ground
with a force that sent up a cloud of sand, rebounding and dashing
towards them, his bright steel waving overhead and his fresh young
voice shouting:
"_Amigo_! Friend, it is I who am here, praise to God!"
"Well, I'm durned!" roared the ranger.
But, not accustomed to let even so extreme a surprise alter any plan
he had traced out, he only thought to profit by the brief but deep
confusion of the enemies. With a nimbleness that perfectly revealed how
assumed was his air of lassitude and despair, he sat up in the saddle
and fired two shots, one to the right, one to the left, by a graceful
turn of the hips which a queen of the ballet could not have surpassed,
controlling his steed simply by the pressure of his knees.
Spite of the emergency, don Jorge could not repress a cry of admiration.
One of the Apaches, his horse's throat cut by the same bullet that
penetrated his head beyond, fell in a heap under the side of the
animal, also thrown and floundering in the death agony. The other,
perforated in the eye by the lead scattering along his own gun which
had split the ball, emitted a horrid scream, as he was borne, still
held by the horsehair loop which detained his foot to the crupper, and
which is there placed to enable the rider to hang alongside the pony,
back towards the thicket, where his brains would soon be knocked out by
the masterless mustang.
Iron Shirt was dismayed. He lifted his horse in order to turn and seek
the covert. But already the unerring marksman was covering him, and
he held his horse rearing, afraid to fire his last load with two foes
before him, and to expose himself in the riding away.
"Spare him!" cried don Jorge, hoarsely, "Murderer of my father,
murderer of my little son, I--I, alone, must have his life!"
"Lucky you spoke," returned Oliver, firing.
The horse of the chief, struck in the shoulder, roared with pain, so
intense was the anguish whilst being tortured with the bit, wrenched
its head away and fell forward, ere rolling on one side.
The Apache did not lose his command of sense at the disaster, for he
leaped clear. But his shield, his lance, and his gun were flung from
him, and before he could reach the latter, don Jorge had made a series
of prodigious bounds, like a tiger, and placed his foot on it. The
baffled Indian sprang back as rapidly and seized his spear and shield.
But instantly, careless of ammunition, and fearful lest the lance, cast
as a javelin, would transfix the Mexican only armed with a sword, the
hunter fired again. The spear, split in half, was left a mere stump in
the redskin's feverish, quivering grasp.
"That's the style to draw teeth, I judge," remarked the American,
throwing himself off his horse, and approaching the pair.
His last weapon was a machete, and this Iron Shirt, protected by his
round shield, drew as he advanced on don Jorge.
"I thank you," said the latter. "Steel to steel! This is my heart's
desire!"
"You are going to get a licking, chief," said Oliver, grimly, as he
pulled out a corncob pipe, filled it and lit it with unshaking fingers.
"So thar ain't no 'casion to thank me for the promise which I give not
to interfere. Fair play's a jewel, and you kin wear in your ear all the
jewel you'll win in this hyar tussle."
The Apache wasted no breath in a rejoinder. His lips were parted only
for a smile, the set grin of a man who had no hope but to inflict all
the pain he could on an antagonist before he met his inevitable death.
He had on his mind not only the recent striking down of his aids, but
the death of others in the past and on the Sonoran plains, due to the
American who had shown himself to the Apache caravan only, it was
now clear, to draw off a detachment. Like the red man his hatred was
insatiable, even that slaughter in which he had distinguished himself
seemed no way to wipe out the final collapse on the heap of slain.
But for don Benito, Oliver would have been "rubbed out!" The thought
was intolerable, and, we see, all alone, he had devoted himself to
harassing the Indians in their retreat, and lured away the chief.
The scalp of so renowned a hunter would have been a more magnificent
trophy than the herd of cattle, to show in the Apache town when the old
fathers should demand their lost sons.
Meanwhile, the two men were facing one another, broadsword in hand.
For his age Jorge was endowed with unwonted powers, but his frame had
not fully set, and he had an antagonist whose vigour surpassed the
common, too. Nevertheless, the Mexican was not dismayed, and the hunter
took care not to betray any apprehension he felt as to the result of
the terrible duel. If Jorge smiled, it was because he relied on his
skill and agility. On the farm he had joined in all the wrestling and
knife play of the Vaqueros, and Old Silvano had passed him as a pupil
to whom there was nothing more he could teach. Therefore, the youth,
gifted with lofty courage and unalterable coolness, believed himself
capable of struggling with advantage.
As a kind of chivalrous signal, the Indian slapped his shield
resonantly.
They mutually advanced till their forward feet almost touched. For a
moment their blades clashed and then the red man, shouting with savage
joy, delivered a terrific cut. But the air alone was severed, the agile
Mexican having shifted his position with great celerity. Their first
encounter was merely a test of one another's style, on which would be
founded the passage of arms itself. They fell to it anew, but this
time also, don Jorge showed incredible quickness; he eluded the blows,
parried them or fenced them off with all that dexterity which a Mexican
should exhibit in the management of a weapon which is to him what the
_navaja_ is to the Spanish peasant. With giddy rapidity he spun round
the savage; and when he got a cut in, as the phraseology of such sport
has it, it was a telling one. The shield, however tough the buffalo
hide, could not long resist such hearty strokes; sliced off into tissue
thinness, cleft, gaping wider and wider with its own tension, Iron
Shirt suddenly cast it at the young man to bewilder him and at the same
time darted forward. But the Mexican, who uses his blanket sometimes
in just the same way as a blind, is taught to keep his eyes on his
opponent's, and the ferocious gleam in the Apache's had warned him; he
received the charge firmly; parried the cut with excellent precision,
though the rush brought the two heaving breasts in contact, and as the
Indian receded, lest he should be grappled, he struck in turn. The
blow, from the handle turning in the grasp a little paralysed by the
late ward, came flat on the savage's shoulder and, diverted upwards,
removed his car as clean as if done by a surgeon. Iron Shirt yelled
with fury.
"You will never more hear an infant wail, pierced by your coward
arrows!" hissed don Jorge, leaning forward. "Come again, and I will
sunder the other!"
More hideously than before this third meeting ensued. No longer so
much on the defensive and aggressive, but bent on leaving his mark,
the Mexican gave two cuts for the other's each one. All of them left
a bleeding trace. One would have concluded that he meant to hack the
redskin's surface into a chessboard. The slashed face of the Apache had
lost human semblance; the gashes already were swollen, and his eyes
were sealing with blood; he groaned with tantalised rage, however, more
than pain, whilst the Mexican, anticipating his victory ever since he
had made mincemeat of the buckler, redoubled his hail of steel. Now it
was the Apache chief who only stood on guard.
"There!" cried don Jorge, taking his cutlass in both hands, and
pressing forward so that their knees knocked, "That is to avenge my
father!"
On receiving this irresistible chopping blow, which beat down his
jagged edged blade, Iron Shirt lifted up a yell of spite and despair.
The steel cleft through all, top knot, frontal bone and brow, and,
opening his arms, he reeled, half turning, and fell without a stir
on the blood-besprinkled sands, the machete left in the wound, so
inextricably had it been driven there.
Oliver approached, and at the same time bending over the stiffening
body and patting the panting conqueror on the shoulder, he said:
"Ef them doggoned 'Paches was to have seen this fight they would not
cross into Mexico for a year, I reckon. You've fout him squar' and
fa'r, a riggler stand-up fight, and you're a credit to the father,
whose wiping out don't count one for them red niggers now, nohow."
They sat down there to rest, and Oliver related his adventure.
"Ef I on'y had had an idee that the old man's loss preyed upon you
in that sor o' way we mout ha' got up some pootier trick o' war! But
you've sarved him A-one and you are entitled to his scalp to hang over
your fireplace."
Rejecting this trophy, and only despoiling the Indian chief of his
weapons, and adding to the prize those of the other Apaches, whose hair
the hunter had no scruples to remove, they climbed the mountain to the
horses which came at the hacendero's calls. After spending some hours
together in conversation, which they promised to renew, "who knows
when?" as the Spaniards say--they parted, Oliver resuming his route.
When don Jorge returned home, his revenge sated, he found the English
gentleman, who then broke away with a great effort from the entreaties
of the rich widow and her family. He felt the need of loneliness on
the ocean to take the edge off his acute sorrow. But the memory, thus
mournfully renewed, of his youthful friendship, so fatally cut short,
dwells piously cherished in "the heart of heart," and there will
flourish till he, too, reposes his adventurous body in the grave.
However, as an author may anticipate as well as record, we may be
allowed to suggest that there is nothing contrary to logic in the
hope that, if ever doña Perla and her mother act on Mr. Gladsden's
urgent invitation, often renewed by letter, for them to visit him in
England, the Gladsden juniors will have to draw lots for the Mexican
heiress. Sure is it that they will find nowhere a happier choice, be it
for wealth, beauty, or rare goodness, than in this true "Treasure of
Pearls."
THE END.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Treasure of Pearls, by Gustave Aimard