EL MORO.
To Glen Eddy and "Billy" Brackett the situation looked serious, and
almost desperate, as they confronted that crowd of angry savages who
advanced towards them so steadily, and with such unmistakable meaning.
"It's a tough outlook for us," muttered the latter.
"Yes," answered Glen, "it is, but--" Here the boy clinched his teeth,
and clutched his rifle more firmly.
"Look out!" cried the other, noticing that the Indians were gathering
themselves for a rush. "They're coming!" and he raised his rifle.
In another instant he would have fired, and their fate would have been
sealed. But their time had not yet come; for, at that same moment,
another figure bounded down the low bank, and stood beside them facing
the Indians, and speaking angrily to them in Spanish. They evidently
understood him, and hesitated. He was the Mexican axeman.
"What is the trouble, Mr. Brackett?" he asked hurriedly, in English.
With a few words they made the situation clear to him, and he, in turn,
quickly explained to the Indians that these white men had merely tried
to save their lives by preventing them from eating poisoned meat.
"Tell them to look at the dog!" cried Glen, pointing to the poor animal
that had swallowed the very bit of meat he had snatched from the Indian,
and which was evidently dying.
The sight was a powerful argument, worth more than all the words that
could have been spoken.
The Indians sullenly returned to their fire and sat down, while our
friends, casting many watchful glances over their shoulders as they
went, made good their retreat in the direction of their own camp.
"What kind of Indians were they?" asked Glen, of the Mexican, when they
had lost sight of their unpleasant acquaintances.
"Navajos," was the answer.
They were indeed a wretched band of the once wealthy and powerful tribe
who claimed that whole country as a pasture-land for their countless
flocks and herds. For many years they had been hunted and killed, their
flocks driven off and their growing crops destroyed wherever found,
until now the main body of the tribe was being slowly starved out of
existence on a small reservation in Eastern New Mexico. It was so small
that no more Indians could be crowded into it, and the miserable
remnant, who still lurked in the fastnesses of their own country,
despoiled of all means of procuring a livelihood, prowled about like so
many hungry dogs, gleaning the offal from white men's camps, and hunted
like wild beasts by all whom they were unfortunate enough to meet.
This band had probably followed Mr. Hobart's party for the sake of what
might be picked up in their abandoned camps, and had evidently regarded
the poisoned meat, discovered that very morning, as a perfect godsend.
"I reckon we'll have to manage somehow to get along without any wolves,"
said "Billy" Brackett.
"Yes," replied Glen, regretfully, "I suppose we shall."
Ten miles of line were run that day, through the solemn pine forest, and
darkness overtook the party on the very summit of the great Continental
Divide. They were crossing the Sierra Madre Mountains, through Zuni
Pass. As Glen subtracted the last reading of his rod for the day from
the last height of instrument, and found that it gave an elevation of
7925 feet, he uttered a shout. For weeks the elevations above sea-level
had been steadily mounting upward. This one was a foot lower than the
last.
"Hurrah!" he cried, "we are on the Pacific Slope."
It was hard to realize that water, on one side of where they stood,
would find its way into the Rio Grande, and so on into the Atlantic,
while that but a few feet away would flow through the Colorado into the
Pacific. The country did not look any different, but it seemed so. They
actually seemed to be breathing the air of the mighty sunset ocean, and
this one day's run seemed to place the States, and everything eastern,
farther behind them than all the rest of their journey. About the
camp-fires that evening the conversation was wholly of California and
the golden West, and they sprang to their work the next day with an
added zeal.
Fifty miles west of this point they came to Zuni, one of the most
picturesque and by far the most interesting of American towns. First,
though, a few miles east of Zuni, they halted beside the magnificent
pile of El Moro, or Inscription Rock, that lifted its frowning
battlements, like those of some vast Moorish castle, four hundred feet
above the plain. Its base is covered, on all sides, with Indian
hieroglyphics, Spanish inscriptions, and English names. Curiously, and
almost reverently, our explorers bent down the brushwood near its
left-hand corner, and searched until they found the most ancient
inscription of all:
"Don Joseph de Basconzeles 1526."
There is nothing more, and this is the sole existing record of Don
Joseph's having lived and explored this country while Cortez was still
occupying the city of Mexico. Where he came from, who he was, what
companions he had, and whither he went will never be known; but through
all the centuries that have passed since he carved his name on El Moro's
base, the great rock has faithfully preserved the record of his
presence.
The next inscription was made nearly one hundred years later, and is a
Spanish legend that is translated into, "Passed by this place with
despatches, April 16, 1606." There is no name signed, and who passed by
on that day can never be told. Then follows innumerable names of Spanish
dons, captains, bishops, soldiers, and priests, with varying dates that
come down as late as the beginning of the present century.
The first English inscription is, "O. R., March 19, 1836." Then came
Whipple, in 1853, followed by many other American soldiers and
gold-seekers. Now Glen Eddy and "Billy" Brackett added their names
beneath those of the others of Mr. Hobart's party. Then they, too,
passed on, leaving a new page of history to be preserved by El Moro for
the eyes of future generations.
For some hours before reaching Zuni they could see it crowning the hill
that uplifts it conspicuously above the level of the surrounding plain.
It was the "Cibola" of the earliest Spanish explorers, the chief of the
seven "golden cities" that they believed to exist in that region, and
whose alleged riches led them to undertake the conquest of the country.
They called it "Cibola" until they reached it. Then they adopted the
native name of Zuni (pronounced _Zoon-ya_), by which it has been known
ever since.
The town, or city, contained some twelve hundred inhabitants, and the
hill on which it is built slopes gently up from the plain on one side,
but falls away in a precipitous bluff to the narrow waters of the Zuni
River on the other.
"Billy" Brackett had read up on this ancient city of Cibola, and had
imparted so much of his information to Glen as to arouse a curiosity in
the boy's mind regarding the place fully equal to his own. So, as soon
as they reached camp, which was on the plain at the foot of the hill,
they hurried off to "do" the town.