where it is?"
"They told me it is there where you are digging. Those rocks that you
can barely see, outline his grave. Are you going to dig him up?"
"Me? What would I want to dig him up for? I ain't lost no Injun! I
'm just digging a hole--for Madge. She wants to plant a tree. What
did they bury him here for? Did they kill him here on the ranch?"
"This was a fort once, before there was any ranch here, and there was a
war with the Apaches, and they were getting beaten, and so they sent
this old chief down to the fort to make terms for them. The commander
received him and put him in a tent and set a guard over him. In the
night the guard fell asleep, and when he wakened he was frightened lest
the Indian might have escaped. So he punched into the tent with his
bayonet to see if he was still there, and hit the chief in the foot.
That made him angry and he came out and killed the guard. The noise
roused the soldiers, and they killed the chief, and they buried him
here, inside the stockade, so that the Indians would n't suspect that
he was dead until they could get reinforcements."
"The Injun killed the guard, did he? Good enough for him! I wish it
had been Holy John!"
He fell to work again with more vigor than ever, but presently he
stopped and growled:
"I 'd like to run a blaze on that ornery galoot that he 'd remember all
the rest of his life!"
After a while I chanced to see Kid carrying a bundle done up in a gunny
sack down to the _acequia_ and hide it among the currant bushes. I
noticed that he had carefully filled up the hole he had been digging,
and I asked,
"Aren't you going to plant the tree?"
"No," he replied carelessly, "it would n't grow there. The soil's too
hard."
The cowboys spread their beds every night under the cottonwoods beside
the lower acequia, and that night we heard them in earnest discussion
long after they had gone to bed. Mr. Williams was with them for a
short time and came back, saying that they were talking about ghosts,
and that Kid had declared emphatically that the old Apache chief walked
o' nights and that he had both seen and heard him.
"He gave a vivid description," Mr. Williams went on, "of waking up one
night and seeing the Indian's skeleton rise up out of the ground and
pounce on a soldier who stood near and kill him outright. He will have
Holy John so terrified that the poor fellow will want his time at once.
For John believes everything that is impossible, and he will see ghosts
all night long and be afraid of his own shadow in the daytime."
That night, just as morning broke, the whole household was awakened by
a loud, piercing yell, followed by another and another, and all rushed
from their beds in time to see Holy John leap over the fence and dart
down the road, still shrieking as if fiends were after him. And beside
his deserted bed under the cottonwoods lay some grisly thing, shining
in the gray light with streaks and patches of white. Kid looked after
the flying figure and said, in a tone of extremest satisfaction,
"He's sure buffaloed!"
Holy John had awakened in the dim, early dawn and found the skeleton of
the Apache chief cuddling against him.
That morning, as I sat in the yard reading, the voices of Kid and Madge
came to me from around the corner of the house, and I heard a snatch of
their conversation.
"Madge, I 'm going to pull my freight. I won't work on the same ranch
with such a coward as that Holy John."
"Truly, Guy, are you going away?"
"Yes, I am. I ain't going to stop to ask for my time. I 'm going
to-day, before the boss comes home."
"Well, then, what am I going to do? You 're not going off to leave me?"
Silence for the space of ten seconds.
"Jiminy! Tell you what, you come too!"
"I can't! Mamma wouldn't let me!"
"Don't ask her. Come right along with me! We 'll elope! That's more
fun than anything! Girls that is anything always elopes!"
Then they wandered off to the alfalfa field, and soon I saw them
throwing stones at the prairie dogs with which it was infested. So I
concluded that what I had heard was merely some of the Kid's
braggadocio, and, smiling at the sentimental turn he had taken, I went
on with my book and thought no more of it.
But when lunch time came neither Madge nor Kid appeared for the meal.
Much calling failed to bring a response. Then I remembered and gave
account of the conversation I had heard. It was found that Dynamite
was gone from the corral. Evidently the little scapegrace had meant
what he said and had carried Madge off. Mrs. Williams ordered the cart
and at once we started after the fugitives.
"He has most probably gone toward Deming," she said. "I will send Red
Jack to Whitewater to stop them if they are there, but I think we had
better drive toward Deming as fast as possible."
About ten miles out we caught sight of the runaways. They were mounted
on Dynamite, Madge holding fast behind. Kid was urging the horse
furiously back and forth among a flock of carrion crows, and practising
with his lasso upon them as they rose and flapped about in short and
heavy flight. They seemed to be having great sport, for Kid was
shouting and yelling at the birds, and Madge screaming with laughter at
their clumsy efforts to escape. So absorbed were they in their play
that they did not see us until we were almost beside them. At first
Kid made as if he would start Dynamite off on the gallop, but Mrs.
Williams called to him sternly, and he turned and trotted back to us,
smiling and looking amazingly innocent.
Madge sat still and stared at us with big, frightened eyes, until Mrs.
Williams had twice spoken to her, and then she slipped quickly down, to
be folded in her mother's arms and sob upon her bosom all the way home.
I persuaded the Kid to sit between us in the cart and drive us back,
tying Dynamite behind.
"He was awful mad at first," the boy confidingly said, "to have to
carry double. But I made him sure hump himself right along."
At home we found the superintendent just returned. He gave the Kid a
paternal lecture, which probably did him as much good as if it had been
in Chinese, and then, in cattle-ranch parlance, gave him his time--paid
him to date and discharged him.
And a few minutes later we saw the last of the Kid, as the forlorn
little figure, with the wide, flopping sombrero, and the big, dragging
spur, walked out of the gate and down the road toward Whitewater, and
was soon swallowed in the shimmering heat of the plain.
A BLAZE ON PARD HUFF
"And I 'm free to say that the grand results
of my explorations show
That somehow paint gets redder the farther
out West I go!"
--EUGENE FIELD.
One summer night I was on a train that was speeding eastward across
southern New Mexico. It was one of the white nights of that region,
when the full moon, shining like sun-lighted snow and hanging so low in
the sky that it seems to be dropping earthward, fills the clear, dry
air with a silvery radiance and floods the barren plain with a
transfiguring whiteness, in which the gray sands glimmer as if with
some unearthly light of their own.
The day had been long, wearisome, and unspeakably hot and dusty; and
with the coming of this beautiful night and its cool breezes most of
the passengers betook themselves to the car steps and platforms, where
they lingered until we reached the little town of Separ, late in the
evening. As the train stopped, we saw that apparently the entire
population of the village was crowded inside the station house. One
after another, men came cautiously out upon the platform, carrying guns
in their hands and casting long, anxious looks across the plain. Their
set faces and ready revolvers and rifles showed that it was no ordinary
matter which had sent the whole town to find protection in the railroad
depot.
They told us that a man had come running into town a little while
before, and, falling headlong, exhausted, at the feet of the first
person he met, had cried out that the Apaches were coming. Hastily
revived and cared for, he explained that the Indians had attacked the
cattle camp, ten or twelve miles south of Separ, where he and some
other cowboys had been making a round-up, and killed all but himself.
He had managed to creep out undiscovered and had run at the top of his
speed all the way to Separ to bring the warning. He said that the
Apaches, in a large band, numbering at least a hundred, had surprised
the camp, killing the men as they lay in their blankets and committing
horrible atrocities upon the dead bodies, and had then fallen upon the
horses and cattle, killing and maiming the poor beasts in mere lust of
cruelty. He was sure they were following him--he had heard their yells
several times during his desperate race, and each time he had redoubled
his speed. His shoes were gone, his stockings hung in shreds from his
ankles, and his feet were a mass of raw and bleeding flesh, pierced by
hundreds of cactus thorns. He had hurried away on an Eastern-bound
freight train to Deming, the next station, to rouse the citizens and
help to raise a militia company, whose coming was expected in a few
hours. And telegrams had been sent to Fort Bayard giving news of the
outbreak and asking for a troop of cavalry.
Every soul in Separ--men, women, and children--with all the arms and
ammunition in the town, had huddled into the station house, where they
hoped they would be able to make a successful resistance, and, as one
man said, "make as many good Injuns as the Lord would let them." For
in those days the hearts of the bravest in the Southwest knew terror,
and with good reason, when the Apache went on the war path.
The train sped on into the radiant white night, but the car steps and
platforms were deserted. The passengers all sought their berths as
soon as possible, there to lie below the level of the windows and pile
all the pillows they could get between themselves and the side of the
car. When we reached Deming we found the place in an uproar. Every
bell in town, from the gong of the railroad restaurant to the church
bell, was ringing its loudest and wildest. Men in varied degrees of
undress were running up and down the streets calling loudly upon all
citizens to come out at once. The people were assembling at the depot,
where two or three of the cooler-headed had taken the place of leaders
and had begun to organize the excited mass into an armed and officered
company and get it ready to go quickly to the assistance of beleaguered
little Separ.
Then our train sped on again through the wondrous night, and I knew no
more about the Indian war at Separ until I sat on the kitchen doorstep
at Apache Teju, one evening some years later, and beguiled Texas Bill
into telling me yarns of his long and checkered experience as a cowboy.
The cool, soft breath of evening filled the air, the alfalfa field
glowed its most vivid emerald in the yellow rays of the setting sun,
and in the same rich light the gray, barren hillside beyond shone like
beaten gold. And Texas Bill, just in from a week's trip on the range,
soothed and inspired by the civilizing influences of the ranch-house, a
shave, clean clothes, and his supper, unbent from his usual bashful
dignity and talked.
Texas Bill was tall and big and loose-jointed, and he spoke always in a
long, soft, indifferent drawl. He held two articles of belief which no
man might dispute without getting sight of the knife in his bootleg or
the revolver on his hip. One was that Texas was the biggest and best
State in the Union; and the other, that the cow business was no longer
fit for a gentleman to follow. He lounged on a bench beside the door
and told me tales of the range and the round-up, of herds of cattle
stampeded by the smell of water, of long rides in blinding sand storms,
of the taking in of the tenderfoot, of centipedes and side-winders, of
Indian fights and narrow escapes.
"Were you ever in one of these Indian attacks yourself?" I asked, for
his Indian yarns had been about other men.
Texas Bill solemnly considered the heel of his boot a moment, and then
just as solemnly replied:
"Yes, I was killed by the Apaches oncet."
He turned a serious face off toward Cooke's Peak, which towered, a
mighty, sculptured mass of purest sapphire blue, against a turquoise
sky; and I, seeing that his countenance bore just such an expression of
inscrutable solemnity as it might have done had he been acting as chief
mourner at his own funeral, answered just as soberly:
"That must have been very interesting! I wish you would tell me about
it."
His gaze returned to his feet, his face relaxed into a smile, a chuckle
began somewhere in his throat, wandered down his long frame and lost
itself in his boots, which were high-heeled and two sizes too small for
him. Then he spoke again:
"That was the time we run a blaze on Pard Huff."
Then he relapsed into silence, contemplation of his boots, and several
successive and long-drawn chuckles. But at last he began his story.
"You see, Pard Huff, he was a tenderfoot, and there was n't nothin' he
was n't afraid of a-tall. You could n't convince him that coyotes
ain't dangerous; and he thought it was sure death if a tarantula looked
at him; and you could make him jump out of his boots any time by just
buzzin' your tongue behind his ear. I reckon he 'd have sure died of
fright if he had ever seen a live rattlesnake spittin' its tongue at
him.
"And Injuns! Well, he watched for Apaches all day long a durn sight
more 'n he did for cattle, and he could n't sleep nights for bein'
afraid they 'd catch him. He did n't seem to think of anything but
Apaches, and he had n't been with us very long till the boys did n't
give him a chanst to think of anything else a-tall.
"We was makin' a round-up down below Separ then, and there was ten of
us and the chuck wagon when we made camp at night. Well, one night,
Pard Huff, he was scareder than ever, and the boys struck his gait
right off and kep' him a-runnin'. I did n't know they was goin' to
blaze him quite so bad or I 'd have done my best to stop the thing.
Well, and they would n't, either, if he had n't been the meanest sort
of a coward that ever laid awake nights. He asked each of us separate,
and then all of us in a bunch at supper, if there was any danger of
Apaches down there, and we-all told him there was, lots of it. One of
the boys said he 'd seen signs over toward Hatchet Mountain that very
day that sure meant Apaches, and another said he 'd heard that a little
ranch about forty mile away had lately been cleaned out by them and
everybody killed. Then we-all talked about it and agreed that they
might come on us any minute, that most likely they 'd attack us that
very night and that we ought to be ready for them.
"Well, sir, that Pard Huff, he never said another word. He just set
there with his eyes getting bigger and his face whiter every minute.
We kep' it up and told stories about the way them devils do--everything
we 'd ever heard of--how they hold you and pull out your tongue, or cut
off your ears, or run a stake through you and pin you to the ground, or
smash your face to a jelly with a rock, or burn you alive, till Pard
Huff did n't know which end he was a-standin' on a-tall.
"We got out our blankets and turned in, but just kep' a-talkin' about
the Apaches till that Pard Huff, he was shakin' as if he had a fit.
One of the boys said he 'd bet if the Apaches did come, Pard Huff would
get his ears cut off the first rattle, because they was so big the
Injuns could n't see nothin' else a-tall in camp till they got them out
of the way. And then _bang! bang! bang!_ went some six-shooters, the
boys yelled 'Injuns!'--'Apaches!' as loud as they could, and the feller
on the other side of Pard Huff (Pard was layin' next to me) yelled out.
'Boys, I 'm killed!' says he, and he rolled over on his face and kicked
and yelled and groaned. Then _bang! bang! bang!_ went the six-shooters
again; and then you ought to have seen that Pard Huff! Well, sir, he
was sure buffaloed! He jumped out of his blankets and let out one
yell. The chuck wagon was right behind us, and he give one jump and
went clean over it and lit out across country like an antelope.
You-all just ought to 've seen that tenderfoot pull his freight!
"The boys come up a-laughin' and watched him run. They was a-bettin'
he would n't stop till he got to Apache Teju, but I said it was n't
right to buffalo him that bad. So we-all yelled and called him to come
back, but he only run the faster. The durn fool tenderfoot thought it
was the Apaches chasin' him! We-all thought he 'd soon find out there
was nothin' wrong a-tall and come back, and so we went to bed again.
But he did n't.
"The next day I had to come to Apache Teju and I found Pard Huff's
bloody tracks most all the way to Separ. He 'd run right over stones
and cactus and prairie dog holes and everything else in his way. And
them fool people at Separ was all huddled up in the depot, and a
company of men with Winchesters and six-shooters was there from Deming,
and everybody was watchin' the country all 'round with spyglasses, for
Injuns! Well, sir, that durn fool tenderfoot, that Pard Huff, had told
them a fool yarn about the Apaches surprisin' our camp and killin'
everybody but him, and they was sure buffaloed!"
"Yes," I said, "I know they were."
"You! How did you know anything about it?"
"Oh, I was there that night. I passed through on the train, and Separ
and Deming were the worst scared towns I ever saw."
Texas Bill chuckled, pleased at this verification of his story, and
went on:
"Then you know what I 'm tellin' you is sure true! I thought mebbe
you-all mightn't believe it, a-tall, for it sure don't look reasonable
that folks could get so buffaloed over a durn fool tenderfoot's yarn.
They looked at me with mighty big eyes when I rode into Separ.
"'Why,' says they, 'how did you-all get out alive? We sure thought you
was dead!'
"'Well,' says I, 'as far as I know, I 'm sure alive; and I don't know
as I 've been into anything to get out of a-tall.'
"'Why,' says they, 'Pard Huff--'
"'Oh,' says I, 'damn Pard Huff! He 's a tenderfoot and afraid of his
shadder! He dreamed about Apaches and jumped up with a yell and lit
out for God's sake. We tried to call him back, and he thought it was
the Apaches after him. I reckon he 's scared you-all half to death
with his yarn. You 're as bad as tenderfeet yourselves!'
"But they 'd got the notion scared into them so bad they could n't
believe anything else, and they sure thought there must be Injuns
around somewheres; and so I left 'em and rode on for Apache Teju.
Pretty soon I met a troop of cavalry from Fort Bayard on the trot for
Separ. The captain rode up to me and says, 'Have you been near the
scene of the Indian depredations?'
"'No, sir,' says I, 'I hain't seen no Injun depredations, nor Injuns
neither, this summer.'
"'Humph!' says he, 'that's queer!'
"'Yes, sir,' says I, 'I think likely. I _heard_ there was some trouble
with 'em last night down below Separ, but if there 's _been_ any Injun
depredations I hain't seen 'em a-tall.' And then I rode on, for I had
n't time to be bothered with no more of his questions, and, too, I
reckoned likely him and his soldiers needed some exercise.
"And they got it, too. They just kep' on the trot for the Mexican
line, and kep' a-goin' for three months. They 'd started out for
Injuns, and Injuns they was bound to have. They jest wound around
through all that country south of Separ, and over into old Mexico, and
back again, and up into the mountains and across the plains, and did
n't even see an Apache the whole three months. And they did n't find
out it was all nothin' but a blaze on Pard Huff till after they 'd come
back. I reckon about that time they concluded there ain't no bigger
fool on earth than a tenderfoot, a-tall. And there ain't, neither.
"Well, I tell you, that Pard Huff was sure mad when he found out we-all
had been running a blaze on him! I don't know as I blame him much, for
that ten-mile run of his to Separ in his sock feet over cactus and
stones was n't much of a joke, a-tall. But he was an all-fireder fool
tenderfoot than we s'posed, or we would n't have done it."
HOW COLONEL KATE WON HER SPURS
Mrs. Harrison Winthrop Coolidge had long been the recognized leader of
Santa Fe society. Her husband, who had twice been Governor of New
Mexico (this was long before the Territory had put on the garment of
Statehood), was the best known and most esteemed man in the Southwest.
He was rich, energetic, capable, and popular, and he came of the family
of the Massachusetts Coolidges; while his wife, who was just as capable
and as popular as he, sprang from the Adams family of the same State.
But, notwithstanding all this, to the Unassorted of Santa Fe society
she was always "Colonel Kate"; and the Select themselves, in moments of
sprightly intimacy, would sometimes refer to her or even address her by
that sobriquet.
The occasional new resident and the frequent health-seeker were sure to
hear of Colonel Kate before they had spent more than a day or two in
the ancient city; and if they had come from the strait-laced East they
were likely to be much scandalized when they learned the identity of
the lady spoken of thus disrespectfully, and would at once want to know
how and why such things could be. Then they would be told that the
shocking appellation was only a good-natured and admiring recognition
of Mrs. Coolidge's general efficiency. For it was the universal
opinion in Santa Fe that Colonel Kate would always accomplish whatever
she started out to do, and that nobody ever could guess what she would
start out to do next.
All this was quite true, but it was also true that the Governor's wife
had won her military title by the especial daring and efficiency which
she had once displayed on a particular occasion. The facts in the case
are known only to some three or four people who have always kept them
very quiet. It happened, however, when I asked for information about
Mrs. Coolidge's nickname, that the man with whom I was talking was the
very one who had first bestowed it upon her, and he told me the secret
truth about it. Mrs. Coolidge had no stancher friend than he, nor any
who regarded her with greater respect and admiration, but he rarely
spoke of her or addressed her by any other name than "Colonel Kate."
It all happened a good many years ago, when Harrison Winthrop Coolidge,
then a comparatively young man and newly married, had just come out
from Massachusetts to be Governor of New Mexico. His wife was a young
woman of tall and shapely figure, handsome face, and striking presence,
and possessed of such vivacity, vigor, health, and strength as few
women enjoy. Her superabundant vitality found many emergencies upon
which to expend itself, but the man who told me this story declared
that she never found one that was too big for her. She probably never
found a bigger or more important one than that which she faced on the
night when she won her spurs. Governor and Mrs. Coolidge reached New
Mexico in the days of the first coming of the railroad, when the sleepy
old Territory woke to a brief season of active and hilarious life. And
the Governor, fresh from New England reverence for law and legal forms
and accepted methods, was inexpressibly shocked by the low opinion in
which such things were held in his new bailiwick. Especially was he
horrified by the frequent and brief proceedings which left men who had
been too free with their guns or with other people's property hanging
from trees, projecting beams, and other convenient places. The usual
rough justice of the affair did not, in his eyes, mitigate the
offensiveness of its irregularity.
The Santa Fe _Bugle_ at once interviewed him about his plans and
intentions, and Governor Coolidge talked very strongly on the subject
of lynch law. He said that it was entirely wrong, unworthy even of
barbarians, and was not to be endorsed or palliated in either principle
or practice. He deplored the frequency of its operations in New
Mexico, and emphatically declared his intention of stamping it out.
And he took that opportunity to announce that all persons connected
with lynching affairs would be treated as murderers or accessories to
murder.
The editor of _The Bugle_, which was the organ of the opposition,
published every word the Governor said, and then gleefully waited for
something to happen. He did not know what it would be, but he was
perfectly sure there would be something, and that it would be
interesting.