ANIMAS VALLEY.--II.
"How are you, Squito?--how's your health?" inquired the Colonel
cheerily.
Rafaeleta silently nodded her acknowledgments of the civility manifested
by the question. "Where're yer from?" she returned laconically.
"The Plyas."
"Laid over at the Sherlock boys' last night?"
"Yes." (We were engaged in unharnessing the horses by this time. Hedged
round affectionately by the dogs in various positions, Squito stood
watching us.) "Any Indian news?"
She shook her head, and then an after-thought evidently occurring to
her, a smile lit up her face, and she shrugged her shoulders
indifferently. "Some of the boys down to the Lang ranch and Cloverdale
have ter'ble times standing 'em off--least, that's how they talk when
they get a chance at me. Piggy Farrel has killed 'bout eight, _he_ says.
But he always buries 'em--guns and all."
"Piggy's a great and a good man," said the Colonel, smiling. "And Piggy
wouldn't be dishonest enough to bury an Indian if he wasn't killed
first, so if he told you that, it's all right."
"If he could kill Indians shooting off his mouth at them, he'd soon
clean out all there is," remarked Squito sharply.
The Colonel cast a veiled glance at her as he passed round to put some
harness in the wagon. "What's the matter, then? Has Piggy been too
'fresh'?"[12]
Her sunburnt cheeks flushed redly, and a gleam of temper flashed in her
eyes. But she checked herself, and only laughed scornfully.
"Where's your father?" (Old man Murray was always so termed.)
"He's over to Alamo viejo after a steer that strayed out there; he
wanted to see the country, so he went himself. Joe and Jake's out on the
range somewheres. 'Spect father back to supper," she observed after a
pause; and after a further pause employed in a survey of our tired-out
nags, she added: "Want some grain for them, don't yer?"
Don Cabeza nodded.
"Have you been feeding them grain lately?"
"Yes; they can have a full feed."
I volunteered to fetch it myself, but looking me over ungratefully,
Squito lifted her eyes to mine for the first time, and said coolly:
"You'd best pack those things out of the wagon into the house." And
picking up a couple of empty candle-boxes, which stood on a carpenter's
bench near at hand, she passed round a corner of the wall with one under
each arm, and reappeared presently with the feeds of maize.
We moved our traps from the wagon into a room in the house, and lit a
log fire on the wide hearth, for the sun was nearly gone, and at this
time of year the nights were frosty. Major Tupper paid us a visit from
the neighbouring camp with a couple of his officers.
"What news?"
"Well, the Indians had killed the marshal and another man near Wilcox.
Lieut. Fountain was reported to have had a brush with them in the
Dragoon Mountains. Captains Crawford and Davis were on the point of
starting on separate expeditions into the Sierra Madre after them. A
scout from Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, had passed through the camp
yesterday on his way to General Crook, at Fort Bowie, and reported that
Natchez, Nane, and Mangus, with a considerable following, were located
in their old stronghold--the mountain on the San Diego ranch--and that
small parties of them were trading daily with the Mexicans in Casas
Grandes. Etc., etc."
"They'll get you one of these days, Colonel, when you are driving around
in your wagon," said the Major.
Don Cabeza laughed, as he sent the cigar-box round again. "They don't
want me; old Geronimo and I, we're----" (here a little horizontal motion
of the hand smoothed the matter over and disposed of it completely)
"we're solid. I've fixed things with him. 'That'll be all right,' as the
boys say. When the Indians are out, Major, it is like having a needle in
a carpet: you may tread on it first step, and you may not strike it in
ten years. If you have any business to attend to, you'd best go right
along and do it. Keep your eyes skinned, of course, but don't stay
home."
Our visitors left; Jake and Joe, two limber, sinewy, six-foot models of
health and strength, came in, and in due course, under the direction of
the Colonel (a finished _gourmet_, who not only could give you points
with regard to anything of gastronomic interest between the Poodle Dog
and Delmonico's, but could post you almost equally well as to the best
temples of culinary art that lay between Bignon's and the Cafe St.
Petersbourg, in Pera), we produced a sumptuous repast. With difficulty
was our _chef_ dissuaded from delaying supper whilst he made a venison
stew--a stew of any kind being a favourite _tour de force_ of his. Of
course we all differed as to the best method of cooking what had to be
prepared, and for the fun of baiting the Colonel, most of us united in
deriding his decisions. But when Rafaeleta, after roundly challenging
his ability, finally deserted us, and went over to his side, we had to
"take water."
In such scenes as these Squito was in her happiest element. Her
infectious laughter, as frivolous and light as air, ending often in the
sweetest and gayest of sighs, lent a nonsensical tone to everything. She
roved irresponsibly here, there, and everywhere--impeding, assisting,
commanding, interfering, insisting with privileged authority--playfully
executing freaks of impulse that had no motive, but were none the less
exquisitely graceful, and which charmed if only because they proved that
beneath her prematurely old manner the wayward spirit of childhood still
lingered, and the time had not yet come in her career when every word
had its billet, every gesture its design, every action its object. The
movements of a child are generally graceful, awkwardness, like shyness,
being only the result of false training or ill-health. Rafaeleta had had
no training, and was a perfect type of all that was healthy. In moments
like these, therefore, she was a beautiful study.
It was interesting to note the guard the cow-punchers kept over their
tongues in her presence, and since cleansing the Augean stables had been
a light task by comparison with purifying the language of a New Mexican
ranch hand, the task must not be underrated.
Those were pleasant meals at the Gray Place. Rough? Naturally they were
rough; but none the less they left an agreeable impression, and this is
a good test. How often do the old wines and delicacies, the vapid
enumeration of social events which forms the conversation, the general
luxury and jaded appetites of London dinners do this? It is possible to
go through life, day after day, without realising what we enjoy or do
not enjoy. There are probably people who have become so thoroughly
accustomed to ask, what _is_ interesting? so entirely unused to ask
themselves, what _they_ really enjoy? that amusement is a lost art for
them. They have stunted and coerced their inclinations until their
natural and artificial appetites are indistinguishably confused, and
they could no longer get a sure answer from their own hearts, did they
ask themselves, what they enjoyed?
Jake and Squito are busy at the stove. Murray, the manager, a cheery
little man, with a _vieille moustache_ face, and a twinkle of quiet
humour in his eyes, is drying his hands on the round towel. (Murray is
an Irishman by birth, but the Irish element in America is so generally
unpopular in the West, that he always laughingly denies the nationality
which his unmistakable brogue betrays, and declares that he is an
"_I_-talian.") The Colonel, Joe, and I are already seated at the long
table at one end of the kitchen, together with a teamster from Separ, on
his way to the camp at the Lang ranch, with a load of goods for the "gin
mill" there. The Colonel is stroking his beard, and smiling in
anticipation over a tale that he has just been reminded of and is going
to tell.
"Yes," he agreed to some remark that had been made, and he smiled a
little reflectively, "you're right. Andy Sullivan is a daisy--what Louis
Timmer would call a 'Yoe dandy.' He's a great and a good man is
Andy--'Not great like Caesar stained with blood, but only great as he is
good.' Did he ever tell you about his playing 'seven-up' with the old
Scotchman?"
We had none of us heard the tale.
"Well, Andy found himself harnessed on to an old Scotchman one day, and
they got to playing seven-up to pass the time. Andy could hardly be
called 'anybody's fool' at seven-up, and the old Scotchman was no slouch
either, it seemed--he had some talent into him, as they say. Anyhow,
they were playing along pretty evenly; and the drinks were mounting up
all the time. Pretty soon Andy began to notice that his opponent didn't
always take his word for the score, but sorted his cards over, as well
as his own. He got so particular at last that the thing became rather
pointed, and Andy said finally:
"'You don't seem to be very easy in your mind, sir; you're picking the
cards over a good deal. You surely don't mean to suspect me of taking
any advantage of you.'
"'Not for the warld, Meester Sullivan! I wouldn't be suspecting ye under
any saircumstances; but,' the old Scotchman added grimly, 'the man that
would be watching ye would be attending to his own bizeness.'
"'And,' said Andy confidentially, when he told me the tale on himself,
'I _was_ moighty hard up at the time--right down on the bed rock--and it
is just possible that I may have been monkeying with the cards a
little.'"
"You bet yer!" cried Jake, from the store. "He'd play his hand for all
there was in it, anyhow. Come to drink with him, it's just as well to
keep the handle of the jug your side."
"He's another of them _I_-talians, ain't he?" inquired old Murray, with
a wink.
"That's what he is, sure! By the way, Colonel, did you see Sam around
Deming?"
"Sam?--Sam Rider? Isn't he in the valley?"
"Not much! Sam got two months' wages ahead, so he cracked his whip, and
went off on a bend."
"To blow in?"[13]
Jake laughed assent.
"I seen him," chimed in the teamster.
"Where?"
"Up at Silver."
"How was he making it?" asked Squito, with her back to us.
"About making 'a stand off,' I guess. I met him going along with his
head down, like he was drunk. _We'd_ been having 'a time,' and my keg
was pretty full, too. But I seen him all the same. 'Come into the
"Ranch," and have a drink, Sam,' says I. 'A drink goes,' says he. 'How
do you come on?' says I. He said as he'd been gambling, and was two
hundred dollars ahead of the town. He 'got there with both feet'[14] at
starting, and was eight hundred ahead once. But he played it off at
monte. 'Well,' says I, 'you're full now; you'd better go to bed, and
not play again till you're sober.'
"'I believe I will,' he says.
"But later on Thin Pete told me that he was up at the 'Central,'
gambling again. I went in and stood behind him, and looked on for a few
minutes. There he was, sure enough, bucking at faro, and just a-sousing
it to her red hot--betting only on the 'high card,' or 'high card,
coppered.'
"'That's my kind,' says old Sam; 'you get "action" there every turn. No
waiting for any durned cards to come up!' He's a high roller, by
gum!--when he's got it."
"You bet your buttons!" murmured Squito proudly, "Sam'll 'stay with 'em'
as long as he's got a check."[15]
"Bully for you, Squito!" cried Joe. "When it comes to gambling he's a
thoroughbred; he puts it up[16] as if it was bad."
Squito laughed impulsively.
"They came near socking him in the cooler,[17] the other day," said the
teamster.
"Is that so? What for?"
"Oh, I d'n' know!--he'd been singing the music to 'em. Sam's too
broncho;[18] he gets all-fired mean[19] sometimes when he's full."
"There ain't a drop of mean blood in him," denied Squito flatly.
The teamster shrugged his shoulders.
"Anyhow, Doc Gilpen the Marshal jumped him.[20] I was right there when
they met. 'Sam,' he says, 'you've made one or two bad breaks since
you've been in town. Next time you ring, I'm coming for you--and going
to get you, too.' 'What's the matter with your getting me now?' asked
Sam. And they both stood with their hands on their
six-shooters--so--watching one another like strange Indians. 'I don't
want you now.' 'Well, that'll be all right! You can find me whenever you
do; and you'll find me heeled,[21] too, you bet your sweet life!' says
Sam. For a minute or two they stood looking at one another, and then Doc
'pulled out.'[22] Right opposite Lindauer's store it was. I thought
there was going to be a shooting, sure. And it wanted powerful little to
set 'em going now, and don't you forget it!"
"Doc would get away with him," said Joe.
"Would he!" ejaculated Squito hotly.
"Yes. He's got all Sam's sand,[23] and is cooler."
"That's what," coincided Jake. "I guess he's a shade quicker, too."
"There ain't a quicker than Sam this side o' Memphis," said Squito
defiantly.
"Well, there'll be hell a-popping whenever they do come together, and
it----"
"You bet there will!" exclaimed the girl, with blazing eyes. "And Doc
Gilpen will get left right there."
The little tigress had ceased her work, and faced about to the company.
She was evidently ready for anything. The boys glanced at her and
"passed" good-naturedly.
"Talking about Doc, I have to laugh when I think of the last time that I
was in Deming," said Joe. "One of these chaps from Texas come in there
to paint the town,[24] and got his tank full, and tried to ride his
horse into the 'Cabinet.' Doc and I was taking a hand at stud-poker
there when we heard him shouting outside: 'I'm a roaring, raging lion,
I am! I'm a hell-tearing cyclone! I'm a pitch-fire, singeing, wild-cat
terror from Texas!' And just about when he had got that off, Doc, who
had pocketed his chips,[25] and skinned out to get a front seat, knocked
him off his horse with the butt-end of his six-shooter. 'What are you
now?' he asked, as the chap picked himself up. 'I'll be ---- to ---- if
I know,' he said. And you should have heard the boys laugh! I tell you,
Deming is a bad little camp for a fellow to try and run a bluff in. You
don't want to make any of those foolish plays there, or you'll be apt to
find a contract on your hands that you ain't looking for."
"That's what," assented Jake again. "If Doc or the Deputy[26] ain't
around, there's always some one on hand to shoot you in the belly if you
need it."
Corn-meal mash and cream, antelope steaks, and bacon (known to the
ranchero as "sow-belly"), baked potatoes, corn cakes, "muffins," honey,
coffee, and milk. Take your choice; it is all clean, and the best, of
its kind, to be had. Perhaps you find it impossible to bring yourself to
eat with "aw, cow servants you know," as certain young Englishmen, but
newly come from college to New Mexico, and unpurged, as yet, of their
old-world prejudices, found it not long ago. Then you can take advantage
of the alternative which was offered to them--you can wait until the
"aw, cow servants," and others, untroubled with your scruples, have
finished. The title, "cow servants," so delighted the gentle "puncher,"
by the way, that it has become a standing quotation in New Mexico.
I am far from advocating a style of hail-fellow-well-met familiarity
betwixt master and servant. Here, as elsewhere, this naturally destroys
the former's influence, and is neither necessary nor wise. But
"gentlemen ranchers" are a greater mistake than even "gentlemen
farmers," and the man who holds aloof from the society of his ranch
hands "out West," and treats them as farm labourers are treated in
Europe, commands only their begrudged service. They never have his
interests at heart, but rather those of their own kin and kind on
adjoining ranches. Any one who understands the full meaning of this--any
one who knows how completely the option lies with the cow-puncher of
working or not, of riding the range honestly or shirking the doing so,
of learning to know the cattle on it and their habits, of "reading
sign" in order to be acquainted with the movements of strays, of
treating horses and cattle gently and well, or of failing in these
duties--will appreciate the advantage of winning something more than
unwilling labour from his men.
Naturally, the society of ranch hands and their kind is not very refined
or attractive. But the man in search of cultivated society should not
engage in the cattle business. He who does do so will find it most
profitable, and in the aggregate most comfortable, to live amongst his
men. It is quite possible to mix freely with them, to talk and laugh
with them, to treat them with as much real civility as would be bestowed
upon an equal, without ever confusing your relative positions, or
degenerating into a mutual condition of absolute familiarity. The
cow-punchers know and like a gentleman. Many a time have I heard them
allude to "Mr. This, or Colonel That," as "an elegant gentleman--a fine
gentleman, sir, that's what he was! He always treated me well. But ----!
he didn't stand no monkey-business, all the same." The cow-puncher is
perfectly well aware that he himself is not a gentleman, and, so far
from taking a liberty with his social superior, will invariably yield
him place, if treated properly. But then the gentleman must make his
rank felt by self-control, not endeavour to enforce the recognition of
it by self-assertion.
One thing may be noted here. A cattle-ranch is not, like a good mine or
many another source of wealth, able to afford extravagant management. To
a very large extent, the money made in cattle is money saved.
Cattle-ranches will not always pay handsome dividends if called upon to
support fancy managers, separate establishments for hands and master,
tribes of servants, four-in-hands, trotters, good cellars and cooks,
etc., etc. They may do this when cattle are "booming," but the
fluctuations in the value of stock are enormous, and periods of
depression recur at intervals, when even the economic ranchero finds
difficulty in making both ends meet.
Where were we, though? At supper! My progress will be representable by
some such eccentric tracing of involved curves and turns, as Sterne used
to illustrate his advance in "Tristram Shandy."
"Which of you boys shot this antelope?" inquired the Colonel, helping
himself to a steak.
"Her," answered Joe laconically, nodding towards Squito.
"Are you a good shot, Squito?" I asked.
"Well, I should rather say she was!" rejoined the Colonel, whilst the
boys chuckled quietly. "She can knock the spots out of these boys at
that game."
"That's what she can," assented Joe good-humouredly; "she can whip us
the worst kind. She's liable to whip a'most any stranger that comes
along, too," and he smiled significantly at me.
Rafaeleta, meanwhile, turned fresh steaks in the frying-pan, and paid no
heed to the conversation.
"Where did you kill the antelope, Squito?" inquired Don Cabeza.
"Oh, pshaw!" she ejaculated indifferently.
"Well, where was it? We want to know, because----"
"In the big draw, back of Clanton's ciniky, then. Have another biscuit,
Colonel?" And with her sleeves rolled up on her little muscular brown
arms, she approached the table with the biscuit-tray in one hand, and a
fork in the other.
"How far off were you from him?"
"Shan't answer any more questions," she said capriciously, but with
hopeless decision. And seating herself at the head of the table, she
appropriated Joe's muffin and Jake's teaspoon. "Joe, you can get
another, and Jake, there's one in the cupboard."
Supper over, Jake "washed up," whilst Joe took a lantern and went off to
milk the cows (which grazed free during the day and came in at night to
their penned-up calves). The rest of us retired to the adjoining room,
and gathered round the blazing logs to talk "cattle" and their
prospects. On such occasions Squito would nestle down on a log by the
hearth, and, taking no part in the conversation, glance keenly from
speaker to speaker, or gaze dreamily into the fire, rolling herself
little Mexican cigarettes, in bits of maize-leaf, from time to time.
Sometimes, during a lull in the conversation, she would hazard prettily,
addressing either the Colonel or me: "Won't you tell us some more about
them foreign lands?" When the boys, having finished their work, rejoined
us, she generally slipped off silently to her own room.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] Cheeky.
[13] Spend his money.
[14] Was very successful.
[15] A counter.
[16] Spends money.
[17] Putting him in prison.
[18] Wild.
[19] Savage.
[20] Took him to task.
[21] Armed.
[22] Left.
[23] Pluck.
[24] Have a spree.
[25] Counters.
[26] Deputy Marshal.