THE BAND OF KAH-GO-MISH.
New Mexico is a wonderful country. It is full of places that are worth
going to see, while some of its other places are well worth keeping away
from. Down through the territory, east of the middle, runs north and
south the main range of the Rocky Mountains. Among them rise the Picos
and the Canadian and several other rivers that run away to the south and
east. Westerly from the main range, with marvellous valleys between, are
the Organ Mountains, made to show what strange shapes vast masses of
rock can be broken into. Farther westward is the great valley of the Rio
Grande and beyond this arise the Sierra Madre and the Sierra San Juan.
It is all a wonderful region, with great plains as well as mountain
ranges, and here and there are found remarkable ruins of ancient
architecture and every way as remarkable remnants of ancient people.
Some of the wide levels are mere deserts of sand and gravel--hot,
barren, terrible--but others are rich with pasturage for horses and
cattle, as they once were only for innumerable bisons, deer, and
antelopes.
The Spanish-Mexican hidalgo who had selected Santa Lucia had shown
excellent judgment, although even in that day he probably had more or
less trouble with his red neighbors. The present owners and occupants
of the ranch had had none at all until the very hour when Sam Herrick
found the prairie around him swarming with them.
As for Sam, he had now no suspicion how near he came to again meeting
the very Apaches who had chased him and Cal and who were now hurrying to
rejoin their band. They missed Sam and they brought news back with them
which seemed to receive the approval of the very dignified warrior who
had directed in the capture of the horses. He was a proud-looking
commander now, as he sat upon one of Colonel Evans's best horses to
listen to their report.
"Ugh!" he remarked. "Kah-go-mish is a great chief. Get ranch first. Then
go for horses in timber."
There was pride in every tone and movement of Kah-go-mish, for he had
performed a great exploit, and he and his band were no longer in
poverty. There were many signs, however, that they had not been
prosperous upon the Reservation, although the chief still wore the very
high silk hat which had there been given him. He had tied a green veil
around it to set off its beauty and his own. His only other garments
were the well-worn buckskin leggings which covered him from the waist to
the knee, and a pair of long red stockings through which he had thrust
his arms to the shoulder. Openings in the soles let out the hands, with
which he gesticulated in explanation of orders which were promptly
obeyed.
About thirty warriors, now well mounted and all pretty well armed,
whirled away northerly, with Kah-go-mish at their head, and their
purpose did not require any explanation.
Half as many more braves and all the squaws, boys, and girls proceeded
to complete the beef business. They did it with great rapidity and
dexterity, and then they, with the horses, dogs, and children, trailed
away in a caravan that was headed almost due south. It was a very
picturesque caravan all the time, but it looked more so than ever when
it halted, after a while, on the bank of Slater's Branch.
Some very good people had been interested in the reservation set apart
for those Apaches, and had gathered contributions of civilized clothing
for them. It had not been in rebellion against anything of that sort
that Kah-go-mish and his people had run away, for the miscellaneous
goods from away Down East helped the picture at Slater's Branch
amazingly. The hat and stocking legs had helped the appearance of the
chief himself, but other things had done more for a fat and very dark
lady whom he had addressed as Wah-wah-o-be. The many-ribboned straw
bonnet upon the head of the severe-faced wife of Kah-go-mish was fine.
So was the blue calico dress with the red flannel skirt over it, and the
pony she rode seemed to be afraid of the whole outfit. Near her, upon
two other ponies, sat a boy and girl. They were apparently younger, a
little, than Cal and Victoria Evans. They were hardly as good-looking,
in some respects, and were dressed differently. Among the charities at
the Reservation had been a bale of second-hand trousers, of the style
worn nowadays by boys, reaching to the knee. The young lady wore a pair
of these, and with them a dress of which any Mescalero girl might have
been vain. A piece of yard-wide red cotton, three yards long, had a hole
in the middle for the head to pass through. When proper armholes were
added and a belt of embroidered antelope skin confined the loose cloth
at the waist, what more was needed by the bright-eyed daughter of
Kah-go-mish?
The boy on the other pony--Well, he wore another pair of second-hand
trousers. They had been planned for a man and were large in the waist,
requiring a belt, but had been altered to the complete style by cutting
them off just below the knee. The pony he rode was one of the nearly
worn-out fellows that had travelled all the way across the mountains
from the Reservation. He and Cal Evans had been within a few miles of
each other that morning. Both were uncommonly vigorous young fellows, of
whom their parents had a right to be proud, but it was not easy to
discover many points of resemblance between them. There did not seem to
be the least probability that they would ever be much thrown into each
other's society; but then no young fellow of fourteen knows precisely
who his future friends are to be, or where he is to meet them.