THE MANITOU WATER.
That second afternoon, after the arrival of the tilted wagon at Santa
Lucia, was dull enough, in spite of the ample supply of news and
literature. All the news from all the world seemed worthless without
news from Cal and his father. All the stories ever told were
uninteresting until they should come home and tell the story of their
expedition after Kah-go-mish and his Apaches. It had been so all day.
The projected improvements, in and around the old hacienda, had somehow
lost their attraction, and were discussed no more. In fact every time
one of them had been referred to it had compelled somebody to mention
the absent man or boy who was likely to have an opinion to be consulted
concerning it. Vic and her mother went out on horseback in the morning,
and they made an uncommonly long ride of it, for they went to Slater's
Branch and back, galloping almost all the way home, and putting each
other in mind of Cal's dash upon the back of the red mustang to warn
them that the Indians were coming.
Duller and duller, yet more unquiet had the day grown after dinner, and
now the shadows were growing longer, and they seemed to bring more
anxiety with them.
"Mother," said Vic at last, "I've been trying my best not to think of
Cal or of father, and I can't."
"It's the best thing we could do," almost sighed Mrs. Evans.
"They may be fighting!" said Vic.
"Most likely they're going into camp somewhere, all tired out," said her
mother.
"Oh, I do hope," said Vic, "they are on their way home. I can't read,
and I won't."
So all the printed things were put aside, and it may be that some of
Vic's thinking made pictures for her a little like the reality that was
enacting at Cold Spring and in the Mexican forest. No imagination of
hers could have drawn anything quite equal to either of them.
Something almost as well worth making a picture of was taking place a
number of long miles farther westward. Away up among the crags and
forests of the Sierra, but below the snow-range at that season, there
lay all day in the sunshine a very tranquil little lake. All around the
lake were the steep sides of mountains, and at no point was there any
visible outlet. Streams of various sizes ran into it, and one of them
came plunging over the edge of a perpendicular rock, in a foamy,
feathery waterfall. There was plenty of room in the valley for the lake
to grow larger in, but the trees at its margin seemed to say that this
was its customary size. On the northern side the sloping steep went up,
up, up, until all its rocks became hidden under a covering of snow.
Just above the snow-line the June sun had been working hard, day after
day, melting snow for the lake, until it had undermined a vast icy mass
several acres in extent. Nobody could guess how many winters had been
required to make that heap of frost so deep and hard, or how many
summers had made everything ready for that hot day to finish the work.
Just before sunset a moaning sound came down the mountain and filled the
valley. Then something like thunder, or the report or a cannon, echoed
among the crags.
The avalanche had broken its bonds! Down it came, slowly at first, then
more swiftly, and the tall pines were snapped off and swept away, and
great bowlders were caught up and carried with it. Down, down, down it
came, and at last, with a great surging plunge, it went head foremost
into the lake. Crash! splash! dash! the flying sheets of water reached
the tree-tops on the margin. The avalanche found deep water, for it
almost disappeared, but it made the lake several feet deeper, and then
its own fragments came up from their dive to be floated around and to be
dashed against the shore by the waves.
It did not take a great while for the surface of the lake to become calm
again, with the snow-cakes and the ice-cakes almost motionless in the
fading light. Not any human eye had seen the avalanche fall, or had
noted its grandeur or any of its consequences.
All things were peaceful at Cold Spring. Everybody had eaten supper long
before sunset, and was glad of feeling sure that only the coming night
was to be spent in a spot where nothing more civilized than a jackass
rabbit seemed to have any permanent business.
Colonel Evans had said all he had to say about Cal, and he stood near
the spring, making vague speculations as to how and when he should get
into better communication with Kah-go-mish. Near him, sitting upon a
ledge, were Ping and Tah-nu-nu, and the old Chiricahua, who seemed to be
telling his young friends something more about the bubbling water, when
Captain Moore strolled up to within a few paces.
"Do you see that, colonel?" he said. "I know sign language well enough
if I can't understand the words. There's no wonder they're superstitious
about Fonda des Arenas."
"Cold Spring?" replied the colonel. "What do they say about it?"
"Ask the scout. He says it's Manitou Water in the old tongue. I can't
work the Apache syllables."
Neither could Colonel Evans, when the Chiricahua repeated them. He was
even eager to tell more, and what he did tell was curious, if true. Just
before the great and noble Chiricahuas and Apaches came to own that
country, he said, there had been a hill there, a sort of mountain with
forests, and there was no desert there, and no chaparral. The
Chiricahuas would have preferred a hill and trees and grass, but the old
manitou who had lived there had to go away, and everything sunk down to
a level. The trees died and rotted away, and all was dry and desolate,
until one terribly hot day when a band of Apaches reached the rocky
level, almost dying of thirst. Their ponies were unable to go any
farther, and they had given up all hope. They sat around upon the rock,
and their ponies lay down. All night long they sat there, and then, just
as the sun was rising, they saw something white spring into the air in
the middle of the wide rock. A new manitou had arrived, friendly to the
Apaches. He brought the Manitou Water, and it had run continually to the
present time. Generally it was quiet, but if the manitou heard good
news, the water would sometimes jump away up, as it did when it first
came.
"Very pretty story," began Captain Moore, but at that moment the air
suddenly was filled with excited exclamations.
The old Chiricahua uttered a loud whoop as he sprang to his feet.
"Ugh!" he said. "Heap manitou!"
He added a few rapid sentences in his own tongue, while Ping and
Tah-nu-nu darted away to the edge of the chaparral and stood there,
clinging to each other as if in terror.
"Colorado!" shouted Sam Herrick. "What on earth's got into Cold Spring?"
The colonel and the captain also retreated rapidly, shivering from the
shock of a sudden cold bath, for they both were wet to the skin.
Twenty feet high sprang the water, with a sharp hiss and a report like a
pistol-shot. The first leap subsided, but was instantly followed by
another and another, each less lofty than the one before it. Then the
stream became fairly steady, but with about three times its customary
supply, so that quite a rill of water ran away across the quartz, to be
absorbed by the thirsty sand and gravel among the bushes.
Neither Ping nor Tah-nu-nu nor the Chiricahuas could be induced to come
near the fountain again, but all the white men gathered around it and
made guesses as to what had made it jump.
"Something volcanic," said the captain.
"Been an earthquake somewhere, it may be," said the colonel.
All that evening there was more or less discussion of the remarkable
performance of Cold Spring, and everybody missed the right guess. It was
only a splash caused by the avalanche when it plunged into the mountain
reservoir which supplied the chaparral and the sage-hens and the jackass
rabbits and the other wild animals there with water. Nothing could well
be more simple, and there was no soundness whatever in the grave remark
made to Ping and Tah-nu-nu by the old Chiricahua.
"Ugh!" he said. "Manitou Water heap good medicine. Good Apache manitou.
Kah-go-mish get away now. Keep all pony."