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WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT.
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COMPANION VOLUME.
THE TREASURE OF NUGGET MOUNTAIN. Edited by Marion Ames Taggart. 12mo,
cloth, 85 cents.
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JACK HILDRETH AMONG THE INDIANS.
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WINNETOU,
THE APACHE KNIGHT.
ADAPTED FOR OUR BOYS AND GIRLS FROM C. MAY
BY
MARION AMES TAGGART.
❦
NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO:
BENZIGER BROTHERS,
Printers to the Holy Apostolic See.
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Copyright, 1898, by BENZIGER BROTHERS.
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CONTENTS.
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CHAPTER PAGE
I. TOWARD THE SETTING SUN, 7
II. MY FIRST BUFFALO, 16
III. WILD MUSTANGS AND LONG-EARED NANCY, 27
IV. A GRIZZLY AND A MEETING, 39
V. THE SPEECH OF THE APACHE CHIEF, 52
VI. A WISH AND ITS TRAGIC FULFILMENT, 60
VII. A COMPACT WITH THE KIOWAS, 68
VIII. SAM HAWKINS GOES SPYING, 82
IX. WAITING THE ONSLAUGHT, 92
X. THE CAPTURE OF WINNETOU, 102
XI. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION, 116
XII. A DUEL, AND CAPTURE BY THE APACHES, 128
XIII. NURSED TO HEALTH FOR A CRUEL FATE, 142
XIV. ON TRIAL FOR LIFE, 155
XV. A SWIM FOR FREEDOM, 168
XVI. TANGUA’S PUNISHMENT, 180
XVII. THE END OF RATTLER, 190
XVIII. TEACHING WINNETOU, 204
XIX. THE BURIAL OF KLEKI-PETRAH, 214
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WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT.
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CHAPTER I.
_TOWARD THE SETTING SUN._
IT is not necessary to say much about myself. First of all because there
is not very much to tell of a young fellow of twenty-three, and then
because I hope what I have done and seen will be more interesting than I
am, for, between you and me, I often find Jack Hildreth a dull kind of
person, especially on a rainy day when I have to sit in the house alone
with him.
When I was born three other children had preceded me in the world, and
my father’s dreamy blue eyes saw no way of providing suitably for this
superfluous fourth youngster. And then my uncle John came forward and
said: “Name the boy after me, and I’ll be responsible for his future.”
Now Uncle John was rich and unmarried, and though my father could never
get his mind down to anything more practical than deciphering cuneiform
inscriptions, even he saw that this changed the unflattering prospects
of his latest-born into unusually smiling ones.
So I became Jack Hildreth _secundus_, and my uncle nobly fulfilled his
part of the contract. He kept me under his own eye, gave me a horse
before my legs were long enough to bestride him, nevertheless expecting
me to sit him fast, punished me well if I was quarrelsome or domineering
with other boys, yet punished me no less surely if when a quarrel was
forced upon me I showed the white feather or failed to do my best to
whip my enemy.
“Fear God, but fear no man. Never lie, or sneak, or truckle for favor.
Never betray a trust. Never be cruel to man or beast. Never inflict pain
deliberately, but never be afraid to meet it if you must. Be kind, be
honest, be daring. Be a man, and you will be a gentleman.” This was my
uncle’s simple code; and as I get older, and see more of life, I am
inclined to think there is none better.
My uncle sent me to the Jesuit college, and I went through as well as I
could, because he trusted me to do so. I did not set the college world
afire, but I stood fairly in my classes, and was first in athletics, and
my old soldier uncle cared for that with ill-concealed pride.
When I left the student’s life, and began to look about on real life and
wonder where to take hold of it, I was so restless and overflowing with
health and strength that I could not settle down to anything, and the
fever for life on the plains came upon me. I longed to be off to the
wild and woolly West—the wilder and woollier the better—before I assumed
the shackles of civilization forever.
“Go if you choose, Jack,” my uncle said. “Men are a better study than
books, after you’ve been grounded in the latter. Begin the study in the
primer of an aboriginal race, if you like; indeed it may be best.
There’s plenty of time to decide on your future, for, as you’re to be my
heir, there’s no pressing need of beginning labor.”
My uncle had the necessary influence to get me appointed as an engineer
with a party which was to survey for a railroad among the mountains of
New Mexico and Arizona—a position I was competent to fill, as I had
chosen civil engineering as my future profession, and had studied it
thoroughly.
I scarcely realized that I was going till I found myself in St. Louis,
where I was to meet the scouts of the party, who would take me with them
to join the surveyors at the scene of our labors. On the night after my
arrival I invited the senior scout, Sam Hawkins, to sup with me, in
order that I might make his acquaintance before starting in the morning.
I do not know whether the Wild West Show was unconsciously in my mind,
but when Mr. Hawkins appeared at the appointed time I certainly felt
disappointed to see him clad in ordinary clothes and not in the
picturesque costume of Buffalo Bill, till I reflected that in St. Louis
even a famous Indian scout might condescend to look like every-day
mortals.
“So you’re the young tenderfoot; glad to make your acquaintance, sir,”
he said, and held out his hand, smiling at me from an extraordinary face
covered with a bushy beard of many moons’ growth and shadowed by a large
nose a trifle awry, above which twinkled a pair of sharp little eyes.
My guest surprised me not a little, after I had responded to his
greeting, by hanging his hat on the gas-fixture, and following it with
his hair.
“Don’t be shocked,” he said calmly, seeing, I suppose, that this was
unexpected. “You will excuse me, I hope, for the Pawnees have taken my
natural locks. It was a mighty queer feeling, but fortunately I was able
to stand it. I went to Tacoma and bought myself a new scalp, and it cost
me a roll of good dollars. It doesn’t matter; the new hair is more
convenient than the old, especially on a warm day, for I never could
hang my own wig up like that.”
He had a way of laughing inwardly, and his shoulders shook as he spoke,
though he made no sound.
“Can you shoot?” asked my queer companion suddenly.
“Fairly,” I said, not so much, I am afraid, because I was modest as
because I wanted to have the fun of letting him find out that I was a
crack marksman.
“And ride?”
“If I have to.”
“If you have to! Not as well as you shoot, then?”
“Pshaw! what is riding? The mounting is all that is hard; you can hang
on somehow if once you’re up.”
He looked at me to see whether I was joking or in earnest; but I looked
innocent, so he said: “There’s where you make a mistake. What you should
have said is that mounting is hard because you have to do that yourself,
while the horse attends to your getting off again.”
“The horse won’t see to it in my case,” I said with confidence—born of
the fact that my kind uncle had accustomed me to clinging to high-strung
beasts before I had lost my milk-teeth.
“A kicking broncho is something to try the mettle of a tenderfoot,”
remarked Hawkins dryly.
I suppose you know what a tenderfoot is. He is one who speaks good
English, and wears gloves as if he were used to them. He also has a
prejudice in favor of nice handkerchiefs and well-kept finger-nails; he
may know a good deal about history, but he is liable to mistake
turkey-tracks for bear-prints, and, though he has learned astronomy, he
could never find his way by the stars. The tenderfoot sticks his
bowie-knife into his belt in such a manner that it runs into his thigh
when he bends; and when he builds a fire on the prairie he makes it so
big that it flames as high as a tree, yet feels surprised that the
Indians notice it. But many a tenderfoot is a daring, strong-bodied and
strong-hearted fellow; and though there was no doubt that I was a
tenderfoot fast enough, I hoped to convince Sam Hawkins that I had some
qualities requisite for success on the plains.
By the time our supper was over there was a very good understanding
established between me and the queer little man to whose faithful love I
was to owe so much. He was an eccentric fellow, with a pretence of
crustiness covering his big, true heart; but it was not hard to read him
by the law of contraries, and our mutual liking dated from that night of
meeting.
We set out in the early dawn of the following morning, accompanied by
the other two scouts, Dick Stone and Will Parker, whom I then saw for
the first time, and whom I learned to value only less than Sam as the
truest of good comrades. Our journey was as direct and speedy as we
could make it to the mountain region of New Mexico, near the Apache
Indian reservation, and I was welcomed by my fellow-workers with a
cordiality that gave rise to hopes of pleasant relations with them which
were never realized. The party consisted of the head engineer, Bancroft,
and three men under him. With them were twelve men intended to serve as
our protectors, a sort of standing army, and for whom, as hardworking
pioneers, I, a new-comer, had considerable respect until I discovered
that they were men of the lowest moral standards.
Although I had entered the service only for experience, I was in earnest
and did my duty conscientiously; but I soon found out that my colleagues
were genuine adventurers, only after money, and caring nothing for their
work except as a means of getting it.
Bancroft was the most dishonest of all. He loved his bottle too well and
got private supplies for it from Santa Fé, and worked harder with the
brandy-flask than with his surveying instruments. Riggs, Marcy, and
Wheeler, the three surveyors, emulated Bancroft in this unprofitable
pursuit; and as I never touched a drop of liquor, I naturally was the
laborer, while the rest alternated between drinking and sleeping off the
effects.
It goes without saying that under such circumstances our work did not
progress rapidly, and at the end of the glorious autumn and three months
of labor we found ourselves with our task still unaccomplished, while
the section with which ours was to connect was almost completed. Besides
our workmen being such as they were, we had to work in a region infested
with Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches, who objected to a road through
their territory, and we had to be constantly on our guard, which made
our progress still slower.
Personally my lot was not a bed of roses, for the men disliked me, and
called me “tenderfoot” ten times a day, and took a special delight in
thwarting my will, especially Rattler, the leader of our so-called
guard, and as big a rascal as ever went unhanged. I durst not speak to
them in an authoritative manner, but had to manage them as a wise woman
manages a tyrannical husband without his perceiving it.
But I had allies in Sam Hawkins and his two companion scouts, Dick Stone
and Will Parker. They were friendly to me, and held off from the others,
in whom Sam Hawkins especially managed to inspire respect in spite of
his droll peculiarities. There was an alliance formed between us
silently, which I can best describe as a sort of feudal relation; he had
taken me under his protection like a man who did not need to ask if he
were understood. I was the “tenderfoot,” and he the experienced
frontiersman whose words and deeds had to be infallible to me. As often
as he had time and opportunity he gave me practical and theoretical
instruction in everything necessary to know and do in the Wild West; and
though I graduated from the high school later, so to speak, with
Winnetou as master, Sam Hawkins was my elementary teacher.
He made me expert with a lasso, and let me practise with that useful
weapon on his own little person and his horse. When I had reached the
point of catching them at every throw he was delighted, and cried out:
“Good, my young sir! That’s fine. But don’t be set up with this praise.
A teacher must encourage his stupid scholars when they make a little
progress. I have taught lots of young frontiersmen, and they all learned
much easier and understood me far quicker than you have, but perhaps
it’s possible that after eight years or so you may not be called a
tenderfoot. You can comfort yourself with the thought that sometimes a
stupid man gets on as well as or even a little better than a clever
one.”
He said this as if in sober earnest, and I received it in the same way,
knowing well how differently he meant it. We met at a distance from the
camp, where we could not be observed. Sam Hawkins would have it so; and
when I asked why, he said: “For mercy’s sake, hide yourself, sir. You
are so awkward that I should be ashamed to have these fellows see you,
so that’s why I keep you in the shade—that’s the only reason; take it to
heart.”
The consequence was that none of the company suspected that I had any
skill in weapons, or special muscular strength—an ignorance that I was
glad to foster.
One day I gave Rattler an order; it was some trifling thing, too small
for me to remember now, and he would have been willing to carry it out
had not his mood been rather uglier than usual.
“Do it yourself,” he growled. “You impudent greenhorn, I’ll show you I’m
as good as you are any day.”
“You’re drunk,” I said, looking him over and turning away.
“I’m drunk, am I?” he replied, glad of a chance to get at me, whom he
hated.
“Very drunk, or I’d knock you down,” I answered.
Rattler was a big, brawny fellow, and he stepped up in front of me,
rolling up his sleeves. “Who, me? Knock _me_ down? Well, I guess not,
you blower, you kid, you greenhorn—”
He said no more. I hit him square in the face, and he dropped like an
ox. Fearing mischief from Rattler’s followers, and realizing that now or
never was my authority to be established, I drew my pistol, crying: “If
one of you puts his hand to a weapon I’ll shoot him on the spot.” No one
stirred. “Take your friend away, and let him sober up, and when he comes
to his senses he may be more respectful,” I remarked.
As the men obeyed me, Wheeler, the surveyor, whom I thought the best of
the lot, stepped from the others and came up to me. “That was a great
blow,” he said. “Let me congratulate you. I never saw such strength.
They’ll call you Shatterhand out here.”
This seemed to suit little Sam exactly. He threw up his hat, shouting
joyously: “Shatterhand! Good! A tenderfoot, and already won a name, and
what a name! Shatterhand; Old Shatterhand. It’s like Old Firehand, who
is a frontiersman as strong as a bear. I tell you, boy, it’s great, and
you’re christened for good and all in the Wild West.”
And so I found myself in a new and strange life, and beginning it with a
new name, which became as familiar and as dear to me as my own.
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