[1] Begun in No. 101, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.
Before Steve Harrison and his friend left the ruins of the ancient town
behind them, they had decided that they were going away from a complete
solitude--a place where even wild Indians did not very often come.
It looked desolate enough, with its scattered inclosures of rough stone,
not one of them with any roof on, or any sign that people had lived
there for a hundred years at least. The windows in the tumbling walls
had probably never had either sash or glass in them, and the furniture,
used by the people who built the village, whatever it may have been, had
long since disappeared.
It could never have been a very large or populous town, but it could
hardly at any time have had a wilder-looking set of inhabitants than
were the party of men who drew near it at about the time when Steve and
Murray were killing their cougar.
Two tilted wagons, a good deal the worse for wear, apparently pretty
heavily laden, and drawn by six mules each, were accompanied by about
two dozen men on horseback. Their portraits would have made the fortune
of any picture-gallery in the world. Everybody would have gone to look
at such a collection of bearded desperadoes.
They were not Indians, nor were they dressed as such. They were attired
in every fashion except well and cleanly. If the odds and ends of
several clothing stores had been picked up after a fire, and then worn
about out, and patched and mended with bits of blankets and greasy
buckskin, something like those twenty odd suits of clothes might have
been produced; that is, if the man who tried to do it could have had
these for a pattern. If not, he would have failed.
The men themselves were as much out of the common way as were the
clothes they wore, but they had somehow managed to keep their horses and
mules in pretty good condition.
Horses and mules are of more importance than clothing to men who are as
far away from tailors and civilization as were these new-comers in the
neighborhood of Steve's mine.
If Steve had seen them he would probably have trembled for the
"Buckhorn," for Murray would at once have told him that these men were
miners.
That was nothing against them, certainly, and they must have been daring
fellows to push their hunt for gold so far beyond any region known to
such hunters.
One look at their hard, reckless faces would have convinced anybody
about their "daring." They looked as if they were ready for anything.
So they were, indeed, and it is quite probable a man of Murray's
experience would have guessed at once that they were ready for a good
many other things besides mining.
Just now certainly they were thinking of something else.
"Bill," said the foremost rider to a man a little behind him, "we were
wrong to leave the trail of them army fellers. We're stuck and lost in
here among the mountains."
"It looks like it. We'll hev to go into camp, and scout around till we
find a pass. But it wasn't any use follerin' the cavalry arter we found
they was bound west."
"That's so. It won't do for us to come out on the Pacific slope. It's
Mexico or Texas for us."
"We'd better say Santa Fe."
"They'd make us give too close an account of ourselves there. Some of
the boys might let out somethin'."
"Guess it's Mexico, then. That isn't far away now. But I wish I knew the
way down out of this."
The ruins, strange and wonderful as they were, did not seem to excite
any great degree of curiosity among those men. They talked about them,
to be sure, but in a way which showed that they had all seen the same
sort of thing before during their wild rovings among the mountains and
valleys of the great Southwest.
Just such ruins are to be found in a great many places. We do not even
know how many, and nobody has been able yet to more than guess by whom
they were built or when.
Mere ravines and gorges and cañons would not do for this party. They
must find a regular "pass," down which they could manage to take their
horses and mules and wagons. Even before they halted, several of them
had been looking and pointing toward what Murray had spoken of as "the
western gap."
That was the opening through the ranges which had been for a moment such
a temptation to Steve Harrison.
"It's west'ard, Bill, but it may hev to do for us."
"It may take us down, to some lower level, or it may show us a way
south."
"The great Southern Pass is down hereaway somewhar."
"Further east than this. We ought to strike it, though, before we cross
the border."
"Mexico ain't a country I'd choose to go inter, ef I hed my own way, but
we've got to go for it this time."
But whatever may have been their reason for seeking Mexico, they were
just now a good deal puzzled as to the precise path by means of which
they might reach it. It was getting late in the day, too, for any kind
of exploration, and the mule-teams looked as if they had done about
enough.
So it came to pass that the ruined village of the forgotten people was
once more occupied.
Did they go into the houses? No. It was the man called Bill who said it,
but all the rest of them seemed to feel just as he did, when he
remarked:
"Sleep in one of them things? No, I guess not--not even if it was roofed
in. They were set up too long ago to suit me."
That stamped him as an American, for there is no other people in the
world that hate old houses. No real American was ever known to use an
old building of any kind a day longer than he could help. He would as
soon think of wearing old clothes just because they were old.
The ground near the ruins was covered with fragments of stone and fallen
masonry, but there was a good camping ground between that and the trees
from which Murray and Steve had fired at the buck.
"It's the loneliest kind of a place, Captain Skinner," said Bill, just
after he had helped turn the mules loose on the grass.
"I wish I knew just how lonely it is. I kind o' smell something."
"Do ye, Cap?"
Every such band of men has its "Captain," of some kind, and sometimes
very good discipline and order is kept up. But Captain Skinner was
hardly the man anybody would have picked out for a leader, before seeing
how the rest listened to what he said, and how readily they seemed to
obey him.
He was the shortest, thinnest, ugliest, and most ragged man in the whole
party; and just at this moment he did not appear to be carrying any arms
except the knife and pistol in his belt.
"If I don't smell it, I can see it. Look yonder, Bill."
"That's so!--blood!"
It was the spot on which the buck had fallen, and in a moment more than
half a dozen men were looking around in all directions.
They understood all they saw, too, as well as any Indians in the world,
for in less than five minutes Captain Skinner said: "That'll do, boys.
We must follow that trail. Two white hunters. They killed the buck. Both
wore moccasins; so they ain't fresh from the settlements. There's
something queer about it. They were on foot, and they carried off their
game."
It was indeed very queer, and it would not do to let any such puzzle as
that go by unsolved. So, while several men were ordered out after game,
and several more were left to guard the camp, Captain Skinner himself,
with Bill and five others, armed to the teeth, set out at once on the
trail of Murray and Steve Harrison.
It was easy enough to follow those two pairs of footprints as long as
they were made in the grass. After they got upon rocky ground, it was
not so easy, and the miners did not get ahead so fast; but they did not
lose the trail for a moment. Indeed, it was about as straight in one
direction as the nature of the ground would permit.
"Two fellers out yer among these ere mountains, all by themselves,"
growled Bill, as they drew near the ledge at the head of the deep cañon.
"We don't know that they're all alone yet," said Captain Skinner. "They
carried that deer somewhere."
"Right down yonder, Captain. They stopped here to rest from kerryin' of
it, and I don't blame 'em, if they'd got to tote it down through that
thar cañon."
"It's a deep one, no mistake."
"Captain, look yer!" suddenly exclaimed one of the men. "We've lit on it
this time."
"The ledge? I wasn't looking at that."
A perfect storm of exclamations followed from every pair of lips in the
party. Such a ledge as that they had never seen before, old mine-hunters
as they were. But each one seemed inclined to ask, just as Murray had
asked of Steve, what could be done with it. Gold enough, but nothing to
get it out of the rock with, and no where to carry it to. It was a sad
problem for men who cared for nothing in the wide world but just such
ledges and just such gold. What was the use of it?
Steve Harrison never knew it, but his mine was of a good deal of use to
him and Murray just then. It kept Captain Skinner and his men looking at
it long enough for them to get nearly back to the camp of the Lipans.
"It won't do, boys," said Captain Skinner at last. "We're wasting time.
Come on."
They followed him, every man turning his head as he did so to take
another look at the yellow spots that shone here and there in the
quartz. Their way down the ravine was made with care and circumspection,
for they did not know at what moment they might come in sight of "those
two fellers and their deer."
It was well for them, probably, that they were cautious, for, after a
good deal of steep climbing, just as they were about to clamber down one
of the rocky "stairs," the man called Bill exclaimed, "Captain, thar it
is!"
"The deer? They've left it. I see it."
"More'n that further down."
"A big-horn! And there's a painter lying beside it!"
"More'n that, Cap. They didn't give up that thar game for nothin'."
"Lay low, boys. Git to cover right away. Red-skins!"
There was no difficulty in hiding among the rocks and bowlders, and the
miners were out of sight in a moment.
They could see, though, even if they were not seen, and they were soon
able to count a dozen Indian warriors leading three pack-ponies as far
up the ravine as four-footed beasts could go.
"Wonder if they've wiped out the two fellers," said Bill.
"Looks like it. Or they may have captured 'em. Lost their game, if they
haven't lost their scalps. Wonder what tribe of red-skins they are,
anyhow."
There was a better reason than that why No Tongue and Yellow Head did
not come back with their friends, but it was just as well that Captain
Skinner and his miners did not understand it.
"Captain," whispered one of the men, "shall we let drive at 'em? We
could pick off half of 'em first fire."
"Not a shot. All we want jest now is to be let alone. I don't mind
killing a few red-skins."
"Mebbe they killed the two fellers."
"Likely as not. I'm kind o' glad they did. That there ledge is ours now.
Let 'em carry off their game, and then we'll climb back. I reckon I know
now how we'd best work our way down to the level those Indians came
from."
[Illustration: THE LIPANS SECURING THE GAME.]
The Lipans made short work of loading their ponies, and the moment they
were out of sight, the miners began their climb out of that cañon. There
was no good reason why they should follow the Lipans.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]