Overland Part 13

"Jess so," admitted Glover. "Ruther airy. Big talkin' man. Don't raise no sech our way."

Captain Glover was not fully aware that he himself had the fame of possessing an imagination which was almost too much for the facts of this world.

"S'pose it's in the breed," he continued. "Or likely the climate has suthin' to do with it: kinder thaws out the words 'n' sets the idees a-bilin'. n.i.g.g.e.rs is pooty much the same. Most n.i.g.g.e.rs kin talk like a line runnin' out, 'n' tell lies 's fast 's our Fair Haven gals open oysters--a quart a minute."

"Captain Glover, what do you mean?" frowned Aunt Maria. "Mr. Coronado is a friend of mine."

"Oh, I was speakin' of n.i.g.g.e.rs," returned the skipper promptly. "Forgot we begun about the Seenor. Sho! n.i.g.g.e.rs was what I was talkin' of. B' th'

way, that puts me in mind 'f one I had for cook once. Jiminy! how that man would cook! He'd cook a slice of halibut so you wouldn't know it from beefsteak."

"Dear me! how did he do it?" asked Aunt Maria, who had a fancy for kitchen mysteries.

"Never could find out," said Glover, stepping adroitly out of his difficulty. "Don't s'pose that n.i.g.g.e.r would a let on how he did it for ten dollars."

"I should think the receipt would be worth ten dollars," observed Aunt Maria thoughtfully.

"Not 'xactly here," returned the captain, with one of his dried smiles, which had the air of having been used a great many times before. "Halibut too skurce. Wal, I was goin' to tell ye 'bout this n.i.g.g.e.r. He come to be the cook he was because he was a big eater. We was wrecked once, 'n' had to live three days on old shoes 'n' that sort 'f truck. Wal, this n.i.g.g.e.r was so darned ravenous he ate up a pair o' long boots in the time it took me to git down one 'f the straps."

"Ate up a pair of boots!" exclaimed Aunt Maria, amazed and almost incredulous.

"Yes, by thunder!" insisted the captain, "grease, nails, 'n' all. An' then went at the patent leather forepiece 'f his cap."

"What privations!" said Aunt Maria, staring fit to burst her spectacles.

"Oh, that's nothin'," chuckled Glover. "I'll tell ye suthin' some time that 'll astonish ye. But jess now I'm sleepy, 'n' I guess I'll turn in."

"Mr. Cluvver, it is your durn on card do-night," interposed Meyer, the German sergeant, as the captain was about to roll himself in his blankets.

"So 'tis," returned Glover in well feigned astonishment. "Don't forgit a feller, do ye, Sergeant? How 'n the world do ye keep the 'count so straight? Oh, got a little book there, hey, with all our names down. Wal, that's shipshape. You'd make a pooty good mate, Sergeant. When does my watch begin?"

"Right away. You're always on the virst relief. You'll fall in down there at the gorner of the vagon bark."

"Wal--yes--s'pose I will," sighed the skipper, as he rolled up his blankets and prepared for two hours' sentry duty.

Let us look into the arrangements for the protection of the caravan. With Coronado's consent Thurstane had divided the eighteen Indians and Mexicans, four soldiers, Texas Smith, and Glover, twenty-four men in all, into three equal squads, each composed of a sergeant, corporal, and six privates. Meyer was sergeant of one squad, the Irish veteran Kelly had another, and Texas Smith the third. Every night a detachment went on duty in three reliefs, each relief consisting of two men, who stood sentry for two hours, at the end of which time they were relieved by two others.

The six wagons were always parked in an oblong square, one at each end and two on each side; but in order to make the central s.p.a.ce large enough for camping purposes, they were placed several feet apart; the gaps being closed with lariats, tied from wheel to wheel, to pen in the animals and keep out charges of Apache cavalry. On either flank of this enclosure, and twenty yards or so distant from it, paced a sentry. Every two hours, as we have said, they were relieved, and in the alternate hours the posts were visited by the sergeant or corporal of the guard, who took turns in attending to this service. The squad that came off duty in the morning was allowed during the day to take naps in the wagons, and was not put upon the harder camp labor, such as gathering firewood, going for water, etc.

The two ladies and the Indian women slept at night in the wagons, not only because the canvas tops protected them from wind and dew, but also because the wooden sides would shield them from arrows. The men who were not on guard lay under the vehicles so as to form a cordon around the mules.

Thurstane and Coronado, the two chiefs of this armed migration, had their alternate nights of command, each when off duty sleeping in a special wagon known as "headquarters," but holding himself ready to rise at once in case of an alarm.

The cooking fires were built away from the park, and outside the beats of the sentries. The object was twofold: first, to keep sparks from lighting on the wagon covers; second, to hide the sentries from prowling archers.

At night you can see everything between yourself and a fire, but nothing beyond it. As long as the wood continued to blaze, the most adroit Indian skulker could not approach the camp without exposing himself, while the guards and the garrison were veiled from his sight by a wall of darkness behind a dazzle of light.

Such were the bivouac arrangements, intelligent, systematic, and military.

Not only had our Lieutenant devised them, but he saw to it that they were kept in working order. He was zealously and faithfully seconded by his men, and especially by his two veterans. There is no human machine more accurate and trustworthy than an old soldier, who has had year on year of the discipline and drill of a regular service, and who has learned to carry out instructions to the letter.

The arrangements for the march were equally thorough and judicious. Texas Smith, as the Nimrod of the party, claimed the right of going where he pleased; but while he hunted, he of course served also as a scout to nose out danger. The six Mexicans, who were nominally cattle-drivers, but really Coronado's minor bravos, were never suffered to ride off in a body, and were expected to keep on both sides of the train, some in advance and some in rear. The drivers and muleteers remained steadily with their wagons and animals. The four soldiers were also at hand, trudging close in front or in rear, accoutrements always on and muskets always loaded.

In this fashion the expedition had already journeyed over two hundred and twenty miles. Following Colonel Washington's trail, it had crossed the ranges of mountains immediately west of Abiquia, and, striking the Rio de Chaco, had tracked its course for some distance with the hope of reaching the San Juan. Stopped by a canon, a precipitous gully hundreds of feet deep, through which the Chaco ran like a chased devil, the wagons had turned westward, and then had been forced by impa.s.sable ridges and lack of water into a southwest direction, at last gaining and crossing Pa.s.s Washington.

It was now on the western side of the Sierra de Chusca, in the rude, barren country over which Fort Defiance stands sentry. Ever since the second day after leaving San Isidore it had been on the great western slope of the continent, where every drop of water tends toward the Pacific. The pilgrims would have had cause to rejoice could they have travelled as easily as the drops of water, and been as certain of their goal. But the rivers had made roads for themselves, and man had not yet had time to do likewise.

The great central plateau of North America is a Mer de Glace in stone. It is a continent of rock, gullied by furious rivers; plateau on plateau of sandstone, with sluiceways through which lakes have escaped; the whole surface gigantically grotesque with the carvings of innumerable waters.

What is remarkable in the scenery is, that its sublimity is an inversion of the sublimity of almost all other grand scenery. It is not so much the heights that are prodigious as the abysses. At certain points in the course of the Colorado of the West you can drop a plumb line six thousand feet before it will reach the bosom of the current; and you can only gain the water level by turning backward for scores of miles and winding laboriously down some subsidiary canon, itself a chasm of awful grandeur.

Our travellers were now amid wild labyrinths of ranges, and b.u.t.tes, and canons, which were not so much a portion of the great plateau as they were the _debris_ that const.i.tuted its flanks. Although thousands of feet above the level of the sea, they still had thousands of feet to ascend before they could dominate the desert. Wild as the land was, it was thus far pa.s.sable, while toward the north lay the untraversable. What course should be taken? Coronado, who had crimes to commit and to conceal, did not yet feel that he was far enough from the haunts of man. As soon as possible he must again venture a push northward.

But not immediately. The mules were f.a.gged with hard work, weak with want of sufficient pasture, and had suffered much from thirst. He resolved to continue westward to the pueblas of the Moquis, that interesting race of agricultural and partially civilized Indians, perhaps the representatives of the architects of the Casas Grandes if not also descended from the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley. Having rested and refitted there, he might start anew for the San Juan.

Thus far they had seen no Indians except the vagrants who had robbed Phineas Glover. But they might now expect to meet them; they were in a region which was the raiding ground of four great tribes: the Utes on the north, the Navajos on the west, the Apaches on the south, and the Comanches on the east. The peaceful and industrious Moquis, with their gay and warm blankets, their fields of corn and beans, and their flocks of sheep, are the quarry which attracts this ferocious cavalry of the desert, these Tartars and Bedouin of America.

Thurstane took more pains than ever with the guard duty. Coronado, unmilitary though he was, and heartily as he abominated the Lieutenant, saw the wisdom of submitting to the latter's discipline, and made all his people submit. A practical-minded man, he preferred to owe the safety of his carca.s.s to his rival rather than have it impaled on Apache lances.

Occasionally, however, he made a suggestion.

"It is very well, this night-watching," he once observed, "but what we have most to fear is the open daylight. These mounted Indians seldom attack in the darkness."

Thurstane knew all this, but he did not say so; for he was a wise, considerate commander already, and he had learned not to chill an informant. He looked at Coronado inquiringly, as if to say, What do you propose?

"Every canon ought to be explored before we enter it," continued the Mexican.

"It is a good hint," said Ralph. "Suppose I keep two of your cattle-drivers constantly in advance. You had better instruct them yourself. Tell them to fire the moment they discover an ambush. I don't suppose they will hit anybody, but we want the warning."

With two hors.e.m.e.n three or four hundred yards to the front, two more an equal distance in the rear, and, when the ground permitted, one on either flank, the train continued its journey. Every wagon-driver and muleteer had a weapon of some sort always at hand. The four soldiers marched a few rods in advance, for the ground behind had already been explored, while that ahead might contain enemies. The precautions were extraordinary; but Thurstane constantly trembled for Clara. He would have thought a regiment hardly sufficient to guard such a treasure.

"How timorous these men are," sniffed Aunt Maria, who, having seen no hostile Indians, did not believe there were any. "And it seems to me that soldiers are more easily scared than anybody else," she added, casting a depreciating glance at Thurstane, who was reconnoitring the landscape through his field gla.s.s.

Clara believed in men, and especially in soldiers, and more particularly in lieutenants. Accordingly she replied, "I suppose they know the dangers and we don't."

"Pshaw!" said Aunt Maria, an argument which carried great weight with her.

"They don't know half what they claim to. It is a clever man who knows one-tenth of his own business." (She was right there.) "They don't know so much, I verily and solemnly believe, as the women whom they pretend to despise."

This peaceful and cheering conversation was interrupted by a shot ringing out of a canon which opened into a range of rock some three hundred yards ahead of the caravan. Immediately on the shot came a yell as of a hundred demons, a furious trampling of the feet of many horses, and a cloud of the Tartars of the American desert.

In advance of the rush flew the two Mexican vedettes, screaming, "Apaches!

Apaches!"

CHAPTER X.

When the Apache tornado burst out of the canon upon the train, Thurstane's first thought was, "Clara!"

"Get off!" he shouted to her, seizing and holding her startled horse.

"Into the wagon, quick! Now lie down, both of you."

He thundered all this out as sternly as if he were commanding troops.