Saddle And Mocassin Part 14

The old Spaniards, by the way, displayed great felicity in their nomenclature. They were evidently closely observant, too, for, in the same virile spirit of simplicity and directness which characterises all that is really typical of old Spanish art, they generally seized on the salient features of the place to be christened, and allowed play to the imagination only in so wording the t.i.tle that, although apt and descriptive, it did not become absolutely commonplace. In travelling through the States, the poverty of invention, patent lack of observation, and vulgarity displayed in the nomenclature is extraordinary,[35] and is in striking contrast with the work of the superseded Spaniards, or with the exquisitely beautiful names that sprang like inspirations from the hearts of those admirable G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers, the Indians, and remain a legacy of unset poetic gems, croppings up of a great lead of poetry buried now for ever beneath an avalanche of the Caucasian race. Nowhere can you find that the untutored savage has bestowed his own name on a mountain or river! Such sublime insolence is far less frequent even in Mexico (colonised though the country was by the proudest and most egotistical race in the world) than in the States. But in the States, with everything grand and beautiful in nature to stimulate the imagination, the refined product of modern culture has found nothing fitter to inscribe upon the newest and fairest page that civilisation has turned than his own unmeaning appellation, nothing more remarkable to call attention to than his own vulgarity, and Jonesvilles, Smithtowns, Robinsonopolises, Brown Cities, and the like, besides similarly denominated mountains and rivers, render the map hideous and the Anglo-Saxon race ridiculous. Curious indeed is the influence of modern culture. Has it not founded the mighty order of Sn.o.bs, and created the distinctive spirit of modern times--vulgarity--the religion without creed or G.o.d, fashioned as it has been since faith and G.o.d-manufacture perished beneath the growing blight of egotism?

In the Cojon Bonita we threaded our way along a narrow smuggler's trail, through scenery that grew wilder and wilder every moment. The topaz-tinted gra.s.ses of autumn contrasted with gray or purple cliffs, the dark foliage of the live-oak with the pale leaves of the cotton-tree, sycamore, or willow. Some of the clouds of colouring that the latter triad presented were simply exquisite. Every shade of amber, crushed strawberry, and all their next-of-kin, combined to make a chord of marvellous delicacy, soft in its gradations as the clouds of heaven, and as powerfully relieved against the velvet-toned rocks, as they against the azure sky. Through all this chaos of colour and beauty, shattered light and shadow, wound a little stream--_lento_, _piano_, _dolce_, _allegro_, _vivace_, _forte_--gliding now over gold and chocolate bars of shingle, now over purple shelves of rock, now silent and deep, now garrulous and shallow, now unimpeded and smooth, now checked by a great drift-wood trunk from below which trailed long liquid tresses, foamy, rebellious, and white, or undulating, glossy, and dark in hue, whilst everywhere amidst the crystal ripples danced flitting reflections of blue sky and lovely foliage, crossed by the darting phantoms of frightened fish. The _frou-frou_ of dried leaves and herbage, the murmur of waters, and the whispering of the afternoon winds as they played hide and seek in the thousand canons of the Cojon Bonita, filled the air with a dreamy tumult. It was a wild spot--as wild

"As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted By woman wailing for her demon lover."

Here, if anywhere, it seemed that the old mythical people of the woods, and mountains, and streams--the nymphs, the fauns, and satyrs, and other damsels and gentry of irregular habits and questionable record that were once the fashion, must have retreated. But if they had done so, like "ole Brer Rabbit," they "lay low." No nymph, with scanty costume and dishevelled tresses, sprang from the long gra.s.s and fled at our approach. No satyr appeared and faded from sight amidst the aged trunks.

We were alone, apparently.

At length we reached the spot where it was decided that we should camp; the stream that we had followed was joined here by another, and three canons debouched upon a little open s.p.a.ce, trefoil-shaped. It was too late to start on a tramp, so the close of the afternoon was spent in catching fish. How did we catch them?--we had neither tackle nor nets.

Well, we exploded a bit of giant powder in the midst of a shoal, and that is the shameful truth of it. It was the only possible means at hand of getting them, and the Colonel had set his affections on a fry for that evening. The confession is disgraceful, but the crime was partly expiated by our having to strip and wade into the icy water, in that deep corner in the rocks, after sundown, in order to collect the stunned fish that floated on the surface.

Hunting, as has been remarked, proved a failure. The size of our party, though it ensured our own safety, militated against our success.

Moreover, not very long before, a band of native scouts had spent three days here, and killed over a hundred deer. My most vivid recollections of the trip, therefore, are connected with the evenings that we spent round the camp-fire. A steep amphitheatre of hills surrounded us, overspread by jewelled skies as serene and blue as the deepest coral seas; at an hour that grew later and later, the red moon stole up over the jagged ridges and shed its gorgeous light on the scene; a hundred yards off, on ground below us, were the quarters of the men, and their camp-fires flashed and twinkled amidst the cotton-woods, their laughter and choruses reached us pleasantly on the night air.

Oh, the songs that were sung, and the tales that were told, the yarns that were spun, and the jokes that were cracked in those few nights!

"Old songs," you say, "that we had each sung hundreds of times before, and should have thought intolerably wearisome had we heard them on one another's lips! Tales for which we were each prepared, and of which we had sometimes even to remind one another in order that the lawful owners should dispense them! Yarns which only the narrator believed, and that, probably, only from force of repet.i.tion! And jokes--G.o.d save the mark!--mellow already when they were cracked in the fo'k'sle of the ark!" Likely enough, gentle cynic. There is nothing new; the freshest lily is as old as the world. The "merry jest" may, as Andrew Lang sings, descend to us from some Aryan brain. But the laughter is our own, and that is all that concerns us.

"Hand me the canteen again, then," says the Major, as with his swarthy face beaming joyously in the fire-light, he stands moistening the sugar for a second round of toddies, in obedience to a general request. "You boys remind me of the fellow who said that, 'When he had taken one drink it always made him feel like another man, and then, of course, in common politeness he felt obliged to treat the other man.'"

A general laugh followed the Major's sally.

"Do you remember Bat Hogan, at Georgetown, Major?--a fellow with a hare-lip," asked Huse.

"Bat Hogan? Yes--every cold night that I miss the pair of Navajo blankets he stole from me."

"Bat came in up there from a long drive on the stage one night, and got hold of the whisky-bottle and a tumbler at the bar. Well, sir, he poured himself out a full gla.s.s of it. 'Say! that ain't cider, you know,' said the bar-tender. 'I shoul' hope no',' said Bat. 'I woul'n't drink tha'

much cider for a thousan' dollars.'"

A score of similar anecdotes succeeded this one. The Colonel stroked his beard, removed his cigar deliberately, pausing every now and then as deliberately at exciting junctures to keep it alight, and reeled off a few; and by degrees the conversation drifted on to cards and gambling.

"Were you there, Colonel, the night that the fellows put that job up on Mills' partner?" asked F.

"Why, of course I was. Didn't Tom Templeton come down to the 'Depot' to tell us about it? It was the night that that dance was going on there,--when Skippy said that when old Mac danced he put on so much style that 'he only touched on the high places as he floated round the room.'"

"Ah! and nearly got a six-shooter rammed down his throat for it, too!"

"Well, Tom came down just in the middle of that business, and told us all that they were going to have a game with--what was his name, anyhow?"

"Cuff."

"Old Cuff, yes."

"What was it?" asked some of us.

"Well, Mills and Cuff had a saloon and a faro-bank up town, in Deming,"

said the Colonel. "Mills was a smart fellow, and a square man, too; but old Cuff was a sort of drivelling old jacka.s.s, only fit to sit under the stoop in front of the house, and give the time of day to the pa.s.sers by. However, he wanted to do things--he would deal at faro, and he would meddle in this, that, and the other, until Mills was very often so mad that he could have taken him by the heels and dusted the ornaments with him. One day he got half-a-dozen tin-horn gamblers together, and between them they put up a cold deck[36] in a faro-box. Then, when there was nothing particular going on, Mills gave up his place as dealer to Cuff, and rung in the new box on him. Well, the tin-horns were there in a body, with a few stacks of chips,[37] playing light--waiting for the deal, you see--and as soon as Cuff took his place they began doubling up, and doubling up, and just sousing it to him red-hot. Before half the deal was over, the whole bank of checks was gone, and Cuff was giving markers for hundreds as hard as he could go it. At the end of the deal he was about nine thousand dollars out. And, by gosh! you never saw a man in such a state in your life! The perspiration rolled off him in streams; he began laughing and crying like an idiot. I thought he was going to choke once."

"How did it all end?"

"Oh, the boys kept him on the 'anxious seat' for two or three days, and that cured him. He never wanted to deal any more; he would hardly believe that they _had_ been joshing him, when they did tell him the truth."

"Talking about 'tin-horns,' Frank Therman used to tell a good yarn,"

observed the Major presently. "d.i.c.k Miller came to him one afternoon, and said, 'Look here, Frank! I've got a dead sure thing on--can't lose!

I want you to lend me fifty dollars to work it with.' Frank gave him the money--_he_ didn't care anyhow, he'd stake anybody. Pretty soon, in came Jim Baker. 'Say, old pard! do you want to stake me with fifty dollars?--it's a real good investment--can't help winning.' 'What's on?'

asked Frank. 'Oh, some suckers want to play poker.' He got his fifty dollars, and quit. Just as soon as he had gone, in came Dutch Henry. 'I vas joost looking for you, Fr-r-ank,' says he. 'I hef got something so goot vat a man vants.' 'The ---- you have! Have you caught a sucker too?' 'Sucker! Ven you poot 'im in zer son, he ron vays--melt, I min!'

'You don't want that,' said Frank. 'No--no, zir!--you pet! Look here, Frenk, olt man! I got no tollars--von't you lent me a feefty-tollar pill?' Well, he got his fifty-dollar 'pill,' and he hadn't been gone long before Smiling Moses appeared. 'Frank, old pard! I just want fifty dollars for an hour or two--give it to you again to-night. I've got a "soft snap" on--can't miss it.' 'You don't say!' said Frank. 'Well, I'll be good -- --, if those quail showers your tribe used to catch in the wilderness were in it with our sucker storms! Here's your bill! go right along and make an independent fortune while you can.' Well, Smiling Moses skinned out, and the more Frank got to thinking of it, the more he couldn't make out what in ---- had come to town to make the boys so busy. So as there was very little faro play going on, he left Moore to deal, and strolled out to look round a bit. He went into the 'Corral'--there were none of his men there. He looked into the 'Ranch'

and the 'Mine'--devil a sign of them. He went pretty well all round town, and, finally, it occurred to him to drop into a little 'dive' on Jim Street. He walked through the bar and pushed the card-room door open. And there they were, sir, playing poker together--all four of them! Each tin-horn with the most profound contempt for the others'

skill. I think that's a delightful bit of satire on humanity."

"Moore tells a tale of the old Mississippi steamer days that isn't bad,"

said W. "A tender-foot got in amongst the gamblers on board one of the boats once, and what with 'strippers,' and 'stocking,' and 'cold decks,'

and 'bugs,' and 'reflectors,' and 'codes,' and so forth, he hadn't the ghost of a show. They played him to h--l and gone in a very short time.

It was a regular case of 'Shuf', dad, shuf'! it's all you'll get.' They soon cleaned him out. Well, walking round the deck afterwards, thinking it over quietly, he found a ten-dollar bill left in one of his pockets, which he had forgotten, and rushed back at once to the saloon with it.

'Boys,' he shouted, 'I want to bet this ten-dollar bill that I can whistle louder than the engine.' 'Oh, quit!' they said; 'if you've got ten dollars left, freeze on to it. Don't throw it away in any such fooling.' 'That'll be all right,' he said, 'I know what I'm about; I'll bet, anyhow.' So finally one of them took him up, and they went outside to see the fun. The chap, he got up on one of the paddle-boxes, and asked the captain to let off the whistle. Well, he just turned her loose, and there was a shriek that you might have heard in China. Of course the 'tender-foot' wasn't in it. However, he didn't seem disappointed. He came down, and paid his bill cheerfully enough. 'You can laugh, boys,' he said quietly, 'but I'll be durned if that ain't the squarest deal I've had on board yet.'"

My stay in Animas Valley was drawing to a close when I returned to the Gray Place one afternoon, bringing with me an antelope that I had shot, and having parted with Jake, who had followed a fresh trail down into the Skeleton Canon, to turn back a small band of cattle that were straying in that direction. The house was empty. Don Cabeza had gone over to the neighbouring camp to chat with the officers; Murray and Joe were still out; and Squito was not seated, as was generally the case, on the bench by the door, her curly black head bent over a dime novel.

While I was yet in the distance, I had noticed her little figure on one of the hillocks behind the house, where she would often stand for an hour at a time, shading her eyes, and scanning the valley for "old man Murray," of whom she was pa.s.sionately fond. But she had vanished now.

Unsaddling my horse, I turned him loose to join his fellows on the _cienega_, and, lighting a cigarette, strolled up towards Squito's favourite coigne of observation to enjoy the stillness which the great expanse of the view from thence seemed to accentuate always.

The sky was fretted with the faint fires of a sunset, delicate in its colours as pale orchids--colours that might have been conceived by a fairy, and broadcast by a gale. The soft air mused and mused in the dry crowsfoot gramma gra.s.s that clothed the country, making a music that seemed a very air-treasured echo and tradition of sweet old-world sounds become transiently audible again in the silence of the moment. From the yellow slopes around its base, old Animas towered king-like above the valley; and dim blue, mystic peaks and crests, like a company of ghosts, low down on the horizon to the south, marked the commencement of the Sierra Madre.

I was surmounting the brow of the first knoll, when involuntarily I stopped. In a little hollow before me, Squito was dancing by herself--a dance that probably had its origin in some old Spanish bolero, seen by her in her early childhood, and partly retained in memory. But the gestures, poses, motive and method of the dance were her own, and it seemed that her mind was filled with some theme as she danced. The hot blood of her race had sway over her, and totally unconscious of my presence (for only my head and shoulders were visible, and these partly concealed amidst cacti and rocks), she abandoned herself entirely to the impulse of the moment. The slant, rosy gleams from heaven played upon her, as she danced, partly in light and partly in shadow, turning and swaying, and swiftly moving over the little flat that served her for a floor. Pliant as a willow wand, lissom as a rabbit, her light form changed its poise rapidly or slowly, but always with swimming ease and continuity of motion. Where did her actions begin--where end? It was impossible to say. They were, and they were not. They came, they pa.s.sed away; merged into one another, but measurable, distinctly, as little as is the sound of something that travels. With steps small, or for a moment boldly prolonged, she came and went. And now her little figure seemed to dilate with pa.s.sion, now droop in exquisite languor, her arms and head moving in unison with the spirit of her mood--beseeching now, now beckoning, scoffing, defying, imperiously commanding.

Oh, Squito, Squito! how many a _premiere danseuse_ would pledge her jewels to acquire a t.i.the of the natural gift that you possess, of the very existence of which you cannot be said to be fully conscious, and the evidence of which, only old Animas, and the cacti, and the scored, purple boulders of the hills, or, perchance, a select circle of cow-boy familiars are permitted to witness.

Breathless she paused, her brown eyes flashing fire, and in a second she caught sight of me. She started, halted, then turned precipitously and fled. From that moment until when I left, a few days later, she never addressed me unless forced to do so, and then only in the brusquest monosyllables. However, when the Colonel and I were preparing to start, she hovered round us restlessly for some time, and finally conquered her shyness sufficiently to speak to me.

"The boys say that you're going down into Mexico--Chihuahua and there?"

"Yes, I shall run down there again shortly, Squito."

"Likely you'll see Sam somewheres."

"Sam? Who is Sam?"

"Sam," she repeated simply, in the glorious egotism of first love taking it for granted that all the world knew her Sam. "Sam Rider, who used to work in the Animas," and her increasing confusion suddenly reminded me of the man she had taken up the cudgels for, on my first evening in the valley, and who I had since heard had got into some shooting sc.r.a.pe and fled into Mexico.

"Oh, yes, I remember--of course."

"Won't you give him a message for me?"

"Certainly, if I see him. What can I tell him for you?"

"Tell him--tell him----" and hesitating painfully, with a world of trouble in her marvellous eyes, the child looked up at me earnestly. The colour had faded from her face, all its lines were exquisitely softened, and as she smiled apologetically her lips just trembled. "Tell him you seen me--and--and--tell him I told yer to say so. Will you?--please. He said he'd write."

"I'll tell him, Squito. Anything else?"