Saddle And Mocassin Part 7

Early morning saw us under way in different directions. B. and Mac rowed to a point two miles down the sh.o.r.e of the lake; Texas struck inland for a little lake in the woods.

Into the broken country we plunged, where the scarlet of the vine aspen softened into amber; the shades of purple lake, that distinguished the fallen and decayed trunks, graduated into cinnamons and browns; the claret-hued bark of living pines contrasted with the charcoal of dead trees, which bore the indelible legend of a fire that had swept the hills a few summers ago. Pa.s.sing into a section of the country that had suffered more severely from its ravages, we found the new growth of pine saplings standing almost as thick as corn in a corn-field. It was tedious work thrusting a way through this miniature forest; and not less troublesome was it to traverse some of the intervening valleys, where the fire had not penetrated, and where fallen trunks, the acc.u.mulation of long decades, crossed one another in inextricable confusion, like gigantic squills. Sometimes, by emulating Blondin, it was possible to advance unimpeded for forty or fifty--even a hundred feet along the naked stem of a tree that lay athwart its brethren. But this was rare, and the incidental croppers rendered clambering in and out of the log wells the most satisfactory mode of progress after all.

Occasionally we came to a partially bare-backed ridge where deer-tracks were numerous, and where usually we should have been likely to find game. But prolonged drought had rendered everything as dry as touchwood.

Every twig, every fern, every leaf, every blade of gra.s.s crackled if touched. It was impossible to approach game noiselessly until after a rainfall, and the futility of endeavouring to do so was strikingly ill.u.s.trated to us once.

We were resting upon a hill-side, when a series of reports, that fairly mimicked the "hammer" of distant rifle-firing in a wood, reached us. For the moment I thought that it was firing, but attention immediately corrected the impression. The sound approached, and though it might have been heard a mile away in the perfectly still air, it was evidently only the echo of breaking twigs and sticks, caused by a deer moving rapidly through a narrow bottom.

We reached the small lake we were in search of. In its hollow of purple pines it lay like a basket, woven of feathery reflections, filled with silver clouds, fragments of dusky blue, and floating aquatic foliage and flowers. Fish were rising wherever the windless surface was un.o.bstructed by vegetation, and surely they could not have had a more delightful abode than was this crystal crypt, with its sapphire shadows, and myriad slender columns of emerald stalks.

On the way back to camp Texas shot two grouse with his revolver. Grouse here, by the way, remain perched on the branches of a tree until one is within ten or fifteen yards of them.

B. and Mac had returned before us. B. (an old hunter in the States) had grasped the situation, and thenceforward refused to undertake the heavy work tramping through these woods entailed, when it was practically labour wasted. In future he devoted his attention to fishing and duck shooting. It was possible to bag a few stray duck, but although at certain seasons of the year the fishing is unrivalled in Pend d'Oreille Lake, when we were there, it was not worth mentioning.

We shifted camp, and for two or three days I persevered unsuccessfully with the rifle. Once, selecting the bald summit of a ridge where there were plenty of deer-trails as our point of operations, Texas and I lay hidden and watched from late in the afternoon till dark, when we bivouacked on the ground. But we saw no game, although two or three times during the night we heard deer moving.

Disappointed of sport on the lake itself, we commenced the ascent of its tributary, Pack River. Five portages in the first four miles, however, and the fact that there was no prospect of the surrounding country growing any clearer, cooled our enthusiasm for exploration, and, eventually, having added a duck, a brace of plover, and three brook-trout to our game list, we returned to the lake, determined to seek other if not happier hunting-grounds.

The reader is disgusted--deceived, perhaps, in the expectation of perusing an account of dire slaughter. Undoubtedly, the supposition that game was to be killed on Pend d'Oreille Lake in September, was a delusion. But delusions, illusions, and the like are the salt of life.

Only the illusions do not pall; only the illusions do not pa.s.s away.

True disappointment lies in complete success. One thing, at any rate, we were not deceived about. Pend d'Oreille was very beautiful, and it is worth something to be able to close your eyes, and see it as I saw it on the morning that we left--as I see it now, in fact, although two thousand miles of mountain and prairie lie between us as I write.

A slender shaft of blue smoke rises straight from the smouldering embers of our last night's fire on the beach. The air is fresh and still--there is no stillness, though, like that of the expectant pause which heralds the roar of day, no freshness like the evanescent freshness of sunrise.

Texas is gathering drift-wood at high-water mark. Down where the boat is drawn up on the sands, the dark figure of Old Mac, in his broad black sombrero, is keenly outlined against the steely waters. Already the leaden sky is luminous with dawn; its pearly tones, as delicate in their nuances of shading as the neck of a dove, flush faintly and uncertainly.

Cloud-edge after cloud-edge grows dazzling with silvery light, and, at length, the sun lifts the last clinging shred of the lake's gauze coverlet of mist, and reveals it in its bed of soft and hazy hills, motionless and pale for a moment before it is dyed with, surely the loveliest tint of rose that even Nature ever displayed. The first breath of the morning wind steals down from the mountains, to kiss its tranquil surface; it shivers, trembles, breaks into shattered light and motion like a thing of life awaking, and once more the old song of the waters has softly recommenced.

Yonder gleam of white, low down on the far side, under that pine-scattered mountain, is Hope Station, whence we take our departure at noon.

CHAPTER VII.

ANIMAS VALLEY.--I.

"Well, there's Animas Valley, the 'rustlers' home,' where Curly Bill and all those boys used to lie up, when they had been sousing it to the 'enlightened citizen' a little too freely. There's the boss ranch in New Mexico! There's where the cattle graze, and graze, and graze upon a thousand hills, and go around laughing to think how much better off they are than other cattle, and saying to one another: 'Cows!' or 'bull, old pard!' or 'steers,' as the case may be, 'ain't we struck it big, eh?

ain't we just eternally heeled?' There 're all kinds of gra.s.ses for them to eat, and if they don't like one they can take another. And there are big waters, and little waters, and all sorts, and they please themselves. And there are cable roads, and elevators, always running, to save them climbing up the steep places, and in warm weather every cow is provided with a canteen and a parasol. And Sundays you can see them taking their Bibles and campstools under their arms, and going off to sit down in the shade, and read to their calves; and when they want to know anything, why, they just come and ask old Murray or me. And ... and ... and if you think that I'm trying to boost the place up because it belongs to us, or if you think that it isn't all true what I'm telling you now, why, go ahead and call me an old mud-turtle, and say so at once. You don't mind how disrespectfully you speak to me, I know that."

Don Cabeza, the speaker, had checked the horses, and the light spring waggon we were sitting in was poised on the summit of a down grade, at the mouth of a mountain pa.s.s we had just emerged from. A great valley lay below us, varying in breadth from twelve to twenty miles. Afar off to the right a mirage lake stretched its silver sheen across one end of it; the other was thirty-five miles away on the Mexican border, and, since the valley curved, was out of sight. To the left lay Animas Peak and the conjoining mountains; before us the rugged hills that separated us from the San Simon valley; and behind these loomed up the favourite highway, betwixt Mexico and the States, of the hostile Apaches--the wild Chiricaua range, whose naked crests glittered in the sunlight, above a confusion of scarped cliffs and jagged pinnacles, and lakes of purple shadow. Below, the broad valley bottom--flat here,

"Gleamed like a praying carpet at the foot Of those divinest altars,"

and was dotted by the small adobe buildings that marked Horse Springs, Granite Tanks, Russian Bill's Place, the Cunningham Place, and a few other such spots, towards which (for it was midday), small squads of cattle marched stolidly down to water from the foot-hills and the "draws," in single file, save where a calf trotted by its mother's side.

Four years have elapsed since the reader and I left Don Cabeza waving adieu to us in the streets of Magdalena. Then he was mining. Now he is a cattle king, with ranges, and ranges, and ranches, and ranches, and managers under him, and cow-boys under them, and under them again, cattle on a thousand hills, more or less. For the old style and t.i.tle of Don Cabeza (by which he was known in Sonora) the cow-punchers of New Mexico have subst.i.tuted that of "The Colonel." But nothing else about him is changed. He is the same old Cabeza, the soul of good nature and geniality, the most delightful of companions. Animas Valley, which we were now visiting, was one of the ranges under his control.

"Get up!--get up, or I'll beat the stuffing out of you!" he says mildly, stirring the reins at the same time, and once more the horses resume their gait, and their driver a tale that he had begun a moment before we stopped. "Well, it was during one of these Indian scares. Is that an Indian over there, or is it only a soap-weed?"

"Indian," I answered, noticing the distant soap-weed that he indicated with the point of his whip.

The "Colonel" glanced at me sideways. "There's a h.e.l.l's mint of soap-weed killed these Indian times, though--grease-bush too--and cactus--cactus gets fits! The boys are death on cactus when they get scared. Some of them would just as soon shoot a cactus as not--some of these Indian fighters, I mean. They don't care what they kill. Well, it was in one of these Indian times--old Hoo was out, and Victorio was out, and Geronimo was out, and--I don't know--they were all out--the Apaches were out to beat h.e.l.l--at least that was the tune we were all talking to, about that time. And they _were_ ginning her[5] up, and making things a bit lively, that's a fact! Whenever anything of that kind is going on, I make a point of driving down from Deming into this valley, and the Plyas Valley, back here, just to encourage the boys and keep them in their places. Jim Tracy was with me that time, and as we drew near Sherlock's (where we slept last night), we saw a whole crowd of fellows come streaming out of the house. I knew at once that they had got scared, and had bunched up like a bevy of quail; so I said to Jim: 'Now, you let me do the talking when they begin to sing "Indians;" don't you chip!'

"Jim caught on, and we drove up, and unhitched the horses, and came indoors. Every cow-puncher in the valley was there, sure enough--and polite!----! they were all as sweet as maple syrup. But I didn't say a word. Pretty soon they began:

"'Well, what d'ye know, anyhow?--what's the Indian news?'

"'Indian news! I guess the Indians are quiet enough,' I said, a little surprised.

"'But who have they got away with lately?--where are they now?'

"'On the reservation, I suppose.'

"'Oh, pshaw!'

"'Why not?' I said. 'Have you boys seen any Indians round?'

"'No, they hadn't seen any.'

"'n.o.body been joshing[6] you, I suppose?'

"'Oh, no! Joshing _them_?--not much!'

"'Well,' said I, 'I don't know! It's the first talk that we've heard of Indians, and we've driven all through the country. But if you boys are frightened that there 're any about, why, you bunch up, and keep together until you feel safe. I don't suppose the Indians will hurt the cows any.'

"So, we got to talking about other things, and pretty soon Mat Campbell slid out on his ear and got his horse, and went off without saying a word; then Reid and Dan Patch pulled out--as quiet as sick monkeys. In about ten minutes there were only ourselves and Lou Sherlock left; they'd all skinned out, every man Jack of them. And you bet, grease-bush and cactus caught it for a day or two; the boys had to take it out of something."

A shimmering bar of yellow, faintly tinged with red here and there, marked a distant line of autumnal foliage, in the direction of Animas Peak.

"Yonder lies the Double Adobes--near those cotton-woods," said the Colonel, pointing towards it. "To the left--there--is Pigpen's place, and to the right--in that second deep canon under the shoulder of the Peak--is what they call Indian Springs, where there are some curious Indian drawings on the rocks. There is permanent water at all those places; and in spring and summer there is any quant.i.ty of water away back in those hills, and oceans of feed for the cattle too. They drift back there then, and give the valley a rest."

On we drove past the tumble-down adobe huts, that had once been inhabited by Curly Bill, Russian Bill, Black Jack, Cunningham, and other celebrities of their type, whose stronghold and cache for stolen cattle Animas Valley had been a few years ago. Then the "rustlers" had congregated there in force, the locality affording exceptional advantages for their chief occupation, namely, "running off" cattle and horses from either side of the border. Many a spot is pointed out as the scene of a sanguinary skirmish between these modern moss-troopers, and the owners and their followers (Mexican or American), whom they had despoiled and were endeavouring to escape from. And many a local legend relates how the "rustlers" were overtaken and surrounded or besieged in this or that adobe or pa.s.s, lost their booty, obtained reinforcements and recaptured it, were similarly outnumbered and again stripped by their pursuers, and so on, with glowing details of the feats performed in these encounters. But more prudent and artistic methods of spoliation have spread with civilisation and the law from the East. And now, although some ambitious youngster, or knot of youngsters, burning to emulate the thefts and a.s.sa.s.sinations that are the eternal theme of frontier history under the red line of "Bills" (Why should nineteen-twentieths of these butchers have been named "Bill," by the way?), occasionally sneak off with an old man's _burro_ or a steer or two, or blow the top off some unoffending Mexican's head, the halcyon days of such knight-errantry are gone. It is no longer customary, when you hire or borrow a horse, to ask its nominal owner before setting out, "which way it is _good_?" The sheriff and his posse are quickly on the trail of any young aspirants to fame, and as a rule they are soon brought into town, handcuffed, red-eyed, and penitent.

A jury of fat store-keepers, saloon proprietors, and rancheros, without romance or remorse in them, but all more or less interested in preserving unimpeded the rolling of the dollar, sits in judgment over them, and if the case admits of it, and the offenders are too poor to buy themselves off, glibly sentences them to be hung by the neck until dead; whilst the populace, instead of rising _en ma.s.se_ to rescue the heroes, as might have been the case formerly, rush _en ma.s.se_ to buy copies of that journal which gives the most intimate and repulsive details of their execution. These are not healthy times for vulgar crimes. Education has refined our minds, and broadened our views. It is as hard as ever, perhaps, to offend our morals, but our taste in crime, as in other matters, has become fastidious.

The prairie dogs had colonised in a part of this, the upper end of the valley, and we traversed a "dog town" some acres in extent, each underground habitation of which was marked by a little heap of excavated earth. Queer little squirrel-like beggars are these burrowers; the resemblance would be even more complete were it not for the short spigot-shaped tails they jerk so comically when, lodged in the entrances of their abodes, head and tail alone visible, they chirp and chipper so desperately at the intruder. One is tempted at first to laugh at, and consider them harmless, but a glance at the extent of gra.s.s-land which they have desolated, checks the impulse. As for the Colonel, he does not experience it apparently, but apostrophises them in language grotesquely solemn and ingeniously opprobrious, as long as we are in the neighbourhood of their city.

Following the level strip that wound through the centre of the valley, we pa.s.sed the Red Rock, and sighted Juniper Point.

We had left the flats behind, and were now in a rolling country, intersected by gra.s.sy "draws," or miniature valleys which afforded the "finest kind" of shelter for cattle. A cavalcade hove in sight, consisting of three hors.e.m.e.n and a four-mule team and waggon, the latter full of soldiers and loafers (from the supply camp[7] at the Lang ranch), _en route_ for the railroad. Amongst them was a camp trader with whom the Colonel was acquainted, and who stopped to exchange news with him.

"By the way, Colonel," he said, as he was leaving, "your boys want to ride that San Luis Pa.s.s carefully, and read the 'sign'[8] there; that's the weak point in the valley, and being so near the border, them Mexicans can run a few head of stock over from time to time, without taking any chances.[9] I met a couple of greasers there the other day, driving off three cows and a couple of calves. If I'd had any show, I'd have drawn on 'em right away--I wanted to ter'ble bad; but I hadn't got no Winchester along, and only two cartridges in my six-shooter, whilst they was both well heeled."

"You got the stock, though?"

"Oh, ----, yes! I run a bluff on 'em.[10] They said they wasn't _driving_ 'em anyhow, but they got started in the trail ahead of 'em, and it wasn't their business to turn 'em. That's a point, though, that you want to watch--all the time. Well, so long." And ramming his great jingling Mexican spurs into the belly of his little mustang, he scurried away to overtake his party.