The Scalp Hunters Part 29

We travelled in Indian file. Habit has formed this disposition among Indians and hunters on the march. The tangled paths of the forest, and the narrow defiles of the mountains admit of no other. Even when pa.s.sing a plain, our cavalcade was strung out for a quarter of a mile.

The atajo followed in charge of the arrieros.

For the first day of our march we kept on without nooning. There was neither gra.s.s nor water on the route; and a halt under the hot sun would not have refreshed us.

Early in the afternoon a dark line became visible, stretching across the plain. As we drew nearer, a green wall rose before us, and we distinguished the groves of cotton-wood. The hunters knew it to be the timber on the Paloma. We were soon pa.s.sing under the shade of its quivering canopy, and reaching the banks of a clear stream, we halted for the night.

Our camp was formed without either tents or lodges. Those used on the Del Norte had been left behind in "cache." An expedition like ours could not be c.u.mbered with camp baggage. Each man's blanket was his house, his bed, and his cloak.

Fires were kindled, and ribs roasted; and fatigued with our journey (the first day's ride has always this effect), we were soon wrapped in our blankets and sleeping soundly.

We were summoned next morning by the call of the bugle sounding reveille. The band partook somewhat of a military organisation, and everyone understood the signals of light cavalry.

Our breakfast was soon cooked and eaten; our horses were drawn from their pickets, saddled, and mounted; and at another signal we moved forward on the route.

The incidents of our first journey were repeated, with but little variety, for several days in succession. We travelled through a desert country, here and there covered with wild sage and mezquite.

We pa.s.sed on our route clumps of cacti, and thickets of creosote bushes, that emitted their foul odours as we crushed through them. On the fourth evening we camped at a spring, the Ojo de Vaca, lying on the eastern borders of the Llanos.

Over the western section of this great prairie pa.s.ses the Apache war-trail, running southward into Sonora. Near the trail, and overlooking it, a high mountain rises out of the plain. It is the Pinon.

It was our design to reach this mountain, and "cacher" among the rocks, near a well-known spring, until our enemies should pa.s.s; but to effect this we would have to cross the war-trail, and our own tracks would betray us. Here was a difficulty which had not occurred to Seguin.

There was no other point except the Pinon from which we could certainly see the enemy on their route and be ourselves hidden. This mountain, then, must be reached; and how were we to effect it without crossing the trail?

After our arrival at Ojo de Vaca, Seguin drew the men together to deliberate on this matter.

"Let us spread," said a hunter, "and keep wide over the paraira, till we've got clar past the Apash trail. They won't notice a single track hyar and thyar, I reckin."

"Ay, but they will, though," rejoined another. "Do ye think an Injun's a-goin' to pa.s.s a shod horse track 'ithout follerin' it up? No, siree!"

"We kin m.u.f.fle the hoofs, as far as that goes," suggested the first speaker.

"Wagh! That ud only make it worse. I tried that dodge once afore, an'

nearly lost my har for it. He's a blind Injun kin be fooled that away.

'Twon't do nohow."

"They're not going to be so partickler when they're on the war-trail, I warrant ye. I don't see why it shouldn't do well enough."

Most of the hunters agreed with the former speaker. The Indians would not fail to notice so many m.u.f.fled tracks, and suspect there was something in the wind. The idea of "m.u.f.fling" was therefore abandoned.

What next? The trapper Rube, who up to this time had said nothing, now drew the attention of all by abruptly exclaiming, "Pish!"

"Well! what have you to say, old hoss?" inquired one of the hunters.

"Thet yur a set o' fools, one and all o' ee. I kud take the full o'

that paraira o' hosses acrosst the 'Pash trail, 'ithout making a sign that any Injun's a-gwine to foller, particularly an Injun on the war-beat as them is now."

"How?" asked Seguin.

"I'll tell yur how, cap, ev yur'll tell me what 'ee wants to cross the trail for."

"Why, to conceal ourselves in the Pinon range; what else?"

"An' how are 'ee gwine to 'cacher' in the Peenyun 'ithout water?"

"There is a spring on the side of it, at the foot of the mountain."

"That's true as Scripter. I knows that; but at that very spring the Injuns 'll cool their lappers as they go down south'ard. How are 'ee gwine to get at it with this cavayard 'ithout makin' sign? This child don't see that very clur."

"You are right, Rube. We cannot touch the Pinon spring without leaving our marks too plainly; and it is the very place where the war-party may make a halt."

"I sees no confoundered use in the hul on us crossin' the paraira now.

We kan't hunt buffler till they've pa.s.sed, anyways. So it's this child's idee that a dozen o' us 'll be enough to 'cacher' in the Peenyun, and watch for the niggurs a-goin' south. A dozen mout do it safe enough, but not the hul cavayard."

"And would you have the rest to remain here?"

"Not hyur. Let 'em go north'ard from hyur, and then strike west through the Musquite Hills. Thur's a crick runs thur, about twenty mile or so this side the trail. They can git water and gra.s.s, and 'cacher' thur till we sends for 'em."

"But why not remain by this spring, where we have both in plenty?"

"Cap'n, jest because some o' the Injun party may take a notion in thur heads to k.u.m this way themselves. I reckin we had better make blind tracks before leavin' hyur."

The force of Rube's reasoning was apparent to all, and to none more than Seguin himself. It was resolved to follow his advice at once. The vidette party was told off; and the rest of the band, with the atajo, after blinding the tracks around the spring, struck off in a north-westerly direction.

They were to travel on to the Mezquite Hills, that lay some ten or twelve miles to the north-west of the spring. There they were to "cacher" by a stream well known to several of them, and wait until warned to join us.

The vidette party, of whom I was one, moved westward across the prairie.

Rube, Garey, El Sol, and his sister, with Sanchez, a _ci-devant_ bull-fighter, and half a dozen others, composed the party. Seguin himself was our head and guide.

Before leaving the Ojo de Vaca we had stripped the shoes off the horses, filling the nail-holes with clay, so that their tracks would be taken for those of wild mustangs. Such were the precautions of men who knew that their lives might be the forfeit of a single footprint.

As we approached the point where the war-trail intersected the prairie, we separated and deployed to distances of half a mile each. In this manner we rode forward to the Pinon mountain, where we came together again, and turned northward along the foot of the range.

It was sundown when we reached the spring, having ridden all day across the plain. We descried it, as we approached, close in to the mountain foot, and marked by a grove of cotton-woods and willows. We did not take our horses near the water; but, having reached a defile in the mountain, we rode into it, and "cached" them in a thicket of nut-pine.

In this thicket we spent the night.

With the first light of morning we made a reconnaissance of our cache.

In front of us was a low ridge covered with loose rocks and straggling trees of the nut-pine. This ridge separated the defile from the plain; and from its top, screened by a thicket of the pines, we commanded a view of the water as well as the trail, and the Llanos stretching away to the north, south, and east. It was just the sort of hiding-place we required for our object.

In the morning it became necessary to descend for water. For this purpose we had provided ourselves with a mule-bucket and extra xuages.

We visited the spring, and filled our vessels, taking care to leave no traces of out footsteps in the mud.

We kept constant watch during the first day, but no Indians appeared.

Deer and antelopes, with a small gang of buffaloes, came to the spring-branch to drink, and then roamed off again over the green meadows. It was a tempting sight, for we could easily have crept within shot, but we dared not touch them. We knew that the Indian dogs would scent their slaughter.

In the evening we went again for water, making the journey twice, as our animals began to suffer from thirst. We adopted the same precautions as before.

Next day we again watched the horizon to the north with eager eyes.

Seguin had a small pocket-gla.s.s, and we could see the prairie with it for a distance of nearly thirty miles; but as yet no enemy could be descried.