"I do not understand you."

"What I mean is, that there is but little atmospheric change. It is but one uniform drought; it is seldom tempestuous or rainy. I know some districts where a drop of rain has not fallen for years."

"And can you account for that phenomenon?"

"I have my theory. It may not satisfy the learned meteorologist, but I will offer it to you."

I listened with attention, for I knew that my companion was a man of science, as of experience and observation, and subjects of the character of those about which we conversed had always possessed great interest for me. He continued—

"There can be no rain without vapour in the air. There can be no vapour in the air without water on the earth below to produce it. Here there is no great body of water.

"Nor can there be. The whole region of the desert is upheaved—an elevated table-land. We are now nearly six thousand feet above sea level. Hence its springs are few; and by hydraulic law must be fed by its own waters, or those of some region still more elevated, which does not exist on the continent.

"Could I create vast seas in this region, walled in by the lofty mountains that traverse it—and such seas existed coeval with its formation; could I create those seas without giving them an outlet, not even allowing the smallest rill to drain them, in process of time they would empty themselves into the ocean, and leave everything as it now is, a desert."

"But how? by evaporation?"

"On the contrary, the absence of evaporation would be the cause of their drainage. I believe it has been so already."

"I cannot understand that."

"It is simply thus: this region possesses, as we have said, great elevation; consequently a cool atmosphere, and a much less evaporating power than that which draws up the water of the ocean. Now, there would be an interchange of vapour between the ocean and these elevated seas, by means of winds and currents; for it is only by that means that any water can reach this interior plateau. That interchange would result in favour of the inland seas, by reason of their less evaporation, as well as from other causes. We have not time, or I could demonstrate such a result. I beg you will admit it, then, and reason it out at your leisure."

"I perceive the truth; I perceive it at once."

"What follows, then? These seas would gradually fill up to overflowing. The first little rivulet that trickled forth from their lipping fulness would be the signal of their destruction. It would cut its channel over the ridge of the lofty mountain, tiny at first, but deepening and widening with each successive shower, until, after many years—ages, centuries, cycles perhaps—a great gap such as this," (here Seguin pointed to the canon), "and the dry plain behind it, would alone exist to puzzle the geologist."

"And you think that the plains lying among the Andes and the Rocky Mountains are the dry beds of seas?"

"I doubt it not; seas formed after the upheaval of the ridges that barred them in, formed by rains from the ocean, at first shallow, then deepening, until they had risen to the level of their mountain barriers; and, as I have described, cut their way back again to the ocean."

"But does not one of these seas still exist?"

"The Great Salt Lake? It does. It lies north-west of us. Not only one, but a system of lakes, springs, and rivers, both salt and fresh; and these have no outlet to the ocean. They are barred in by highlands and mountains, of themselves forming a complete geographical system."

"Does not that destroy your theory?"

"No. The basin in which this phenomenon exists is on a lower level than most of the desert plateaux. Its evaporating power is equal to the influx of its own rivers, and consequently neutralises their effect; that is to say, in its exchange of vapour with the ocean, it gives as much as it receives. This arises, not so much from its low elevation as from the peculiar dip of the mountains that guide the waters into its bosom. Place it in a colder position, ceteris paribus, and in time it would cut the canal for its own drainage. So with the Caspian Sea, the Aral, and the Dead Sea. No, my friend, the existence of the Salt Lake supports my theory. Around its shores lies a fertile country, fertile from the quick returns of its own waters moistening it with rain. It exists only to a limited extent, and cannot influence the whole region of the desert, which lies parched and sterile, on account of its great distance from the ocean."

"But does not the vapour rising from the ocean float over the desert?"

"It does, as I have said, to some extent, else there would be no rain here. Sometimes by extraordinary causes, such as high winds, it is carried into the heart of the continent in large masses. Then we have storms, and fearful ones too. But, generally, it is only the skirt of a cloud, so to speak, that reaches thus far; and that, combined with the proper evaporation of the region itself, that is, from its own springs and rivers, yields all the rain that falls upon it. Great bodies of vapour, rising from the Pacific and drifting eastward, first impinge upon the coast range, and there deposit their waters; or perhaps they are more highly-heated, and soaring above the tops of these mountains, travel farther. They will be intercepted a hundred miles farther on by the loftier ridges of the Sierra Nevada, and carried back, as it were, captive, to the ocean by the streams of the Sacramento and San Joaquim. It is only the skirt of these clouds, as I have termed it, that, soaring still higher, and escaping the attractive influence of the Nevada, floats on, and falls into the desert region. What then? No sooner has it fallen than it hurries back to the sea by the Gila and Colorado, to rise again and fertilise the slopes of the Nevada; while the fragment of some other cloud drifts its scanty supply over the arid uplands of the interior, to be spent in rain or snow upon the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. Hence the source of the rivers running east and west, and hence the oases, such as the parks that lie among these mountains. Hence the fertile valleys upon the Del Norte, and other streams that thinly meander through this central land.

"Vapour-clouds from the Atlantic undergo a similar detention in crossing the Alleghany range; or, cooling, after having circled a great distance round the globe, descend into the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi. From all sides of this great continent, as you approach its centre, fertility declines, and only from the want of water. The soil in many places where there is scarcely a blade of grass to be seen, possesses all the elements of vegetation. So the doctor will tell you; he has analysed it."

"Ya, ya! dat ish true," quietly affirmed the doctor.

"There are many oases," continued Seguin; "and where water can be used to irrigate the soil, luxuriant vegetation is the consequence. You have observed this, no doubt, in travelling down the river; and such was the case in the old Spanish settlements on the Gila."

"But why were these abandoned?" I inquired, never having heard any reason assigned for the desertion of these once flourishing colonies.

"Why!" echoed Seguin, with a peculiar energy; "why! Unless some other race than the Iberian take possession of these lands, the Apache, the Navajo, and the Comanche, the conquered of Cortez and his conquerors, will yet drive the descendants of those very conquerors from the soil of Mexico. Look at Sonora and Chihuahua, half-depopulated! Look at New Mexico; its citizens living by suffrance: living, as it were, to till the land and feed the flocks for the support of their own enemies, who levy their blackmail by the year! But, come; the sun tells us we must on. Come!

"Mount! we can go through," continued he. "There has been no rain lately, and the water is low, otherwise we should have fifteen miles of a ride over the mountain yonder. Keep close to the rocks! Follow me!"

And with this admonition he entered the canon, followed by myself, Gode, and the doctor.



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

THE SCALP-HUNTERS.

It was still early in the evening when we reached the camp—the camp of the scalp-hunters. Our arrival was scarcely noticed. A single glance at us, as we rode in amongst the men was all the recognition we received. No one rose from his seat or ceased his occupation. We were left to unsaddle our horses and dispose of them as best we might.

I was wearied with the ride, having been so long unused to the saddle. I threw my blanket on the ground, and sat down, resting my back against the stump of a tree. I could have slept, but the strangeness of everything around me excited my imagination, and, with feelings of curiosity, I looked and listened.

I should call the pencil to my aid to give you an idea of the scene, and that would but faintly illustrate it. A wilder and more picturesque coup-d'oeil never impressed human vision. It reminded me of pictures I had seen representing the bivouacs of brigands under the dark pines of the Abruzzi.

I paint from a recollection that looks back over many years of adventurous life. I can give only the more salient points of the picture. The petite detail is forgotten, although at that time the minutest objects were things new and strange to my eye, and each of them for a while fixed my attention. I afterwards grew familiar with them; and hence they are now in my memory, as a multitude of other things, indistinct from their very distinctness.

The camp was in a bend of the Del Norte, in a glade surrounded by tall cotton-woods, whose smooth trunks rose vertically out of a thick underwood of palmettoes and Spanish bayonet. A few tattered tents stood in the open ground; and there were skin lodges after the Indian fashion. But most of the hunters had made their shelter with a buffalo-robe stretched upon four upright poles. There were "lairs" among the underwood, constructed of branches, and thatched with the palmated leaves of the yucca, or with reeds brought from the adjacent river.

There were paths leading out in different directions, marked by openings in the foliage. Through one of these a green meadow was visible. Mules and mustangs, picketed on long trail-ropes, were clustered over it.

Through the camp were seen the saddles, bridles, and packs, resting upon stumps or hanging from the branches. Guns leaned against the trees, and rusted sabres hung suspended over the tents and lodges. Articles of camp furniture, such as pans, kettles, and axes, littered the ground in every direction. Log fires were burning. Around them sat clusters of men. They were not seeking warmth, for it was not cold. They were roasting ribs of venison, or smoking odd-fashioned pipes. Some were scouring their arms and accoutrements.

The accents of many languages fell upon my ear. I heard snatches of French, Spanish, English, and Indian. The exclamations were in character with the appearance of those who uttered them. "Hollo, Dick! hang it, old hoss, what are ye 'bout?" "Carambo!" "By the 'tarnal airthquake!" "Vaya! hombre, vaya!" "Carrajo!" "By Gosh!" "Santisima Maria!" "Sacr-r-re!"

It seemed as if the different nations had sent representatives to contest the supremacy of their shibboleths.

I was struck with three groups. A particular language prevailed in each; and there was a homogeneousness about the costumes of the men composing each. That nearest me conversed in the Spanish language. They were Mexicans. I will describe the dress of one, as I remember it.

Calzoneros of green velvet. These are cut after the fashion of sailor-trousers, short waist, tight round the hips, and wide at the bottoms, where they are strengthened by black leather stamped and stitched ornamentally. The outer seams are split from hip to thigh, slashed with braid, and set with rows of silver "castletops." These seams are open, for the evening is warm, and underneath appear the calzoncillos of white muslin, hanging in white folds around the ankles. The boot is of calf-skin, tanned, but not blackened. It is reddish, rounded at the toe, and carries a spur at least a pound in weight, with a rowel three inches in diameter! The spur is curiously fashioned and fastened to the boot by straps of stamped leather. Little bells, campanulas, hang from the teeth of the rowels, and tinkle at the slightest motion of the foot! Look upward. The calzoneros are not braced, but fastened at the waist by a silken sash or scarf. It is scarlet. It is passed several times round the body, and made fast behind, where the fringed ends hang gracefully over the left hip. There is no waistcoat. A jacket of dark cloth embroidered and tightly fitting, short behind, a la Grecque, leaving the shirt to puff out over the scarf. The shirt itself, with its broad collar and flowered front, exhibits the triumphant skill of some dark-eyed poblana. Over all this is the broad-brimmed, shadowy sombrero; a heavy hat of black glaze, with its thick band of silver bullion. There are tags of the same metal stuck in the sides, giving it an appearance altogether unique. Over one shoulder is hanging, half-folded, the picturesque serape. A belt and pouch, an escopette upon which the hand is resting, a waist-belt with a pair of small pistols stuck under it, a long Spanish knife suspended obliquely across the left hip, complete the tout ensemble of him whom I have chosen to describe.

It may answer as a characteristic of the dress of many of his companions, those of the group that was nearest me. There was variety in their habiliments, yet the national costume of Mexico was traceable in all. Some wore leather calzoneros, with a spencer or jerkin of the same material, close both at front and behind. Some carried, instead of the pictured serape, the blanket of the Navajoes, with its broad black stripes. Suspended from the shoulders of others hung the beautiful and graceful manga. Some were moccasined; while a few of the inferior men wore the simple guarache, the sandal of the Aztecs.

The countenances of these men were swarth and savage-looking, their hair long, straight, and black as the wing of a crow; while both beard and moustache grew wildly over their faces. Fierce dark eyes gleamed under the broad brims of their hats. Few of them were men of high stature; yet there was a litheness in their bodies that showed them to be capable of great activity. Their frames were well knit, and inured to fatigues and hardships. They were all, or nearly all, natives of the Mexican border, frontier men, who had often closed in deadly fight with the Indian foe. They were ciboleros, vaqueros, rancheros, monteros; men who in their frequent association with the mountain men, the Gallic and Saxon hunters from the eastern plains, had acquired a degree of daring which by no means belongs to their own race. They were the chivalry of the Mexican frontier.

They smoked cigaritas, rolling them between their fingers in husks of maize. They played monte on their spread blankets, staking their tobacco. They cursed, and cried "Carrajo!" when they lost, and thanks to the "Santisima Virgin" when the cards were pulled out in their favour!

Their language was a Spanish patois; their voices were sharp and disagreeable.

At a short distance from these was the second group that attracted my attention. The individuals composing this were altogether different from the former. They were different in every essential point: in voice, dress, language, and physiognomy. Theirs was the Anglo-American face, at a glance. These were the trappers, the prairie hunters, the mountain men.

Let us again choose a type that may answer for a description of all.

He stands leaning on his long straight rifle, looking into the fire. He is six feet in his moccasins, and of a build that suggests the idea of strength and Saxon ancestry. His arms are like young oaks, and his hand, grasping the muzzle of his gun, is large, fleshless, and muscular. His cheek is broad and firm. It is partially covered by a bushy whisker that meets over the chin and fringes all around the lips. It is neither fair nor dark, but of a dull-brown colour, lighter around the mouth, where it has been bleached by the sun, "ambeer," and water. The eye is grey, or bluish grey, small, and slightly crowed at the corner. It is well set, and rarely wanders. It seems to look into you rather than at you. The hair is brown and of a medium length (cut, no doubt, on his last visit to the trading post, or the settlements); and the complexion, although dark as that of a mulatto, is only so from tan. It was once fair: a blonde. The countenance is not unprepossessing. It might be styled handsome. Its whole expression is bold, but good-humoured and generous.

The dress of the individual described is of home manufacture; that is, of his home, the prairie and the wild mountain park, where the material has been bought by a bullet from his rifle. It is the work of his own hands, unless indeed he may be one who has shared his cabin with some Indian—Sioux, Crow, or Cheyenne.

It consists of a hunting-shirt of dressed deer-skin, smoked to the softness of a glove; leggings, reaching to the waist, and moccasins of the same material; the latter soled with the parfleche of the buffalo. The shirt is belted at the waist, but open at the breast and throat, where it falls back into a graceful cape just covering the shoulders. Underneath is seen the undershirt, of finer material, the dressed skin of the antelope, or the fawn of the fallow-deer. On his head is a raccoon cap, with the face of the animal looking to the front, while the barred tail hangs like a plume drooping down to his left shoulder.

His accoutrements are, a bullet-pouch made from the undressed skin of the mountain cat, and a huge crescent-shaped horn, upon which he has carved many a strange souvenir. His arms consist of a long knife, a bowie, and a heavy pistol, carefully secured by a holster to the leathern belt around his waist. Add to this a rifle nearly five feet long, taking ninety to the pound, and so straight that the line of the barrel scarcely deflects from that of the butt.

But little attention has been paid to ornament in either his dress, arms, or equipments; and yet there is a gracefulness in the hang of his tunic-like shirt; a stylishness about the fringing of the cape and leggings; and a jauntiness in the set of that coon-skin cap that shows the wearer to be not altogether unmindful of his personal appearance. A small pouch or case, neatly embroidered with stained porcupine quills, hangs upon his breast.

At intervals he contemplates this with a pleased and complacent look. It is his pipe-holder: a love-token from some dark-eyed, dark-haired damsel, no doubt, like himself a denizen of the wild wilderness. Such is the tout ensemble of a mountain trapper.

There were many around him whom I have described almost similarly attired and equipped. Some wore slouch hats of greyish felt, and some catskin caps. Some had hunting-shirts bleached to a brighter hue, and broidered with gayer colours. Others looked more tattered and patched, and smoky; yet in the costume of all there was enough of character to enable you to class them. There was no possibility of mistaking the regular mountain man.

The third group that attracted my attention was at a greater distance from the spot I occupied. I was filled with curiosity, not to say astonishment, on perceiving that they were Indians.

"Can they be prisoners?" thought I. "No; they are not bound. There are no signs of captivity either in their looks or gestures, and yet they are Indians. Can they belong to the band, fighting against—?"

As I sat conjecturing, a hunter passed near me.

"Who are these Indians?" I asked, indicating the group.

"Delawares; some Shawnees."

These, then, were the celebrated Delawares, descendants of that great tribe who, on the Atlantic shores, first gave battle to the pale-faced invader. Theirs had been a wonderful history. War their school, war their worship, war their pastime, war their profession. They are now but a remnant. Their story will soon be ended.

I rose up, and approached them with a feeling of interest. Some of them were sitting around the fire, smoking out of curiously-carved pipes of the red claystone. Others strode back and forth with that majestic gait for which the forest Indian has been so much celebrated. There was a silence among them that contrasted strangely with the jabbering kept up by their Mexican allies. An occasional question put in a deep-toned, sonorous voice, a short but emphatic reply, a guttural grunt, a dignified nod, a gesture with the hand; and thus they conversed, as they filled their pipe-bowls with the kini-kin-ik, and passed the valued instruments from one to another.

I stood gazing upon these stoical sons of the forest with emotions stronger than curiosity, as one contemplates for the first time an object of which he has heard and read strange accounts. The history of their wars and their wanderings were fresh in my memory. Before me were the actors themselves, or types of them, in all their truthful reality, in all their wild picturesqueness. These were the men who, driven from their homes by the Atlantic border, yielded only to fate—to the destiny of their race. Crossing the Appalachian range, they had fought their way from home to home, down the steep sides of the Alleghany, along the wooded banks of the Ohio, into the heart of the "Bloody Ground." Still the pale-face followed on their track, and drove them onward, onward towards the setting sun. Red wars, Punic faith, broken treaties, year after year, thinned their ranks. Still, disdaining to live near their white conquerors, they pushed on, fighting their way through tribes of their own race and colour thrice their numbers! The forks of the Osage became their latest resting-place. Here the usurper promised to guarantee them a home, to be theirs to all time. The concession came too late. War and wandering had grown to be part of their natures; and with a scornful pride they disdained the peaceful tillage of the soil. The remnant of their tribe was collected on the Osage, but in one season it had disappeared. The braves and young men wandered away, leaving only the old, the women, and the worthless in their allotted home. Where have they gone? Where are they now? He who would find the Delawares must seek them on the broad prairies, in the mountain parks, in the haunts of the bear and the beaver, the big-horn and the buffalo. There he may find them, in scattered bands, leagued with their ancient enemies the whites, or alone, trapping, hunting, fighting the Yuta or Rapaho, the Crow or Cheyenne, the Navajo and the Apache.

I stood gazing upon the group with feelings of profound interest, upon their features and their picturesque habiliments. Though no two of them were dressed exactly alike, there was a similarity about the dress of all. Most of them wore hunting-shirts, not made of deer-skin like those of the whites, but of calico, printed in bright patterns. This dress, handsomely fashioned and fringed, under the accoutrements of the Indian warrior, presented a striking appearance. But that which chiefly distinguished the costumes of both the Delaware and Shawano from that of their white allies was the head-dress. This was, in fact, a turban, formed by binding the head with a scarf or kerchief of a brilliant colour, such as may be seen on the dark Creoles of Hayti. In the group before me no two of these turbans were alike, yet they were all of a similar character. The finest were those made by the chequered kerchiefs of Madras. Plumes surmounted them of coloured feathers from the wing of the war-eagle, or the blue plumage of the gruya.

For the rest of their costume they wore deer-skin leggings and moccasins, nearly similar to those of the trappers. The leggings of some were ornamented by scalp-locks along the outer seam, exhibiting a dark history of the wearer's prowess. I noticed that their moccasins were peculiar, differing altogether from those worn by the Indians of the prairies. They were seamed up the fronts, without braiding or ornament, and gathered into a double row of plaits.

The arms and equipments of these warrior men were like those of the white hunters. They have long since discarded the bow; and in the management of the rifle most of them can "draw a bead" and hit "plumb centre" with any of their mountain associates. In addition to the firelock and knife, I noticed that they still carried the ancient weapon of their race, the fearful tomahawk.

I have described three characteristic groups that struck me on glancing over the camp ground. There were individuals belonging to neither, and others partaking of the character of one or all. There were Frenchmen, Canadian voyageurs, strays of the north-west company, wearing white capotes, and chatting, dancing, and singing their boat-songs with all the esprit of their race. There were pueblos, Indios manzos, clad in their ungraceful tilmas, and rather serving than associating with those around them. There were mulattoes, too, and negroes of a jetty blackness from the plantations of Louisiana, who had exchanged for this free, roving life the twisted "cow-skin" of the overseer. There were tattered uniforms showing the deserters who had wandered from some frontier post into this remote region. There were Kanakas from the Sandwich Isles, who had crossed the deserts from California. There were men apparently of every hue and clime and tongue here assembled, drawn together by the accidents of life, by the instinct of adventure—all more or less strange individuals of the strangest band it has ever been my lot to witness: the band of the Scalp-Hunters!



CHAPTER TWENTY.

SHARP-SHOOTING.

I had returned to my blanket, and was about to stretch myself upon it, when the whoop of a gruya drew my attention. Looking up, I saw one of these birds flying towards the camp. It was coming through a break in the trees that opened from the river. It flew low, and tempted a shot with its broad wings, and slow, lazy flight.

A report rang upon the air. One of the Mexicans had fired his escopette; but the bird flew on, plying its wings with more energy, as if to bear itself out of reach.

There was a laugh from the trappers, and a voice cried out—

"Yur fool! D'yur think 'ee kud hit a spread blanket wi' that beetle-shaped blunderbox? Pish!"

I turned to see who had delivered this odd speech. Two men were poising their rifles, bringing them to bear upon the bird. One was the young hunter whom I have described. The other was an Indian whom I had not seen before.

The cracks were simultaneous; and the crane, dropping its long neck, came whirling down among the trees, where it caught upon a high branch, and remained.

From their position neither party knew that the other had fired. A tent was between them, and the two reports had seemed as one. A trapper cried out—

"Well done, Garey! Lord help the thing that's afore old Killbar's muzzle when you squints through her hind-sights."

The Indian just then stepped round the tent. Hearing this side speech, and perceiving the smoke still oozing from the muzzle of the young hunter's gun, he turned to the latter with the interrogation—

"Did you fire, sir?"

This was said in well-accentuated and most un-Indianlike English, which would have drawn my attention to the man had not his singularly-imposing appearance riveted me already.

"Who is he?" I inquired from one near me.

"Don't know; fresh arriv'," was the short answer.

"Do you mean that he is a stranger here?"

"Just so. He kumb in thar a while agone. Don't b'lieve anybody knows him. I guess the captain does; I seed them shake hands."

I looked at the Indian with increasing interest. He seemed a man of about thirty years of age, and not much under seven feet in height. He was proportioned like an Apollo, and, on this account, appeared smaller than he actually was. His features were of the Roman type; and his fine forehead, his aquiline nose and broad jawbone, gave him the appearance of talent, as well as firmness and energy. He was dressed in a hunting-shirt, leggings, and moccasins; but all these differed from anything worn either by the hunters or their Indian allies. The shirt itself was made out of the dressed hide of the red deer, but differently prepared from that used by the trappers. It was bleached almost to the whiteness of a kid glove. The breast, unlike theirs, was close, and beautifully embroidered with stained porcupine quills. The sleeves were similarly ornamented; and the cape and skirts were trimmed with the soft, snow-white fur of the ermine. A row of entire skins of that animal hung from the skirt border, forming a fringe both graceful and costly. But the most singular feature about this man was his hair. It fell loosely over his shoulders, and swept the ground as he walked! It could not have been less than seven feet in length. It was black, glossy, and luxuriant, and reminded me of the tails of those great Flemish horses I had seen in the funeral carriages of London.

He wore upon his head the war-eagle bonnet, with its full circle of plumes: the finest triumph of savage taste. This magnificent head-dress added to the majesty of his appearance.

A white buffalo robe hung from his shoulders, with all the graceful draping of a toga. Its silky fur corresponded to the colour of his dress, and contrasted strikingly with his own dark tresses.

There were other ornaments about his person. His arms and accoutrements were shining with metallic brightness, and the stock and butt of his rifle were richly inlaid with silver.

I have been thus minute in my description, as the first appearance of this man impressed me with a picture that can never be effaced from my memory. He was the beau ideal of a picturesque and romantic savage; and yet there was nothing savage either in his speech or bearing. On the contrary, the interrogation which he had just addressed to the trapper was put in the politest manner. The reply was not so courteous.

"Did I fire! Didn't ye hear a crack? Didn't ye see the thing fall? Look yonder!"

Garey, as he spoke, pointed up to the bird.

"We must have fired simultaneously."

As the Indian said this he appealed to his gun, which was still smoking at the muzzle.

"Look hyar, Injun! whether we fired symultainyously, or extraneously, or cattawampously, ain't the flappin' o' a beaver's tail to me; but I tuk sight on that bird; I hut that bird; and 'twar my bullet brought the thing down."

"I think I must have hit it too," replied the Indian, modestly.

"That's like, with that ar' spangled gimcrack!" said Garey, looking disdainfully at the other's gun, and then proudly at his own brown weather-beaten piece, which he had just wiped, and was about to reload.

"Gimcrack or no," answered the Indian, "she sends a bullet straighter and farther than any piece I have hitherto met with. I'll warrant she has sent hers through the body of the crane."

"Look hyar, mister—for I s'pose we must call a gentleman 'mister' who speaks so fine an' looks so fine, tho' he be's an Injun—it's mighty easy to settle who hut the bird. That thing's a fifty or tharabouts; Killbar's a ninety. 'Taint hard to tell which has plugged the varmint. We'll soon see;" and, so saying, the hunter stepped off towards the tree on which hung the gruya, high up.

"How are you to get it down?" cried one of the men, who had stepped forward to witness the settlement of this curious dispute.

There was no reply, for everyone saw that Garey was poising his rifle for a shot. The crack followed; and the branch, shivered by his bullet, bent downward under the weight of the gruya. But the bird, caught in a double fork, still stuck fast on the broken limb.

A murmur of approbation followed the shot. These were men not accustomed to hurrah loudly at a trivial incident.

The Indian now approached, having reloaded his piece. Taking aim, he struck the branch at the shattered point, cutting it clean from the tree! The bird fell to the ground, amidst expressions of applause from the spectators, but chiefly from the Mexican and Indian hunters. It was at once picked up and examined. Two bullets had passed through its body. Either would have killed it.

A shadow of unpleasant feeling was visible on the face of the young trapper. In the presence of so many hunters of every nation, to be thus equalled, beaten in the in of his favourite weapon, and by an "Injun"; still worse by one of "them ar' gingerbread guns!" The mountain men have no faith in an ornamented stock, or a big bore. Spangled rifles, they say, are like spangled razors, made for selling to greenhorns. It was evident, however, that the strange Indian's rifle had been made to shoot as well.

It required all the strength of nerve which the trapper possessed to conceal his chagrin. Without saying a word, he commenced wiping out his gun with that stoical calmness peculiar to men of his calling. I observed that he proceeded to load with more than usual care. It was evident that he would not rest satisfied with the trial already made, but would either beat the "Injun," or be himself "whipped into shucks." So he declared in a muttered speech to his comrades.

His piece was soon loaded; and, swinging her to the hunter's carry, he turned to the crowd, now collected from all parts of the camp.

"Thar's one kind o' shootin'," said he, "that's jest as easy as fallin' off a log. Any man kin do it as kin look straight through hind-sights. But then thar's another kind that ain't so easy; it needs narve."

Here the trapper paused, and looked towards the Indian, who was also reloading.

"Look hyar, stranger!" continued he, addressing the latter, "have ye got a cummarade on the ground as knows yer shooting?"

The Indian after a moment's hesitation, answered, "Yes."

"Kin your cummarade depend on yer shot?"

"Oh! I think so. Why do you wish to know that?"

"Why, I'm a-going to show ye a shot we sometimes practise at Bent's Fort, jest to tickle the greenhorns. 'Tain't much of a shot nayther; but it tries the narves a little I reckon. Hoy! Rube!"

"What doo 'ee want?"

This was spoken in an energetic and angry-like voice, that turned all eyes to the quarter whence it proceeded. At the first glance, there seemed to be no one in that direction. In looking more carefully among the logs and stumps, an individual was discovered seated by one of the fires. It would have been difficult to tell that it was a human body, had not the arms at the moment been in motion. The back was turned toward the crowd, and the head had disappeared, sunk forward over the fire. The object, from where we were standing, looked more like the stump of a cotton-wood, dressed in dirt-coloured buckskin, than the body of a human being. On getting nearer, and round to the front of it, it was seen to be a man, though a very curious one, holding a long rib of deer-meat in both hands, which he was polishing with a very poor set of teeth.

The whole appearance of this individual was odd and striking. His dress, if dress it could be called, was simple as it was savage. It consisted of what might have once been a hunting-shirt, but which now looked more like a leathern bag with the bottom ripped open, and the sleeves sewed into the sides. It was of a dirty-brown colour, wrinkled at the hollow of the arms, patched round the armpits, and greasy all over; it was fairly caked with dirt! There was no attempt at either ornament or fringe. There had been a cape, but this had evidently been drawn upon from time to time, for patches and other uses, until scarcely a vestige of it remained. The leggings and moccasins were on a par with the shirt, and seemed to have been manufactured out of the same hide. They, too, were dirt-brown, patched, wrinkled, and greasy. They did not meet each other, but left a piece of the ankle bare, and that also was dirt-brown, like the buck-skin. There was no undershirt, waistcoat, or other garment to be seen, with the exception of a close-fitting cap, which had once been cat-skin, but the hair was all worn off it, leaving a greasy, leathery-looking surface, that corresponded well with the other parts of the dress. Cap, shirt, leggings, and moccasins looked as if they had never been stripped off since the day they were first tried on, and that might have been many a year ago. The shirt was open, displaying the naked breast and throat, and these, as well as the face, hands, and ankles, had been tanned by the sun, and smoked by the fire, to the hue of rusty copper. The whole man, clothes and all, looked as if he had been smoked on purpose!

His face bespoke a man of sixty. The features were sharp and somewhat aquiline; and the small eye was dark, quick, and piercing. His hair was black and cut short. His complexion had been naturally brunette, though there was nothing of the Frenchman or Spaniard on his physiognomy. He was more likely of the black Saxon breed.

As I looked at this man (for I had walked towards him, prompted by some instinct of curiosity), I began to fancy that there was a strangeness about him, independent of the oddness of his attire. There seemed to be something peculiar about his head, something wanting. What was it? I was not long in conjecture. When fairly in front of him, I saw what was wanting. It was his ears!

This discovery impressed me with a feeling akin to awe. There is something awful in a man without ears. It suggests some horrid drama, some terrible scene of cruel vengeance. It suggests the idea of crime committed and punishment inflicted.

These thoughts were wandering through my mind, when all at once I remembered a remark which Seguin had made on the previous night. This, then, thought I, is the person of whom he spoke. My mind was satisfied.

After making answer as above, the old fellow sat for some time with his head between his knees, chewing, mumbling, and growling, like a lean old wolf, angry at being disturbed in his meal.

"Come hyar, Rube! I want ye a bit," continued Garey, in a tone of half entreaty.

"And so 'ee will want me a bit; this child don't move a peg till he has cleaned this hyur rib; he don't, now!"

"Dog-gone it, man! make haste, then!" and the impatient trapper dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground, and stood waiting in sullen silence.

After chewing, and mumbling, and growling a few minutes longer, old Rube, for that was the name by which the leathery sinner was known, slowly erected his lean carcass; and came walking up to the crowd.

"What do 'ee want, Billee?" he inquired, going up to the trapper.

"I want ye to hold this," answered Garey, offering him a round white shell, about the size of a watch, a species of which there were many strewed over the ground.

"It's a bet, boyee?"

"No, it is not."

"Ain't wastin' yur powder, ar yur?"

"I've been beat shootin'," replied the trapper, in an undertone, "by that 'ar Injun."

The old man looked over to where the strange Indian was standing erect and majestic, in all the pride of his plumage. There was no appearance of triumph or swagger about him, as he stood leaning on his rifle, in an attitude at once calm and dignified.

It was plain, from the way old Rube surveyed him, that he had seen him before, though not in that camp. After passing his eyes over him from head to foot, and there resting them a moment, a low murmur escaped his lips, which ended abruptly in the word "Coco."

"A Coco, do ye think?" inquired the other, with an apparent interest.

"Are 'ee blind, Billee? Don't 'ee see his moccasin?"

"Yes, you're right, but I was in thar nation two years ago. I seed no such man as that."

"He w'an't there."

"Whar, then?"

"Whur thur's no great show o' redskins. He may shoot well; he did oncest on a time: plumb centre."

"You knew him, did ye?"

"O-ee-es. Oncest. Putty squaw: hansum gal. Whur do 'ee want me to go?"

I thought that Garey seemed inclined to carry the conversation further. There was an evident interest in his manner when the other mentioned the "squaw." Perhaps he had some tender recollection; but seeing the other preparing to start off, he pointed to an open glade that stretched eastward, and simply answered, "Sixty."

"Take care o' my claws, d'yur hear! Them Injuns has made 'em scarce; this child can't spare another."

The old trapper said this with a flourish of his right hand. I noticed that the little finger had been chopped off!

"Never fear, old hoss!" was the reply; and at this, the smoky carcase moved away with a slow and regular pace, that showed he was measuring the yards.

When he had stepped the sixtieth yard, he faced about, and stood erect, placing his heels together. He then extended his right arm, raising it until his hand was on a level with his shoulder, and holding the shell in his fingers, flat side to the front, shouted back—

"Now, Billee, shoot, and be hanged to yur!"

The shell was slightly concave, the concavity turned to the front. The thumb and finger reached half round the circumference, so that a part of the edge was hidden; and the surface turned towards the marksman was not larger than the dial of a common watch.

This was a fearful sight. It is one not so common among the mountain men as travellers would have you believe. The feat proves the marksman's skill; first, if successful, by showing the strength and steadiness of his nerves; secondly, by the confidence which the other reposes in it, thus declared by stronger testimony than any oath. In any case the feat of holding the mark is at least equal to that of hitting it. There are many hunters willing to risk taking the shot, but few who care to hold the shell.

It was a fearful sight, and my nerves tingled as I looked on. Many others felt as I. No one interfered. There were few present who would have dared, even had these two men been making preparations to fire at each other. Both were "men of mark" among their comrades: trappers of the first class.

Garey, drawing a long breath, planted himself firmly, the heel of his left foot opposite to, and some inches in advance of, the hollow of his right. Then, jerking up his gun, and throwing the barrel across his left palm, he cried out to his comrade—

"Steady, ole bone an' sinyer! hyar's at ye!"

The words were scarcely out when the gun was levelled. There was a moment's death-like silence, all eyes looking to the mark. Then came the crack, and the shell was seen to fly, shivered into fifty fragments! There was a cheer from the crowd. Old Rube stopped to pick up one of the pieces, and after examining it for a moment, shouted in a loud voice;—

"Plumb centre, by—!"

The young trapper had, in effect, hit the mark in the very centre, as the blue stain of the bullet testified.



CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

A FEAT A LA TELL.

All eyes were turned upon the strange Indian. During the scene described he has stood silent, and calmly looking on. His eye now wanders over the ground, apparently in search of an object.

A small convolvulus, known as the prairie gourd, is lying at his feet. It is globe-shaped, about the size of an orange, and not unlike one in colour. He stoops and takes it up. He seems to examine it with great care, balancing it upon his hand, as though he were calculating its weight.

What does he intend to do with this? Will he fling it up, and send his bullet through it in the air? What else?

His motions are watched in silence. Nearly all the scalp-hunters, sixty or seventy, are on the ground. Seguin only, with the doctor and a few men, is engaged some distance off, pitching a tent. Garey stands upon one side, slightly elated with his triumph, but not without feelings of apprehension that he may yet be beaten. Old Rube has gone back to the fire, and is roasting another rib.

The gourd seems to satisfy the Indian, for whatever purpose he intends it. A long piece of bone, the thigh joint of the war-eagle, hangs suspended over his breast. It is curiously carved, and pierced with holes like a musical instrument. It is one.

He places this to his lips, covering the holes, with his fingers. He sounds three notes, oddly inflected, but loud and sharp. He drops the instrument again, and stands looking eastward into the woods. The eyes of all present are bent in the same direction. The hunters, influenced by a mysterious curiosity, remain silent, or speak only in low mutterings.

Like an echo, the three notes are answered by a similar signal! It is evident that the Indian has a comrade in the woods, yet not one of the band seems to know aught of him or his comrade. Yes, one does. It is Rube.

"Look'ee hyur, boyees!" cries he, squinting over his shoulders; "I'll stake this rib against a griskin o' poor bull that 'ee'll see the puttiest gal as 'ee ever set yur eyes on."

There is no reply; we are gazing too intently for the expected arrival.

A rustling is heard, as of someone parting the bushes, the tread of a light foot, the snapping of twigs. A bright object appears among the leaves. Someone is coming through the underwood. It is a woman.

It is an Indian girl, attired in a singular and picturesque costume.

She steps out of the bushes, and comes boldly towards the crowd. All eyes are turned upon her with looks of wonder and admiration. We scan her face and figure and her striking attire.

She is dressed not unlike the Indian himself, and there is resemblance in other respects. The tunic worn by the girl is of finer materials; of fawn-skin. It is richly trimmed, and worked with split quills, stained to a variety of bright colours. It hangs to the middle of the thighs, ending in a fringe-work of shells, that tinkle as she moves.

Her limbs are wrapped in leggings of scarlet cloth, fringed like the tunic, and reaching to the ankles where they meet the flaps of her moccasins. These last are white, embroidered with stained quills, and fitting closely to her small feet.

A belt of wampum closes the tunic on her waist, exhibiting the globular developments of a full-grown bosom and the undulating outlines of a womanly person. Her headdress is similar to that worn by her companion, but smaller and lighter; and her hair, like his, hangs loosely down, reaching almost to the ground! Her neck, throat, and part of her bosom are nude, and clustered over with bead-strings of various colours.

The expression of her countenance is high and noble. Her eye is oblique. The lips meet with a double curve, and the throat is full and rounded. Her complexion is Indian; but a crimson hue, struggling through the brown upon her cheek, gives that pictured expression to her countenance which may be observed in the quadroon of the West Indies.

She is a girl, though full-grown and boldly developed: a type of health and savage beauty.

As she approaches, the men murmur their admiration. There are hearts beating under hunting-shirts that rarely deign to dream of the charms of woman.

I am struck at this moment with the appearance of the young trapper Garey. His face has fallen, the blood has forsaken his cheeks, his lips are white and compressed, and dark rings have formed round his eyes. They express anger, but there is still another meaning in them.

Is it jealousy? Yes!

He has stepped behind one of his comrades, as if he did not wish to be seen. One hand is playing involuntarily with the handle of his knife. The other grasps the barrel of his gun, as though he would crush it between his fingers!

The girl comes up. The Indian hands her the gourd, muttering some words in an unknown tongue—unknown, at least, to me. She takes it without making any reply, and walks off towards the spot where Rube had stood, which has been pointed out to her by her companion.

She reaches the tree, and halts in front of it, facing round as the trapper had done.

There was something so dramatic, so theatrical, in the whole proceeding, that up to the present time we had all stood waiting for the denouement in silence. Now we knew what it was to be, and the men began to talk.

"He's a-goin' to shoot the gourd from the hand of the gal," suggested a hunter.

"No great shot, after all," added another; and indeed this was the silent opinion of most on the ground.

"Wagh! it don't beat Garey if he diz hit it," exclaimed a third.

What was our amazement at seeing the girl fling off her plumed bonnet, place the gourd upon her head, fold her arms over her bosom, and standing fronting us as calm and immobile as if she had been carved upon the tree!

There was a murmur in the crowd. The Indian was raising his rifle to take aim, when a man rushed forward to prevent him. It was Garey!

"No, yer don't! No!" cried he, clutching the levelled rifle; "she's deceived me, that's plain, but I won't see the gal that once loved me, or said she did, in the trap that a-way. No! Bill Garey ain't a-goin' to stand by and see it."

"What is this?" shouted the Indian, in a voice of thunder. "Who dares to interrupt me?"

"I dares," replied Garey. "She's yourn now, I suppose. You may take her whar ye like; and take this too," continued he, tearing off the embroidered pipe-case, and flinging it at the Indian's feet; "but ye're not a-goin' to shoot her down whiles I stand by."

"By what right do you interrupt me? My sister is not afraid, and—"

"Your sister!"

"Yes, my sister."

"And is yon gal your sister?" eagerly inquired Garey, his manner and the expression of his countenance all at once changing.

"She is. I have said she is."

"And are you El Sol?"

"I am."

"I ask your pardon; but—"

"I pardon you. Let me proceed!"

"Oh, sir, do not. No! no! She is your sister, and I know you have the right, but thar's no needcessity. I have heerd of your shootin'. I give in; you kin beat me. For God's sake, do not risk it; as you care for her, do not!"

"There is no risk. I will show you."

"No, no! If you must, then, let me! I will hold it. Oh, let me!" stammered the hunter, in tones of entreaty.

"Hollo, Billee! What's the dratted rumpus?" cried Rube, coming up. "Hang it, man! let's see the shot. I've heern o' it afore. Don't be skeert, ye fool! he'll do it like a breeze; he will!"

And as the old trapper said this he caught his comrade by the arm, and swung him round out of the Indian's way.

The girl, during all this, had stood still, seemingly not knowing the cause of the interruption. Garey's back was turned to her, and the distance, with two years of separation, doubtless prevented her from recognising him.

Before Garey could turn to interpose himself, the rifle was at the Indian's shoulder and levelled. His finger was on the trigger, and his eyes glanced through the sights. It was too late to interfere. Any attempt at that might bring about the dreaded result. The hunter, as he turned, saw this, and halting in his tracks, stood straining and silent.

It was a moment of terrible suspense to all of us—a moment of intense emotion. The silence was profound. Every breath seemed suspended; every eye was fixed on the yellow object, not larger, I have said, than an orange. Oh, God! will the shot never come?

It came. The flash, the crack, the stream of fire, the wild hurrah, the forward rush, were all simultaneous things. We saw the shivered globe fly off. The girl was still upon her feet; she was safe!

I ran with the rest. The smoke for a moment blinded me. I heard the shrill notes of the Indian whistle. I looked before me. The girl had disappeared.

We ran to the spot where she had stood. We heard a rustling in the underwood, a departing footstep. We knew it was she; but guided by an instinct of delicacy, and a knowledge that it would be contrary to the wish of her brother, no one followed her.

We found the fragments of the calabash strewed over the ground. We found the leaden mark upon them. The bullet itself was buried in the bark of the tree, and one of the hunters commenced digging it out with the point of his bowie.

When we turned to go back we saw that the Indian had walked away, and now stood chatting easily and familiarly with Seguin.

As we re-entered the camp-ground I observed Garey stoop and pick up a shining object. It was the gage d'amour, which he carefully readjusted around his neck in its wonted position.

From his look and the manner in which he handled it, it was plain that he now regarded that souvenir with more reverence than ever.



CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

A FEAT A LA TAIL.

I had fallen into a sort of reverie. My mind was occupied with the incidents I had just witnessed, when a voice, which I recognised as that of old Rube, roused me from my abstraction.

"Look'ee hyur, boyees! Tain't of'n as ole Rube wastes lead, but I'll beat that Injun's shot, or 'ee may cut my ears off."

A loud laugh hailed this allusion of the trapper to his ears, which, as we have observed, were already gone; and so closely had they been trimmed that nothing remained for either knife or shears to accomplish.

"How will you do it, Rube?" cried one of the hunters; "shoot the mark off a yer own head?"

"I'll let 'ee see if 'ee wait," replied Rube, stalking up to a tree, and taking from its rest a long, heavy rifle, which he proceeded to wipe out with care.

The attention of all was now turned to the manoeuvres of the old trapper. Conjecture was busy as to his designs. What feat could he perform that would eclipse the one just witnessed? No one could guess.

"I'll beat it," continued he, muttering, as he loaded his piece, "or 'ee may chop the little finger off ole Rube's right paw."

Another peal of laughter followed, as all perceived that this was the finger that was wanting.

"'Ee—es," continued he, looking at the faces that were around him, "'ee may scalp me if I don't."

This last remark elicited fresh roars of laughter; for although the cat-skin was closely drawn upon his head, all present knew that old Rube was minus his scalp.

"But how are ye goin' to do it? Tell us that, old hoss!"

"'Ee see this, do 'ee?" asked the trapper, holding out a small fruit of the cactus pitahaya, which he had just plucked and cleaned of its spikelets.

"Ay, ay," cried several voices, in reply.

"'Ee do, do 'ee? Wal; 'ee see 'tain't half as big as the Injun's squash. 'Ee see that, do 'ee?"

"Oh, sartinly! Any fool can see that."

"Wal; s'pose I plug it at sixty, plump centre?"

"Wagh!" cried several, with shrugs of disappointment.

"Stick it on a pole, and any o' us can do that," said the principal speaker. "Here's Barney could knock it off wid his owld musket. Couldn't you, Barney?"

"In truth, an' I could thry," answered a very small man, leaning upon a musket, and who was dressed in a tattered uniform that had once been sky-blue. I had already noticed this individual with some curiosity, partly struck with his peculiar costume, but more particularly on account of the redness of his hair, which was the reddest I had ever seen. It bore the marks of a severe barrack discipline—that is, it had been shaved, and was now growing out of his little round head short and thick, and coarse in the grain, and of the colour of a scraped carrot. There was no possibility of mistaking Barney's nationality. In trapper phrase, any fool could have told that.

What had brought such an individual to such a place? I asked this question, and was soon enlightened. He had been a soldier in a frontier post, one of Uncle Sam's "Sky-blues." He had got tired of pork and pipe-clay, accompanied with a too liberal allowance of the hide. In a word, Barney was a deserter. What his name was, I know not, but he went under the appellation of O'Cork—Barney O'Cork.

A laugh greeted his answer to the hunter's question.

"Any o' us," continued the speaker, "could plug the persimmon that a way. But thar's a mighty heap o' diff'rence when you squints thro' hind-sights at a girl like yon."

"Ye're right, Dick," said another hunter; "it makes a fellow feel queery about the jeints."

"Holy vistment! An' wasn't she a raal beauty?" exclaimed the little Irishman, with an earnestness in his manner that set the trappers roaring again.

"Pish!" cried Rube, who had now finished loading, "yur a set o' channering fools; that's what 'ee ur. Who palavered about a post? I've got an ole squaw as well's the Injun. She'll hold the thing for this child—she will."

"Squaw! You a squaw?"

"Yes, hoss; I has a squaw I wudn't swop for two o' his'n. I'll make tracks an' fetch the old 'oman. Shet up yur heads, an' wait, will ye?"

So saying, the smoky old sinner shouldered his rifle, and walked off into the woods.

I, in common with others, late comers, who were strangers to Rube, began to think that he had an "old 'oman." There were no females to be seen about the encampment, but perhaps she was hid away in the woods. The trappers, however, who knew him, seemed to understand that the old fellow had some trick in his brain; and that, it appeared, was no new thing for him.

We were not kept long in suspense. In a few minutes Rube was seen returning, and by his side the "old 'oman," in the shape of a long, lank, bare-ribbed, high-boned mustang, that turned out on close inspection to be a mare! This, then, was Rube's squaw, and she was not at all unlike him, excepting the ears. She was long-eared, in common with all her race: the same as that upon which Quixote charged the windmill. The long ears caused her to look mulish, but it was only in appearance; she was a pure mustang when you examined her attentively. She seemed to have been at an earlier period of that dun-yellowish colour known as "clay-bank," a common colour among Mexican horses; but time and scars had somewhat metamorphosed her, and grey hairs predominated all over, particularly about the head and neck. These parts were covered with a dirty grizzle of mixed hues. She was badly wind-broken; and at stated intervals of several minutes each, her back, from the spasmodic action of the lungs, heaved up with a jerk, as though she were trying to kick with her hind legs, and couldn't. She was as thin as a rail, and carried her head below the level of her shoulders; but there was something in the twinkle of her solitary eye (for she had but one), that told you she had no intention of giving up for a long time to come. She was evidently game to the backbone.

Such was the "old 'oman" Rube had promised to fetch; and she was greeted by a loud laugh as he led her up.

"Now, look'ee hyur, boyees," said he, halting in front of the crowd. "Ee may larf, an' gabble, an' grin till yur sick in the guts—yur may! but this child's a-gwine to take the shine out o' that Injun's shot—he is, or bust a-tryin'."

Several of the bystanders remarked that that was likely enough, and that they only waited to see in what manner it was to be done. No one who knew him doubted old Rube to be, as in fact he was, one of the very best marksmen in the mountains—fully equal, perhaps, to the Indian; but it was the style and circumstances which had given such eclat to the shot of the latter. It was not every day that a beautiful girl could be found to stand fire as the squaw had done; and it was not every hunter who would have ventured to fire at a mark so placed. The strength of the feat lay in its newness and peculiarity. The hunters had often fired at the mark held in one another's hands. There were few who would like to carry it on their head. How, then, was Rube to "take the shine out o' that Injun's shot"? This was the question that each was asking the other, and which was at length put directly to Rube himself.

"Shet up your meat-traps," answered he, "an I'll show 'ee. In the fust place, then, 'ee all see that this hyur prickly ain't more'n hef size o' the squash?"

"Yes, sartainly," answered several voices. "That wur one sukumstance in his favour. Wa'nt it?"

"It wur! it wur!"

"Wal, hyur's another. The Injun, 'ee see, shot his mark off o' the head. Now, this child's a-gwine to knock his'n off o' the tail. Kud yur Injun do that? Eh, boyees?"

"No, no!"

"Do that beat him, or do it not, then?"

"It beats him!"

"It does!"

"Far better!"

"Hooray!" vociferated several voices, amidst yells of laughter. No one dissented, as the hunters, pleased with the joke, were anxious to see it carried through.

Rube did not detain them long. Leaving his rifle in the hands of his friend Garey, he led the old mare up towards the spot that had been occupied by the Indian girl. Reaching this, he halted.

We all expected to see him turn the animal with her side towards us, thus leaving her body out of range. It soon became evident that this was not the old fellow's intention. It would have spoiled the look of the thing, had he done so; and that idea was no doubt running in his mind.

Choosing a place where the ground chanced to be slightly hollowed out, he led the mustang forward, until her fore feet rested in the hollow. The tail was thus thrown above the body.

Having squared her hips to the camp, he whispered something at her head; and going round to the hind quarters, adjusted the pear upon the highest curve of the stump. He then came walking back.

Would the mare stand? No fear of that. She had been trained to stand in one place for a longer period than was now required of her.

The appearance which the old mare exhibited, nothing visible but her hind legs and buttocks, for the mules had stripped her tail of the hair, had by this time wound the spectators up to the risible point, and most of them were yelling.

"Stop yur giggle-goggle, wull yur!" said Rube, clutching his rifle, and taking his stand. The laughter was held in, no one wishing to disturb the shot.

"Now, old Tar-guts, don't waste your fodder!" muttered the trapper, addressing his gun, which the next moment was raised and levelled.

No one doubted but that Rube would hit the object at which he was aiming. It was a shot frequently made by western riflemen; that is, a mark of the same size at sixty yards. And no doubt Rube would have done it; but just at the moment of his pulling trigger the mare's back heaved up in one of its periodic jerks, and the pitahaya fell to the ground.

But the ball had sped; and grazing the animal's shoulder, passed through one of her ears!

The direction of the bullet was not known until afterwards, but its effect was visible at once; for the mare, stung in her tenderest part, uttered a sort of human-like scream, and wheeling about, came leaping into camp, kicking over everything that happened to lie in her way.

The yells and loud laughing of the trappers, the odd ejaculations of the Indians, the "vayas" and "vivas" of the Mexicans, the wild oaths of old Rube himself, all formed a medley of sounds that fell strangely upon the ear, and to give an idea of which is beyond the art of my pen.



CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE PROGRAMME.

Shortly after, I was wandering out to the caballada to look after my horse, when the sound of a bugle fell upon my ear. It was the signal for the men to assemble, and I turned back towards the camp.

As I re-entered it, Seguin was standing near his tent, with the bugle still in his hand. The hunters were gathering around him.

They were soon all assembled, and stood in groups, waiting for the chief to speak.

"Comrades!" said Seguin, "to-morrow we break up this camp for an expedition against the enemy. I have brought you together that you may know my plans and lend me your advice."

A murmur of applause followed this announcement. The breaking up of a camp is always joyous news to men whose trade is war. It seemed to have a like effect upon this motley group of guerilleros.

The chief continued—

"It is not likely that you will have much fighting. Our dangers will be those of the desert; but we will endeavour to provide against them in the best manner possible.

"I have learned, from a reliable source, that our enemies are at this very time about starting upon a grand expedition to plunder the towns of Sonora and Chihuahua.

"It is their intention, if not met by the Government troops, to extend their foray to Durango itself. Both tribes have combined in this movement; and it is believed that all the warriors will proceed southward, leaving their country unprotected behind them.

"It is my intention then, as soon as I can ascertain that they have gone out, to enter their territory, and pierce to the main town of the Navajoes."

"Bravo!" "Hooray!" "Bueno!" "Tres bien!" "Good as wheat!" and numerous other exclamations, hailed this declaration.

"Some of you know my object in making this expedition. Others do not. I will declare it to you all. It is, then, to—"

"Git a grist of scalps; what else?" cried a rough, brutal-looking fellow, interrupting the chief.

"No, Kirker!" replied Seguin, bending his eye upon the man, with an expression of anger. "It is not that. We expect to meet only women. On his peril let no man touch a hair upon the head of an Indian woman. I shall pay for no scalps of women or children."

"Where, then, will be your profits? We cannot bring them prisoners? We'll have enough to do to get back ourselves, I reckon, across them deserts."

These questions seemed to express the feelings of others of the band, who muttered their assent.

"You shall lose nothing. Whatever prisoners you take shall be counted on the ground, and every man shall be paid according to his number. When we return I will make that good."

"Oh! that's fair enough, captain," cried several voices.

"Let it be understood, then, no women nor children. The plunder you shall have, it is yours by our laws, but no blood that can be spared. There is enough on our hands already. Do you all bind yourselves to this?"

"Yes, yes!" "Si!" "Oui, oui!" "Ya, ya!" "All!" "Todos, todos!" cried a multitude of voices, each man answering in his own language.

"Let those who do not agree to it speak."

A profound silence followed this proposal. All had bound themselves to the wishes of their leader.

"I am glad that you are unanimous. I will now state my purpose fully. It is but just you should know it."

"Ay, let us know that," muttered Kirker, "if tain't to raise har we're goin'."

"We go, then, to seek for our friends and relatives, who for years have been captives to our savage enemy. There are many among us who have lost kindred, wives, sisters, and daughters."

A murmur of assent, uttered chiefly by men in Mexican costume, testified to the truth of this statement.

"I myself," continued Seguin, and his voice slightly trembled as he spoke, "am among that number. Years, long years ago, I was robbed of my child by the Navajoes. I have lately learned that she is still alive, and at their head town with many other white captives. We go, then, to release and restore them to their friends and homes."

A shout of approbation broke from the crowd, mingled with exclamations of "Bravo!" "We'll fetch them back!" "Vive le capitaine!" "Viva el gefe!"

When silence was restored, Seguin continued—

"You know our purpose. You have approved it. I will now make known to you the plan I had designed for accomplishing it, and listen to your advice."

Here the chief paused a moment, while the men remained silent and waiting.

"There are three passes," continued he at length, "by which we might enter the Indian country from this side. There is, first, the route of the Western Puerco. That would lead us direct to the Navajo towns."

"And why not take that way?" asked one of the hunters, a Mexican. "I know the route well, as far as the Pecos towns."

"Because we could not pass the Pecos towns without being seen by Navajo spies. There are always some of them there. Nay, more," continued Seguin, with a look that expressed a hidden meaning, "we could not get far up the Del Norte itself before the Navajoes would be warned of our approach. We have enemies nearer home."

"Carrai! that is true," said a hunter, speaking in Spanish.

"Should they get word of our coming, even though the warriors had gone southward, you can see that we would have a journey for nothing."

"True, true!" shouted several voices.

"For the same reason, we cannot take the pass of Polvidera. Besides, at this season, there is but little prospect of game on either of these routes. We are not prepared for an expedition with our present supply. We must pass through a game-country before we can enter on the desert."

"That is true, captain; but there is as little game to be met if we go by the old mine. What other road, then, can we take?"

"There is still another route better than all, I think. We will strike southward, and then west across the Llanos to the old mission. From thence we can go north into the Apache country."

"Yes, yes; that is the best way, captain."

"We will have a longer journey, but with advantages. We will find the wild cattle or the buffaloes upon the Llanos. Moreover, we will make sure of our time, as we can 'cache' in the Pinon Hills that overlook the Apache war-trail, and see our enemies pass out. When they have gone south, we can cross the Gila, and keep up the Azul or Prieto. Having accomplished the object of our expedition, we may then return homeward by the nearest route."

"Bravo!" "Viva!" "That's jest right, captain!"

"That's clarly our best plan!" were a few among the many forms by which the hunters testified their approval of the programme. There was no dissenting voice. The word "Prieto" struck like music upon their ears. That was a magic word: the name of the far-famed river on whose waters the trapper legends had long placed the El Dorado, "the mountain of gold." Many a story of this celebrated region had been told at the hunters' camp-fire, all agreeing in one point: that there the gold lay in "lumps" upon the surface of the ground, and filled the rivers with its shining grains. Often had the trappers talked of an expedition to this unknown land; and small parties were said to have actually entered it, but none of these adventurers had ever been known to return.

The hunters saw now, for the first time, the prospect of penetrating this region with safety, and their minds were filled with fancies wild and romantic. Not a few of them had joined Seguin's band in hopes that some day this very expedition might be undertaken, and the "golden mountain" reached. What, then, were their feelings when Seguin declared his purpose of travelling by the Prieto! At the mention of it a buzz of peculiar meaning ran through the crowd, and the men turned to each other with looks of satisfaction.

"To-morrow, then, we shall march," added the chief. "Go now and make your preparations; we start by daybreak."

As Seguin ceased speaking, the hunters departed, each to look after his "traps and possibles"; a duty soon performed, as these rude rangers were but little encumbered with camp equipage.

I sat down upon a log, watching for some time the movements of my wild companions, and listening to their rude and Babel-like converse.

At length arrived sunset, or night, for they are almost synonymous in these latitudes. Fresh logs were flung upon the fires, till they blazed up. The men sat around them, cooking, eating, smoking, talking loudly, and laughing at stories that illustrated their own wild habits. The red light fell upon fierce, dark faces, now fiercer and more swarthy under the glare of the burning cotton-wood.

By its light the savage expression was strengthened on every countenance. Beards looked darker, and teeth gleamed whiter through them. Eyes appeared more sunken, and their glances more brilliant and fiend-like. Picturesque costumes met the eye: turbans, Spanish hats, plumes, and mottled garments; escopettes and rifles leaning against the trees; saddles, high-peaked, resting upon logs and stumps; bridles hanging from the branches overhead; strings of jerked meat drooping in festoons in front of the tents, and haunches of venison still smoking and dripping their half-coagulated drops!

The vermilion smeared on the foreheads of the Indian warriors gleamed in the night light as though it were blood. It was a picture at once savage and warlike—warlike, but with an aspect of ferocity at which the sensitive heart drew back. It was a picture such as may be seen only in a bivouac of guerilleros, of brigands, of man-hunters.



CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

EL SOL AND LA LUNA.

"Come," said Seguin, touching me on the arm, "our supper is ready; I see the doctor beckoning us." I was not slow to answer the call, for the cool air of the evening had sharpened my appetite. We approached the tent, in front of which was a fire.

Over this, the doctor, assisted by Gode and a pueblo peon, was just giving the finishing touch to a savoury supper.

Part of it had already been carried inside the tent. We followed it, and took our seats upon saddles, blankets, and packs.

"Why, doctor," said Seguin, "you have proved yourself a perfect maitre de cuisine to-night. This is a supper for a Lucullus."

"Ach! mein captain, ich have goet help; Meinherr Gode assist me most wonderful."

"Well, Mr Haller and I will do full justice to your dishes. Let us to them at once!"

"Oui, oui! bien, Monsieur Capitaine," said Gode, hurrying in with a multitude of viands. The "Canadien" was always in his element when there was plenty to cook and eat.

We were soon engaged on fresh steaks (of wild cows), roasted ribs of venison, dried buffalo tongues, tortillas, and coffee. The coffee and tortillas were the labours of the pueblo, in the preparation of which viands he was Gode's master.

But Gode had a choice dish, un petit morceau, in reserve, which he brought forth with a triumphant flourish.

"Voici, messieurs?" cried he, setting it before us.

"What is it, Gode?"

"Une fricassee, monsieur."

"Of what?"

"Les frog; what de Yankee call boo-frog!"

"A fricassee of bull-frogs!"

"Oui, oui, mon maitre. Voulez vous?"

"No, thank you!"

"I will trouble you, Monsieur Gode," said Seguin.

"Ich, ich, mein Gode; frocks ver goot;" and the doctor held out his platter to be helped.

Gode, in wandering by the river, had encountered a pond of giant frogs, and the fricassee was the result. I had not then overcome my national antipathy to the victims of Saint Patrick's curse; and, to the voyageur's astonishment, I refused to share the dainty.

During our supper conversation I gathered some facts of the doctor's history, which, with what I had already learned, rendered the old man an object of extreme interest to me.

Up to this time, I had wondered what such a character could be doing in such company as that of the Scalp-hunters. I now learned a few details that explained all.

His name was Reichter—Friedrich Reichter. He was a Strasburgher, and in the city of bells had been a medical practitioner of some repute. The love of science, but particularly of his favourite branch, botany, had lured him away from his Rhenish home. He had wandered to the United States, then to the Far West, to classify the flora of that remote region. He had spent several years in the great valley of the Mississippi; and, falling in with one of the Saint Louis caravans, had crossed the prairies to the oasis of New Mexico. In his scientific wanderings along the Del Norte he had met with the Scalp-hunters, and, attracted by the opportunity thus afforded him of penetrating into regions hitherto unexplored by the devotees of science, he had offered to accompany the band. This offer was gladly accepted on account of his services as their medico; and for two years he had been with them, sharing their hardships and dangers.

Many a scene of peril had he passed through, many a privation had he undergone, prompted by a love of his favourite study, and perhaps, too, by the dreams of future triumph, when he would one day spread his strange flora before the savants of Europe. Poor Reichter! Poor Friedrich Reichter! yours was the dream of a dream; it never became a reality!

Our supper was at length finished, and washed down with a bottle of Paso wine. There was plenty of this, as well as Taos whisky in the encampment; and the roars of laughter that reached us from without proved that the hunters were imbibing freely of the latter.

The doctor drew out his great meerschaum, Gode filled a red claystone, while Seguin and I lit our husk cigarettes.

"But tell me," said I, addressing Seguin, "who is the Indian?—he who performed the wild feat of shooting the—"

"Ah! El Sol; he is a Coco."

"A Coco?"

"Yes; of the Maricopa tribe."

"But that makes me no wiser than before. I knew that much already."

"You knew it? Who told you?"

"I heard old Rube mention the fact to his comrade Garey."

"Ay, true; he should know him." Seguin remained silent.

"Well?" continued I, wishing to learn more. "Who are the Maricopas? I have never heard of them."

"It is a tribe but little known, a nation of singular men. They are foes of the Apache and Navajo; their country lies down the Gila. They came originally from the Pacific, from the shores of the Californian Sea."

"But this man is educated, or seems so. He speaks English and French as well as you or I. He appears to be talented, intelligent, polite—in short, a gentleman."

"He is all you have said."

"I cannot understand this."

"I will explain to you, my friend. That man was educated at one of the most celebrated universities in Europe. He has travelled farther and through more countries, perhaps, than either of us."

"But how did he accomplish all this? An Indian!"

"By the aid of that which has often enabled very little men (though El Sol is not one of those) to achieve very great deeds, or at least to get the credit of having done so. By gold."

"Gold! and where got he the gold? I have been told that there is very little of it in the hands of Indians. The white men have robbed them of all they once had."

"That is in general a truth; and true of the Maricopas. There was a time when they possessed gold in large quantities, and pearls too, gathered from the depths of the Vermilion Sea. It is gone. The Jesuit padres could tell whither."

"But this man? El Sol?"

"He is a chief. He has not lost all his gold. He still holds enough to serve him, and it is not likely that the padres will coax it from him for either beads or vermilion. No; he has seen the world, and has learnt the all-pervading value of that shining metal."

"But his sister?—is she, too, educated?"

"No. Poor Luna is still a savage; but he instructs her in many things. He has been absent for several years. He has returned but lately to his tribe."

"Their names are strange: 'The Sun,' 'The Moon'!"

"They were given by the Spaniards of Sonora; but they are only translations or synonyms of their Indian appellations. That is common upon the frontier."

"Why are they here?"

I put this question with hesitation, as I knew there might be some peculiar history connected with the answer.

"Partly," replied Seguin, "from gratitude, I believe, to myself. I rescued El Sol when a boy out of the hands of the Navajoes. Perhaps there is still another reason. But come," continued he, apparently wishing to give a turn to the conversation, "you shall know our Indian friends. You are to be companions for a time. He is a scholar, and will interest you. Take care of your heart with the gentle Luna. Vincente, go to the tent of the Coco chief. Ask him to come and drink a cup of Paso wine. Tell him to bring his sister with him."

The servant hurried away through the camp. While he was gone, we conversed about the feat which the Coco had performed with his rifle.

"I never knew him to fire," remarked Seguin, "without hitting his mark. There is something mysterious about that. His aim is unerring; and it seems to be on his part an act of pure volition. There may be some guiding principle in the mind, independent of either strength of nerve or sharpness of sight. He and another are the only persons I ever knew to possess this singular power."

The last part of this speech was uttered in a half soliloquy; and Seguin, after delivering it, remained for some moments silent and abstracted.

Before the conversation was resumed, El Sol and his sister entered the tent, and Seguin introduced us to each other. In a few moments we were engaged, El Sol, the doctor, Seguin, and myself, in an animated conversation. The subject was not horses, nor guns, nor scalps, nor war, nor blood, nor aught connected with the horrid calling of that camp. We were discussing a point in the pacific science of botany: the relationship of the different forms of the cactus family.

I had studied the science, and I felt that my knowledge of it was inferior to that of any of my three companions. I was struck with it then, and more when I reflected on it afterwards; the fact of such a conversation, the time, the place, and the men who carried it on.

For nearly two hours we sat smoking and talking on like subjects.

While we were thus engaged I observed upon the canvas the shadow of a man. Looking forth, as my position enabled me without rising, I recognised in the light that streamed out of the tent a hunting-shirt, with a worked pipe-holder hanging over the breast.

La Luna sat near her brother, sewing "parfleche" soles upon a pair of moccasins. I noticed that she had an abstracted air, and at short intervals glanced out from the opening of the tent. While we were engrossed with our discussion she rose silently, though not with any appearance of stealth, and went out.

After a while she returned. I could read the love-light in her eye as she resumed her occupation.

El Sol and his sister at length left us, and shortly after Seguin, the doctor, and I rolled ourselves in our serapes, and lay down to sleep.



CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE WAR-TRAIL.

The band was mounted by the earliest dawn, and as the notes of the bugle died away our horses plashed through the river, crossing to the other side. We soon debouched from the timber bottom, coming out upon sandy plains that stretched westward to the Mibres Mountains. We rode over these plains in a southerly direction, climbing long ridges of sand that traversed them from east to west. The drift lay in deep furrows, and our horses sank above the fetlocks as we journeyed. We were crossing the western section of the Jornada.

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 passing 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 grass 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 passing 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 cumbered 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 passed 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 passes 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 pass; 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 pass a shod horse track 'ithout follerin' it up? No, siree!"

"We kin muffle 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 muffled tracks, and suspect there was something in the wind. The idea of "muffling" 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 passed, 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 grass, 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 kum 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-glass, and we could see the prairie with it for a distance of nearly thirty miles; but as yet no enemy could be descried.

The third day passed with a like result; and we began to fear that the warriors had taken some other trail.

Another circumstance rendered us uneasy. We had eaten nearly the whole of our provisions, and were now chewing the raw nuts of the pinon. We dared not kindle a fire to roast them. Indians can read the smoke at a great distance.

The fourth day arrived and still no sign on the horizon to the north. Our tasajo was all eaten, and we began to hunger. The nuts did not satisfy us. The game was in plenty at the spring, and mottling the grassy plain. One proposed to lie among the willows and shoot an antelope or a black-tailed deer, of which there were troops in the neighbourhood.

"We dare not," said Seguin; "their dogs would find the blood. It might betray us."

"I can procure one without letting a drop," rejoined a Mexican hunter.

"How?" inquired several in a breath.

The man pointed to his lasso.

"But your tracks; you would make deep footmarks in the struggle?"

"We can blind them, captain," rejoined the man.

"You may try, then," assented the chief.

The Mexican unfastened the lasso from his saddle, and, taking a companion, proceeded to the spring. They crept in among the willows, and lay in wait. We watched them from the ridge.

They had not remained more than a quarter of an hour when a herd of antelopes was seen approaching from the plain. These walked directly for the spring, one following the other in Indian file. They were soon close in to the willows where the hunters had concealed themselves. Here they suddenly halted, throwing up their heads and snuffing the air. They had scented danger, but it was too late for the foremost to turn and lope off.

"Yonder goes the lasso!" cried one.

We saw the noose flying in the air and settling over his head. The herd suddenly wheeled, but the loop was around the neck of their leader; and after three or four skips, he sprang up, and falling upon his back, lay motionless.

The hunter came out from the willows, and, taking up the animal, now choked dead, carried him towards the entrance of the defile. His companion followed, blinding the tracks of both. In a few minutes they had reached us. The antelope was skinned, and eaten raw, in the blood!

————————————————————————————————————

Our horses grow thin with hunger and thirst. We fear to go too often to the water, though we become less cautious as the hours pass. Two more antelopes are lassoed by the expert hunter.

The night of the fourth day is clear moonlight. The Indians often march by moonlight, particularly when on the war-trail. We keep our vidette stationed during the night as in the day. On this night we look out with more hopes than usual. It is such a lovely night! a full moon, clear and calm.

We are not disappointed. Near midnight the vidette awakes us. There are dark forms on the sky away to the north. It may be buffaloes, but we see that they are approaching.

We stand, one and all, straining our eyes through the white air, and away over the silvery sward. There are glancing objects: arms it must be. "Horses! horsemen! They are Indians!"

"Oh, God! comrades, we are mad! Our horses: they may neigh!"

We bound after our leader down the hill, over the rocks, and through the trees. We run for the thicket where our animals are tied. We may be too late, for horses can hear each other miles off; and the slightest concussion vibrates afar through the elastic atmosphere of these high plateaux. We reach the caballada. What is Seguin doing? He has torn the blanket from under his saddle, and is muffling the head of his horse!

We follow his example, without exchanging a word, for we know this is the only plan to pursue.

In a few minutes we feel secure again, and return to our watch-station on the height.

We had shaved our time closely; for, on reaching the hill-top, we could hear the exclamations of Indians, the "thump, thump" of hoofs on the hard plain, and an occasional neigh, as their horses scented the water. The foremost were advancing to the spring; and we could see the long line of mounted men stretching in their deploying to the far horizon.

Closer they came, and we could distinguish the pennons and glittering points of their spears. We could see their half-naked bodies gleaming in the clear moonlight.

In a short time the foremost of them had ridden up to the bushes, halting as they came, and giving their animals to drink. Then one by one they wheeled out of the water, and trotting a short distance over the prairie, flung themselves to the ground, and commenced unharnessing their horses.

It was evidently their intention to camp for the night.

For nearly an hour they came filing forward, until two thousand warriors, with their horses, dotted the plain below us.

We stood observing their movements. We had no fear of being seen ourselves. We were lying with our bodies behind the rocks, and our faces partially screened by the foliage of the pinon trees. We could see and hear with distinctness all that was passing, for the savages were not over three hundred yards from our position.

They proceed to picket their horses in a wide circle, far out on the plain. There the grama grass is longer and more luxuriant than in the immediate neighbourhood of the spring. They strip the animals, and bring away their horse-furniture, consisting of hair bridles, buffalo robes, and skins of the grizzly bear. Few have saddles. Indians do not generally use them on a war expedition.

Each man strikes his spear into the ground, and rests against it his shield, bow, and quiver. He places his robe or skin beside it. That is his tent and bed.

The spears are soon aligned upon the prairie, forming a front of several hundred yards; and thus they have pitched their camp with a quickness and regularity far outstripping the Chasseurs of Vincennes.