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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Saddle and Mocassin, by Francis Francis Jr.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Saddle and Mocassin
+
+Author: Francis Francis Jr.
+
+Release Date: May 22, 2012 [EBook #39760]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SADDLE AND MOCASSIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Mark C. Orton, Martin Pettit and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+SADDLE AND MOCASSIN
+
+BY
+
+FRANCIS FRANCIS, JUN.
+
+AUTHOR OF
+
+"IN A LONDON SUBURB," "WAR, WAVES, AND WANDERINGS."
+
+LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL,
+
+LIMITED.
+
+1887.
+
+[_All rights reserved._]
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS,
+
+CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
+
+
+AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED
+
+TO THE MEMORY OF
+
+THE LATE FRANCIS FRANCIS
+
+(AUTHOR OF "A BOOK ON ANGLING," ETC., ETC., ETC.),
+
+AN OLD-FASHIONED SPORTSMAN
+
+"SANS PEUR ET SANS REPROCHE."
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE.
+
+
+The following sketches were made at different times and during various
+cruises in the States. The earlier ones are fairly close records of the
+scenes and incidents which they profess to describe. My movements in the
+country referred to in the two latter were, however, too desultory to
+admit of similar treatment; in some cases I traversed the same ground
+two or three times, and remained for weeks without gleaning anything
+that would be of interest to the ordinary reader. In the trips detailed
+in this part of the book, therefore, I have occasionally introduced
+characters and materials that do not strictly belong in the situations
+assigned to them. In fact, my object has been rather to present two
+characteristic studies of local colour than bare records of the travels
+that afford a pretext for them.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+                                       PAGE
+THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.--I.                 1
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.--II.               23
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+QUAIL SHOOTING IN THE SIERRAS            41
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A GLIMPSE OF SONORA                      60
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE WINCHESTER WATER MEADS               87
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON PEND D'OREILLE LAKE                  100
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--I.                      120
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--II.                     135
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--III.                    154
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--IV.                     175
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--V.                      193
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--VI.                     215
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--I.        235
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--II.       256
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--III.      268
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--IV.       277
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--V.        285
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--VI.       301
+
+
+
+
+SADDLE AND MOCASSIN.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.[1]--I.
+
+
+"Wal, sir, I tell you that that thar Yellowstone Park and them geysers
+is jest indescribable--that's what they are, sure!" said all the
+packers, teamsters, and prospectors whom we consulted on the subject.
+
+A greater measure of truth characterised this statement than is usually
+contained in eulogistic reports of scenery.
+
+We were advised at Ogden that pack trains or waggons could be hired at
+various points on the "Utah Northern" branch of the Union Pacific
+Railway; in order to economise time, therefore, my companion preceded me
+to contract for transport, whilst I remained behind to conclude
+arrangements in connection with the commissariat department. These
+completed, I followed him. He met me at Dillon with a history of woe. No
+"outfits" were to be obtained elsewhere at so short a notice, and here
+the demands for them were exorbitant. No regard was taken of current
+rates; the teamsters seemed inclined to regard us as legitimate spoil. I
+ventured to expostulate with one man:
+
+"What you ask would pay you in three weeks more than your 'outfit'
+cost."
+
+"Oh, horses is dear in this country!" he remarked irrelevantly.
+
+"Quite so; but we don't want to _buy_ any."
+
+"Wal, it ain't much for them as has the means and wants to 'go in.'"
+
+I am afraid that, to use a miner's expression, we did not "pan out" as
+well as was anticipated. A little diplomacy eventually secured us the
+services of a Mormon freighter named Andrews, his boy, a waggon, and
+twelve mules and horses, upon reasonable terms. We engaged a cook, and
+with Dick (the guide we had brought from Ogden) the "outfit" was
+complete.
+
+Dick was an old soldier, and a first-rate fellow. True, the Dillon
+whisky proved too much for him when we were starting, but ordinary
+poison had been a mild beverage by comparison with it, and we were so
+glad that it did not kill him outright that we excused his temporary
+indisposition. Besides, even beneath its influence he displayed the most
+charming urbanity, and the greatest anxiety to get under way.
+
+"All I wants, Mr. Francis, is to make a start, to get away--beyond the
+pale of civilisation, as you may say--beyond (hic) the pale," he repeats
+meditatively.
+
+"Beyond the pail or the cask, Dick?"
+
+"Beyond the pale," replies he dubiously, after a thoughtful pause.
+
+Dick was hearty in his endeavours to engage an "outfit."
+
+"Say! you! look here, now!" he would explain to a native; "these here
+men don't want none of your ---- ---- snide outfits, but jest good
+_bronchos_, and a waggon, and strong harness."
+
+"Wal, can't yer find no waggons?"
+
+"Waggons! ----! waggons 'nough for a whole army! But, ---- ---- it,
+these fellows all propose to make independent fortunes out of us in a
+single day. Why, they want jest as much to hire out one _broncho_ for a
+week as'll buy whole team."
+
+Swearing is prevalent among these fellows. The reply given to us by a
+teamster that we met and consulted about the distance of a certain day's
+journey, concerning which it appeared that we had been misinformed, was
+by no means exceptional. "Thirty-five miles, ---- ---- it! Why ---- ----
+it, it ain't a ---- ---- bit more than twenty-five ---- ---- no! ----!"
+
+Our man, Andrews, was rather gifted in this line. He was to be heard at
+his best in the early morning, when engaged in catching the hobbled
+mules and horses. Amongst the more innocent titles conferred by him upon
+certain members of our stud were, "the yaller, one-eyed cuss," "the
+private curse," "the bandy-legged, hobbling, contrary son of----" etc.,
+etc.; here following contumelious references to both the animal's remote
+ancestors and immediate progenitors. Frantic with rage, he usually
+concluded by hysterically imploring us to assist him in hanging them, or
+driving them into the river with a view of drowning them. Brown, our
+cook, one of the quietest, gentlest, and best old fellows in the world,
+rather enjoyed these scenes. His cooking, which really left nothing to
+be desired, so far as camp cookery was concerned, met with severe
+criticism at the hands of this unwashed Mormon. The meekest cook would
+have resented this.
+
+"Yes," he said one day, as he turned the antelope steaks in the
+frying-pan, and listened to the voice of the teamster, softly swearing
+in the distance, "yes, Mormons always do swear ter'ble, and the women as
+well, and the children, too--and smoke. I guess they smokes more, and
+stands for the swearingest people as there is anywhere. And they're all
+alike."
+
+We took no tent, but relied entirely on fine weather and buffalo robes.
+For the first few days the track lay through a gameless and
+uninteresting alkali country. The dryness of the atmosphere was
+remarkable. Moist sugar became as hard as rock; discharged powder left
+nothing but a little dry dust in the gun-barrels; our lips cracked, and
+our fingernails grew so brittle that it was impossible to pare without
+breaking them. As we proceeded, the scenery grew wild, and in places
+fine. On many slopes the pine forests had been swept by fire, and
+skeleton trunks, from which the bark had fallen away, stood out in
+ghostly array from the yellow, red, and russet undergrowth, or looked
+with ascetic asperity upon the bright belt of light-leaved willow
+bushes, whose boughs danced gaily in the sunlight on the foot-hills.
+
+At length we surmounted a low divide at the head of the Centennial
+Valley, and caught our first glimpse of Henry's Lake. In the purple haze
+of an autumnal sunset it lay below us; and the ripples that dwelt there,
+waked from their midday slumbers by the evening breeze, sparkled, and
+glittered, and tossed, and laughed, whilst they restlessly compared
+their blue, and gold, and violet reflections, and chased each other to
+the shores of emerald islands out on the silver bosom of the waters.
+Time was when only the sun came up and looked in upon the solitude of
+this beautiful sheet of water, dreaming its time away in the still heart
+of the mountains. At most an occasional Indian wandered thither, to hunt
+antelope on its grassy shores, wild fowl in its reedy fringe, or spear,
+by torchlight, the noble trout that haunt its crystal depths. Now it is
+in a fair way to become a summer resort. Already a log hotel has been
+tried there, and jam-pots and empty meat-tins lie around it in
+profusion. Fortunately, for some reason it has been deserted. So the
+pelicans, the swans, and geese that dot the lake's wide surface, the
+ducks and flocks of teal that sail there in fleets, or skim in close
+order to and fro, the grouse in the willow thickets, and the wary
+regiments of antelope upon the slopes, have yet a respite of comparative
+security to enjoy before civilisation drives them from their patrimony.
+
+We frequently camped near a trout stream. The trout, although proof
+against the persuasive influence of the artificial fly, were generally
+amenable to the seductions of the grasshopper, the butterfly, or grub.
+Dick's disgust at fly-fishing was amusing. One day B. lent him a rod,
+and I gave him some flies. He was absent about an hour, and then
+returned, with but little more than the winch and the butt of the rod.
+
+"Well, Piscator, what luck?" inquired B.
+
+"Why, these durned fish don't _piscate_ worth a cent. Guess I'll go and
+_catch_ some with a pole and a 'hopper, or there won't be any fish for
+supper."
+
+The identification of trout was one of sundry points upon which the
+teamster and I agreed to differ. Trout vary considerably in their
+markings in these mountain streams; still, a trout is unmistakable.
+
+"That's a pretty trout," I said one day.
+
+"He ain't no trout. That thar's a chub."
+
+"How do you know that?" I asked.
+
+"A chap told me so."
+
+"I should call it a trout."
+
+"Wal, they call it a chub down at the terminus,[2] and I reckon the boys
+there know something. Anyway, he's a chub in this country."
+
+With this conclusive argument Andrews always crushed me. We were at
+issue upon several questions of this and other natures. Only one,
+however, threatened to result unpleasantly.
+
+Andrews had a boy. He was a surly, flat-faced boy, with a nose like a
+red pill. His name was Bud, or Buddy. The father thought all the world
+of Bud. He was one of the many "smartest boys in the States." Naturally
+his proud spirit brooked no restraint. On all subjects he considered
+himself the best-informed person in the party. Although only twelve
+years old, his education was complete, and he possessed, together with
+great experience and implicit self-reliance, a shot-gun, a rifle, and a
+racing pony. Bud from the commencement had assumed command of the
+expedition; he seemed to labour under the impression that we had come
+from England on purpose to accompany him.
+
+Whenever the trail was well travelled, he would drive our spare stock a
+few yards ahead of us, so that we were thoroughly annoyed by the dust.
+This amused him. Expostulation being without avail, I was forced to
+insist upon his taking his amusement in some other way. Bud declared
+that "he would be dog-durned if he was going to run his interior" (he
+called it by some other name) "out a-driving the stock any further
+ahead--durned if he would." However, he was induced to change his mind,
+and although the teamster expended a great deal of energy in bold talk
+and gesticulation, the moment an opportunity was offered him of
+displaying his prowess, he collapsed. The matter was, therefore, settled
+amicably. Thenceforward Bud was more circumspect. He used to overeat
+himself. When just retribution overtook him, his devoted parent, in an
+agony of fear, would declare his intention of returning to the terminus
+in quest of a doctor. On two occasions we hung for awhile in the
+greatest anxiety upon Bud's languid responses to inquiries concerning
+his health; and we questioned him as if we loved him--which we didn't.
+We all doctored him, too. Yet he lived! Evidently his constitution was
+strong. Once, in a fit of meddlesome benevolence, I restrained his
+father from giving him a powerful aperient for diarrhoea. Like most acts
+of officious good-nature, it was often a source of regret afterwards.
+
+It is a fatal mistake to allow a boy to accompany a party of this kind,
+the more especially one of these ill-conditioned, never-corrected,
+western frontier cubs. They seem to think it incumbent upon them to air
+their smartness and impertinence at the expense of strangers. Dogs, in
+camp, are apt to lead to trouble, too, in the West. A dog is regarded
+there with somewhat the same feelings that he would excite in a
+Mussulman household. Our dog was the cause of annoyance on several
+occasions. Once the men mutinied in a body, because I collected some
+scraps after supper, and gave them to him _on a plate_.
+
+Those who dwell in the neighbourhood of the Yellowstone National Park,
+love enthusiastically to term it Wonderland, and not without reason.
+Within its boundaries (one hundred miles square), there are over 10,000
+active geysers, hot springs, fumaroles, solfataras, salses, and boiling
+pools. Of these, over 2,000 are found in the small area comprising the
+Upper, Middle, and Lower Geyser Basins. Sulphur mountains, an obsidian
+mountain, a mud volcano, a so-called blood geyser, and various other
+remarkable phenomena add to the interest of this extraordinary region,
+whilst there is scenery here that, for grandeur and grotesqueness, may
+challenge comparison with the world's most striking features. Proceeding
+at once towards the Upper Geyser Basin, we pass the Lower Basin with its
+so termed "paint pots," or "cream pots," boiling vats of a
+semi-silicious clay, which varies in colour from creamy white to pink or
+slate, some fine geysers, and the intermediate "Hell's half-acre," and
+adjoining pools. These are at once the most impressive and beautiful
+pools in the Park. I turned aside twice to them--once on my way to the
+Upper Basin, and once on my return; seeing them on these occasions under
+completely diverse aspects, for on the first day a thunderstorm darkened
+the wonted serenity of the sky.
+
+They are situated in a desolate expanse of white, formed by deposits
+from the numerous springs that bubble up on all sides. The first pool is
+of comparative unimportance. The second (whence the locality derives its
+name) considerably exceeds half-an-acre in size. It has but recently
+assumed its present dimensions. These are daily increasing, apparently,
+and it bids fair, if its devouring energies continue unabated, to unite
+with its fellow pools, and form a lake some acres in extent. Numerous
+cracks and fissures scallop its edges, indicating the direction of
+future encroachments, and it is with feelings of some misapprehension
+that the stranger to these infernal regions cautiously approaches to
+windward of the stream, to gaze into the awesome gulf below him. The
+boiling hiss and roar of many waters issues unceasingly from its depths,
+but heavy clouds veil them from view, and the miniature cliffs that
+plunge precipitously down are speedily lost in steam. A breath of wind
+sweeps past, and through a rift in the swelling billows of vapour a
+glimpse of the seething surface is obtained. It is a sight that alone
+repays the labour of a journey thither. And seen as I first saw it, when
+thunder rolled overhead, and the heavens were rent from time to time
+with the flash of lightning, the wild character of the scene was
+enhanced.
+
+Unlike "Hell's half-acre," the third and largest pool is brimful, and
+overflows its edges, forming, with the minerals that its waters contain
+in solution, a succession of steps and tiny ledges, which entirely
+surround it. It is impossible to conceive anything more beautiful than
+the colouring here presented. The water is of the purest, brightest
+cerulean hue, but near the shallow edges it takes its tone from the
+enclosing rocks, and the glorious azure is lost in yellow, pale green,
+or red, whilst chemical deposits, in exquisite arrangements, such as the
+genius of Nature alone can suggest, of écru and ivory, lemon and orange,
+buff, chocolate, brown, pink, vermilion, bronze, and fawn encircle the
+pool, or paint with ribbon-like effect the tiny streams that trickle
+from its overflow. Nor is this all. In the transparent curtain of
+languid steam--an airy tissue of impossible delicacy, that is gently
+wafted across the pine-wood landscape--dim reflections of all these
+wondrous colours, slowly dissipating and fading from sight, are visible.
+Alas, that anything so lovely should ever fade! The sleepy stillness,
+the appearance of profound depth, and the moist brilliancy of colouring
+in this pool defy description. The brush of the greatest artist, the pen
+of the finest writer would alike be laid aside in despair, and the
+genius of man forced to bow before the power of Nature, were it tasked
+to convey a faithful picture of the fantastic beauty of this unearthly
+scene.
+
+Passing on through a pine forest, seared and blackened by recent fires,
+and through the Middle Geyser Basin, with its columns of steam, its
+subterraneous rumblings, its hollow echoing of our horses' trampling,
+its hissing craters, and its bubbling springs (lying sometimes within a
+few feet of the track), we entered the Upper Basin towards evening.
+Imagine the head of a valley walled in by pine-clad hills, and threaded
+by a stream that rushes through a bottom of desert white, dotted by
+clumps of pine-trees, from amidst which dense columns of steam rise on
+all sides and tower into the heavens. All evidences of the storm had
+cleared, and sinking amidst gold and purple clouds, the sun shed a fiery
+glow through the trees upon the ridges, that caused each twig--almost I
+had said each pine-needle--to stand out clearly against the sky. As we
+crossed the stream and mounted the opposite bank, a vast body of steam,
+followed by a jet of water 160 feet high, shot up into the air at the
+further end of the basin.
+
+"There goes 'Old Faithful'!" exclaimed Dick; "the only reliable geyser
+in the Park. You can always bet on seeing him every sixty-five minutes."
+
+Already encamped here, we found a large party of ladies and gentlemen
+from Boston, who were travelling through the Park. They informed us that
+the "Giantess" (perhaps the finest, but certainly the most capricious
+geyser of all) was expected to play in the morning, and the "Castle" to
+perform the next evening. There are nine principal geysers, namely, the
+Giant, Giantess, Castle, Grand, Beehive, Comet, Fan, Grotto, and Old
+Faithful. With the exception of the Grotto (which simply churns and
+makes an uproar), one or other of these tremendous fountains may be
+expected to cast a stream of water from one to two or even three hundred
+feet high into the air at any moment.
+
+All geysers have not the same action, and most of them, in style of
+action, in the duration of their eruptions, and in the intervals that
+elapse between them, are apt individually to vary. Some play with
+laboured pumping, others throw a steady jet, some wear themselves out in
+a single effort, others subside only to commence again repeatedly. Thus
+an eruption may extend from two to twenty minutes--the approximate time
+occupied by the Grand--or even to one hour and twenty minutes, a period
+that the Giant has been known to play.
+
+The colours that tinge the edges of some craters, and stain the courses
+of the streams which they send forth, are indescribably beautiful. The
+snowy whiteness of the grounding is relieved by dainty buffs, pale
+pinks, and softest écrus, deep yellows shot with brown, orange streaked
+with vermilion, or straying into crimson, chocolate merging into black,
+and interlined with lemon--by colours, in fact, run riot, and all
+glistening wet beneath the clearest crystal water, that in the centre of
+the crater deepens into a heavenly blue. From such brilliancy it is a
+relief to turn to the sullen pines upon the hills.
+
+Extinct domes and craters overgrown by flourishing trees, or mounds
+still bare, and even steaming, with otherwise only their immense size to
+attest the mighty power that formed and has capriciously deserted them,
+are found here and there amongst those known still to be active. Some
+of the more modern craters are surrounded by the skeleton trunks of
+trees that their eruptions have killed, and which, under the action of
+their mineral waters, are rapidly becoming petrified; whilst in the
+conflict betwixt desolation and verdure, which, owing to the frequent
+variation of the centres of action, is constantly in progress, the lowly
+bunch-grass steals ground wherever it dared draw a blade.
+
+Of the geysers whose eruptions we witnessed, the Grand was, I think, one
+of the most interesting. It played each evening at a regular hour. We
+were thus enabled to get comfortably into front seats, focus our
+glasses, and discuss the programme, as it were, before the performance
+commenced. This it did very abruptly, although the activity displayed at
+a small vent-hole, and the furious bubbling in another orifice connected
+with it, might be accepted as premonitory symptoms. Suddenly, with a
+single prefatory spurt, a vast column of water, over 200 feet high, was
+shot into the air. For a few minutes the pressure was maintained with
+unrelaxed vigour, then as suddenly it ceased, and the waters shrank back
+out of sight in the crater. Meanwhile the vent and cauldron were still
+furiously labouring, and subterraneous thunder shook the ground on which
+we stood. After a minute's cessation, the water burst forth again
+without warning, and with even greater violence. This continued until
+nine successive pulsations had occurred, the later efforts, however,
+perceptibly diminishing in grandeur.
+
+It was a marvellous sight. The maddened rush of scalding water breaking
+free for a moment from its mysterious captivity, the gigantic columns of
+dense vapour, the showers of wreathed spray and crystal darts, forming,
+as they fell, screen upon screen of dazzling trellis-work, the
+lance-like jets pennoned with puffs of steam, the underground reports,
+the wondrous effects of the evening sun upon the silver spears that with
+lightning rapidity flashed forth and were shivered, broke and reformed
+again, the rainbow that shone through the slowly drifting masses of
+gauzy mist, the glitter and softness, passion and repose, formed a scene
+in which majestic fury was oddly mingled with the frailest loveliness.
+The packers and teamsters were right: "The Yellowstone Park and them
+geysers were jest indescribable." Over and over again was the admission
+forced from us, and not least heartily when, in the dim valley at
+night, the ghostly columns of vapour were seen winding from amidst
+impenetrable shadows and invading the silent heavens, whilst the rush
+and splashing of those mighty fountains from time to time broke the
+stillness of the breathless hours.
+
+Slightly removed from the main group here is one of minor importance,
+containing, nevertheless, objects of considerable interest. Chief
+amongst these is the Golconda spring. In some respects this is one of
+the most striking features in the Upper Basin. It lies in the hollow of
+banks that form an exact representation of an inverted horse-hoof. By
+tiny terraces (the creation of deposits contained in its heavily charged
+waters) the stream issues from the frog of the hoof, and spreads over a
+large surface on its shallow course to the river. There is a strange
+fascination in striving to pierce the profound, pellucid, and brilliant
+depths of this extraordinary spring. Somewhat akin the feeling is to
+that which impels us to gaze and gaze into some deep ravine. One could
+stand for hours here, tracing the ivory cliffs bathed in what seems to
+be a pool of melted sapphires--down, down, down to where the gleaming
+waters grow black and awesome, and the creamy rocks contracting, lose
+their fantastic imagery, and mass in mystery to form the gloomy portals
+of a lower world.
+
+As a game country the Yellowstone Park is a mistake. You may kill a few
+antelope, an occasional elk, or deer; it would not be impossible to
+happen on a stray bear or bison; but to go there merely for game is to
+court disappointment. Besides which, hunting is restricted in the Park.
+Beyond its boundaries, good game countries are easy of access; within
+them, summer tourists have scared away all the game.[3] Nevertheless, it
+is always possible to kill enough birds and antelope to vary the camp
+fare. It is a delightful climate there in summer, and a glorious country
+for gipsying. He must be hard to please who would tire soon of those
+cool, dim pine woods and grassy glades, where the chipmunk and squirrel
+curiously reconnoitre you, and the odour of pine-sap is heavy on the
+air; where the breeze from without penetrates only in softened and
+saddened murmurous tones, that, in rising and falling, seem to come
+from so far away, to linger so short a while near you, and to die so
+slowly away in the unexplored aisles of the forest.
+
+On we used to ride silently over the thick carpet of pine-quills,
+smoking pipe after pipe whilst we chatted unrestrainedly, or travelled
+back lazily over the past and its scenes in thought. From time to time
+we would halt, till the waggon wheels were heard creaking in the
+distance, and then pass on again ahead of the men. Occasionally the
+scene changed for a stream-threaded valley, full of beaver-dams, near
+which a few ducks sailed idly, in security, to the intense excitement of
+the wise-looking retriever, "Shot," who would glance from them to us
+with unmistakable meaning. Here the pine yielded place to the aspen, and
+the chipmunk and squirrel were succeeded by gorgeous butterflies, and
+red-winged grasshoppers that sprang away with a noisy clapping of wings
+from every tuft of grass beneath our horses' hoofs. At night, round a
+blazing camp fire, Dick, old Brown, B., and I would sit talking through
+many a pleasant hour, till the flames waxed low and red, and the
+vociferous snoring of the teamster and his cub warned us to turn in.
+Brown then "got off" his last tale or joke, and with a hearty "good
+night" we sought our couches of springy pine-tops and buffalo robes,
+where we slept the calm sleep of a natural life. What silver-lit skies
+spread above us; what a marvellous blue their fathomless depths
+embosomed; and how exquisitely delicate was the tracery of pine-boughs
+betwixt us and the late-rising moon! "Good night, good night!" And with
+a lazy yawn "Shot" would coil himself up close to me, and make himself
+comfortable for the night also.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[1] Appeared originally in the _Nineteenth Century_.
+
+[2] The "terminus" is whichever village on the railway the speaker
+happens to frequent.
+
+[3] This was written in 1882. Since then hide hunters have completed
+their ruthless destruction of game in the western country, and the
+chance of finding any anywhere is now very small. I believe also that
+the Park has become a regular tourist resort, furnished with railways,
+hotels, etc., and hunting there is now altogether forbidden.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE YELLOWSTONE PARK.[4]--II.
+
+
+Quitting the geyser basins, we turned towards the Grand Cañon of the
+Yellowstone River. Since the new track thither was not yet (1882)
+finished, and it was impossible for anything on wheels to approach it,
+our waggon was despatched by another route, to await our arrival at the
+Mammoth Hot Springs, whilst we, accompanied by Dick, proceeded in light
+marching order.
+
+"Deep i' the afternoon," we approached the Upper Falls. Through a gorge,
+redeemed only from utter desolation by patches of red and yellow moss,
+and a few shaggy pines, the broad river forced its way. Through
+whirlpools and narrow gates, formed by the jutting out of buttresses of
+rock, and by isolated crags in mid-stream, a succession of ledges led
+it on with gathering force. Its sunny ripples became wild and black, the
+veins of white that streaked them spreading fast until, in the last
+narrow bend through which it whirled, but for the green lights in one
+glassy wave, the rugged surface was a sheet of foam. Then came the grand
+plunge. Freed from restraint, the whole body of the stream overleapt the
+sheer precipice before it, and fell, draped in white, clinging lace. A
+hundred and thirty-five feet below, it was lost to view in clouds of
+mist, through which the transient gleams of water lightnings and of
+flashing rocks were visible occasionally. Anon it issued from this
+silver shroud, tranquil and temporarily tamed.
+
+To describe the Yellowstone Cañon with any degree of justice is an
+almost hopeless task; nor do the following lines pretend to convey even
+a glimmer of its real magnificence.
+
+Some of the most marvellous effects and harmonies in colour that the
+world can show are displayed here, and that too on a scale of such
+grandeur, and in a mood of such majestic calm, that it is difficult in
+their presence to shake off the paralysis of simple wonder--to grasp
+the scene, and coin it into words.
+
+The rocks are of volcanic origin. Here their prevailing hue is that of
+old ivory, contrasted with warm tones of dead-leaf red, or purple masses
+of a hundred shades, and enriched by carmine and softest orange, till
+the cliffs glow like a sunset in that sunset home, the Sierra Nevada.
+Yonder russet and ruddy bronze kindle, and melt into buffs, cairngorms,
+and faded greens--all tints, in short, that autumn wears, mingled and
+scattered, intermixed and woven, like the wreckage of summer on a forest
+floor, are lavished here. Further still, a reach of pearly gray is shot
+with écru and crimson lake, faint veins of white, or scars of sullen
+black. This scenery endures for miles; and as if a _tour de force_ in
+colour were not enough, equal variety in form is exhibited in
+conjunction with it. Everywhere the rocks have eroded into quaint
+shapes. Forests and turreted castles, spires and cathedral domes,
+towers, monuments, and minarets, forts, forms, and faces are
+interspersed amidst a wilderness of pinnacles, boulders, and bluffs that
+have no likeness in the works of art.
+
+It is as though the earth had yawned asunder not long since, for
+pine-trees, with all the appearance of having been but lately separated,
+fringe the sharp edges of the cañon, and nod for old acquaintance' sake
+at one another, in measured unison with cadences of wind, that idly
+chase each other down its solitudes. Through dreamy distances of
+chequered light and tangled shadow, the glance travels under a sort of
+spell, and unconsciously the fancy grows that you are gazing through the
+aisles of a vast cathedral illuminated by myriad and wondrously stained
+windows--not a cathedral wrought by the hands of man, nor one whose
+stillness was ever broken by his feverish tread, but the ruins of a
+colossal judgment hall, or place of worship, created by some long-gone
+superhuman race, of whose existence we retain no record.
+
+Great hawks and kingly eagles hang upon level pinions in mid-air deep in
+the abyss beneath, and scarcely seem of greater consequence than jays.
+Three thousand feet below rushes the dwarfed river that a short while
+ago was on a level with us; and it looks like a slender chain of jewels
+linked in silver; its boiling rapids, losing their thunder in a thousand
+echo-haunts, send only the drowsiest murmur upwards to join in the
+musical breathing of the pine woods.
+
+The frosted and ever-falling silver of the great fall itself, a giant
+mass of festooned spray, knit into one Titanic column (397 feet high),
+the clouds and clouds of hoar mist that float veil behind quivering
+veil, and fill the rounded chasm into which it is hurled, form, without
+reference to the surroundings, a picture of most impressive loveliness.
+Where the great stream abruptly drops, trembles a bar of emerald from
+bank to bank. For a space, as if stunned, the current clings together,
+and is still; then, shuddering, it awakes and plunges on, mightily,
+irresistibly, grandly, an ever-changing avalanche of sifted snow, beaded
+with flashing diamond-dust and scattered pearls, guarded by sheaves of
+slim-shafted water lances to its bed of foam, in a dim, lichen-gilded
+cradle.
+
+No more glorious symbol of power could be conceived. There is about it
+that which rivets the attention. Willing or not, you must pause and
+watch it. And, arch-dissenter though you may be from the worship of
+Nature, this scene will, nevertheless, compel your admiration.
+
+Go and sit by those falls at evening, and watch the rosy glow of sunset
+settle with softening influence upon the upper cliffs, whilst below all
+is already steeped in mystery. Listen to the ceaseless roar of waters,
+till, to the half-stunned ear, it grows dull and dreamily monotonous, as
+if far away. Or stroll along the verge of the cañon, where the air is
+redolent with the exhalations of the pine-trees, and hearken to their
+vespers, which, as if chanted by errant spirit-choirs, steal slowly up
+from unknown forest cloisters, loiter a moment over the abyss to join in
+the river's song, and, rustling, pass away, as another choir draws nigh.
+And smile not if such things have no effect upon you, for you have
+missed truer pleasures than may be found in the imitations of art, or
+the monotonous music of civilisation.
+
+Leaving--with how much regret!--the Grand Cañon, we passed on by the
+curious and beautiful Tower Falls, and not less lovely cascades of the
+Gardner River, to the Mammoth Hot Springs. They lie upon the flanks of
+the White Mountain, and have gradually added to it a distinct spur,
+which, in the distance, shines amidst the neighbouring pine woods like a
+breadth of white satin in a mantle of pile velvet. These springs are
+many hundreds in number. With the calcite their waters contain in
+solution, they have built for themselves cup-shaped fonts, that stand in
+rows and terraces in regular formation, and present the appearance of
+having been hewn and polished in the finest marble. In all directions
+the glistening white and ivory is stained by combinations of brilliant
+and delicate tints, such as only the laboratory of Nature can produce.
+Each pool is a mirror. In its pure depths the fleecy clouds reflected
+sail slowly by, the dainty biscuit-work of the fountain's edges is
+faithfully reproduced, and the beholder himself, as he gazes therein, is
+photographed with a clearness that is at first sight startling.
+
+A few days we lingered here, and then set forth again.
+
+We were trekking quietly along one afternoon, when a riderless cavalry
+horse cantered towards us. With some difficulty it was caught, and a
+picket-rope, a coat, a pair of boots, and some saddle-bags were found
+attached to the saddle. No owner appearing, Dick took charge of the
+truant. He also took charge of the saddle-bags, which contained a cake
+of tobacco and a love-letter, or, as he styled them--"a chunk of
+'baccer, and some durned gush from a gal who's got mashed on the owner."
+He learnt the letter by heart, and delighted in making apposite
+quotations from it. Two mornings later, however, a claimant appeared in
+the person of a smart little Dutch trooper belonging to the cavalry
+escort of a surveying party. It seemed that, after breaking loose, the
+horse had travelled back eighty miles on his tracks. Our visitor, a
+cheery little fellow, stayed to breakfast with us.
+
+"I can only give you back half that chunk," said Dick reflectively, when
+he was leaving. "I'm a bit short of 'baccer myself."
+
+"All roight, partner, I got plenty. Py golly, ven I start out anyvers, I
+alvays go repairet" (prepared?).
+
+"Is that so? Wal, your head's level. By the way" (expectorating
+meditatively), "there was a letter...."
+
+The Dutchman's animation was arrested for a moment, then, looking
+quizzically at his interlocutor, he said: "You reet dat letter?"
+
+"You bet yer! I wanted to see who that tearing war-horse belonged to.
+What shall I tell your gal when we get down Ogden?"
+
+Again the Dutchman looked serious.
+
+"You know dat gal?"
+
+"I should smile," replied Dick, with hopeless melancholy.
+
+"Vell--vell--vell: you tell dat gal I bin on vilt goose chase after mine
+dam olt hoss, vat run vays mit her letter. And py golly, partner, joos
+take care and don' get on inside track of dat gal. Eh? Vat? You nee'n't
+tell her vat else. I finish der tale ven I kom." And again profusely
+thanking us, the errant lover trotted away with his steed in tow.
+
+One evening we camped below a likely-looking ridge for hunting, and,
+leaving the waggon next morning at "sun-up," set out in search of game,
+intending to bivouac a night in the upper woods. Elk had already begun
+to descend from the summits of the loftier ranges, whither, owing to the
+persecution of flies, they are forced during summer to retreat. It was
+necessary, therefore, to advance with caution even on the foot-hills.
+
+We had worked our way up through a belt of fallen timber into a forest
+of magnificent pines interspersed with grassy glades and willow bottoms,
+and were slowly proceeding, when a low whistle from Dick attracted my
+attention. He had halted to the left of me, and with furious
+gesticulations was indicating something in front of him. As I turned, an
+elk sprang up. Uncertain whence danger threatened him, for a second he
+paused, but a bullet from my Express rifle settled his deliberations.
+When my broncho, scared by the report, had concluded his part in the
+performance, I was able to inquire the effect of the shot.
+
+"Is he down, Dick?"
+
+"You bet yer. He's a daisy! You've shot him in the couplings, and broke
+his back. I guess I'll finish him," and Dick put a bullet through its
+head.
+
+A few yards from where we had first seen him lay the elk in the bracken,
+a magnificent fellow, with a fine head, only unfortunately two of his
+points were broken.
+
+"How many poets gild the lapse of years!" May we not paraphrase it, and
+write for "poets" pictures?--for scenes such as these are like frescoes
+in the galleries of memory. The hollow that we bivouacked in. The sleepy
+willow bottom where our bronchos were picketed. The afternoon hunt
+afoot, marked by glimpses of an elk and four white-tailed deer. The
+evening vigil on an elk-trail in the dim forest twilight, when the
+winds slumbered, the earth was dumb, and even a falling leaf created
+quite a stir. The calumet and chat, with our mocassined feet to the camp
+fire, the light from which playing upon the giant trunks around, made
+them seem like pillars in some mysterious hall; the cheerful glow anear,
+the sombre gloom beyond. Is it not all photographed and laid aside to
+beguile us of idle hours hereafter? He who has no ambition in the future
+should create a pleasant past.
+
+At daybreak we climbed the highest peak in the ridge. Soft distances,
+with hills of violet and lapis-lazuli, stretched to the far-off horizon,
+where hung low-lying clouds. Nearer, half-hidden beneath coverlets of
+mist, still valleys slept, and broke, together with a tortuous,
+silver-gleaming trout stream, the vast expanse of sombre pine forest and
+bronze prairie. Miles and miles away to the south, keen-edged and
+transparent, loomed up the beacon towers of the Tetons. And on their
+centre peak, caught by a wreath of last year's snow, there played a
+lambent flame of roseate fire--a thing of inexpressible delicacy--the
+wraith of a long-lost old-world colour stolen forth from its rest in the
+sun.
+
+Although tracks were fairly numerous, we saw no game. Still, if
+rewarded by occasional success, it is sufficient to feel that game is in
+the neighbourhood. To note fresh spoor, to find in grassy glades, upon
+the edge of willow thickets, the scarce deserted beds of elk and deer,
+to see the trees they have "used," rubbing the velvet from their
+antlers, to chance upon a bison wallow, or on the trunks of pines that
+have been barked by bears, even to watch the chipmunk and
+squirrel--Cobweb and Peaseblossom, "hop in your walks and gambol in your
+eyes"--and hear the blue grouse drumming on the trees, is a pleasure.
+The charm of hunting lies not entirely in finding.
+
+Soon after breaking the camp from which we made this trip, we reached
+Henry's Fork of the Snake River, the prettiest trout stream that I ever
+saw. General Sheridan and a large party, numerously escorted, camped
+just above us on the evening that we reached its banks, and Dick, who
+was of a social disposition, soon made the acquaintance of an old Irish
+sergeant in the escort. Being anxious to acquire any information to be
+had concerning routes, etc., he asked him which track they proposed to
+follow thence.
+
+"Sure," replied the sergeant, "an' the dhevil of a whon of us knows at
+all, but ould Phil (the general) himself, and he dhon't expriss his
+moind very freely."
+
+A good tale is current concerning certain Grand Dukes and personages of
+their world, who were taken through the Yellowstone country about this
+time. I give it as it was given to me, without vouching for its truth.
+
+It seems that the party had with them an ample supply of what are known
+in the field as "medical comforts." Of these they not only partook
+freely themselves, but largely distributed them amongst the members of
+their escort. The consequence was that, as the day wore on accidents
+occasionally happened. The officer in command of the escort was jogging
+along quietly by himself one afternoon, when a private rode up and
+saluted him. The man was reeling in his saddle, and had the greatest
+difficulty in maintaining his balance. "Well, what is it?" inquired his
+superior sharply. "Please, sir (hic), worre them ki-kings 'as
+fallenoff's 'orse." The native of the great republic had, as I have
+often found in men of his class out West, very hazy notions about
+eastern titles.
+
+Gradually we worked down stream, shifting camp from day to day. I
+generally travelled on a pine-log raft with Dick, fishing as we floated
+on the current.
+
+"Dick," I would say, whilst affixing a new fly, "this is very lazy
+work."
+
+"Thet's so," he would respond, disposing the steering pole under his arm
+whilst he bit a fresh quid off the Dutchman's "chunk." And after chewing
+the quid and the reflection with equal gusto for some moments in
+silence, he would add: "Thet's what I like about it."
+
+The happy-go-lucky manner in which the raft drifted on to boulders, and
+hung there whilst we caught fish until it drifted off again, the perfect
+ease of the motion, the beauty of the river scenery, the excellence of
+the sport, the health, the harmony, and simplicity of it all, rendered
+these sunny voyages extremely delightful.
+
+B. followed the gentle art on horseback. Furnished with strong tackle,
+he used to ride into the water, hook his fish, put the rod over his
+shoulder, and ride ashore again. Then he would shout to the infamous Bud
+to come and take the fish off. Bud generally took himself off instead,
+and after a while the fish would do likewise. As a rule it happened
+that, when the fish was there, the boy was not, and when the boy came
+the fish had gone. Considered under the influence of daily contact with
+Bud, infanticide came to appear an admirable institution; but
+fortunately nothing disturbed B.'s equanimity.
+
+Dick's temperament was not so well regulated. Seeing him one day engaged
+in playing an unusually good fish, the boy ran up from behind shouting:
+"Oh, Dick! get on your meule, and ride him out."
+
+Failing to catch the gist of the remark, Dick turned to see what was
+wanted of him and lost the fish. It is needless to transcribe his
+remonstrance; powerful as it was, however, it had no effect upon the
+imperturbable infant.
+
+"Wall," he persisted with bewitching gaiety, as he moved away again; "ef
+ye'd only got on yer meule, yer might a' fetched him out."
+
+Dick was still too furious to be reported; by degrees, however, he
+subsided into a grumble. "Get on my meule and pull him out! Get on my
+meule! ----! I only wish I had _him_ glued on that meule for a
+fortnight, and me driving it on a rough trail."
+
+"I guess I'd better kill him," said old Brown, very gently. He had
+walked across from the camp fire to watch the sport, and was now
+absently stropping a big meat-knife on his thigh, "he'll do better,
+maybe, in Abraham's bosom."
+
+"The other bosomites couldn't stand him," said Dick hopelessly; "they'd
+fire him out, sure! Abe'd yank him out of that himself."
+
+Any day in this stream from forty to fifty brace of trout, averaging two
+pounds apiece, might have been caught. Sketching and shooting, however,
+divided the time, and my best day's sport was nineteen brace and a half,
+most of which were returned to the water. Prettier, gamer, or
+better-flavoured fish could not have been found, and the days we spent
+in this valley will always be a source of pleasant recollections.
+
+Scarcely less pleasant, though, were the evenings when hoarse-noted
+swans, pelicans, and herons winged their slow flight above the water's
+course; geese in a wedge, or ducks in line, sped past on their rapid
+way; and, later on, the curlew came, and swift, piratical night-hawks
+flitted to and fro in the filmy crepuscule. Through the dusky foliage
+then flashed the fire of moonlight, and the golden orb rose and rose
+until she hung above a pine-tree spire "comme un point sur un _i_,"
+whilst her first-fallen beam, a lost diamond lately on the dark pavement
+of the waters, grew into a thread of quivering light that stretched
+across a shifting tracery of swirls and eddies. Soon all sounds were
+hushed, save those of fish rising, the occasional whirr of ducks' wings,
+or the fitful nocturnes played in the river reeds by silken winds which
+only made the stillness seem deeper, the serene spell of night more
+powerful.
+
+As we descended the stream, the fishing deteriorated; some memorable
+evenings amongst the ducks and geese were recorded, however, and these
+were varied by excursions into the hills after elk and deer, which,
+although not always successful, were sufficiently so to keep our
+interest in the quest alive, and our larder replenished.
+
+One day the summer vanished. It had been one of the loveliest daybreaks
+during the trip, and after bivouacking a couple of nights in the hills,
+we were returning to camp when it commenced to rain. As we were crossing
+the plains, the clouds that had suddenly enveloped the mountains drifted
+partially away, and, looking back, we saw that the peaks and ridges we
+had hunted but a few hours before, and had left sunning their rich
+tints in the autumn sunlight, were blanched by the first fall of snow.
+
+For the next three days and nights it rained incessantly, and when at
+length the fog lifted, even the lower spurs appeared cloaked in their
+wintry mantles. Our limit of time, however, was nearly exhausted, and
+already our faces had been set towards the railway.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[4] Appeared originally in the _Nineteenth Century_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+QUAIL SHOOTING IN THE SIERRAS.
+
+
+If the reader has ever undergone the Ordeal by Baggage at an American
+railway station in the middle of the night, he will appreciate our
+feelings when we learnt that we should not reach Emigrant Gap until 1
+a.m.
+
+Emigrant Gap is situated near the summit, or the highest point attained
+by the Central Pacific Railway in its passage of the Sierra Nevada
+Mountains. _En route_ for San Francisco we had arranged to halt there
+for some quail shooting, and in due course the train deserted us, half
+asleep, upon a little wayside platform in the middle of a snow-shed. I
+have a hazy recollection of being introduced to a friend of my
+companion's, who met us there, a Western giant named Shin, who greeted
+me as cordially as if, instead of being a stranger, I was a rich
+relation. In a few minutes, comfortably installed in his cottage, we
+were sleeping soundly.
+
+Next morning, when I awoke, a flood of golden sunlight was streaming in
+at my bed-room window, and through the open door was thrust a Velasquez
+head in a broad, black sombrero, which shaded bronzed features, a crisp
+black beard, and a curly upturned moustache. There was a careless,
+genial air about the face, and a twinkle of humour in the dark eyes that
+was as infectious as it was irresistible. It was Shin, come to wake me.
+
+"Thought I'd just see if you were right before I went to bed," he said.
+
+I blinked at the dazzling window.
+
+"That's only our Sierra moonlight," he continued imperturbably. "You'll
+get used to that; but if it keeps you awake, I'll pull the blind down."
+
+Here a burst of laughter from an adjoining room interrupted us.
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" cried B.'s voice. "Don't listen to that coon; you get up."
+
+"Coon?" repeated my visitor attentively. "Coon!..."
+
+But here his head was abruptly withdrawn and an amusing colloquy ensued
+in the next room.
+
+I turned out and soon joined them. Shin and B. were old friends; both,
+too, were "old Californians." The conversation of an old Californian is
+generally amusing. And so, another cup of coffee, and another yarn; and
+another yarn, and yet another cup of coffee, prolonged breakfast far
+into the morning.
+
+Our plan of campaign was to drive slowly to Soda Springs and back,
+halting to shoot when and wherever we heard quail calling. Early in the
+afternoon, a buggy drawn by two horses appeared at the gate; and,
+lighting our pipes, we started. Scarcely had we left the outlying
+cottages a hundred yards behind us when:
+
+"Quails!" said B.
+
+"H'm--quails, sure!" coincided Shin judicially.
+
+I said, "quails!" also, although without any very definite reason for
+doing so.
+
+We pulled up.
+
+"Hush!" whispered B.
+
+"Hush!" repeated the giant.
+
+I also said, "hush!" The driver made the same pertinent
+observation--the only remark he contributed that day. Then we all
+"hushed" in chorus, which started the horses, and quieted the quails.
+(_Par parenthèse_, may I inquire if you ever hush, when told to do so?
+Systematic experiments upon all sorts and conditions of people have led
+me to conclude that the impulse to "hush" back at once is one that human
+nature cannot resist.)
+
+Silence being restored, we listened. Soon the quails' calling burst
+forth again away up the hill-side, and, hastily alighting, we plunged
+into the forest and followed them.
+
+In a few minutes a bird suddenly rose before me, and vanished behind a
+bush. Whilst debating in my own mind whether it were a quail or not,
+another bird rose and whisked round another bush. I shot the bush. And
+then another bird got up, and I shot another bush. And then another bird
+got up, and there being no bush in its immediate vicinity, I stopped it,
+and proceeded to pick up my first Californian mountain quail.
+
+What a pretty bird it is, with its long drooping top-knot, and its
+mottled breast and thighs! Of the sad-coloured birds, few can excel it
+in beauty of shape or marking. It has that symmetrically prosperous,
+that æsthetically fastidious, confidently reposeful, felicitously demure
+appearance, only to be observed in perfection in wealthy, wicked, and
+juvenile widows. Shin, an exquisitely bad shot (so bad indeed that he
+rarely succeeded in killing a quail, unless he caught one sitting for
+its photograph), used to assert that: "They would roll about on the
+granite boulders with their heels in the air, and laugh till they
+moulted, when they saw _him_ coming with a gun." I cannot say that I
+myself ever witnessed in the quail any so striking an example of their
+just appreciation of the humorous as this; but my informant was a man of
+thoughtful habits, keen powers of observation, and unimpeachable
+veracity. Moreover, it is well known that certain birds do laugh, and
+that, too, under less provocation than Shin's quails experienced. To the
+curious collector of ornithological data I can, therefore, commend this
+instance.
+
+Having bagged a couple more birds, a sugar-pine, and a granite boulder,
+I rejoined the buggy, where the others soon met me, and, remounting, we
+drove slowly on again. In a few minutes the same proceedings were
+re-enacted, and this continued throughout the afternoon. It was the
+easiest sport that I ever enjoyed. Quail shooting after this fashion has
+all the attractive simplicity of vice. It induces that pleasurable
+exultation which, until detection supervenes, always, I believe, attends
+an infraction of the law. Enjoyment of such kind seldom fails to
+stimulate even the jaded appetites of the wicked, but more especially
+doth it afford a relish to those who, never having impaired their moral
+palates by intemperate indulgence in crime, are still able to sin with
+the sentiments of novelty and zest that ever reward moderation. Need I
+say that our moral palates were yet susceptible of these delightful
+impressions.
+
+At length the driver pulled up on the summit of a grade. The shadows had
+grown longer and deeper, the day had waxed old and weary, rich in colour
+and in gilded glory, but in breathing faint and low. Both near and far
+away the granite peaks were lurid with purple and with blood-red lights,
+as if the sun shone on them through stained glass. The crests of the
+ridges had become fringed with a lace-work of coruscated fire, that
+glittered through the dark pine-quills, and shot soft, luminous rays and
+ways down into the delicately pencilled pools of twilight in the
+bottoms, whose leafy edges seemed like pebbled shores. And at one point,
+where the hidden trout stream, winding on its course, had widened for
+itself a resting-place, deep in a wilderness of foliage and shade there
+gleamed a strange hieroglyphic in thread of gold, that flashed upon the
+shifting eddies of the water-node, as though some magic beetle circled
+there.
+
+The squirrels and the chipmunks had vanished. No longer did the
+challenge of the doughty quail call us to arms. It was that transient
+interlude betwixt the minstrelsy of day and night. Dumb stillness had
+fallen upon all the forest, and not a breath of wind wooed any flower,
+nor whispered round any cone, till, with one long, low sigh, like a
+lost, lonely note of music singing to seek its fellows in the brown
+whorls of curléd leaves--those forest shells of daintiest
+biscuit-work--the dirge of day stole through the valley and passed on.
+There was only the murmur of the rock-embosomed stream, and from afar
+off, the fitful tinkling of a wether-bell came faintly down our way.
+
+
+     "Hence, thou lingerer, light!
+     Eve saddens into night."
+
+
+"Drive on to Campbell's--we'll stay there to-night. It is getting too
+late to shoot," said Shin.
+
+The wheels grated once more on the stony track, and on we went to
+Campbell's hostelry.
+
+Very many of the pleasantest days in life are the most poverty-stricken
+in regard to incident. In all this week, only one episode occurred which
+would make you really laugh, and that, I regret to say, Shin would not
+like me to relate. Do not infer though, that, because the current of the
+trip was placid, it necessarily was dull. So far from such being the
+case, we did not pass a single dull half-hour. An exhilarating
+freshness, an evanescent crispness is in this mountain air, which
+absolutely defies dulness. Moreover, we had started in that state of
+helpless good humour in which anything serves as food for laughter. It
+was not recorded that any one made a sensible remark during the whole
+drive; we talked pure nonsense exclusively. In this congenial spirit we
+were encouraged by the fact that, our wooden-visaged, saturnine
+driver--an eminently matter-of-fact and sensible man--preserved,
+throughout, impenetrable reserve. He sat on the box-seat in dignified
+silence, a mute protest against the egregious imbecility of human
+nature as exemplified in ourselves. Evidently he had been designed
+without any reference to the rules of risible acoustics. He was angular
+and flat all over. People constructed on this principle are not adapted
+for the expression of merriment. If he ever had laughed, the
+displacement of solemnity would have been so tremendous, that he would
+never have recovered his centre of gravity, and would probably have died
+mentally upside down, and mad. He only made one spontaneous observation
+during the excursion. We were talking of chipmunks and squirrels.
+
+"Chipmunks----" he ejaculated. And then he paused and thought for a
+while. "Chipmunks," he resumed, later in the day, "is alegant food."
+
+Up the hill we were slowly toiling towards Campbell's, when a ragged boy
+in a broad-leafed hat, seated upon a ragged pony, whose tail coquetted
+with his heels, came jogging on the down-grade towards us.
+
+"Say!" exclaimed Shin, "now when this fellow passes, we'll all take off
+our hats to him. Don't say anything; just bow and watch him."
+
+Accordingly, when the boy drew near we greeted him with three sweeping
+bows. Probably he had never seen any one bow before; evidently he was
+not familiar with this form of salutation. He pulled up, and was staring
+after us in dumb astonishment, when, a thought seemed to strike him.
+Removing his own hat, he carefully examined it. But there was nothing
+the matter with that, and he rammed it on again with an air of dogged
+perplexity. Anon, he shouted something--our inability to catch which was
+perhaps not to be deplored; and when, some minutes later, we turned a
+corner and lost sight of him, he was still where we had left him, gazing
+after us.
+
+_À propos des bottes_: this unkempt, young mountaineer possessed
+aquiline features of the purest type; and it appears to me, as a
+superficial observer, open to correction, that these will distinguish
+the American of the future. The fusion of races in America is remarkably
+rapid. Distinctive physical peculiarities vanish not less swiftly than
+do national idiosyncrasies in character. And the mould in which these
+disappear is one that bears a striking resemblance to that formerly
+prevalent among the higher class Indian nations of the continent. The
+typical American is aquiline-featured, stern or impassible in
+expression of countenance, spare of frame, chary of speech, impassive in
+demeanour, endued with unusual self-control and determination. But these
+traits--which, if further example were necessary, could be
+multiplied--were all once distinctive of the Indian; and that they
+should reassert themselves thus uniformly in the descendants of the
+divers alien races settled in America, opens a physiological problem of
+unusual magnitude and interest. Doubtless, in process of time, the
+citizen of the republic will become tinged with copper. A tone of brass
+is already noticeable occasionally.
+
+Next morning saw us early under way; and during all the forenoon the
+road led through rocky passes, or was blasted in the steep sides of
+sombre valleys. On we drove amidst a network of crumbled light, whose
+shadowed meshes were cast by the vast trunks of cedars, sugar and yellow
+pines, red and silver firs, tamaracks, and spruces. Nothing in the
+forest races can match the stately beauty of these straight-limbed
+giants, clad in dark plumes. They are an order of knights, a dynasty of
+kings amongst trees. Where they have fallen, they lie like vanquished
+Titans, and seem even grander stretched out beneath clinging palls of
+moss than when upreared, archetypes of strength and grace, they toss
+their quilled foliage in the winds, and tower majestically above the
+earth.
+
+Ever and anon the continuity of their solemn crypts and corridors was
+interrupted by some still glen, a cache of dreams and summer beauty. And
+here--scattered amidst enormous boulders, or gray and grim, or worked
+with gorgeous blazonry in lichens--red-leaved sumachs, golden-foliaged
+aspens, and masses of flushed flowers blent in the rich arabesque of
+purple, brown, and russet bracken, had writ an idyl in a silent
+language, whose words were colour, and whose characters were leafy
+tracery, delicate and ever new. Yonder, by the lucent gleam of sunbeams,
+its tinted poetry was touched with fire, and there in the pearly shadows
+of midday it was yet coolly sleeping.
+
+Long must have been the list of killed and wounded in the _Quail
+Gazette_ after that morning's work. At times the forest rang and
+re-echoed like a choice covert in England. Towards noon, having finished
+a beat before the others were ready, I walked on ahead of the buggy to a
+turnpike gate to ask for a glass of water. Instead of a crusty old
+gate-keeper I was agreeably surprised to see, tripping bare-headed from
+the neighbouring cottage, a pretty dark girl with black eyes, a "peart"
+air, and a smart _sang de boeuf_ bow under her chin. In the course of
+some conversation which ensued I mentioned that Mr. Shin was on the
+road, and inquired whether she knew him. A smile rose immediately on her
+cherry lips.
+
+"Shin? Well, you'd better believe I do; he's pretty well known around.
+Say, Alice! d'ye hear?" she cried, raising her voice, "Shin's coming
+'long."
+
+A merry laugh from the interior of the log-house greeted this
+announcement.
+
+"There ain't another just like Shin from here to Panama," explained the
+damsel. "He's a genius. He's bound to be foolin' all the time, and he
+looks so sad with it--like he'd got a pain somewhere, or was making up
+poetry. Oh! Shin's a whole show, and he plays the music himself."
+
+We lunched here, the gate-keeper's daughter kindly undertaking to cook
+quails for us if we would pluck them. Shin "played the music."
+
+In the afternoon we set forth again through the forest, and its
+clearings, and its old deserted villages, that had flourished when the
+route we were following was the high-way betwixt Sacramento and Virginia
+City, when placer mining was carried on in the district, and before the
+railway had usurped the traffic. Now, owing to neglect, and to the
+destruction caused by heavy rains, the track appears to have lain
+disused for centuries instead of for little more than a decade. Many a
+yarn had Shin and B. to relate of the days when this same dried
+watercourse was a well-kept road, and they rattled up and down its steep
+grades on the mail-coach. One, and not the least curious of the wayside
+features, is the still standing trunks of pine-trees that were sawn off
+twenty and thirty feet from the ground, when the snow lay that deep on
+the Sierras.
+
+We had come in our old weather-stained hunting garments, and, in order
+not to burden the buggy, had brought with us very little extra clothing.
+During the day's work the dust had accumulated upon us, until it almost
+seemed as if we were fulfilling the biblical prophecy and returning to
+the original component of man. It was anything but comforting,
+therefore, to hear Shin remark, as we turned off the main road in the
+direction of Soda Springs, that it was the time of year when visitors
+were numerous there. He, however, was right. When, in due course, we
+issued from the forest, and crossing a rustic bridge drew up before the
+hotel, we found its verandah full of pretty faces and well-dressed men.
+
+Soda Springs is a summer resort, consisting merely of a hotel, a few
+outhouses, and a private cottage, all prettily situated in a valley. A
+dashing trout stream runs hard by, and there is some fair shooting in
+the neighbourhood.
+
+To visit Soda Springs without ascending Tinkler's Nob was to incur an
+everlasting stigma of reproach. Nevertheless, as I sat smoking in the
+verandah next morning (Sunday), eyeing askance that most
+uncompromisingly perpendicular mountain, my heart opened towards the
+stigma. It was so hot. I suggested this to B., he merely remarked that
+it was nothing to what we should experience half-way up the Nob. B. had
+determined that I should go up. I indulged in another long and careful
+survey of the disagreeable eminence with the cacophonious appellation.
+It looked more inaccessible than ever. I observed that, the farther you
+were from mountains the finer they looked; that when once you had scaled
+a mountain you seemed to lose all respect for it; and that I had a
+reverence for Tinkler's Nob which I should be loth to disturb.
+
+But I had to deal with one of those energetic men who love to get to the
+top of everything. I confess to a preference for the base end, at any
+rate, of mountains and high places. It is shadier and safer, and not so
+far off where I generally am. However, after exhausting a variety of
+excuses, Tinkler's Nob and the path of duty still lay directly in front
+of me, B. was still sternly pointing at them, and the thermometer was
+still rising.
+
+Shin did not accompany us. We reluctantly left him with a cool drink, a
+long cigar, and a newspaper in the verandah. He said that the only thing
+he had promised his parents when he left Kentucky, twenty years before,
+was, "to sit around and reflect on Sunday mornings;" that the more he
+sat around and reflected, the more he became convinced that there was
+"something in it;" and that as soon as he "struck a Bonanza," he meant
+to sit around and reflect on week-days too. He said, moreover, that he
+didn't believe mountains were ever intended to be ascended, or they
+would have been arranged somehow differently, perhaps bottom upwards--he
+wasn't sure; the question was too deep a one to go into on so warm a
+morning.
+
+We started without a guide, and when half the ascent was completed, lost
+the track. After some time spent in vainly seeking it, we laid the reins
+upon our horses' necks, and commended ourselves to their sagacity. They
+did not immediately bear us to our destination without guidance,
+although they must have known every pebble in the route; they started
+straight down hill, fast. With some difficulty we put them about, and
+eventually invented a way of our own to the summit.
+
+I had carefully abstained from spoiling the effect of the final _coup
+d'oeil_ by studying the panorama in detail as we ascended. Lavishly was
+my patience rewarded. Far as the eye could reach on every side stretched
+a confused sea of keen-crested rocky billows. Ridge behind rugged ridge
+rose up, and bluff behind leonine bluff appeared like mountains
+couchant. Peak towered over peak, from the vast iron helmets near at
+hand to the thin, blue, palpitating spectres of hills upon the verge of
+the horizon; from Devil's Point and Fremont's granite roof away to
+Imperial Shasta "diademed with circling snow," queen of them all. And
+grim as sentinels, keeping a silent watch throughout all time over the
+pine-shut valleys, they reared their furrowed brows far up above the
+clouds that sought to veil their majesty, but only lay a wreath of snowy
+fleece about their mighty shoulders. The world lay below us. What
+solitudes were there not there, what distances, what joyous mood, what
+melancholy, what fields of light, what cloud-cast drifting wastes of
+shadow! Beside hollows of lapis-lazuli, brimming with golden haze, might
+be seen gulfs of sullen gloom; through the mantle of purple pines showed
+flanks of naked stone. Even summer noon but half beguiled the scene of
+its savage character.
+
+
+     "There was wide wandering for the greediest eye."
+
+
+Yonder was Emerald Bay; the Sacramento Valley there; there ran the
+railways, covered in for miles and miles by snow-sheds. Elsewhere two
+forest fires headed by columns of smoke crept on their devastating
+march. And in the distance, in the midst of all this wild scenery, like
+a great opal upon the iron bosom of the Sierras, slept crystal Tahoe
+beneath hazy curtains, its gray and silver ripples shivering in cold
+light, and winking through the atmospheric dimness with countless rapid
+flashes.
+
+Here, reader, upon the extreme summit of Tinkler's Nob, I purpose to
+abandon you: you must find your own way down. Shin met us when we
+returned half baked to the verandah. He said that he had changed his
+mind about going up, and if we cared to turn round and repeat the
+ascent, he would now come with us.
+
+What followed was but a repetition of what had gone before. On the next
+day we started to return to Emigrant Gap, and parting there from Shin,
+the pleasantest of companions and hosts, sped on to San Francisco.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+A GLIMPSE OF SONORA.
+
+
+"At what time does the stage start for Magdalena?" I inquired of the
+bar-tender at the "Metropolitan Hotel," Tucson, where the Southern
+Pacific Railway had just landed me.
+
+"Magdalena?" he drawled. "Well, guess you'll have to wait here till
+Saturday now. Stage went out this morning at eight o'clock."
+
+It was nine o'clock on Tuesday. _En route_ from the station I had seen
+quite enough of Tucson to put my ill-luck in its strongest light. But
+the bar-tender did not seem to realise that there could be any
+misfortune in a delay of four days there.
+
+"Take a drink?" said he. "There's worse places than Tucson; there's
+places where you can't get a drink."
+
+I took a drink, in which my new acquaintance joined me.
+
+"Is Mr. Maroney in?" I asked. Mr. Maroney was the proprietor of the
+hotel, and I had a message of introduction to him.
+
+"Mr. Maroney ain't long gone to bed. The boys was having a little game
+of 'freeze out' last night. I guess he'll be around at midday."
+
+A bed-room, or rather a loose-box, was assigned me in the quadrangle at
+the back of the saloon, and after breakfasting I strolled out to enlarge
+my acquaintance with the town.
+
+Until twelve months previously, Tucson had been an unimportant adobe
+village; now it was growing rapidly. Edifices of brick were springing up
+in all directions. Practically it is the gateway between Mexico and the
+far Western States of America, and as such its future is assured.
+
+Under the shop awnings in the main street loitered a crowd of handsome,
+bearded, bronzed miners from the neighbouring mining districts. To and
+fro flitted a few busy store-clothed store-keepers and clerks, and here
+and there a knot of men might be seen examining some specimen of quartz.
+A couple of leather-overalled cowboys, ostentatiously "heeled" or
+armed, rode down the street on their Mexican-saddled _bronchos_; a
+Chinaman stole swiftly and silently by; a half-breed led a lame horse
+along; a couple more "greasers" seated one behind the other went past on
+another equine scarecrow; sundry dogs--one dragging a swollen run-over
+leg after him--loafed about; and a chain-and-ball gang of convicts
+slowly advanced, sweeping the dusty road.
+
+The town was gay with the bunting displayed in the store signs,
+advertisements, and invitations to "walk in."
+
+The "Head Quarters" store is "selling out at cost price," boots, shoes,
+bacon, lard, flour, stores, hardware, etc., with all intermediate
+articles, forming the stock to be sacrificed. A Saddle and Harness
+manufactory, outwardly rich in signs and specimens of its work, is
+followed by a "Nobby Clothing" store that even surpasses it in its
+ticketed display of "pants" and "vests." Inside, a customer, with his
+feet on the counter, leans back in his chair and chats to the shopman,
+who is perched on his own cask. "Ladies' Dress Goods," "Fancy Goods,"
+"Gents' Furnishing Goods," "Stores and Tinware," "The Alhambra Billiard
+Saloon," "The Tucson Restaurant," "Markets," "Estate Offices," diagrams
+of gouty-looking boots, swollen loaves, gigantic pipes, guns, bottles,
+etc., etc., without end, in black upon a white linen ground, invite
+attention everywhere.
+
+In a town of this kind, next to the drinking saloons, the barber's shop
+is the chief place of resort. The barber, in importance, ranks second
+only to the artistic mixer of cool drinks. He is hail-fellow-well-met
+with every one. Especially cheery and amusingly ceremonious is Figaro if
+he happen to be a coloured man. His memory is prodigious. Men enter that
+he has not seen for months, and with whom he is perhaps only slightly
+acquainted; yet he resumes the conversation precisely where it
+terminated when they parted. He reminds his visitor of what he has said,
+and of what his projects were when he last was shaved there, and he
+persistently inquires how far those assertions have been verified, and
+those intentions fulfilled. Having posted himself up to the latest date
+in all that concerns the victim of his curiosity, he proceeds, in
+return, to furnish him with biographical sketches of such later passages
+in the lives of his friends as may have escaped his knowledge.
+
+In the barber's shop that I entered the three chairs were all occupied.
+A slender, graceful, "interesting young man," of an Italian type of
+face, dressed in a blue shell-jacket bound with yellow, a good deal of
+loud jewellery, and a "dandy-rig" generally, operated on one customer; a
+"wooden-mugged down-Easter," with bushy eyebrows, and quick, twinkling
+eyes, who sang over and over again, absently, though still with
+heart-wrung pathos, "Oh, my little darling, I love you! Oh, my little
+darling, yes, I do!" had the second in charge; the third was at the
+mercy of a black man, who was cross-questioning him very closely as to a
+recent trip to Tombstone.
+
+I fell to the hands of the dude, and was sheeted and soaped by him with
+a theatrical flourish that led me to anticipate the rest of the
+performance with interest. Three various strops were necessary to put an
+edge on the razor that was to execute me. The first, a rough one,
+scraped like a file; the second made the razor ring like a bell beneath
+the reckless strokes of its dashing manipulator; over the third it slid
+like soap. I was prepared for some fancy shaving, and was not
+disappointed. After a few false starts the young man, at one fell swoop,
+slid the razor through the stubble on my face from one end of the cheek
+to the other. For a little while he sliced about in a fashion that
+irresistibly reminded one of cutlass drill, and then settled down to
+more delicate work. Certainly he had a sure and dainty touch, but to be
+shaved by him often would take years off a nervous man's life. Even when
+the rougher work was finished he was sufficiently alarming. Running his
+fingers over my chin he would discover a hair that had escaped him, and,
+as if he were flicking a fly off a wall with a whip-lash, sweep down
+upon it and smooth it off at one fell stroke. As for the coloured
+gentleman, he arrayed himself in magnificent clothing and went out; the
+"down-Easter," having finished his task, took up a guitar and croaked a
+few amorous ballads in a decayed voice.
+
+Returning to the hotel, I found that Mr. Paul Maroney had arisen. I also
+found a card of invitation from (I think it was) the "Union Club"
+awaiting me. Being dubious with regard to the nature of a club in
+Tucson, I interrogated Maroney on the subject.
+
+"Do you want to play monte?" he asked, weighing the card between his
+finger and thumb.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well...."
+
+That "well" drawled out and sustained, with the look that accompanied
+it, told me quite as much about the Club as I desired to know. Paul and
+I christened our acquaintance with cocktails.
+
+Conversation at any time, on any topic, or with any person in Tucson (as
+elsewhere on the frontier), invariably led to this ceremony. Cocktail
+drinking has a charm of its own, which lifts it above drinking as
+otherwise practised. Your confirmed cock-tail drinker is not to be
+confounded with the common sot. He is an artist. With what exquisite
+feeling will he graduate his cup, from the gentle "smile" of early
+morning, to the potent "smash" of night! The analytical skill of a
+chemist marks his unerring detection of the very faintest dissonance in
+the harmony of the ingredients that compose his beverage. He has an
+antidote to correct, a tonic to induce every mood and humour that man
+knows. Endless variety rewards a single-hearted devotion to cocktails,
+whilst the refinement and ingenuity that may be exercised in the
+display of such an attachment, redeem it from intemperance. It becomes
+an art; I am not sure that it ought not to be termed a science. It is
+drinking etherealised, rescued from vulgar appetite and brutality,
+purified of its low origin and ennobled. A cocktail hath the soul of
+wit, it is brief--it is a jest, a bon-mot, happy thought, a gibe, a word
+of sympathy, a tear, an inspiration, a short prayer. A list of your
+experienced cocktail drinker's potations for the day constitutes a
+complete picture of life, and the secret joys and sorrows that he hides
+from all the world may almost be said therein to stand betrayed to the
+eye of a brother scientist.
+
+The four days' waiting passed at length, and seated in the corpulent old
+coach, with its team of four wheelers and four leaders, we rumbled
+slowly out of Tucson.
+
+The passengers were a Mexican dame with a baby, a Mexican, an American
+miner, and myself. A sort of second whip sat beside the driver, armed
+with a short but heavy weapon, with which he made excursions from the
+box-seat to the ground, and whilst the coach was still in motion fought
+it out with any refractory member of the team, as he ran beside him.
+Collecting a pocketful of the wickedest stones that he could find, he
+would then return, and pelt the _bronchos_ from his former elevation.
+Another of his duties was to disentangle the team, when, as not
+unfrequently occurred, so many of the leaders faced the wheelers that
+further progress was impossible. It also fell to his lot to tie the
+coach together with thongs and string when its dissolution appeared
+imminent. In the performance of his various duties this individual
+displayed considerable agility, ability, and resource.
+
+The Mexican woman was frightful, the infant very like her, only by no
+means so quiet. Mother and child left us at the end of the first stage.
+The Mexican slept all day; towards evening he awoke and reduced himself
+to a state of complete intoxication with _mascal_. The miner never
+opened his lips until the following morning just before entering
+Magdalena, when we happened to see a jackass rabbit.
+
+"Next jackass rabbit we see, I'll be durned if I don't shoot him," he
+said.
+
+He forthwith produced and cocked a long Colt's revolver. But, as we saw
+no more rabbits, I missed this exhibition of his skill.
+
+From the pace at which we proceeded during the night, I presumed that
+the Mexican's bottle of _mascal_ was not the only one we had on board.
+The jolting was terrific. Besides encountering the ordinary ruts and
+irregularities in the ground, we struck every now and then, when going
+at full gallop, against a loose boulder, or the projecting corner of a
+rock, the shock of which brought our heads in stunning contact with the
+brass-capped nails that studded the roof of the coach. I was sometimes
+in doubt a moment whether my neck were broken or not. When Magdalena was
+reached my scalp was raw, and every angle of my body bruised.
+
+Stage travelling in Mexico, if this were a fair sample of it, is neither
+luxurious nor speedy. Owing to the irregularity with which the service
+is conducted, it is impossible for relays to be in attendance. Not until
+the coach arrives is a _peon_ sent out to drive in fresh horses from the
+country. As they roam free over the broad _vegas_, they may be miles
+from home; consequently it is no unusual thing for the best part of a
+day to be wasted before they are found. Outward bound, we were
+singularly fortunate in this respect. On the return journey, our delays
+were all prolonged, in some cases exceeding even five or six hours. The
+wattled sheds and huts at which these intervals were passed were of the
+filthiest description.
+
+Some of our teams were curiously mixed. One consisted of three donkeys,
+two mules, and three _bronchos_. Most of them were partly composed of
+mules. Some were poor, others were remarkably good. Particularly
+noteworthy was the performance of a level team of sturdy _bronchos_,
+that we picked up late in the afternoon, and that of a fine team of
+mules that took us into Magdalena on the following morning. The stages
+were about sixteen and eighteen miles respectively, but with the
+exception of a few short stoppages, caused by trouble with the harness,
+were covered at full gallop; notwithstanding which, the teams pulled up
+almost as fresh as they had started.
+
+In one instance a deficiency of stock necessitated the lassoing and
+breaking in of a horse that had never been used before. He fought
+gallantly for nearly half-an-hour, and several times was thrown
+half-strangled on the ground, when the lasso was loosened and he was
+given a few minutes to recover. Eventually he allowed himself to be
+harnessed, and once in the team had to go with the rest. I must do our
+driver the justice to say that he handled the ribbons with admirable
+skill and boldness.
+
+To add to the interest of the trip, it was expected that we should be
+stopped by cow-boys. These gentlemen had lately "gone through" the
+coaches with great regularity, and, in anticipation of trouble, our whip
+and second whip were armed to the teeth. Fortunately, the journey was
+without incident of this kind.
+
+With demoniacal yells, and a furious cracking of both whips, we dashed
+into Magdalena, and pulled up in the _plaza_. It was Sunday. The good
+people were just issuing from church. Mexican maidens, in white or
+brilliant robes, trooped out in twos and threes, and hand in hand went
+laughingly homewards. And here I feel the scribbling traveller's
+temptation to romance. A fanciful picture of some dark-eyed beauty, with
+proud Castilian features, and bewitching dignity and grace of manner,
+would fit my tale so well. Besides, in a Mexican sketch, one expects a
+pretty woman, even as one looks for lions in African, and elephants in
+Indian scenery. But I was so disgusted in this respect myself, that it
+will be of some satisfaction to me to have you disappointed also.
+Expect, therefore, no glowing description of female loveliness from me.
+Good-looking women doubtless exist in Mexico; but, in the few miles that
+I went over the border on this occasion, I saw none. A hazy recollection
+of flowers in connection with this scene of church-going damsels haunts
+me, but whether they were worn in the hair, or in the dress, or simply
+carried, I no longer remember. Men in their coloured _zarapas_, and
+broad-brimmed hats, chatted and smoked the eternal cigarette. Old women
+in black robes loitered in knots (very like old wives elsewhere) and
+gossiped. The _commandante_ and a few officials sat on one of the old,
+carved stone seats. A few miners loafed before the "American Hotel,"
+kept by a plump, jovial, masterful American woman, and her subdued
+matter-of-fact English husband, by name Bennett. Here I breakfasted, and
+in the afternoon rode out, twenty-three miles, to the mine of a friend
+of mine, whom I had come down to visit.
+
+Past the Sierra Ventana (so called on account of the hole that
+completely perforates one shoulder of it), and over wave after wave of
+rolling country, sparsely covered with _mesketis_-bush, my guide and I
+rode on towards some hills in the distance; and dusk had fallen and
+night had come when we ascended the spur on which the mine was situated.
+The stalwart form of my friend (whom I will call by his local sobriquet,
+Don Cabeza) appeared at his cottage door as I drew up, and, not
+expecting me, in the dark he took me to be a new hand in quest of work.
+
+"Buenas nochas, señor, said I.
+
+"Buenas nochas."
+
+"Habla V. Castellano?"
+
+"No hablo so much as all that comes to."
+
+Then I burst out laughing.
+
+"Why----! If it isn't Francis!"
+
+What a warm-hearted greeting he gave me! How hospitably he spread the
+best of everything before me, and even would he have relinquished his
+own bed to me had I allowed it. I had a big budget of news from San
+Francisco about mutual friends, but much as he wished to hear it, he
+insisted on its narration being deferred until I had slept and rested.
+
+It was odd. When I had last seen and known Don Cabeza, it had been in an
+atmosphere of clubs and drawing-rooms, where his wit, good-nature,
+geniality, and a certain old-fashioned thoughtfulness and courtesy of
+manner had made him one of the most popular men in a pleasant circle.
+Here, with that adaptability to circumstance which is so marked a
+characteristic of Americans (_when_ they choose to exert the faculty),
+he had shed the drawing-room air, and appeared, for the time being, as a
+bluff, light-hearted, practical miner. The white linen, patent leather,
+and general fastidiousness of speech and taste, formerly so marked, were
+temporarily laid aside for the flannel shirts, top boots, Western slang,
+and sublime indifference to fare and comfort peculiar to the dweller in
+a mining camp. And yet he had not changed either. There is a tinge of
+old world chivalry in the character of those who came in early days to
+California. They are lost in a crowd of a different type and of later
+date now; wherever you do find one though, you find a large-hearted,
+generous man, with nothing small or mean in his whole composition. In
+the better type of old Californian, there is less of the snob than in
+any man in the world; and in supporting what he thinks is manly and
+unselfish, he is as fearless of what others may think, as of what they
+may do. Animated by the love of adventure, the Don had left a luxurious
+home in the East to come in early times to California, and had there
+"toughed through" all those scenes and times that now read like pages
+from a fascinating romance. And a fine type of "old Californian" he was.
+
+The Santa Ana was a new purchase that he had come down there to
+prospect. It promised well, but was not as yet worked on a large scale.
+
+Those were pleasant days up at the mine. Lazy? Well, yes; I fancy
+everything in Mexico is more or less lazy. We were so entirely out of
+the world; the trip, moreover, was so utterly disconnected with anything
+that came before or followed it, that it stands out now in solitary
+relief.
+
+An _adobe_ cottage, of three rooms, had been built for the Don and his
+foreman, and here we lived. Below us, in wattled huts, dwelt the Yaqui
+miners and their families. A little removed from the adobe was an open
+arbour, with wattled roof, in which we took our meals. Near it was a
+stunted tree, that served for various purposes, besides being shady and
+ornamental. Lodged in the first fork was our water-barrel. The
+coffee-grinder was nailed to its trunk. In a certain crevice the soap
+was always to be found. Upon one bough hung the towels, the
+looking-glass depended from another. One branch supported the long steel
+drill, that, used as a gong, measured with beautifully musical tones the
+various watches of the miners. Amidst the exposed roots the axe in its
+leisure moments reposed. Our tree, in short, was a kind of dumb waiter,
+without which we should have been lost.
+
+The country teemed with quail and jackass rabbits. We bought an old
+Westley Richards shot-gun in Magdalena, and did great slaughter amongst
+them. Deer were reported to be numerous, but during my stay we saw none.
+A good deal of our time was spent in cooking. The "China-boy," nominally
+_chef_, was so wondrously dirty, that one day we rose against him, and
+degraded him to the post of scullion, and being, both of us, proud of
+our culinary skill, we undertook the preparation of our meals ourselves.
+Jerked beef, bacon, quails, jackass rabbit, beans, rice, chilies, and
+potatoes were the articles that we had to work upon.
+
+Don Cabeza mixed the introductory cocktail, and took sole charge of the
+jerked beef and beans; the quails and jackass rabbit fell to my care,
+the remaining items were mutual property, with the exception of the
+rice, which the Celestial was still permitted to boil. Most elaborate
+(at least in titles) were the _menus_ we produced. One Mexican dish that
+the Don used to prepare of jerked beef, pounded and fried to a crisp in
+butter, with a few chopped chilies, was worthy of note. Jerked beef and
+jackass rabbit! We laughed as we compared these frugal meals with the
+extravagant dinners and breakfasts of the year before, at the
+"California," "Marchands," and the "Poodle Dog," in San Francisco. And,
+by-the-way, if you are known at either of the above restaurants, you can
+be served there in a style that neither "Voisin's" nor "Bignon's" could
+easily excel.
+
+Every now and then, some Yaqui men or women would come up from their
+little colony below to purchase something from the store room, which,
+owing to the distance that we were from town, it was necessary to keep
+for their convenience; and great was their mirth to see Don Cabeza and
+me cooking. They said we were "loco," or mad. Good-tempered creatures
+they were, and certainly easily pleased, for they regarded it as a
+signal compliment if I sketched either of them.
+
+I never could understand why time sped so rapidly here. There was
+really no occupation for us. Yet morning had scarcely broken fairly, it
+seemed, before evening approached, and what evenings they were!
+
+In the rear of the cottage, the spur on which we lived led up to rocky
+cañons and gaunt ridges before it, vast _vegas_ stretched like a sea
+away to a far-off horizon of mountains, that, in the distance, looked as
+soft as low-down clouds. Behind these purple veins betwixt sky and
+landscape, the sun--a molten mass of palpitating fire, was lost at
+night. And as it passed away, swift shadows fell and dimmed the scenery,
+knitting its distances together with imperceptible process, and
+shrouding the intervals in mystery and obscurity. Soon only the
+deceptively near sky-line was clearly visible, and above it the glow of
+orange deepening into red still suffused the heavens with subdued
+illumination. Thus, on the one hand might be seen, high set in
+fathomless blue, amidst glittering hosts of stars, or far or near,
+twinkling or fixed, blue, and white, and red, and yellow, the silver
+beauty of a crescent moon; on the other, the lingering glory of the
+vanished sun. The effect was curious.
+
+The foreman went early to bed, and was early abroad. Not so Don Cabeza
+and I. When the mocking-bird in the _mesketis_-bush had ceased its
+plaintive song, and save for the sound--like dropping water--of
+crickets, silence fell upon the land, we would light our largest pipes,
+endue us in our easiest garments, and sit (he on a carpenter's bench, I
+in a barrow) smoking and yarning, yarning and smoking, without thought
+of time, through the still watches of those enchanting southern nights.
+Many a swift and pleasant hour did we spend thus! But then Cabeza
+possessed a fund of crisp wit, and an inexhaustible store of anecdotes,
+experiences, quaint theories, and views.
+
+Occasionally we went into Magdalena for stores and letters. Magdalena
+can boast a past of some prosperity; a more important future lies before
+it. At present it bears a stamp of dilapidation, poverty, and squalor.
+Probably not a dozen of its inhabitants are unencumbered with debt;
+nevertheless, everybody, even to the beggar in the street, possesses
+from two or three to ten or a dozen mines. It sounds absurd to hear a
+fellow in rags discoursing glibly about "his mines." Still more
+ridiculous does it seem when you know that many of them are of great
+value. The iron safe, however, is only to be opened by a golden key, and
+a coined dollar in Magdalena is worth a fortune underground. Little
+doubt exists that, when the railways, now (1882) entering from the
+States, are completed, and capital and energy pour into the country,
+enormous wealth will be found hidden in its quartz. The hills around
+Magdalena give evidence of gold, silver, and galena ore in every
+direction. Nor is gold wanting in the river beds and valleys. All that
+is required is a little capital and systematic industry.
+
+The area of country suitable for cultivation is circumscribed by reason
+of the scarcity of water, but where this is obtained and utilised, its
+effect is magical, and the fertility of the land becomes almost
+incredible. Not a tithe of that which is eligible is cultivated, for the
+indolence of the natives is remarkable. Even such ordinary vegetables as
+potatoes and onions are extremely difficult to obtain. A _zarapa_, a
+handful of beans, and a little tobacco, suffice for all the Mexican's
+requirements. If his vocabulary were limited to "Porque?" and "Poco
+tiempo," it would not greatly inconvenience him.
+
+Northern Sonora derives its chief support from cattle. In most
+instances the ranches are of large extent, but poorly stocked. Formerly,
+they were in better condition, but they suffered severely from Apache
+raids, from which they are said never to have entirely recovered. The
+Indians drove off or killed all but the poorest animals, and the ranches
+have been restocked by the slow process of breeding from those that they
+left. Latterly a few bulls and stallions of a better class have been
+imported from the States.
+
+One day the Don and I came into Magdalena with the avowed intention of
+hiring a cook. The foreman had been despatched once or twice,
+unsuccessfully, on the same errand; but Cabeza was undiscouraged, and
+said that "He guessed, if we went ourselves, and they saw how real nice
+we were, they would all want to come." Accordingly we enlisted all the
+store-keepers in the place in a search for "a real way-up cook, who
+could make chile-con-carne, tamales, and all the best Mexican dishes,
+besides understanding American cookery." "And say," Cabeza would
+conclude, in giving his directions, "she's got to be a beautiful woman,
+too, because we're good-looking ourselves, and we don't like to see
+homely women about the place."
+
+Having posted our requirements in the various stores, we went off to the
+American hotel, where, by dint of making desperate love to the plump
+hostess, we succeeded in obtaining a sack of potatoes and half a sack of
+onions--part of a consignment that she had lately received from
+Hermosillo. She had just been engaged in a battle royal with the waiter,
+whom she had demolished with the kitchen coal-shovel. She was inclined,
+therefore, to be very affable, and even volunteered, for a
+consideration, to come out to the mine and cook for us herself.
+
+"You want a boss cook and a beauty, Don Cabeza, eh? Well, I guess, I'm
+both. What'll you give me to come out to the mine and cook?"
+
+"Mrs. Bennett," we said, "if we got you out there we should lose the
+only pleasure we have to look forward to--the only ray of golden
+sunlight that illuminates our desolate path in life. We should no longer
+have the treat of coming in here to see you. We mustn't kill the goose
+that----I mean, we mustn't be greedy, of course."
+
+The subdued condition of Bennett, and the bandaged head of the waiter,
+were not happy auguries for the peace of any household that Madame
+Bennett took charge of. And we probably should not have borne our chains
+as philosophically as did her husband. Bennett's dry, matter-of-fact
+spirit was aptly illustrated in a story that I heard here. A miner named
+Hess was recounting the following incident in his career as a soldier
+during the North and South war to him.
+
+It appeared that at Bull's Run Hess had a difference with the colonel of
+his regiment, and, refusing to fight, went off and sat on a rail by
+himself. A corporal's guard was sent to bring him into action, but Hess
+said that he "scared the filling out of _them_ durned quick." A sergeant
+and a file of men then came, but he "got away with them, too." A
+lieutenant and half a company was despatched in search of him, but he
+"cleaned them out." A captain and a full company appeared, but this
+brave man "made them get." Finally half the regiment came down, and the
+invincible Hess did not hesitate to say that, he "stood them off." Old
+Bennett heard him to the end without a smile. Then he said: "Hess, I
+never hurt you any, did I?" "No." "Will you do me a favour, then?" "Why,
+cer'nly, if I can." "Well, I've got a bet of ten dollars, with Mike
+Sheppard, that Doc Brown is the biggest liar in Sonora, and if ever you
+tell that tale in public I shall lose the money, sure." And Hess said
+that he would not tell it again.
+
+In the principal square of Magdalena stood the old church, near which
+were the ruins of a still more ancient edifice. To the latter, called
+the church of San Francisco, a legend was attached. I give it as it was
+given to me by a miner.
+
+"Yer see, this here San warn't always a saint, San warn't. They do say
+as he was 'customed to go on a scoop--on a bend, occasionally, as it
+were. However, he took a pull in time, and caught on to this preaching
+racket, and finally he came to be a bishop. Right here was all in his
+claim. Wal, happened once when he was prospecting around jest to see
+that the sky pilots under him was keeping at it, that the outfit banked
+up here for the night. Next morning, when they was all hitched up and
+ready for a start, and come to hoist old San on his meule, they couldn't
+prize him up anyhow. They put on fresh hands and tried all they durned
+knew. But San, he'd kinder taken root, and thar he sot, like the sawed
+off stump of a Sierra pine, and jest about as nimble too. 'Boys,' says
+he, at last, 'let up hauling! ye can quit that soon as ye please'
+(Independent as a clam at high tide the old cuss was even then). 'Guess
+I'll stay right here,' says he. 'Waltz in and put up a church right
+away.' And that's how this church and town come to be built--least, so
+folks say hereabouts." Then he added reflectively after a pause: "But
+they do lie here, too."
+
+After the dusty and dirty town we returned to the prettily situated
+adobe cottage at the mine with renewed pleasure.
+
+At length the time came for me to depart. The horses were driven in from
+the vega; the near fore-wheel of the cart (which, when not in use, was
+invalided, and kept in water to prevent the wood shrinking from the
+tire) was fixed on, the old waggon lined with hay and blankets, and, one
+night after dinner, we started to drive into Magdalena for the last
+time.
+
+The day had been oppressive, but now there was a refreshing coolness in
+the air. At every pace, as we jogged along, hares lolloped across the
+road, or played amidst the scattered _mesketis_-bush on either side of
+it. Occasionally the howl of a distant coyote might be heard.
+Night-hawks and owls flitted silently to and fro, and "shard-borne
+beetles" hummed drowsily as they wheeled in the dreamy welkin. The
+stars, the stillness, and the silken winds combined to work a charm.
+Night wore her richest jewellery, sang low her softest melody, whispered
+her sweetest poem, and showed her beauty all unveiled even by the
+lightest fleece of cloud. Until I saw these Mexican skies I never knew
+how much more beautiful night was than day. For every star dimly
+distinguishable in Europe a thousand are clearly visible there. Their
+number and refulgence are astonishing. Were I to live in Mexico I should
+be strongly tempted to rise at sundown and go to bed at dawn.
+
+Once more the corpulent coach looms in view. Once more am I
+uncomfortably ensconced therein. With a torrent of Spanish invective,
+and a terrific cracking of whips, we slowly start. The coach turns round
+a corner, and I catch a last glimpse of Don Cabeza, with his hat off, in
+the road, waving a kindly adieu to me.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE WINCHESTER WATER MEADS.
+
+
+     NOTE.--The following sketch has, locally speaking, no place in the
+     present collection. But since it is somewhat similar in its nature
+     to the others, since it describes a day's fishing with the
+     well-known angler to whom the book is dedicated, and since,
+     moreover, it serves to mark the interval which elapsed between the
+     time when the foregoing and succeeding sketches were written, I
+     nevertheless introduce it.
+
+
+There is a wind which belongs only to spring mornings and they are chary
+of it. Soft, and yet fresh, if winds were subject to the condition of
+age, this one might be supposed to be in its first sunny childhood. It
+has no care nor business. If it blew with all its strength it could
+never stir a mill-sail, or set a ship in motion. A butterfly rides out
+its silken gales, and its boldest blast, like the whispered secret of a
+child, beguiles you of an involuntary smile. Imagine such a breeze
+fitfully exploring the Winchester Water Meads. Now it hesitates, now
+lingers, now pauses altogether; anon with a dainty tinkling of herbage
+resumes its progress. And a fair march it has.
+
+Once more the sumptuary laws of winter have been repealed, the fashions
+of a new _régime_ adopted. The time has come when "the fields catch
+flower." Tall buttercups, and dandelions, and knots of the great marsh
+marigold strew the thick grass with ingots of gold. Myriads of daisies
+and "milkmaids" powder it with snowy flakes. "Welshman's buttons" and
+anemones fill every sheltered nook, and stud the borders of each
+turf-cut drain. Here and there an early plume of sorrel shows like a
+vein of rust in this floral mosaic work, and each blade or flower, still
+wet with dew, flashes brilliantly in the sunlight as it trembles in
+sweet air.
+
+On all sides the air is thrilling with the full melody of larks. A
+couple of plovers, that are nesting in the neighbourhood, wheel and turn
+with plaintive cries aloft; and a solitary cabbage butterfly, the
+melancholy forerunner of its clan, wanders away across the water towards
+Winnal moors in quest of fellows.
+
+But marigolds and "milkmaids," larks and solitary butterflies aside! The
+Itchen and its trout are at hand, the rod is ready, and the momentous
+question is: "The fly?"
+
+The swifts and swallows are ranging high, or at any rate totally
+ignoring the stream, sufficient proof that there is but little of
+entomological interest for them on the water.
+
+"There's a rise!" ejaculates my companion, however, "and there's
+another. But they are only feeding on larvæ."
+
+Fish are rising occasionally without absolutely breaking the water, and
+it is evident that their attention is devoted not to the casual insects
+floating on the surface, but to the larvæ ascending from the river bed,
+which they seize before they reach the upper world. We catch a specimen
+of the full-fledged fly (a Light-Olive), and, having matched it closely
+in the fly-book, commence operations.
+
+It is ticklish work, this Hampshire trout fishing. Long education has
+developed in the natives of these waters a degree of sagacity that is
+almost supernatural. Their appreciation of the faintest _nuance_ of
+exaggeration in colour of wing or body, in the artificial flies offered
+them, is unerring.
+
+Time was, when to take six or seven brace of fish was a common
+occurrence. But in the memory of chalk-stream _habitués_ there has been
+a gradual and steady diminution in angling averages; and now, unless the
+trout have a silly interval, a brace and a half or two brace is a good
+day's sport, and to catch these demands far greater knowledge, and the
+exercise of far more skill and patience than was formerly dreamt of.
+Then men walked boldly along the river bank, and fished with ordinary
+tackle and a wet fly. Now, albeit the flies used are miracles of
+diminutive workmanship, the gut a filament of fineness, that, with any
+consideration for its strength, can scarcely be reduced, to stalk and
+capture a two-pound trout necessitates the use of a dry fly, and a
+degree of caution and address scarcely less than is required for
+successful moose hunting.
+
+As the best fly-fisherman in Hampshire said to me: "You want to put the
+exact fly just over your fish the first time, if he doesn't take it he
+doesn't mean to. By changing flies, and sticking to him half the day,
+you _may_ worry him into an indiscretion, but it is a hundred to one
+that you are only educating him."
+
+What fishing will eventually become in these streams it is difficult to
+imagine, for the decrease in sport arises from no reduction in the stock
+of fish, which are more numerous now than they ever were.
+
+To-day I am not wielding the rod, but act merely as gillie for a master
+of the art, on whom the mantle of old Isaac Walton has descended.
+Gradually we work up stream, trying to convert these Winnal incarnations
+of perversity from their unholy appetite for larvæ, with exquisite
+imitations of various Olives and of the Red Quill. But they remain
+obdurate. They come, but come short. They roll up and leisurely inspect
+the fly, and with not less contemptuous deliberation turn tail upon it.
+
+At length a far cast under the opposite bank is followed by a slight
+break in the water, a quick tension of the line, and a good fish is in
+difficulty. But almost immediately the point of the rod flies up, and,
+owing to the knot attaching the gut to the eyed hook having drawn, the
+fish escapes.
+
+
+     "None do here
+     Use to swear,
+     Oaths to fray
+     Fish away."
+
+
+And yet, methinks, with the "poetry of earth," something is mingled now
+that sounds not like the music of waters, the song of birds, or the
+fluttering of a butterfly's wings--no, nor was it a hymn in praise of
+tackle-makers' carelessness. Let us hope that the "recording angel" for
+the day was once a keen sportsman, and appreciated, therefore, the
+extenuating circumstances of the case. Eventually the fly is replaced,
+and the campaign continued.
+
+By lunch-time we reach one of the wooden shanties, with which it is
+becoming the custom on these streams to provide for temporary shelter.
+There is not a fish moving, and for the present it is useless to flog
+the water. Sandwiches and a pipe fill the interlude; and by-and-by the
+keeper, a shrewd, wooden-visaged, terrier-looking countryman, suddenly
+drops upon us (after the fashion of keepers), as it were, from the
+clouds. Locke, in his way, is a type, and his utterances occasionally
+have a refreshing dryness.
+
+"Marning sir, marning sir," he says cheerily, laying a six-pound jack on
+the grass to leeward of the hut (for wind spoils the look of fish), and
+depositing his "rod," a bamboo pole furnished with wire noose, beside
+it. "Have you caught anything?"
+
+"No, nothing; it's too bright."
+
+"It is so; 'sides, the rise was over afore you come. I eyed you coming
+with my glass. There was a few fish feeding 'tween nine and ten this
+marning. I wish you'd been here."
+
+"We came in for the tail of the rise. How did you get the jack?"
+
+"I noosed un, sir, I allus nooses 'em. You can't get 'em out with the
+net, they's too artful. They lies right close on the ground, and lets
+the net rub over 'em."
+
+Incited to continue, Locke plunges into a dissertation on the art of
+snaring jack, against which he is very naturally the sworn foe. He
+proudly recounts how he one day removed eighteen of these cannibals from
+his water, and, on another occasion, snared a leviathan of nineteen
+pounds eight ounces. Every now and then producing from an inner pocket a
+small telescope, the lens of which he polishes on his velveteen cuff, he
+pauses to reconnoitre suspiciously some distant figures in Nun's Walk,
+near which he has a small backwater full of "store" trout, that cause
+him a good deal of anxiety.
+
+"In fact," he continues, a little abstractedly, after one of these
+surveys, "they's reg'lar reptiles, they jack, and you can't never quite
+get rid of 'em. You has to keep 'em down. I'm allus looking for 'em.
+Now, maybe, you won't believe me, sir, when I tell you that, that there
+little bit of backwater alongside Nun's Waark gives me moore trouble
+than all this here put together. I'll just take a cast round there, and
+see what they chaps there is about. Don't you leave none of your things
+lying about wheere they Herefords can get at 'em," he warns us, as he
+prepares to move off, indicating some white-faced cattle grazing in the
+neighbourhood. "They's moore destructive than our beasts about here.
+They'll chew up a mackintosh, or a basket--anything. Now, maybe, you
+won't believe what I'm going to say, sir, but they eat up my coat
+once--moleskin it war--and my dinner was in the pockets. Walking pikes I
+calls they Herefords."
+
+Beyond St. Catherine's Hill heavy rain clouds, fringed with long
+"drifting locks," are passing slowly across the scene, and a few drops
+of the shower reach us. But in a little while the magnificent skyscape
+of mountainous cumuli, mellowing in the afternoon light, regains its
+brilliancy, and my energetic companion marches off by himself, convinced
+that he had put up "the fly" at last. As for me I remain smoking on a
+rail, lazy and unambitious no doubt, but supremely contented. Perhaps my
+appreciation of the moment's ease is not a little enhanced by watching
+another laboriously drying his fly, and crouching low as he creeps along
+the bank. And so I sit, and let my glance go wandering across the meads
+to the big elms, over against Nun's Walk and Abbots Barton Farm, where
+crowded cities of rooks may be seen, the movements of whose black
+inhabitants are clearly distinguishable in the half-naked boughs; and on
+and on to scalloped ranks of trees in the farther distance, that, in the
+scanty foliage of the season, stand out against the horizon like
+fret-work fans; till, finally, by many a hedge, and field, and ditch, I
+come back to the river-side again.
+
+The silvery whisper of this spring's young rushes mingles with the
+harsher rustling of last year's dead blades, and the softened sleepy
+wash of water at a hatch-hole hard by. Locke says he took a five-pound
+trout out of that little hatch-hole some years ago, and though of course
+I believe him, I cannot help casually wondering whether--as an old
+hunter in Alaska once cautiously added to a choice yarn that he had
+been telling me about a three-headed fish--"he was the only man who saw
+it"? With its swelling spaces of glassy smoothness, mantling with
+opalescent gleams of colour, with its glittering arabesque and tracery
+of swirl and ripple, its tiny, short-lived surface whirlpools, the
+full-bosomed river glides by, bearing its now rapidly accumulating cargo
+of fly. And in serried hosts the swifts and swallows have congregated
+above its course, and are busy skirmishing to and fro there. Now
+mingling and now scattering, crossing and recrossing one another, they
+clamber up against little currents of wind, and poise themselves, then
+dive, and skim the surface of the water, daintily picking therefrom fly
+after fly, and rarely making that slight fault which breaks the deep
+tones in the distance of the river's reach, with a small fan-shaped
+flash of silver spray! The fly is up! By twos and threes they came at
+first, but hundreds inadequately number the unbroken swarms that now
+cover the water, and Olives of every shade dance past from ripple to
+ripple in alluring pageantry.
+
+In the whole range of Nature there is probably nothing more exquisitely,
+coquettishly graceful, than are these water insects. With the stamp of
+refinement that marks the typically aristocratic maiden, they somehow
+combine the traditional piquancy of the French actress in opera bouffe.
+Nothing can possibly appear more appetising. But these epicurean fish
+are spoiled. The splendid condition they show at this early season of
+the year proves that they are overfed; and even under the temptation of
+such a banquet as the present, they indulge with more or less
+deliberation.
+
+We are fishing a plain canal-looking piece of water--a kind of
+upper-school, only frequented by fish of good size, and under a
+dishevelled tuft of brown rushes on the opposite bank a trout is
+feeding, taking with the regularity of clock-work about three flies a
+minute. The little gleam of transparent wings can be seen approaching
+the fatal spot, undulating with the motion of the tide. There is a
+slight disturbance on the surface, a subdued rich "gulp" is heard, and a
+few expanding rings are drifting from the scene of the disaster, whilst
+the course of the hapless fly is pursued by a short-lived bubble. Again
+and again the tragedy is repeated, and, at length, opportunely
+substituted for the genuine delicacy, a Light-Olive of silk, feathers,
+and steel floats over the swirl that marks the masked lair. There is a
+sudden commotion, a tremendous splashing, and a second later a good
+fish is making a determined rush for a neighbouring sanctuary of heavy
+weed. It is a question of pull devil, pull baker. If he reach the weed,
+he will inevitably escape with the fly and half the collar, and in the
+absolute necessity of stopping him the butt is forcibly applied and a
+breakage risked at once. Fortunately the fine tackle stands the strain,
+and, foiled in his purpose, the trout turns suddenly and shoots down
+stream at a pace that makes the reel sing merrily. For a little while
+now he sulks in deep water, but, brought to the surface, catches sight
+of us and darts across the river, following this effort up by a
+succession of short and savage dashes. Some nice steering and
+manipulation coax him safely through a dangerous archipelago of weed,
+and then, though with lowered head, he still endeavours to plough on
+down stream, the constant strain of tackle begins to tire him. From time
+to time he yields temporarily to the power that turns him open-jawed
+against the current, and at length, almost a hundred yards below where
+he first was hooked, a two-pound-and-a-half fish, in the perfection of
+beauty and condition, glides into the net. He had fought so gallantly
+that he deserved to escape.
+
+Before the rise ceases another fish, of within an ounce of two pounds,
+completes our brace. Then a long period of tranquillity ensues, and it
+becomes evident that if the trout move again to-day it will be in the
+evening, and for the evening fishing we do not intend to wait. Pausing
+to make an occasional cast over a likely spot, therefore, we work back
+towards Winchester.
+
+In a mood of exquisite serenity the last phase of afternoon is closing.
+There is no wind. The sky is filled with soft gold and silver clouds,
+dimmed by transparent veils of pearliest gray. Black rooks plodding
+lazily homewards are relieved against its pure tones, and an occasional
+couple of duck cross its broad fields with strenuous haste that jars
+oddly with the ineffable calm up there. Upreared in virtual isolation,
+Winchester Cathedral stretches its great length on the town like a
+stranded whale--possessed, though, of a majestic dignity and repose that
+I am afraid the simile does not convey. A curious contrast exists
+between its massive tower and the sharp, pretentious little spires of
+the modern churches near it, which seem to be tiptoeing enviously to
+attract unmerited attention. By his works shall a man be known. Does the
+difference in the style of these buildings indicate any parallel change
+in the character of the race that raised them?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+ON PEND D'OREILLE LAKE.
+
+
+With his back against a pine-log, B. sits cleaning his gun, and, for the
+moment unoccupied, I smoke and watch "Texas" singeing a plucked grouse
+over the camp-fire. Opposite to him, "Mac" is engaged in baking a damper
+in an enormous frying-pan, the ringed handle of which is propped against
+a deadwood stick. The fire itself, built just above the highest
+water-mark, is composed of drift-wood and confined between two
+pine-logs, on either end of which are arranged our tin cooking utensils.
+In the background lies the lake.
+
+And who is B.? who "Texas"? who "Mac"? What lake is here alluded to? B.
+is an old travelling companion of mine; the reader has met him before.
+The lake is that called Pend d'Oreille, in northern Idaho, Texas and
+Mac (partners, and, respectively, an ex-cowboy and unsuccessful miner)
+are a couple of waifs, whom we found spending the summer in hunting
+round its edges.
+
+An oddly assorted pair they were, these two. Texas, the incarnation of
+action and life, was _vif_, cheery, and good-natured, industrious,
+ambitious, and roughly but genuinely polite--a man who economised
+labour, and yet whose hands were never idle, who foresaw events, and as
+far as possible prepared for them himself. If he were ostensibly wasting
+his time here, it was because, driven out of Texas by the "chills," he
+was endeavouring to reinstate his health, before resuming regular work.
+He chewed "baccer," talked "stock," washed dishes, had towels drying,
+water boiling, coffee cooling, an eye for passing events, and an ear for
+transient sounds, simultaneously. What he did, he, nevertheless, did
+thoroughly, and withal he was intelligent, and talked shrewd sense.
+
+Texas was a true _gamin_ in appearance. There was an irrepressible air
+of cock-sparrow-like bravado about him. His boyish figure was clad in a
+blue flax shirt, brown flax overalls, and mocassins. His perky nose, of
+a sun-burnt, fiery red, seemed to be in an everlasting condition of
+strenuous rivalry with the perky peak of his black cloth cap, and his
+small bright eyes sparkled in a small round face, of
+leathery-complexioned features, partially hidden by a dusty-coloured
+beard and moustache. He cocked his eye, he cocked his nose, he cocked
+his elbow. Cheek in his presence would have hung its head abashed. He
+had the effect upon one of a pick-me-up, and you often caught yourself
+involuntarily smiling as you looked at him.
+
+Mac (an abbreviation, by the way, of "Macaroni"), an old mining
+enthusiast, was an Italian by birth, and looked like the typical
+European organ-grinder--a resemblance heightened by the broad black
+sombrero that he wore. He was one of those easy-going, good-natured men,
+who inevitably obtain nicknames, and the familiar prefix "old." Old Mac
+was a capital cook, and though always willing to be employed, was not
+given, like Texas, to initiating work of his own proper motion. Texas
+lived entirely in the present; Mac chiefly in the past, or future, in a
+ruined palace, or brand-new castle in the air. Absently twisting a
+spear of grass, or piece of string, in his fingers, he would sit by the
+hour, cross-legged, gazing into the camp-fire, with eyes that smouldered
+and darkened, glowed and again grew shadowed, as he dreamt of
+magnificent "prospects," big "leads," and "twenty-stamp mills," or
+failure, and the enforced sale of claims at insignificant prices, for
+lack of "a little more" capital to develop their hidden treasures.
+Sometimes he would break abruptly into the conversation with an
+irrelevant remark concerning mines, or mining, and, seduced by the
+subject, launch out, and unfold the schemes he nourished for employing
+that wealth which he would probably never acquire. He had found a good
+mine once--a well-known mine, which produced $17,000,000 after he had
+sold the prospect for $1,000.
+
+No occupation is so fascinating as that of mining, it would seem. Once a
+miner always a miner. Found in any other walk in life, the old
+prospector is only "lying by" to tide over evil times, or "making a
+raise" to enable him to return to his favourite pursuit. Even if he
+resolve to abandon it, sooner or later resolution fails him, and,
+metaphorically speaking, it is at the mouth of the shaft that he dies.
+Nor is there one in a thousand of these men but dies a pauper. Still
+they are not to be pitied. It matters little how a man dies; the
+material point is, how he lives. And the lives of these men are spent on
+the shores of enchanting mirage lakes, they themselves the very genii of
+wealth, in fancy. If life be a dream, theirs at any rate is a pleasant
+one, for, in expectation, they enjoy more happiness than is ever
+achieved by the most fortunate of practical men. And since expectation
+is the better part of happiness, and they never live to see their idols
+and ideals shattered, they are doubly to be envied. Perpetually, as it
+were, beneath the influence of opium, present miseries but lightly
+affect them, and they revel in "fine phrensies," the magnificence, if
+not sensuous splendour of which may fairly vie with the gorgeous visions
+of an Eastern imagination stimulated by majoon.
+
+For a few dollars Texas and Mac had purchased a kind of duck punt, that
+an amateur undertaker had apparently begun to build as a coffin for his
+mother-in-law, or some other but little beloved relative. It combined
+the lightness and symmetry of a wood pile with the sea-going qualities
+of a crate, and the fact that its present owners had navigated the lake
+in it for some weeks in safety, afforded a most interesting instance of
+the inexhaustible mercy of Providence.
+
+It would be useless to recount what led us to this Ultima Thule, or how
+it further happened that we took ship haphazard with a brace of loafers,
+and went in quest of game there. Rub the Aladdin's lamp of imagination,
+and transport yourself to our camp-fire; do so, at least, if you admit
+the charm of a vagabond life in a fine climate, the enchantment of fine
+skies, fine days, and finer nights spent at Musette's Hôtel de la Belle
+Étoile, undisturbed, though, by the "_courants d'air_" she dreaded.
+
+With doubtful hearts we had embarked in the modified coffin. Laden down
+with baggage it had had a more than usually unseaworthy appearance. But
+although once or twice we had shipped seas, and once had been nearly
+swamped by a billow at least four inches high, after a voyage of six
+miles we had safely reached the point where the reader first discovered
+us. Then, whilst B. and Mac had gone out to shoot some grouse, Texas
+and I had chosen a site for camp, shifted the baggage, lit a fire, and
+placed in readiness our cooking apparatus and stores.
+
+The million-voiced hum of tiny surf breaking upon the sand, some fifty
+yards away, was heard in long, low chords, singing a song writ long
+before the era of man, but whether betokening prophecy or strange
+record, an eternal requiem or only a passing overture, equally
+unintelligible now. In the crests of the little knot of cotton-wood
+trees by which we were located, the wind was stirring with a touch so
+light that it barely tilted the topmost leaves. But in endless corridors
+of quill-fringed pines, in leagues upon leagues of forest behind us, it
+had gathered force, and softened by distance, enriched exquisitely in
+sweetness, in a chorus audible only when sought for above the fairy
+clashing of leafy cymbals near at hand, its organ tones rose and fell
+like the measured breathing of a great sound that slept.
+
+"So the bull chased you too, Texas, did he?" said B., looking up from
+his gun-barrels, as he continued a conversation with reference to an
+incident that had lately occurred on a small neighbouring cattle-ranch.
+
+"That's what he did, now," replied the ex-cowboy sharply; and he paused
+to elaborate the singeing of an awkward corner in the anatomy of one of
+the grouse. "That's what he did--sure! The old son of a gun put after me
+once. A durned nasty old cuss he is, and don't you forget it!"
+
+"How did it happen?"
+
+"Oh, I was crossing the fields on foot, and the bull he was feeling
+kinder ugly, I guess; that's all there was to it."
+
+"And he came for you?"
+
+"When he'd got up steam he did. He stamped, and tore, and frothed, and
+swelled, and primed, and snorted fit to bust 'fore he started. Then fust
+thing I knew, he dropped his head and put after me on all-fours--horns
+in front. I backed a piece, but the bull he kept coming, so, as I wasn't
+looking for any foot race, I jest drew a bead on him, and was going to
+shoot when Owens [from the ranch] runs down shouting 'not to kill him.'
+_He_ drove him off; but the old bull hated to quit--the worst kind."
+
+The autumn evening came early, and closed on us quickly, and save for
+one red cloud that lingered there, the blue sky was already growing
+silvery and gray, on the dark bosom of the lake only a few flickering
+lines of gold and scarlet were playing still, and the purple islands
+seemed to recede and partially dissolve in the swimming light and air
+when Texas called us to supper.
+
+Is there any gossip in the world more delightful than that which takes
+place round a camp-fire? Are there any meetings that leave such soothing
+impressions and recollections? Look back and note the host of faces,
+fates, incidents, even of local sounds that the thought of a camp-fire
+recalls. Yes, local sounds! With the everlasting restlessness, and
+melancholy of the sough of the wind from the sea, is heard once more the
+shy, fresh whispering of grass on the veldt or prairie, the silken
+_frou-frou_ of bamboo foliage, the tinkling of pine-tassels, the murmur
+of falling water. And mingled with the memory of such voices as these,
+there is the distant thunder of an avalanche or of the hippo,
+re-entering his native stream, the reverberating roar of the lion, the
+wild, weird cries of lesser beasts of the bush or jungle, the notes of
+night-birds, the "Number one, all's well! Number two, all's well!" of
+the beleaguered camp; the "Lights out" bugle-call, or the sudden alarm
+of rifles, and the rush of many feet.
+
+Round a Western frontier camp-fire the conversation is always
+interesting. The change and incident that occurs in the lives of the men
+who collect there, gives them a fund of ideas not common to their class
+in Europe. The surliest old "tough" amongst them has experience of some
+line of country, some business, some isolated community, or fashion of
+life that is well worth while to listen to. Texas had punched cattle
+from Lower California to Louisiana; Mac had prospected from Mexico to
+Puget Sound. But besides this, B. was a perfect mine of wealth in
+Western lore. We had a wide country to range over, therefore, and not
+until the wood pile that we had collected was almost exhausted did we
+seek our blankets that night. One of B.'s yarns must be recorded here.
+
+"Away back in the good old times of the West--when fortunes were made
+and lost in a day, and one went to bed a pauper and woke a millionaire,
+or _vice versâ_--I was cruising round, looking up new mines with an old
+sea-captain, named Rogers. We were coming down from Virginia City on the
+stage, and late one evening we got into ----, and found everything in
+the shape of accommodation occupied. It so happened, however, that
+Rogers met a friend called Bob Malone, who kept a livery stable there,
+and he invited us to his place, and put us up for the night. The next
+morning we hired a buggy from him, to drive out and look at a new
+'prospect' that we had some idea of buying, and coming back the horse
+ran away, and broke a little iron bar under the buggy--did, in fact,
+about ten dollars mischief to it. The following day we got a room at one
+of the saloons, and stopped about a week longer there. In the course of
+that time we tried on two or three occasions to get Malone's bill for
+damages. But he put us off, and put us off, saying that 'it didn't
+matter;' 'he had been too busy to attend to it;' 'there wasn't any hurry
+about it,' and so forth. And it wasn't until just as we were absolutely
+going off on the stage, that he came up and gave it to the Captain. We
+were in a hurry, the coach was starting, and there wasn't any time to
+look into it, so Rogers glanced at the total and paid it. We pulled out,
+and got on the road, and by-and-by I leant forward to the Captain, who
+sat on the box-seat, and asked him what I had to give him for my share
+of the bill. Then he remembered it, and fetched it out, and looked it
+through. This was how it ran:
+
+
+                                            Dollars.
+     "To Carpenter's Work on Buggy .    .    . 20
+      To Blacksmith's Work on Buggy.    .    . 20
+      To Painter's Work on Buggy . .    .    . 20
+      To Damage to Buggy    .    .      .    . 20
+                                             ----
+                           Total .      .    . 80
+                                             ====
+
+
+"Well, the old fellow swore by all the gods of sea or land, and all the
+ports that he had ever been swindled in, that it was the stiffest bill
+that he had struck yet. And even after I had paid him my half of it,
+every now and then as we went along, he would pull it out of his pocket,
+and take another look at it. But that didn't seem to do him any good,
+for the more he studied it the madder he got, until finally, when we
+stopped for lunch, the first thing he did was to get some paper, and
+write Malone a letter. I forget how it ran, but the gist of it was that,
+'In view of the extravagant total of the bill, he thought that Mr.
+Malone had taken the opportunity afforded by the injury done to his
+buggy to charge in a delicate manner for the hospitality that we had
+received from him. But that since Mr. Malone was a friend of his, not
+of mine, and he (the Captain) did not like to charge me for hospitality
+which he had indirectly been the means of _offering_ me, he should be
+glad to know the exact state of the case, etc., etc.'
+
+"Some time afterwards, I happened to be going up to ---- again, so I got
+the bill from Rogers, and when I had leisure just dropped in to call on
+Malone. 'By the way, Malone,' said I, in the course of conversation,
+'that was a devil of a bill that you slipped on us the other day.'
+
+"That started him! 'Of all the ungentlemanly and disgraceful letters
+that he had ever seen, heard, or read of, the Captain's was the worst,'
+he said. 'He had never been so insulted in his life. After all his
+kindness to us--after the hospitality that he had tendered us--after
+taking us into the bosom of his family circle, to have a letter written
+to him in such terms was a perfect outrage! He couldn't have believed
+it, if he hadn't seen it.'
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'that depends, of course, on how you look at it. Now,
+Dick Rose wants to give me forty dollars for that bill.' (Rose was the
+rival livery-stable keeper in the place.)
+
+"'The ---- he does! What for?'
+
+"'Why, he wants to paste it up on his gate, and label it "Bob Malone's
+Bill," for the boys to come and look at; it would be sure to get into
+the papers, and there'd be no end of chaff about it. Of course it would
+be an advertisement for Rose.' 'But you ain't going to sell it to him?'
+'Why not?' 'What, sell another chap my bill?' 'Why shouldn't I,' said I,
+'if I can get half the total for it?' 'Oh!--well, I _am_----Well! Well,
+there, if it comes to that, I guess I can give as much for my bill as
+anybody else. ---- me if I am going to have anybody buy a bill of mine!'
+'But I didn't say that I was going to _take_ forty dollars for it,' I
+said. 'The ---- you didn't! What _do_ you want, then?' 'Well, if you
+want to buy that bill, I guess I could let _you_ have it for sixty
+dollars; but you'll have to make up your mind about it at once.' The end
+of it was that Malone brought out the money, and I handed him the bill.
+I gave the old Captain thirty dollars, and I think he was better pleased
+with it than he would have been if he had struck a big Bonanza."
+
+Early morning saw us under way in different directions. B. and Mac rowed
+to a point two miles down the shore of the lake; Texas struck inland
+for a little lake in the woods.
+
+Into the broken country we plunged, where the scarlet of the vine aspen
+softened into amber; the shades of purple lake, that distinguished the
+fallen and decayed trunks, graduated into cinnamons and browns; the
+claret-hued bark of living pines contrasted with the charcoal of dead
+trees, which bore the indelible legend of a fire that had swept the
+hills a few summers ago. Passing into a section of the country that had
+suffered more severely from its ravages, we found the new growth of pine
+saplings standing almost as thick as corn in a corn-field. It was
+tedious work thrusting a way through this miniature forest; and not less
+troublesome was it to traverse some of the intervening valleys, where
+the fire had not penetrated, and where fallen trunks, the accumulation
+of long decades, crossed one another in inextricable confusion, like
+gigantic squills. Sometimes, by emulating Blondin, it was possible to
+advance unimpeded for forty or fifty--even a hundred feet along the
+naked stem of a tree that lay athwart its brethren. But this was rare,
+and the incidental croppers rendered clambering in and out of the log
+wells the most satisfactory mode of progress after all.
+
+Occasionally we came to a partially bare-backed ridge where deer-tracks
+were numerous, and where usually we should have been likely to find
+game. But prolonged drought had rendered everything as dry as touchwood.
+Every twig, every fern, every leaf, every blade of grass crackled if
+touched. It was impossible to approach game noiselessly until after a
+rainfall, and the futility of endeavouring to do so was strikingly
+illustrated to us once.
+
+We were resting upon a hill-side, when a series of reports, that fairly
+mimicked the "hammer" of distant rifle-firing in a wood, reached us. For
+the moment I thought that it was firing, but attention immediately
+corrected the impression. The sound approached, and though it might have
+been heard a mile away in the perfectly still air, it was evidently only
+the echo of breaking twigs and sticks, caused by a deer moving rapidly
+through a narrow bottom.
+
+We reached the small lake we were in search of. In its hollow of purple
+pines it lay like a basket, woven of feathery reflections, filled with
+silver clouds, fragments of dusky blue, and floating aquatic foliage
+and flowers. Fish were rising wherever the windless surface was
+unobstructed by vegetation, and surely they could not have had a more
+delightful abode than was this crystal crypt, with its sapphire shadows,
+and myriad slender columns of emerald stalks.
+
+On the way back to camp Texas shot two grouse with his revolver. Grouse
+here, by the way, remain perched on the branches of a tree until one is
+within ten or fifteen yards of them.
+
+B. and Mac had returned before us. B. (an old hunter in the States) had
+grasped the situation, and thenceforward refused to undertake the heavy
+work tramping through these woods entailed, when it was practically
+labour wasted. In future he devoted his attention to fishing and duck
+shooting. It was possible to bag a few stray duck, but although at
+certain seasons of the year the fishing is unrivalled in Pend d'Oreille
+Lake, when we were there, it was not worth mentioning.
+
+We shifted camp, and for two or three days I persevered unsuccessfully
+with the rifle. Once, selecting the bald summit of a ridge where there
+were plenty of deer-trails as our point of operations, Texas and I lay
+hidden and watched from late in the afternoon till dark, when we
+bivouacked on the ground. But we saw no game, although two or three
+times during the night we heard deer moving.
+
+Disappointed of sport on the lake itself, we commenced the ascent of its
+tributary, Pack River. Five portages in the first four miles, however,
+and the fact that there was no prospect of the surrounding country
+growing any clearer, cooled our enthusiasm for exploration, and,
+eventually, having added a duck, a brace of plover, and three
+brook-trout to our game list, we returned to the lake, determined to
+seek other if not happier hunting-grounds.
+
+The reader is disgusted--deceived, perhaps, in the expectation of
+perusing an account of dire slaughter. Undoubtedly, the supposition that
+game was to be killed on Pend d'Oreille Lake in September, was a
+delusion. But delusions, illusions, and the like are the salt of life.
+Only the illusions do not pall; only the illusions do not pass away.
+True disappointment lies in complete success. One thing, at any rate, we
+were not deceived about. Pend d'Oreille was very beautiful, and it is
+worth something to be able to close your eyes, and see it as I saw it
+on the morning that we left--as I see it now, in fact, although two
+thousand miles of mountain and prairie lie between us as I write.
+
+A slender shaft of blue smoke rises straight from the smouldering embers
+of our last night's fire on the beach. The air is fresh and still--there
+is no stillness, though, like that of the expectant pause which heralds
+the roar of day, no freshness like the evanescent freshness of sunrise.
+Texas is gathering drift-wood at high-water mark. Down where the boat is
+drawn up on the sands, the dark figure of Old Mac, in his broad black
+sombrero, is keenly outlined against the steely waters. Already the
+leaden sky is luminous with dawn; its pearly tones, as delicate in their
+nuances of shading as the neck of a dove, flush faintly and uncertainly.
+Cloud-edge after cloud-edge grows dazzling with silvery light, and, at
+length, the sun lifts the last clinging shred of the lake's gauze
+coverlet of mist, and reveals it in its bed of soft and hazy hills,
+motionless and pale for a moment before it is dyed with, surely the
+loveliest tint of rose that even Nature ever displayed. The first breath
+of the morning wind steals down from the mountains, to kiss its
+tranquil surface; it shivers, trembles, breaks into shattered light and
+motion like a thing of life awaking, and once more the old song of the
+waters has softly recommenced.
+
+Yonder gleam of white, low down on the far side, under that
+pine-scattered mountain, is Hope Station, whence we take our departure
+at noon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--I.
+
+
+"Well, there's Animas Valley, the 'rustlers' home,' where Curly Bill and
+all those boys used to lie up, when they had been sousing it to the
+'enlightened citizen' a little too freely. There's the boss ranch in New
+Mexico! There's where the cattle graze, and graze, and graze upon a
+thousand hills, and go around laughing to think how much better off they
+are than other cattle, and saying to one another: 'Cows!' or 'bull, old
+pard!' or 'steers,' as the case may be, 'ain't we struck it big, eh?
+ain't we just eternally heeled?' There 're all kinds of grasses for them
+to eat, and if they don't like one they can take another. And there are
+big waters, and little waters, and all sorts, and they please
+themselves. And there are cable roads, and elevators, always running, to
+save them climbing up the steep places, and in warm weather every cow
+is provided with a canteen and a parasol. And Sundays you can see them
+taking their Bibles and campstools under their arms, and going off to
+sit down in the shade, and read to their calves; and when they want to
+know anything, why, they just come and ask old Murray or me. And ... and
+... and if you think that I'm trying to boost the place up because it
+belongs to us, or if you think that it isn't all true what I'm telling
+you now, why, go ahead and call me an old mud-turtle, and say so at
+once. You don't mind how disrespectfully you speak to me, I know that."
+
+Don Cabeza, the speaker, had checked the horses, and the light spring
+waggon we were sitting in was poised on the summit of a down grade, at
+the mouth of a mountain pass we had just emerged from. A great valley
+lay below us, varying in breadth from twelve to twenty miles. Afar off
+to the right a mirage lake stretched its silver sheen across one end of
+it; the other was thirty-five miles away on the Mexican border, and,
+since the valley curved, was out of sight. To the left lay Animas Peak
+and the conjoining mountains; before us the rugged hills that separated
+us from the San Simon valley; and behind these loomed up the favourite
+highway, betwixt Mexico and the States, of the hostile Apaches--the wild
+Chiricaua range, whose naked crests glittered in the sunlight, above a
+confusion of scarped cliffs and jagged pinnacles, and lakes of purple
+shadow. Below, the broad valley bottom--flat here,
+
+
+     "Gleamed like a praying carpet at the foot
+     Of those divinest altars,"
+
+
+and was dotted by the small adobe buildings that marked Horse Springs,
+Granite Tanks, Russian Bill's Place, the Cunningham Place, and a few
+other such spots, towards which (for it was midday), small squads of
+cattle marched stolidly down to water from the foot-hills and the
+"draws," in single file, save where a calf trotted by its mother's side.
+
+Four years have elapsed since the reader and I left Don Cabeza waving
+adieu to us in the streets of Magdalena. Then he was mining. Now he is a
+cattle king, with ranges, and ranges, and ranches, and ranches, and
+managers under him, and cow-boys under them, and under them again,
+cattle on a thousand hills, more or less. For the old style and title of
+Don Cabeza (by which he was known in Sonora) the cow-punchers of New
+Mexico have substituted that of "The Colonel." But nothing else about
+him is changed. He is the same old Cabeza, the soul of good nature and
+geniality, the most delightful of companions. Animas Valley, which we
+were now visiting, was one of the ranges under his control.
+
+"Get up!--get up, or I'll beat the stuffing out of you!" he says mildly,
+stirring the reins at the same time, and once more the horses resume
+their gait, and their driver a tale that he had begun a moment before we
+stopped. "Well, it was during one of these Indian scares. Is that an
+Indian over there, or is it only a soap-weed?"
+
+"Indian," I answered, noticing the distant soap-weed that he indicated
+with the point of his whip.
+
+The "Colonel" glanced at me sideways. "There's a hell's mint of
+soap-weed killed these Indian times, though--grease-bush too--and
+cactus--cactus gets fits! The boys are death on cactus when they get
+scared. Some of them would just as soon shoot a cactus as not--some of
+these Indian fighters, I mean. They don't care what they kill. Well, it
+was in one of these Indian times--old Hoo was out, and Victorio was out,
+and Geronimo was out, and--I don't know--they were all out--the Apaches
+were out to beat hell--at least that was the tune we were all talking
+to, about that time. And they _were_ ginning her[5] up, and making
+things a bit lively, that's a fact! Whenever anything of that kind is
+going on, I make a point of driving down from Deming into this valley,
+and the Plyas Valley, back here, just to encourage the boys and keep
+them in their places. Jim Tracy was with me that time, and as we drew
+near Sherlock's (where we slept last night), we saw a whole crowd of
+fellows come streaming out of the house. I knew at once that they had
+got scared, and had bunched up like a bevy of quail; so I said to Jim:
+'Now, you let me do the talking when they begin to sing "Indians;" don't
+you chip!'
+
+"Jim caught on, and we drove up, and unhitched the horses, and came
+indoors. Every cow-puncher in the valley was there, sure enough--and
+polite!----! they were all as sweet as maple syrup. But I didn't say a
+word. Pretty soon they began:
+
+"'Well, what d'ye know, anyhow?--what's the Indian news?'
+
+"'Indian news! I guess the Indians are quiet enough,' I said, a little
+surprised.
+
+"'But who have they got away with lately?--where are they now?'
+
+"'On the reservation, I suppose.'
+
+"'Oh, pshaw!'
+
+"'Why not?' I said. 'Have you boys seen any Indians round?'
+
+"'No, they hadn't seen any.'
+
+"'Nobody been joshing[6] you, I suppose?'
+
+"'Oh, no! Joshing _them_?--not much!'
+
+"'Well,' said I, 'I don't know! It's the first talk that we've heard of
+Indians, and we've driven all through the country. But if you boys are
+frightened that there 're any about, why, you bunch up, and keep
+together until you feel safe. I don't suppose the Indians will hurt the
+cows any.'
+
+"So, we got to talking about other things, and pretty soon Mat Campbell
+slid out on his ear and got his horse, and went off without saying a
+word; then Reid and Dan Patch pulled out--as quiet as sick monkeys. In
+about ten minutes there were only ourselves and Lou Sherlock left;
+they'd all skinned out, every man Jack of them. And you bet, grease-bush
+and cactus caught it for a day or two; the boys had to take it out of
+something."
+
+A shimmering bar of yellow, faintly tinged with red here and there,
+marked a distant line of autumnal foliage, in the direction of Animas
+Peak.
+
+"Yonder lies the Double Adobes--near those cotton-woods," said the
+Colonel, pointing towards it. "To the left--there--is Pigpen's place,
+and to the right--in that second deep cañon under the shoulder of the
+Peak--is what they call Indian Springs, where there are some curious
+Indian drawings on the rocks. There is permanent water at all those
+places; and in spring and summer there is any quantity of water away
+back in those hills, and oceans of feed for the cattle too. They drift
+back there then, and give the valley a rest."
+
+On we drove past the tumble-down adobe huts, that had once been
+inhabited by Curly Bill, Russian Bill, Black Jack, Cunningham, and other
+celebrities of their type, whose stronghold and cache for stolen cattle
+Animas Valley had been a few years ago. Then the "rustlers" had
+congregated there in force, the locality affording exceptional
+advantages for their chief occupation, namely, "running off" cattle and
+horses from either side of the border. Many a spot is pointed out as the
+scene of a sanguinary skirmish between these modern moss-troopers, and
+the owners and their followers (Mexican or American), whom they had
+despoiled and were endeavouring to escape from. And many a local legend
+relates how the "rustlers" were overtaken and surrounded or besieged in
+this or that adobe or pass, lost their booty, obtained reinforcements
+and recaptured it, were similarly outnumbered and again stripped by
+their pursuers, and so on, with glowing details of the feats performed
+in these encounters. But more prudent and artistic methods of spoliation
+have spread with civilisation and the law from the East. And now,
+although some ambitious youngster, or knot of youngsters, burning to
+emulate the thefts and assassinations that are the eternal theme of
+frontier history under the red line of "Bills" (Why should
+nineteen-twentieths of these butchers have been named "Bill," by the
+way?), occasionally sneak off with an old man's _burro_ or a steer or
+two, or blow the top off some unoffending Mexican's head, the halcyon
+days of such knight-errantry are gone. It is no longer customary, when
+you hire or borrow a horse, to ask its nominal owner before setting out,
+"which way it is _good_?" The sheriff and his posse are quickly on the
+trail of any young aspirants to fame, and as a rule they are soon
+brought into town, handcuffed, red-eyed, and penitent.
+
+A jury of fat store-keepers, saloon proprietors, and rancheros, without
+romance or remorse in them, but all more or less interested in
+preserving unimpeded the rolling of the dollar, sits in judgment over
+them, and if the case admits of it, and the offenders are too poor to
+buy themselves off, glibly sentences them to be hung by the neck until
+dead; whilst the populace, instead of rising _en masse_ to rescue the
+heroes, as might have been the case formerly, rush _en masse_ to buy
+copies of that journal which gives the most intimate and repulsive
+details of their execution. These are not healthy times for vulgar
+crimes. Education has refined our minds, and broadened our views. It is
+as hard as ever, perhaps, to offend our morals, but our taste in crime,
+as in other matters, has become fastidious.
+
+The prairie dogs had colonised in a part of this, the upper end of the
+valley, and we traversed a "dog town" some acres in extent, each
+underground habitation of which was marked by a little heap of excavated
+earth. Queer little squirrel-like beggars are these burrowers; the
+resemblance would be even more complete were it not for the short
+spigot-shaped tails they jerk so comically when, lodged in the entrances
+of their abodes, head and tail alone visible, they chirp and chipper so
+desperately at the intruder. One is tempted at first to laugh at, and
+consider them harmless, but a glance at the extent of grass-land which
+they have desolated, checks the impulse. As for the Colonel, he does not
+experience it apparently, but apostrophises them in language grotesquely
+solemn and ingeniously opprobrious, as long as we are in the
+neighbourhood of their city.
+
+Following the level strip that wound through the centre of the valley,
+we passed the Red Rock, and sighted Juniper Point.
+
+We had left the flats behind, and were now in a rolling country,
+intersected by grassy "draws," or miniature valleys which afforded the
+"finest kind" of shelter for cattle. A cavalcade hove in sight,
+consisting of three horsemen and a four-mule team and waggon, the
+latter full of soldiers and loafers (from the supply camp[7] at the Lang
+ranch), _en route_ for the railroad. Amongst them was a camp trader with
+whom the Colonel was acquainted, and who stopped to exchange news with
+him.
+
+"By the way, Colonel," he said, as he was leaving, "your boys want to
+ride that San Luis Pass carefully, and read the 'sign'[8] there; that's
+the weak point in the valley, and being so near the border, them
+Mexicans can run a few head of stock over from time to time, without
+taking any chances.[9] I met a couple of greasers there the other day,
+driving off three cows and a couple of calves. If I'd had any show, I'd
+have drawn on 'em right away--I wanted to ter'ble bad; but I hadn't got
+no Winchester along, and only two cartridges in my six-shooter, whilst
+they was both well heeled."
+
+"You got the stock, though?"
+
+"Oh, ----, yes! I run a bluff on 'em.[10] They said they wasn't
+_driving_ 'em anyhow, but they got started in the trail ahead of 'em,
+and it wasn't their business to turn 'em. That's a point, though, that
+you want to watch--all the time. Well, so long." And ramming his great
+jingling Mexican spurs into the belly of his little mustang, he scurried
+away to overtake his party.
+
+"Three cows and two calves! Three cows and two calves!" ejaculated the
+Colonel wrathfully from time to time, as we proceeded. "I'll fix them,
+though! I'll fix them--and fix them good while I'm about it. I'll put
+Long-necked Abner and Indian George over there, and then those
+greasers'll have a good time. They'll round 'em up! Just let them catch
+one of them with any of our cattle! They'll pump him so full of lead
+that if a prospector happens to find the corpse he'll 'denounce' it for
+a mining claim. Three cows and two calves, eh! Three----" Then assuming
+a painfully querulous tone to the horses, awaking suddenly to the fact
+that they had slackened their pace into a walk: "Now, why can't you get
+up? What's the matter with you anyhow? Get up! Get up, or I'll knock the
+filling out of you! Get up, I say, or I'll haul off and beat
+the--the--the eternal wadding right out of you--once for all! Now I've
+said it, so look out!" And in pursuance of these dire threats, the
+Colonel gently stroked the quarters of each horse in turn with the point
+of the whip. "Three cows and two calves, eh? Well, that's pretty good
+for those greasers, isn't it?" he resumed more cheerfully--"and the
+cattle business lying on its back burst wide open, too! I'll fix those
+noble descendants of Cortez and his crew, though--those blanketed,
+horse-thieving hidalgoes!--and while I am about it I'll fix 'em good--so
+they'll know it. You never shot any Mexicans, did you?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"Well, we'll put you over there too for a bit, along with Long-neck and
+Indian George. If you have any sort of luck you'll get a fight on once a
+day, and you can make out the rest of the time killing Apaches."
+
+I thanked him in language befitting the occasion.
+
+We passed the Clanton Cienega,[11] and near it some large cattle corrals
+built for branding and marking cattle in; we drove along the edge of the
+Gray Cienega (the best water in the valley), and passing the end of a
+large "draw," in which two troops of U. S. cavalry, under Major Tupper,
+were encamped, finally reached the Gray Place, the headquarters ranch of
+the valley.
+
+As we pulled up before the long, low, rambling adobe house, two or
+three dogs ran forward and barked. But they did so only half-heartedly,
+and prudently, to be on the safe side as it were, and soon, confirmed in
+their partial recognition of my host, desisted altogether. Meanwhile a
+young girl had arisen from a bench in the shadow of an angle made by the
+walls, and in that leisurely and somewhat forced style of Western
+indifference--a manner more often the result of shyness than of anything
+else--was strolling down the slope towards us.
+
+She was very small and slight--a girl of twelve years old might well
+have been bigger; she, however, was more than fifteen. Clad in a rough
+woollen frock, that showed considerable signs of wear and tear, and was
+gathered in at the waist by a dilapidated old cartridge-belt, she
+certainly owed nothing to dress. But she wore her rags as surely no one
+born to them could have worn them; and a curious contrast existed
+between the pretty preciseness of her slightly foreign pronunciation,
+the infantine clearness of her voice, and the Western slang that she
+talked.
+
+Save for a few crisp curls, her black hair (which was cut short) was
+thrown back from her forehead, and with her sunburnt, glowing
+complexion, betrayed her Southern origin. Her head and features were
+small. She had a superficially old manner, the healthy look and
+self-reliance of a boy, but the eyes of a woman--of an angel sometimes.
+Eyes that recalled legends of the "star-eyed Egyptian"--dusky hazel
+orbs, grand and pure in tone, with a world of deep lights and sorrowful
+shadows in them--divinely innocent now, and now far-reaching, full of
+haunting mystery and meaning--eyes that in their more serious moments
+looked immortal, and seemed to have lived in ages past, to have seen
+all, to know all, and to be striving passionately to break the mute
+spell that now overpowered them. But this was only in their serious
+moods. For the most part they mocked the world with restless mischief
+and malice. And this temper it was that had gained for her the
+sobriquet, "Mosquito," usually contracted into the more easily available
+"Squito."
+
+Murray had picked up Squito on one of his trips into Mexico to buy
+cattle. The old man liked to have a youngster dependent on
+him--something to pet and to spoil--something to "swap affection with."
+And Rafaeleta and he were devoted to one another.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[5] Working things up. "Her" is often used in an impersonal and general
+sense out West, instead of "it." On the frontier the "Colonel" used (as
+does every one else who stays there for any length of time) all the
+frontier slang. It has always been a marvel to me to see the ease with
+which such men shed, like an old coat, all such frontierisms when they
+return to more cultured society.
+
+[6] Chaffing.
+
+[7] At the time alluded to, the Apaches were "out," and there were two
+military camps in Animas Valley.
+
+[8] Tracks, etc.
+
+[9] Risks.
+
+[10] "Bounced" them.
+
+[11] A swamp formed by springs in low ground.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--II.
+
+
+"How are you, Squito?--how's your health?" inquired the Colonel
+cheerily.
+
+Rafaeleta silently nodded her acknowledgments of the civility manifested
+by the question. "Where're yer from?" she returned laconically.
+
+"The Plyas."
+
+"Laid over at the Sherlock boys' last night?"
+
+"Yes." (We were engaged in unharnessing the horses by this time. Hedged
+round affectionately by the dogs in various positions, Squito stood
+watching us.) "Any Indian news?"
+
+She shook her head, and then an after-thought evidently occurring to
+her, a smile lit up her face, and she shrugged her shoulders
+indifferently. "Some of the boys down to the Lang ranch and Cloverdale
+have ter'ble times standing 'em off--least, that's how they talk when
+they get a chance at me. Piggy Farrel has killed 'bout eight, _he_ says.
+But he always buries 'em--guns and all."
+
+"Piggy's a great and a good man," said the Colonel, smiling. "And Piggy
+wouldn't be dishonest enough to bury an Indian if he wasn't killed
+first, so if he told you that, it's all right."
+
+"If he could kill Indians shooting off his mouth at them, he'd soon
+clean out all there is," remarked Squito sharply.
+
+The Colonel cast a veiled glance at her as he passed round to put some
+harness in the wagon. "What's the matter, then? Has Piggy been too
+'fresh'?"[12]
+
+Her sunburnt cheeks flushed redly, and a gleam of temper flashed in her
+eyes. But she checked herself, and only laughed scornfully.
+
+"Where's your father?" (Old man Murray was always so termed.)
+
+"He's over to Alamo viejo after a steer that strayed out there; he
+wanted to see the country, so he went himself. Joe and Jake's out on the
+range somewheres. 'Spect father back to supper," she observed after a
+pause; and after a further pause employed in a survey of our tired-out
+nags, she added: "Want some grain for them, don't yer?"
+
+Don Cabeza nodded.
+
+"Have you been feeding them grain lately?"
+
+"Yes; they can have a full feed."
+
+I volunteered to fetch it myself, but looking me over ungratefully,
+Squito lifted her eyes to mine for the first time, and said coolly:
+"You'd best pack those things out of the wagon into the house." And
+picking up a couple of empty candle-boxes, which stood on a carpenter's
+bench near at hand, she passed round a corner of the wall with one under
+each arm, and reappeared presently with the feeds of maize.
+
+We moved our traps from the wagon into a room in the house, and lit a
+log fire on the wide hearth, for the sun was nearly gone, and at this
+time of year the nights were frosty. Major Tupper paid us a visit from
+the neighbouring camp with a couple of his officers.
+
+"What news?"
+
+"Well, the Indians had killed the marshal and another man near Wilcox.
+Lieut. Fountain was reported to have had a brush with them in the
+Dragoon Mountains. Captains Crawford and Davis were on the point of
+starting on separate expeditions into the Sierra Madre after them. A
+scout from Casas Grandes, in Chihuahua, had passed through the camp
+yesterday on his way to General Crook, at Fort Bowie, and reported that
+Natchez, Nané, and Mangus, with a considerable following, were located
+in their old stronghold--the mountain on the San Diego ranch--and that
+small parties of them were trading daily with the Mexicans in Casas
+Grandes. Etc., etc."
+
+"They'll get you one of these days, Colonel, when you are driving around
+in your wagon," said the Major.
+
+Don Cabeza laughed, as he sent the cigar-box round again. "They don't
+want me; old Geronimo and I, we're----" (here a little horizontal motion
+of the hand smoothed the matter over and disposed of it completely)
+"we're solid. I've fixed things with him. 'That'll be all right,' as the
+boys say. When the Indians are out, Major, it is like having a needle in
+a carpet: you may tread on it first step, and you may not strike it in
+ten years. If you have any business to attend to, you'd best go right
+along and do it. Keep your eyes skinned, of course, but don't stay
+home."
+
+Our visitors left; Jake and Joe, two limber, sinewy, six-foot models of
+health and strength, came in, and in due course, under the direction of
+the Colonel (a finished _gourmet_, who not only could give you points
+with regard to anything of gastronomic interest between the Poodle Dog
+and Delmonico's, but could post you almost equally well as to the best
+temples of culinary art that lay between Bignon's and the Café St.
+Pétersbourg, in Pera), we produced a sumptuous repast. With difficulty
+was our _chef_ dissuaded from delaying supper whilst he made a venison
+stew--a stew of any kind being a favourite _tour de force_ of his. Of
+course we all differed as to the best method of cooking what had to be
+prepared, and for the fun of baiting the Colonel, most of us united in
+deriding his decisions. But when Rafaeleta, after roundly challenging
+his ability, finally deserted us, and went over to his side, we had to
+"take water."
+
+In such scenes as these Squito was in her happiest element. Her
+infectious laughter, as frivolous and light as air, ending often in the
+sweetest and gayest of sighs, lent a nonsensical tone to everything. She
+roved irresponsibly here, there, and everywhere--impeding, assisting,
+commanding, interfering, insisting with privileged authority--playfully
+executing freaks of impulse that had no motive, but were none the less
+exquisitely graceful, and which charmed if only because they proved that
+beneath her prematurely old manner the wayward spirit of childhood still
+lingered, and the time had not yet come in her career when every word
+had its billet, every gesture its design, every action its object. The
+movements of a child are generally graceful, awkwardness, like shyness,
+being only the result of false training or ill-health. Rafaeleta had had
+no training, and was a perfect type of all that was healthy. In moments
+like these, therefore, she was a beautiful study.
+
+It was interesting to note the guard the cow-punchers kept over their
+tongues in her presence, and since cleansing the Augean stables had been
+a light task by comparison with purifying the language of a New Mexican
+ranch hand, the task must not be underrated.
+
+Those were pleasant meals at the Gray Place. Rough? Naturally they were
+rough; but none the less they left an agreeable impression, and this is
+a good test. How often do the old wines and delicacies, the vapid
+enumeration of social events which forms the conversation, the general
+luxury and jaded appetites of London dinners do this? It is possible to
+go through life, day after day, without realising what we enjoy or do
+not enjoy. There are probably people who have become so thoroughly
+accustomed to ask, what _is_ interesting? so entirely unused to ask
+themselves, what _they_ really enjoy? that amusement is a lost art for
+them. They have stunted and coerced their inclinations until their
+natural and artificial appetites are indistinguishably confused, and
+they could no longer get a sure answer from their own hearts, did they
+ask themselves, what they enjoyed?
+
+Jake and Squito are busy at the stove. Murray, the manager, a cheery
+little man, with a _vieille moustache_ face, and a twinkle of quiet
+humour in his eyes, is drying his hands on the round towel. (Murray is
+an Irishman by birth, but the Irish element in America is so generally
+unpopular in the West, that he always laughingly denies the nationality
+which his unmistakable brogue betrays, and declares that he is an
+"_I_-talian.") The Colonel, Joe, and I are already seated at the long
+table at one end of the kitchen, together with a teamster from Separ, on
+his way to the camp at the Lang ranch, with a load of goods for the "gin
+mill" there. The Colonel is stroking his beard, and smiling in
+anticipation over a tale that he has just been reminded of and is going
+to tell.
+
+"Yes," he agreed to some remark that had been made, and he smiled a
+little reflectively, "you're right. Andy Sullivan is a daisy--what Louis
+Timmer would call a 'Yoe dandy.' He's a great and a good man is
+Andy--'Not great like Cæsar stained with blood, but only great as he is
+good.' Did he ever tell you about his playing 'seven-up' with the old
+Scotchman?"
+
+We had none of us heard the tale.
+
+"Well, Andy found himself harnessed on to an old Scotchman one day, and
+they got to playing seven-up to pass the time. Andy could hardly be
+called 'anybody's fool' at seven-up, and the old Scotchman was no slouch
+either, it seemed--he had some talent into him, as they say. Anyhow,
+they were playing along pretty evenly; and the drinks were mounting up
+all the time. Pretty soon Andy began to notice that his opponent didn't
+always take his word for the score, but sorted his cards over, as well
+as his own. He got so particular at last that the thing became rather
+pointed, and Andy said finally:
+
+"'You don't seem to be very easy in your mind, sir; you're picking the
+cards over a good deal. You surely don't mean to suspect me of taking
+any advantage of you.'
+
+"'Not for the warld, Meester Sullivan! I wouldn't be suspecting ye under
+any saircumstances; but,' the old Scotchman added grimly, 'the man that
+would be watching ye would be attending to his own bizeness.'
+
+"'And,' said Andy confidentially, when he told me the tale on himself,
+'I _was_ moighty hard up at the time--right down on the bed rock--and it
+is just possible that I may have been monkeying with the cards a
+little.'"
+
+"You bet yer!" cried Jake, from the store. "He'd play his hand for all
+there was in it, anyhow. Come to drink with him, it's just as well to
+keep the handle of the jug your side."
+
+"He's another of them _I_-talians, ain't he?" inquired old Murray, with
+a wink.
+
+"That's what he is, sure! By the way, Colonel, did you see Sam around
+Deming?"
+
+"Sam?--Sam Rider? Isn't he in the valley?"
+
+"Not much! Sam got two months' wages ahead, so he cracked his whip, and
+went off on a bend."
+
+"To blow in?"[13]
+
+Jake laughed assent.
+
+"I seen him," chimed in the teamster.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Up at Silver."
+
+"How was he making it?" asked Squito, with her back to us.
+
+"About making 'a stand off,' I guess. I met him going along with his
+head down, like he was drunk. _We'd_ been having 'a time,' and my keg
+was pretty full, too. But I seen him all the same. 'Come into the
+"Ranch," and have a drink, Sam,' says I. 'A drink goes,' says he. 'How
+do you come on?' says I. He said as he'd been gambling, and was two
+hundred dollars ahead of the town. He 'got there with both feet'[14] at
+starting, and was eight hundred ahead once. But he played it off at
+monté. 'Well,' says I, 'you're full now; you'd better go to bed, and
+not play again till you're sober.'
+
+"'I believe I will,' he says.
+
+"But later on Thin Pete told me that he was up at the 'Central,'
+gambling again. I went in and stood behind him, and looked on for a few
+minutes. There he was, sure enough, bucking at faro, and just a-sousing
+it to her red hot--betting only on the 'high card,' or 'high card,
+coppered.'
+
+"'That's my kind,' says old Sam; 'you get "action" there every turn. No
+waiting for any durned cards to come up!' He's a high roller, by
+gum!--when he's got it."
+
+"You bet your buttons!" murmured Squito proudly, "Sam'll 'stay with 'em'
+as long as he's got a check."[15]
+
+"Bully for you, Squito!" cried Joe. "When it comes to gambling he's a
+thoroughbred; he puts it up[16] as if it was bad."
+
+Squito laughed impulsively.
+
+"They came near socking him in the cooler,[17] the other day," said the
+teamster.
+
+"Is that so? What for?"
+
+"Oh, I d'n' know!--he'd been singing the music to 'em. Sam's too
+broncho;[18] he gets all-fired mean[19] sometimes when he's full."
+
+"There ain't a drop of mean blood in him," denied Squito flatly.
+
+The teamster shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Anyhow, Doc Gilpen the Marshal jumped him.[20] I was right there when
+they met. 'Sam,' he says, 'you've made one or two bad breaks since
+you've been in town. Next time you ring, I'm coming for you--and going
+to get you, too.' 'What's the matter with your getting me now?' asked
+Sam. And they both stood with their hands on their
+six-shooters--so--watching one another like strange Indians. 'I don't
+want you now.' 'Well, that'll be all right! You can find me whenever you
+do; and you'll find me heeled,[21] too, you bet your sweet life!' says
+Sam. For a minute or two they stood looking at one another, and then Doc
+'pulled out.'[22] Right opposite Lindauer's store it was. I thought
+there was going to be a shooting, sure. And it wanted powerful little to
+set 'em going now, and don't you forget it!"
+
+"Doc would get away with him," said Joe.
+
+"Would he!" ejaculated Squito hotly.
+
+"Yes. He's got all Sam's sand,[23] and is cooler."
+
+"That's what," coincided Jake. "I guess he's a shade quicker, too."
+
+"There ain't a quicker than Sam this side o' Memphis," said Squito
+defiantly.
+
+"Well, there'll be hell a-popping whenever they do come together, and
+it----"
+
+"You bet there will!" exclaimed the girl, with blazing eyes. "And Doc
+Gilpen will get left right there."
+
+The little tigress had ceased her work, and faced about to the company.
+She was evidently ready for anything. The boys glanced at her and
+"passed" good-naturedly.
+
+"Talking about Doc, I have to laugh when I think of the last time that I
+was in Deming," said Joe. "One of these chaps from Texas come in there
+to paint the town,[24] and got his tank full, and tried to ride his
+horse into the 'Cabinet.' Doc and I was taking a hand at stud-poker
+there when we heard him shouting outside: 'I'm a roaring, raging lion,
+I am! I'm a hell-tearing cyclone! I'm a pitch-fire, singeing, wild-cat
+terror from Texas!' And just about when he had got that off, Doc, who
+had pocketed his chips,[25] and skinned out to get a front seat, knocked
+him off his horse with the butt-end of his six-shooter. 'What are you
+now?' he asked, as the chap picked himself up. 'I'll be ---- to ---- if
+I know,' he said. And you should have heard the boys laugh! I tell you,
+Deming is a bad little camp for a fellow to try and run a bluff in. You
+don't want to make any of those foolish plays there, or you'll be apt to
+find a contract on your hands that you ain't looking for."
+
+"That's what," assented Jake again. "If Doc or the Deputy[26] ain't
+around, there's always some one on hand to shoot you in the belly if you
+need it."
+
+Corn-meal mash and cream, antelope steaks, and bacon (known to the
+ranchero as "sow-belly"), baked potatoes, corn cakes, "muffins," honey,
+coffee, and milk. Take your choice; it is all clean, and the best, of
+its kind, to be had. Perhaps you find it impossible to bring yourself to
+eat with "aw, cow servants you know," as certain young Englishmen, but
+newly come from college to New Mexico, and unpurged, as yet, of their
+old-world prejudices, found it not long ago. Then you can take advantage
+of the alternative which was offered to them--you can wait until the
+"aw, cow servants," and others, untroubled with your scruples, have
+finished. The title, "cow servants," so delighted the gentle "puncher,"
+by the way, that it has become a standing quotation in New Mexico.
+
+I am far from advocating a style of hail-fellow-well-met familiarity
+betwixt master and servant. Here, as elsewhere, this naturally destroys
+the former's influence, and is neither necessary nor wise. But
+"gentlemen ranchers" are a greater mistake than even "gentlemen
+farmers," and the man who holds aloof from the society of his ranch
+hands "out West," and treats them as farm labourers are treated in
+Europe, commands only their begrudged service. They never have his
+interests at heart, but rather those of their own kin and kind on
+adjoining ranches. Any one who understands the full meaning of this--any
+one who knows how completely the option lies with the cow-puncher of
+working or not, of riding the range honestly or shirking the doing so,
+of learning to know the cattle on it and their habits, of "reading
+sign" in order to be acquainted with the movements of strays, of
+treating horses and cattle gently and well, or of failing in these
+duties--will appreciate the advantage of winning something more than
+unwilling labour from his men.
+
+Naturally, the society of ranch hands and their kind is not very refined
+or attractive. But the man in search of cultivated society should not
+engage in the cattle business. He who does do so will find it most
+profitable, and in the aggregate most comfortable, to live amongst his
+men. It is quite possible to mix freely with them, to talk and laugh
+with them, to treat them with as much real civility as would be bestowed
+upon an equal, without ever confusing your relative positions, or
+degenerating into a mutual condition of absolute familiarity. The
+cow-punchers know and like a gentleman. Many a time have I heard them
+allude to "Mr. This, or Colonel That," as "an elegant gentleman--a fine
+gentleman, sir, that's what he was! He always treated me well. But ----!
+he didn't stand no monkey-business, all the same." The cow-puncher is
+perfectly well aware that he himself is not a gentleman, and, so far
+from taking a liberty with his social superior, will invariably yield
+him place, if treated properly. But then the gentleman must make his
+rank felt by self-control, not endeavour to enforce the recognition of
+it by self-assertion.
+
+One thing may be noted here. A cattle-ranch is not, like a good mine or
+many another source of wealth, able to afford extravagant management. To
+a very large extent, the money made in cattle is money saved.
+Cattle-ranches will not always pay handsome dividends if called upon to
+support fancy managers, separate establishments for hands and master,
+tribes of servants, four-in-hands, trotters, good cellars and cooks,
+etc., etc. They may do this when cattle are "booming," but the
+fluctuations in the value of stock are enormous, and periods of
+depression recur at intervals, when even the economic ranchero finds
+difficulty in making both ends meet.
+
+Where were we, though? At supper! My progress will be representable by
+some such eccentric tracing of involved curves and turns, as Sterne used
+to illustrate his advance in "Tristram Shandy."
+
+"Which of you boys shot this antelope?" inquired the Colonel, helping
+himself to a steak.
+
+"Her," answered Joe laconically, nodding towards Squito.
+
+"Are you a good shot, Squito?" I asked.
+
+"Well, I should rather say she was!" rejoined the Colonel, whilst the
+boys chuckled quietly. "She can knock the spots out of these boys at
+that game."
+
+"That's what she can," assented Joe good-humouredly; "she can whip us
+the worst kind. She's liable to whip a'most any stranger that comes
+along, too," and he smiled significantly at me.
+
+Rafaeleta, meanwhile, turned fresh steaks in the frying-pan, and paid no
+heed to the conversation.
+
+"Where did you kill the antelope, Squito?" inquired Don Cabeza.
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" she ejaculated indifferently.
+
+"Well, where was it? We want to know, because----"
+
+"In the big draw, back of Clanton's ciniky, then. Have another biscuit,
+Colonel?" And with her sleeves rolled up on her little muscular brown
+arms, she approached the table with the biscuit-tray in one hand, and a
+fork in the other.
+
+"How far off were you from him?"
+
+"Shan't answer any more questions," she said capriciously, but with
+hopeless decision. And seating herself at the head of the table, she
+appropriated Joe's muffin and Jake's teaspoon. "Joe, you can get
+another, and Jake, there's one in the cupboard."
+
+Supper over, Jake "washed up," whilst Joe took a lantern and went off to
+milk the cows (which grazed free during the day and came in at night to
+their penned-up calves). The rest of us retired to the adjoining room,
+and gathered round the blazing logs to talk "cattle" and their
+prospects. On such occasions Squito would nestle down on a log by the
+hearth, and, taking no part in the conversation, glance keenly from
+speaker to speaker, or gaze dreamily into the fire, rolling herself
+little Mexican cigarettes, in bits of maize-leaf, from time to time.
+Sometimes, during a lull in the conversation, she would hazard prettily,
+addressing either the Colonel or me: "Won't you tell us some more about
+them foreign lands?" When the boys, having finished their work, rejoined
+us, she generally slipped off silently to her own room.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[12] Cheeky.
+
+[13] Spend his money.
+
+[14] Was very successful.
+
+[15] A counter.
+
+[16] Spends money.
+
+[17] Putting him in prison.
+
+[18] Wild.
+
+[19] Savage.
+
+[20] Took him to task.
+
+[21] Armed.
+
+[22] Left.
+
+[23] Pluck.
+
+[24] Have a spree.
+
+[25] Counters.
+
+[26] Deputy Marshal.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--III.
+
+
+It was still dark when Murray rose and looked outside, letting an eager
+rush of frosty air into the room that brought me back from heaven knows
+where I had strayed in dozing. Without--
+
+
+     "The dawn in russet mantle clad,
+     Peeped o'er the brow of yonder distant hill,"
+
+
+--old Animas Peak, which loomed up indistinct and colourless in the
+distance. Everything was ghostly and still, even the breath of chill
+wind that crept almost noiselessly up the valley. Presently, like a
+great trumpet's blare, the calling of a far-off cow to its calf rang
+through the hollow silence. Swiftly the red ripples of sunrise broke on
+the gray sea of dawn. The spectral Animas issued from obscurity, clad
+regally in purple and a few plumes of silver mist;
+
+
+     "The fair star that gems the glittering coronet of morn,"
+
+
+in these latitudes, shrank back and paled out of sight.
+
+
+     "And like a lobster boiled, the morn
+     From black to red began to turn."
+
+
+"Whist! it is cold!" we gasped, as we broke the ice in the pails of
+water that stood on a bench under the wall, and proceeded to wash as we
+might.
+
+While breakfast was being prepared, I walked out on to the cienega to
+look for ducks. But one shot cleared the swamp, and returning to the
+house with a mallard, I fell in with Squito and Joe driving the band of
+cow-ponies into the corral. With a broad-brimmed, leather-banded cow-boy
+hat on, an old pair of cow-boy, high-heeled[27] Wellington boots, a red
+canvas overcoat of old man Murray's, buckled in round her waist by her
+cartridge-belt (to which was now attached a genuine six-shooter), and
+her vivid little face nestled in its deep collar, the child was a quaint
+picture.
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" she exclaimed, with a merry little laugh of malice, for
+she utterly refused to believe in a "Britisher," "you've 'done' got up,
+then! Joe, the man's up a'ready!" (She always called me "the man.")
+
+"Why not?" rejoined Joe, with a smile of greeting. "You ain't the on'y
+one that can get up mornings."
+
+"Why, no! do you suppose that you have a monopoly of early hours?"
+
+"Yes, yes, yes! That's what I do, exactly. The Colonel said th' other
+day, when I was wanting to be 'a capitalist,' that he'd give me all the
+gold that I could see in the valley at sunrise. You ain't got no sort o'
+right to come prospecting around now. I've 'denounced' it all--it's all
+mine, all mine." And she threw an arm out, and grasped at the sunny
+skies, laughingly. "'Sides" (mischievously), "ain't you one of these
+dudes as the Colonel brings down sometimes from El Paso and Silver, that
+wants kettles o' hot water to twelve o'clock? Oh, pshaw! we ain't got to
+joshing you yet! You wait till the boys and me puts up a job on you."
+
+"Shucks! you think nobody ain't got no sagass but you," ejaculated Joe,
+as, launching her sauciest grimace at me, with a seat so sure and
+finished, that it was a treat to watch her, Squito shot off at a tangent
+on the broncho she was riding, with only a _hackamore_ or headstall, to
+bring back a couple of ponies that were straying from the bunch.
+
+"Well, now, you boys," said Murray one morning after breakfast, "we want
+to keep on picking up the calves that ain't branded. Joe, you'd best
+ride in back of Cunningham's. Jake, you make a bend out towards the
+Peak, and the Double Adobes. I'll go in towards the Baker Place and
+Skeleton Cañon, there's two big calves runs in there somewhere that we
+missed at the round up. We've got to get up that band of mares that's
+running with Charles Dickens, and count 'em, one day this week, too."
+
+"That's so," chimed in Squito; "I ain't got a colt at all in the corrals
+to 'gentle' now."
+
+Squito, who was perfectly fearless, and unerring with the _lariat_, used
+to amuse herself during the day with 'halter-breaking' and 'gentling'
+the young colts as soon as they were weaned. In doing this she required
+but little assistance, and displayed judgment and patience only less
+remarkable than her skill.
+
+"Well, we'll get you up one," said the old man. "What are you going to
+do to-day, Mr. Francis?"
+
+"I'll ride with you, Murray," I said.
+
+Out in the horse corral there was a busy scene for the next few minutes,
+as each man lassoed his half-broken mount, and brought him to a
+standstill, snorting with fear, a quivering statue of flesh and
+streaming hair, and then led him to the saddling bench by the house.
+With a horse-hair _lariat_ on her arm, the loop trailing from her
+shoulder, Squito looked on watchfully. But presently, taking compassion
+on my unskilful efforts, she whirled the rope twice round her head,
+enlarging the noose at the same time, and with the most perfect ease
+dropped it over the head of the "clay-bank" nag that I was endeavouring
+to catch. Almost simultaneously, she bent the other end of the lasso
+round one of the "snubbing" posts that stood about in the enclosure, and
+the "clay-bank" suddenly found himself captured. The Colonel, a martyr
+to rheumatism at the time, limped round meanwhile, chewing the end of a
+long cigar savagely, and swearing, not inaudibly, at the affliction
+which enforced his inaction.
+
+Leaving the Gray Place, and turning our backs to the Peak, we headed
+for the Baker Place--some springs, about nine miles from the ranch, in
+the foot-hills of the San Simon range.
+
+
+     "Wild music makes the wind on silver strings."
+
+
+A fresh breeze blew, not forcibly, but coolly and merrily, forming, one
+could almost fancy, the song of the world, as it grappled
+light-heartedly with its day's work. In the pale blue, far-off sky the
+sun shone brightly, and translucent cloud formations, of delicate
+texture, floated out like woman's hair on the sea of light, crossed and
+recrossed by one another as they lay in transverse currents of air at
+different altitudes. In the clear sunny atmosphere of the New Mexican
+winter, everything looked near and shone vividly; distance seemed to
+magnify rather than reduce in size the well-conditioned cattle that our
+quick-stepping ponies bore us past. And as we rode, keeping a sharp
+look-out for unbranded calves, that had been dropped since the fall
+"round up," or had then been overlooked, Murray (a one-idea man, whose
+heart and soul were wrapped up in cattle, and whose gods were the
+cattle-kings of California, "Dan Murphy, Haggin, Lux, and Miller, and
+them fellows,") held forth, as usual, on his favourite subject.
+
+"There's lots of things to look to in choosing a range," he said.
+"There's some ranges that you couldn't hold cattle on, not if you had a
+man to every head of stock. They won't stay there; they'll keep on
+straying away. The grass don't suit 'em, or the water don't taste right,
+or there ain't 'nough shelter, or something--you can't always tell what
+_is_ the matter exactly. Fact is, you want good grass, and good water,
+and good shelter too, if you can get 'em. And you don't want your water
+all in one place either, or you'll soon find your grass at one end of
+the ranch and your water at the other; and when cattle have to travel
+eight or ten miles back and forth, they're going to be in pretty poor
+fix[28] all the time. You want the water well distributed--a spring
+here, and a spring there, and a creek or a cienega somewheres else. When
+you've got that kind of a range, you won't have no trouble holding your
+stock, they'll stay right there. I could handle 20,000 head of cattle in
+this valley with eight men. To be sure, our stock is pretty well
+corralled here by the hills, but all the same they don't want to quit.
+There's ways out of the valley, and they'd find 'em sure 'nough if they
+did. Why! last round up, over in San Simon Valley, there was only one of
+our steers there, and that was one that got driven off with a bunch of
+strays which the San Simon boys was taking back.
+
+"It's a great thing to get a range that's isolated, and have your cattle
+by themselves. One thing is that you want your cattle gentle and in good
+condition, and when there's half-a-dozen bands mixed in together they
+don't get no peace; there's always some one in among 'em, 'cutting out'
+cattle, and running 'em round, and likely enough handling 'em, too, in a
+style you don't approve of. Another thing is that, when you're off by
+yourself, it encourages you to go to the expense of turning in good
+bulls, and grading up your stock, which you ain't nearly so liable to do
+if your cows and your neighbours' run in together.
+
+"I'm all for grading up cattle. Look at it! Graded cattle are more
+valuable, ain't they? And they're gentler and easier to handle, so you
+work your capital at a less expense than if you run scrubs. Besides
+this, there's a larger percentage of increase to them than there is to
+scrubs. They always command a sale, and at a fair price too, even when
+cattle are way down in the market, like they are at present; and on a
+fair range they're always in condition. You can't never get these wild
+scrub cattle into condition anyhow; they run all the flesh off their
+bones. Why, some of these here black cattle from Mexico, if they see a
+cow-boy a mile off, will 'light out and run four miles; they graze at a
+lope, and water at full gallop.
+
+"Buy your stock right in this country, if you settle here; never mind if
+it costs you more. You may go away down into Texas or Mexico and buy
+scrubs cheaper; but see here, now! one of these graded yearlings will
+outweigh one of them two-year-olds. Then, again, this is by far the
+finest breeding-ground in the States; from eighty to ninety-five per
+cent. of the cows here will drop calves every season; the climate suits
+'em. They're lucky if they get a forty per cent. increase up in Montana.
+When you bring cattle from a distance, too, some of 'em is sure to die
+on the road; and more'll die before they get wonted to the range; and no
+matter how fine a range you turn 'em on to, it'll take a long time for
+'em to find their condition again after a change of country. Then very
+likely half the cows you bring from a distance ain't been served, and
+many of them as has calves loses 'em on the trail. In the long run
+you'll always find it pay to buy cattle that you know something about,
+and buy 'em pretty near home, too.
+
+"Spring's the best time to buy stock. Turn 'em on to your range when the
+grass is green and there's plenty of it; they get stuck on it[29] then
+and stop there, you don't have no trouble locating 'em. But you bring
+'em in in summer, when everything is burnt up, and they'll drift off a
+thousand miles; and if you bring 'em in in the fall, even if the grass
+has recovered a bit, they haven't time to pick up after the change
+before winter sets in. Not that that matters so much here, where the
+winter don't amount to anything; but there's places where it does; and
+if they struck a bad season then they'd die like flies.
+
+"You want to look at everything in a business way. You don't keep a
+ranch for fun. You want the cattle that's easiest handled, and easiest
+sold, and that matures quickest and keeps in best condition. And you
+want to get the most work you can out of your horses, and to place your
+men on the outside of your range so that all their riding tells, and
+they cover the greatest possible stretch of country. And you want to
+work your stock slowly. Don't you never have none of these hell-tearing
+rustlers from Texas on your ranch, if you get one. It don't pay to have
+fellows blazing off their revolvers, and stampeding the cattle, and
+spurring their horses on the shoulders, and always going on a lope, and
+driving cattle at a lope too, and lassing steers by the fore-feet on the
+trail, and throwing 'em head over heels, just for the satisfaction of
+hearing the thud they make when they fall. That kind of monkey business
+is played out! There ain't no object in wearing out your horses and
+giving 'em raw backs; and as to cattle, if you want 'em in good
+condition--that is, so any one will buy 'em--you never should let 'em
+out of a walk. You run a steer a mile or so, and lass and throw him for
+fun, and the flesh he loses afterwards would hardly be credited. Well,
+that's so much money out of your pocket, if you want to sell him. And
+you have a horse with a sore back for a month or two, and you can reckon
+that loss in money, too. Work stock slowly, and save your horses when
+you can, that's all there is to it, if you want to make money ranching."
+
+Murray would ramble on like this by the hour, seldom repeating himself.
+Many were the rides we took together, but never returned from one
+without his having broached a fresh chapter on the habits and management
+of cattle. It is useless to retail these dissertations, however; such
+information is only used when gathered by experience--fortunately the
+case with all useful knowledge, or by this time the world would have
+grown wise and infinitely dull.
+
+We had ridden over a good stretch of country in the direction of the
+Baker Place (the old man occasionally marking down an unbranded calf, to
+be picked up on our return), when we became aware of a few white dots
+amongst some live-oak, on the edge of a slope which led down into a
+large draw. "Antelope!" I ejaculated. Murray nodded silently. We had
+reined in our ponies on some rising ground, the summit of which we had
+scarcely attained. The game was about a mile off.
+
+"We'd best get back, and get around to them by that ridge," said my
+companion, withdrawing the extinct pipe he was sucking at, and pointing
+to the left. Retiring slowly, until all but our heads were concealed,
+we watched the band feeding for a little. It is always interesting to
+observe the movements, even of the commonest of wild animals, and,
+notwithstanding the distance which separated us from these, so clear was
+the air that, as soon as the eye became focussed to the range, they were
+easily distinguishable. After vacillating for some time, they finally
+all disappeared into the draw.
+
+The direction of the wind and the nature of the country rendered it
+necessary to approach them from the side on which we already were--the
+opposite side of the draw to that on which we had first seen them. We
+cantered towards the nearest tributary of it, therefore, and entering
+it, drew as close to the game as we were able to do on horseback.
+Leaving the ponies then with Murray, I proceeded on foot with a little
+Morse carbine that I had with me. I found that the antelope had made but
+little progress, and were about five hundred yards off, feeding at the
+foot of the further slope. The intervening ground afforded no cover, and
+was perfectly flat; the dried course of a little stream, which found its
+way down from the mountains in the rainy season, ran near me, however,
+and, having gained this, I succeeded in crawling a hundred and fifty
+yards nearer to the band without having attracted notice. Then, since it
+was impossible to diminish the distance, I cautiously raised the 45.70,
+took a full three hundred yards sight, and dropped the best shot that
+offered. As the rest turned and fled up-hill, I risked a shot at their
+leader, and killed him also. They were both hit fairly behind the
+shoulder, and were dead before reached. Unfortunately, I can by no means
+lay claim to this as being my usual form with the rifle. Very far from
+it.
+
+We gralloched the carcases, and having divided and packed one behind our
+saddles, hung the other on a live-oak to be fetched by the soldiers from
+the neighbouring camp. A little further on we found one of the two big
+calves that Murray was in search of, and taking this, with its mother,
+as the nucleus of our band, turned back, and drove them slowly towards
+the Clanton cienega, gathering, _en route_, all those that we had marked
+down as we came out. At the cienega we left them unherded, whilst we
+went into the Gray Place to lunch, there being no fear, since it was
+mid-day, of their quitting the water until we wanted them for branding.
+
+The boys had also brought in a few calves, and immediately after lunch,
+we sallied forth on fresh ponies to drive our joint capture into the
+corral. For this task, I had been furnished with a trained "cutting"
+pony, reported to be one of the best in the valley, and well did he
+sustain his reputation. It was only necessary, after having shown him a
+cow or a calf getting away from the herd, to give him his head, and at
+full speed he started for it immediately. Needless to guide him. Wholly
+uninfluenced, he would check and counter-check in mid-career each break
+of the truant's with stops and turns so sudden, that once a pocket-book
+and some letters were jolted clean out of an outside breast-pocket in my
+coat, and fell a yard or two clear of where my mount had stopped. The
+cattle were soon penned, and, dismounting, we entered the corral on
+foot.
+
+About a baker's dozen of cows and calves were collected. One of the
+former was what is termed a "hooking" cow, and to escape her repeated
+charges tested all our agility, and afforded considerable amusement to
+Don Cabeza, who sat upon the top rail of the corral, smoking, and
+exercising his wit at our expense.
+
+The brands were heated in a small wood fire, and a calf being lassoed
+and thrown, if necessary it was also hog-tied, or had fore and hind legs
+crossed and bound with a few turns of the lariat. The tip of the right
+ear was then squared off, the left ear split, the calf was dewlapped (or
+had the outer edge of the loose skin of the throat cut, so as to leave
+pendent a small rope of flesh, an inch in diameter, and four or five
+inches long), and finally the diamond A was branded on its hip. To
+cleanse the iron before making a fresh application of it, it was dipped
+in a pan of grease.
+
+The foregoing marks may appear cruel, and, some of them, superfluous. In
+reality, however, they seemed to cause but little pain. And in a country
+where cattle run free, and the brands are endless in variety, it is of
+the utmost importance to avoid the possibility of mistakes, or of any
+criminal alteration of the marks by which herds are distinguished. _À
+propos_ of marks, the Colonel, of course, had a happy instance to quote.
+
+The boys had just released the last calf, and we were about to turn the
+lot out, when something was said which caused the Don to refer to the
+tale, and we gathered round where he was perched on the rails, the blue
+sky behind him, his hat thrust back, his beard grasped affectionately in
+one hand, the stump of a cigar between the fingers of the other, and a
+smile of delicious knowingness and good humour lighting up his handsome
+phiz.
+
+"Ear-marks! Did I never tell you that? No? Well, away back in my old
+State, at a little place on the Shenang River, there was an old fellow
+called Joshua Welch. His neighbours used to say that he stole their
+hogs. Maybe he did; maybe he didn't. Joshua is dead long ago,
+anyhow--for all we know he may be squinting through his trumpet at us,
+right now--and I shouldn't like to say of any gentleman cherub that once
+on a time he stole hogs. Most of the folks kept hogs where he lived, and
+some used one mark, some another; some squared the right ear, some the
+left. Old Joshua always seemed to be in doubt about his mark; he used
+all kinds, and claimed 'most anything that came his way. So one day they
+went to him. There was hell a-popping! One fellow said he had roped in a
+sow with the left ear off, belonging to _him_; and another fellow said
+that he had got a young boar with the right ear off, belonging to
+_him_. So they went to him--madder than hell they were, too--and the
+spokesman said:
+
+"'Now, Mr. Welch, we just want to know, once for all, what your ear-mark
+is? Which ear _do_ you crop, anyhow?'
+
+"'Ear-mark?' said old Joshua; 'ear-mark? Why, that's clear enough. Ear
+off next the river--that's my mark.'"
+
+In the way of altering brands there is comparatively but little mischief
+done in these days. Stock associations, and the like, have almost put an
+end to such trespasses. The ranchero who does not get his own calves
+now, or who loses his cattle, has only himself, and a carelessness or
+ignorance that absolutely offers a premium for theft, to thank for it.
+An old cow-puncher that I met in Washington Territory, regretted this
+new order of things very feelingly to me once, over our second cocktail.
+
+"These ain't no sort of times to go to raising cattle down Texas way,"
+he said indignantly. "No, sir; don't you try it--not now they've got all
+their associations, and conventions, and mutual-protection schemes, and
+all that monkey business. Why, I've known the time when, if you started
+me in business with one steer, and the proper kind of branding-iron, I
+could have raised quite a nice bunch of cattle in a twelvemonth. Half
+the 'draw'[30] was worth something those times! Nowadays you don't dare
+to clap a brand on a mavorick[31] even; and if they catch you _altering_
+a brand--hell! that's a penitentiary job. The cattle business ain't what
+it was; and any one who expects to make 'a raise' in it now, in any sort
+o' reasonable time, is going to get pretty badly left, and don't you
+forget it. I know what I'm talking about! Why, Lord! I tailed cattle
+across the plains from Missouri to California away back--way back! I was
+in California in '47--when it was a cattle country, mind; when you could
+sit on your horse, and tie the wild oats together across the pommel of
+your saddle. I was in 'Frisco in '49 and spring of '50. Yes, sir" (with
+a semi-defiant air), "that's what I was. I can remember, just like
+yesterday, when the water used to come up on Montgomery Street. Those
+times, when people had money they spent it; they let it roll! There
+wasn't none of this small-minded scraping, and shaving, and adding up,
+and keeping tally. Them as'd got it paid, and them as hadn't didn't, and
+that's all there was to it; and if anybody said anything ugly about it,
+you just blowed the top of his head off, and set up the drinks, and
+there was an end of him. As to these here Californians that's come out
+since then, they're a tin-horn lot compared--half Jew, half Chinaman;
+on'y fit to take their pleasure in a one-horse hearse. Why, I
+remember----Are you acquainted in 'Frisco, sir?" he asked, pausing in
+mid-career prudently.
+
+As I had heard this kind of thing numberless times before, I intimated
+that I was so, and also that I knew several old-timers.
+
+"Ah! fine city! fine city!--compared, that is," he said approvingly.
+"But as to this here cattle business, that's played out. _I_'ve quit."
+
+Evidently, in his own mind, this set a seal on the decadence of
+cattle-ranching.
+
+"What are you doing now?" I inquired.
+
+"Well--well--I'm just prospecting around--looking at the country. I've
+got two or three schemes on hand; there's big money--big money in
+'em--millions, if they're worked properly! But it'll take a little
+capital to start 'em. Now, if you want a really good investment, you're
+in luck. Me and my partner's got a mine, that----," etc., etc.
+
+Many scores of these philanthropists, who have spent their lives in
+looking for men to enrich, whilst anxious only "to make a small wad" for
+themselves, have I encountered! Many a time have I let "the boss mine,"
+or "the boss ranch," slip through my fingers! Such men always take it
+for granted that an Englishman is a "sucker." It is as well to foster
+the belief, for the amusement of hearing them ingenuously unfold their
+magnificent schemes. Besides which, as a matter of policy it is unwise
+to endeavour to seem too smart when in quest of information, for a fool
+is allowed to see more in an hour than one who is credited with ordinary
+sense will discover in twelve months.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[27] It is an odd thing that cow-boys, particularly Texans, will wear,
+if they can get them, boots with heels that would look ridiculous even
+on a Parisian _cocotte_.
+
+[28] Condition.
+
+[29] Fond of it.
+
+[30] The cattle that an employé could steal for his master.
+
+[31] An unbranded motherless calf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--IV.
+
+
+"We have _got_ to go to the Double Adobes anyhow, so why not go to-day?"
+I said, after breakfast, as I stood at the door of the Gray Place.
+
+"Why not?" observed the Don. "If we _can_ only get well started before
+night--which doesn't seem likely, at the rate you fellows stand
+still--we shall very likely manage to get soaked through, and have to
+camp on the plain in wet clothes, by the look of the sky over there."
+
+"That'll be all right; I am not frightened at a little rain," said I,
+laughing.
+
+"That settles it, then," rejoined the Colonel. "We shall have to go now,
+whether or no. This Englishman can't bluff us worth a cent. Murray! tell
+the boys not to turn the little black mules out to grass; and I guess
+you'd better come over with us, and see how old Tommy is fixing up that
+new spring he found back of Pigpen's place."
+
+It was about sixteen miles to the Double Adobes ranch, and since, after
+all, it did not rain on our way thither, the drive was very enjoyable.
+The Colonel's rheumatism being somewhat better, he was in great spirits,
+and told a score of good tales as we went along, only one of which
+recurs to me at the present moment. That one, however, I will jot down
+at once lest it be forgotten also.
+
+"Well," said Don Cabeza, something having given him his cue, "a lot of
+youngsters were collected, one Sunday afternoon, round a badger hole in
+which there was a mighty obstinate old badger--one of these old toughs
+that you could knock sparks out of with a hammer. Anyhow, the young
+sports had put all their swell imported terriers in to him, and the old
+badger had come out on top every time--at least, he hadn't 'come out' on
+top, because he hadn't come out at all; but when he and the dogs got to
+chewing one another underground, he appeared to have away ahead the
+finest appetite. It seemed he had enough patterns of hide down there for
+old Ma'am Badger to make a crazy quilt of; and the boys were just about
+to quit when a chap who was standing by looking on said, kind o' sadly:
+
+"'I guess, misters, that my old dog 'd fetch that badger out for you--if
+you want him out, that is.'
+
+"The stranger was one of these plank-shaped citizens, with shiny hair,
+like sea-weed; he was a coffee-coloured cuss, and looked as melancholy
+as a sick monkey. His clothes might have been entailed clothes, in which
+the family had lived for centuries; and the mongrel was about as nearly
+like his master as a dog could be. Well, sir, the young bucks took a
+look at them both, and the more they looked, the more they laughed. The
+notion that _that_ cur could beat all their finely-bred, imported
+terriers, just tickled them to death; and first one, and then another,
+and finally the whole boiling of them offered to bet twenty, thirty,
+forty to one against him--anything the owner liked, in fact. But they
+couldn't bluff the old man off; he stayed with them; he seemed to have
+more money along, too, than you'd expect to find in such old clothes.
+And the more the boys kept sousing it to him, the more he kept taking
+'em, till finally they quit. And when the bets were all laid out on a
+big stone, there was more money there than would patch hell a mile!
+
+"Well, they stood around to see the fun. It was pretty clear that some
+one was going to fall awful sick before the deal was over. However, the
+visitor didn't seem like he thought that it was going to be he. He
+picked the mongrel up and stroked him tenderly, and the old dog winced a
+little mite too, as if he could see a chapter or so ahead of him. 'Put
+him in,' said the boys, 'put him in!' 'Right now, gentlemen,' said the
+stranger, and stooping down he prized him gently into the earth--_stern
+first_. Well, sir, you should have heard those boys laugh when they saw
+that. Laugh? Well, I should say they did laugh. For a minute or two the
+old dog lay there with his head out of doors--one eye fixed
+reproachfully on his master, the other cocked anxiously backwards. Then,
+all of a sudden there was a terrific yelp, and a cloud of dust, and he
+shot out of the hole with the badger fastened on to him. And for the
+life of you, you couldn't have told which looked the most foolish--the
+young sports, or the old badger. As for the stranger, he raked in the
+bets, and when he'd got a little way off, he turned around as if he'd
+forgotten something, and says he, mournfully: 'Boys--Misters, I'm from
+Pecos county, Texas. I'm on'y a schoolteacher thar, but they all know
+me. Shuf's my name--Eb'neezer Shuf--ask for "Joyful" Shuf.'
+
+"'We're coming to call to-morrow,' said the boys."
+
+The Double Adobes, one of the four occupied ranch houses in the valley,
+was prettily situated at the base of the Peak, and near the mouth of a
+gorge that penetrated the Animas range. During the rainy season a
+considerable stream threaded this pass, but at the present time its bed
+was dry. A number of cotton-wood trees dotted its banks, and surrounded
+some neighbouring springs; and, beneath their shade, hundreds of cattle
+that had come in to water at the latter, were standing, in a condition
+of complete oblivion, drowsily switching their flanks, licking the
+boulders of rock-salt which had been placed there for their use, or
+lying on the cool earth, chewing the cud, in dreamy idleness.
+
+In the shade of a giant cotton-wood (whose trunk bore the carved
+initials of more than one well-known "rustler" who had since passed in
+his checks), stood the little mud-coloured hut, dignified by the title
+of ranch house. To the right of it was a circular corral, stoutly
+constructed of juniper posts; to the left of it, a rail, furnished with
+pegs, to which the bridles of nags in waiting might be linked; and, not
+far off, lay a pile of dead fire-wood from the hills. A gleaming
+axe-head stuck in the chopping log, and in the carpet of dry chips
+around it were stretched two large mongrels, red and white respectively
+in colour, but totally indistinguishable in type. The brilliant sunlight
+of the winter's noon fell on the cabin--dingy, flat-topped, and
+unlovely, and probably accentuated all its bad points. On a bench
+outside the door was a tin basin and some soap; hard by stood a tin
+pail. If you care to remove the dust from your hands and face after the
+drive, there are the springs--fenced in there by split posts! Take the
+pail down, old chap, and fetch yourself some water. To wait upon
+yourself is good for you, they say; at any rate, it is a little
+compliment that nearly everybody pays himself in this country, and
+certain it is that constant advantages are to be derived from the
+practice which are not obtainable in any other way.
+
+As the Double Adobes is a rather typical ranch cabin of the smaller
+class, it will be as well, perhaps, to describe it. Adobes, of course,
+are unbaked bricks, for the manufacture of which the bottom earth of the
+country is peculiarly adapted. They are generally made about 6 x 14 x 24
+inches. A space having been marked out for three rooms of about 18 x 16
+feet, to compose the present house, the two end rooms had been
+completed, the space between them being left open, save inasmuch as it
+was covered in by the roof which ran from end to end of the whole
+building. The two rooms had originally opened into the _portière_ in the
+centre, but the entrance to the one which was inhabited had since been
+changed to the front of the house. The roof was flat and consisted of
+brush-wood covered with mud, and supported by pine _vigas_. As only two
+men were living here, they occupied one room, and kept their stores in
+the other.
+
+Come inside;--there is no one here; both the boys are out. Yes, judging
+from those poker drawings on the door, artistic talent _is_ at a low
+ebb; but, until lately, it has been accounted of more importance in this
+country to draw a straight bead than a straight line. Loop-holed! Well,
+the men who built this place expected occasionally to have to "stand
+off" irate Mexicans who had followed stolen stock into the valley, and,
+even now, it is impossible to say with certainty that a band of skulking
+Apaches will not turn up in its vicinity to-morrow. There is one small
+window through which light may be admitted; but, as a rule, the shutter
+is closed, and the cabin illuminated through the open door. The floor is
+of beaten clay, and the wide, open fireplace is built in one corner of
+the room. A pile of logs, some brush-wood, and a broken-handled axe lie
+near it. On the hearth are some dog-irons, the ashes of the breakfast
+fire, and a Dutch-oven. The walls in this corner are decorated with
+frying-pans, and other cooking utensils, all scrupulously clean, be it
+observed.[32] "And," as old Herrick says:
+
+
+     "... to your more bewitching, see the proud,
+     Plumpe bed beare up, a-swelling like a cloud."
+
+
+In opposite corners of the room are two roughly-carpentered frame
+bedsteads, in which a lacing of raw-hide stripes supplies the place of
+laths and mattresses, a few blankets constitute the bedding, and folded
+great-coats serve for the pillows. In the fourth corner is the table,
+covered with burnt tracings of brands, but beautifully clean, for it is
+washed every day. Hard by is a sack of flour, near it hang a side of
+bacon and the hind-quarters of an antelope, and on the neighbouring
+shelves are a few tins of canned tomatoes, some plates and cups, and a
+coffeepot, etc. Canvas garments, leather overalls, old boots, old
+saddles, carbines, old carbine and revolver scabbards, a spade, and
+innumerable odds and ends lie about in a very wreck of order. If the
+gentle housewife ruled here, they would all be tucked away under the
+bed, to moulder with other accumulations of litter and dirt. Here and
+there, about the room, stand upright posts affording extra support to
+the roof. And to these are nailed a few horns of antelope, black or
+white-tail deer, from which cartridge-belts, _lariats_, bridles,
+_hackamores_, quirts, spurs, and an old canteen depend. The bowl of a
+briar-root pipe is stuck on the end of one prong, a newspaper is
+transfixed on another, and an empty whisky-bottle sticks, bottom
+upwards, on a third. A three-legged stool, a crippled chair, and a
+couple of empty grocery boxes, standing on end, complete the furniture.
+
+We took possession of the premises, and proceeded to get lunch. But
+before we had finished doing so, "old Tommy" appeared in the doorway,
+pipe in hand, and feeling for a match. I know not why it should have
+been so, but Tommy always seemed to me to be pressing the last of a load
+of tobacco into the bowl of his dilapidated old pipe, with the
+forefinger of one hand, whilst, with the other hand, he felt somewhere
+about in the band of his canvas pants, probably in a watch-pocket there,
+for a match.
+
+Here and there I have met many a gnarled old limb of humanity, but he
+was the driest that I ever encountered--"as dry as the remainder
+biscuit, after a voyage." Mummy dust would have been something of
+refreshing moisture by comparison with his nature. Tommy--what his
+surname may have been, it never occurred to me to wonder until this
+moment--Tommy was a sort of odd man in the valley. He repaired houses,
+corrals, or anything that required repairing, cleaned out the springs,
+dug troughs, or turned his hand to anything. He was about five feet four
+or five inches in height, spare of build, and as "wrinkles, the d----d
+democrats, won't flatter," his brown-crusty physiognomy showed him to be
+on the high road to sixty, if not already there. There was not very much
+of him, but what there was, was tough and of good material; he was a
+"worker;" he bore his years lightly, and liked nothing better than to
+get into a circle of young cow-punchers, and chin and josh[33] with them
+in his funereal fashion, as though he were their contemporary. And the
+boys liked old Tommy, too--all those, that is, who were worth anything.
+For the loafer and the braggart he "had no use," and, sooner or later,
+his acid tongue would be sure to embalm such an one's tendency or foible
+in some crisp epigram, or clinging irony.
+
+No one in the neighbourhood, but he himself, knew the history of his
+past life. He claimed to be a Southerner, and it pleased him to say
+that, away back in some Southern State, he owned a small but prosperous
+farm, a good house, a beautiful wife, and all that the heart of man
+could desire. It appeared, however, that, during the war between North
+and South, he had joined the Southern army, and in the second day's
+fighting in the Wilderness had been wounded. He recovered sufficiently
+to return home, but he was no longer the man he had been. His wife,
+impatient of having a permanent, though only partial, invalid about the
+place, became estranged from him, and finally Tommy, having induced a
+robust young neighbour to undertake the management of the farm on half
+profits, with touching resignation had sallied forth alone into the
+great West world to reconstruct his fortune. Time had deprived his
+misfortunes of their sting, he said; and if he now told the tale of it
+with less emotion than had been the case formerly, this deficiency was
+compensated for in effect, by the artistic modesty, resulting from long
+practice, with which he threw out, and reluctantly allowed a veiled hint
+to be developed by the curious questioner into the whole history.
+Successively he had excited the sympathy of all the ranch wives in the
+country, by enlarging upon this sad immolation of connubial felicity on
+the altar of patriotism.
+
+Tommy's sole possession was a donkey--a _burro_, I should say (for,
+amongst the many Spanish words that have become naturalised in New
+Mexico, _burro_ is one of the most universally adopted). And a
+magnificent _burro_ he was, too--the finest and fattest that I ever
+saw. Sancho Panza and Dapple were not gifted with greater individuality
+than were Tommy and "John L. Sullivan." Numerous and tempting though the
+offers were that were made for him, they were always scornfully
+rejected, for, as the somewhat sarcastic owner would often ask:--What
+would it profit him if he gained the whole world, and lost the society
+of his _burro_? _Burro_ and master were bosom friends. In moments when
+the relations between them were most strained, when they differed in
+intention almost to the point of open rupture, Tommy would only ask
+sorrowfully whether it were the perverse John's desire to force him to
+sell him for a riding horse to a New York dude. But such little family
+breezes were hushed up, and, as a rule, the spirit which marked their
+intercourse was sweet and calm.
+
+Long and serious were the confabulations which these two held together.
+In all the news of the day, local, foreign, personal, or political,
+Tommy religiously kept the ass posted, and gravely consulted with him
+about it. He was wont to remark that, were every man as fortunate in his
+counsellor as he was, the affairs of the world would be much better
+managed than they were.
+
+I am uncertain what the _burro_'s politics were; some of the boys
+asserted that he was a Mugwump; whatever he may have been nominally,
+however, party ties sat lightly on him, and his decisions were extremely
+independent. I often regretted, when I heard his commanding voice away
+off on the hillside, that a debater and orator so admirably fitted to
+lead in our own House of Commons at that time (1885) should be lost to
+the Ministerial benches. It was, indeed, a sad case that one who "could
+have given the odds of two brays to the greatest and most skilful brayer
+in the world, for his tones were rich, his time correct, his notes well
+sustained, and his cadences abrupt and beautiful," should have been born
+to waste his persuasive voice on the desert air.
+
+Major Tupper was quartered once at the Cloverdale ranch when "John L.
+Sullivan" and his master were there; and one evening whilst we were at
+supper, Tommy entered, looking graver than usual, if possible.
+
+"I've just been talking to John, Major," he observed.
+
+"Oh! and what does the _burro_ say, Tommy?"
+
+"He's awful scared that this Indian war's going to end."
+
+"It don't matter much to him anyway."
+
+"Oh, yes, it does," drawled Tommy, in his slowest and gravest fashion.
+"Oh, yes--John knows better'n that. Just as soon as Geronimo[34] comes
+in, he knows that he'll lose his corn and have to go to chewing grass
+for a living, along of the cows. Of course as long as your pack-train is
+here, he can go down to the picket line whenever the bugle sounds for
+'stables,' kick the padding out of one of your mules, and eat up his
+feed."
+
+"Can he? Well, if he can kick anything out of a Government mule, he's a
+daisy _burro_, and he's welcome to all he makes by it; he can keep any
+change he gets, too."
+
+Nevertheless, this was a fact. No sooner were "stables" over and the
+mules fed, than "John L. Sullivan" swaggered down the front of the
+picket line, selected a helping of maize, turned round, backed a little
+towards the owner of it, measuring his distance carefully, and landed
+him a tremendous double savat on his nose. He continued to kick until
+the neighbouring mules formed an orderly though envious and admiring
+congregation, ranged in a semicircle, straining at their halters,
+around him. Then having described, as a _tour de force_, a few unusually
+surprising and altogether inimitable hieroglyphics with his heels in the
+air in a spirit not entirely free, it must be admitted, from
+ostentation, he would proceed peaceably to appropriate the spoils of
+war. Well might his owner be proud of him! "John L. Sullivan" was indeed
+"the boss!"
+
+One day Tommy visited the farrier's quarters in camp, and intimating
+that he wanted the _burro_ shod, sought through the contents of box
+after box of shoes there. Unable apparently to find what he required, he
+was leaving in silence, when the farrier commented on his departure, and
+regretted that his search had been unsuccessful.
+
+"Oh, it's all right, Mr. Gorham," he said politely, "it doesn't matter;
+I thought you'd got some _silver_ shoes, perhaps."
+
+Witman and Johns, two of the hands, reflected disparagingly once on the
+quantity of work that Tommy had done lately.
+
+"Well," rejoined Tommy, in his most deliberate tone, addressing the rest
+of the company, "there's Jim Witman here; of course I don't give up so
+much of my leisure to work as he does, that ain't to be expected; and
+there's Oliver Johns, I don't claim to direct others how to do my work
+for me as well as he does either. But then, in the first place, my
+business ain't sitting under a stoop chewing other people's baccy; and
+in the second, I don't want to get away and shoot off my mouth at every
+gal, with a head like a pisened pup, that lives within fifty miles of
+the valley, so there ain't any necessity for any one to do my work."
+
+In the adjoining valley dwelt a man named Donohoe, who had the
+reputation of always professing to know better than anybody else how
+anything should be done. How far he was justified in his professions I
+cannot pretend to say. Tommy knew and disliked Mr. Donohoe. He had put
+the finishing touch one day to a spring that he had been cleaning out,
+stone-lining, and fencing round, and was gathering up the tools that he
+had been using for this purpose. "And now," he remarked in the most
+matter-of-fact way possible, "I think I'll just ride the _burro_ over
+into the Plyas Valley, and tell Mr. Donohoe what I've been doing, and
+ask him if I've done it right."
+
+I am sorry that, of the many really good things said by this
+interesting old gentleman which were current in the valley, the
+foregoing feeble specimens are all (of a publishable nature) that I can
+now recall to mind. They will serve, however, to indicate the vein in
+which he ingratiated himself with his public. He exercised considerable
+freedom of speech; but then he was known to carry "a long crooked knife"
+about him somewhere, and was credited with plenty of nerve and a very
+hot temper.
+
+We spent a couple of days at the Double Adobes ranch, inspected the new
+spring that Tommy had discovered, hunted a little in the hills round the
+base of old Animas Peak, rode over a good deal of the Pigpen and Double
+Adobes range, and finally returned to the Gray Place.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[32] To find a really filthy ranch house, to see really filthy cooking
+and eating services, to have real garbage placed before you to eat, you
+must seek amongst establishments presided over by women.
+
+[33] Chat and joke.
+
+[34] The Apache leader.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--V.
+
+
+At the Gray Place we found Lieut. Huse, who had come up from the supply
+camp at Lang's; and as he was returning on the following day, and we had
+decided sooner or later to go there also, we drove down together.
+Eighteen miles in the teeth of a wind that would have driven an old
+Dutch lightship, with only a jury-mast and a small flag set, at the rate
+of fifteen knots an hour. How it came roaring up the funnel of that
+valley out of the very heart of the great, mysterious Sierra
+Madre--steadily, obstinately, unyieldingly!
+
+About eight miles before the Lang ranch was reached, and at the broadest
+point in the valley, we crossed a very curious dyke, or levee. Leaving
+the foot-hills, it stretched across to the valley plain, in a direct
+line, for about seven or eight miles, turned then at right angles, and
+ran straight down the valley for about ten miles, and with another bend
+at right angles rejoined the foot-hills. The space thus enclosed was
+perfectly flat, and lay slightly higher than the outside plain. At its
+base the levee was about 120 ft. broad, diminishing at the top to thirty
+or forty, which was raised about twenty-five above the surrounding
+levels. These dimensions were maintained throughout with perfect
+regularity, save at one point (in the south-western corner), where a
+small gap destroyed the completeness of the lines. The labour expended
+in its construction must have been enormous; and since it is hardly
+likely to have been built for defence (natural positions of so much
+greater strength abounding in the neighbourhood), and there is no reason
+to suppose that it was meant to exclude water, what was the object of
+it? Possibly it was intended to _hold_ water. Springs still exist within
+its boundaries, although, at the present date, they are comparatively
+insignificant. About eight miles off, in the Cojon Bonita, there are
+some warm springs at which a permanent stream takes its rise, however,
+and centres of aqueous, like centres of volcanic activity, are liable,
+I presume, to change. Many Aztec works of the kind mentioned occur in
+Mexico, although this, I believe, is of unusual magnitude. So far as I
+know, no satisfactory hypothesis has yet been started to account for the
+object of these enclosures.
+
+It is certain that, at no very distant date, the whole of the territory
+now comprising Northern Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona was thickly
+populated. The site of an Aztec village remains not far from the levee
+(at the Cloverdale ranch, in the south-western corner of the valley),
+where fragments of pottery are often found; and in digging a
+water-trench there not long since, the workmen discovered a large
+quantity of buried maize, which was black and partially petrified. But
+traces of a vanished population are found in all directions in the
+districts mentioned, and a curious question arises in connection with
+such evidence: How did these people live? Under existing circumstances
+the country referred to could not support a large population. The
+rainfall is not great enough to permit of crops being raised in the
+ordinary way, and the area of land suitable for irrigation is very
+limited. Can it have been that formerly the climate was not what it is
+at present, and that the scarcity of rain is a deprivation of recent
+date? I believe it is claimed, and the claim substantiated by
+statistics, that, in proportion as population rolls out and settles on
+the western prairies, the rain-belt extends in that direction also.
+Something of this sort may have been the case here.
+
+The influence of population indirectly on climate would be a curious
+study. In parts of Oregon it was frequently asserted in my hearing that
+the late spring frosts which once prevented fruit-growing there, had
+notably decreased since the country had been settled up, vanishing in
+some instances altogether. Amongst other extraordinary phenomena,
+bearing a relation to this subject possibly, is the fact that the agues
+and fevers prevalent on the Hudson River in early times, disappeared for
+a long while entirely, but within the last fifteen years have returned,
+and in places are now more common than ever.
+
+But from Animas Valley to the Hudson River is a "far cry!" Where were
+we? No matter! Here we are at any rate, on the top of the levee, in a
+cloud of dust, the wind unabated, and the off-side horse (a good worker,
+but of uncertain temper) jibbing--jibbing as, fortunately, horses only
+do jib where the performance can be properly described without hurting
+anybody's sensibilities. For half-an-hour, exposed on this monument of
+Aztec industry, we were fully occupied in a battle royal with this
+monument of equine obstinacy. But without result, until, finally, having
+exhausted every other expedient, we bent a picket-rope round his
+fore-legs, and by sawing the inside of them vigorously with it succeeded
+in starting him again.
+
+_À propos_, the very spot at which we crossed the dyke was the scene, a
+few months later, of a peculiarly cold-blooded murder. The proprietor of
+a canteen at the Lang camp was proceeding on horseback to Separ, when
+four of his familiars (camp loafers and gamblers), who lay in wait for
+him behind the dyke, rode down towards him as he approached and "held
+him up," _i.e._, covered him with their six-shooters, and made him throw
+up his hands. He had about six hundred dollars with him, which he begged
+them to take without murdering him. But, notwithstanding this, and
+whilst he was in this defenceless position, one of them shot him through
+the side, the bullet traversing his pocket-book and marking the corner
+of each note. They took his money, and he having entreated them in his
+agony "to finish him," one of them shot him through the head. In this
+condition he lived until a teamster carried him into camp, and although
+too exhausted to say much, he was able to furnish the names of his
+murderers. They were all men that he had more or less assisted, but it
+transpired subsequently that he had expected them to make an attempt on
+his life. The gang divided and fled to Mexico, where they reunited, and
+one of them winning at poker the whole of the sum they had taken, was
+shot by his companions. One was captured and brought back to the States;
+one was shot soon afterwards in a horse-stealing scrape; and the fourth
+was still at large when I left the neighbourhood.
+
+No one was sorry when the drive was over, and having knocked some of the
+dust off our clothes, we walked up from the ranch house to the camp,
+where we found a hearty and hospitable welcome in Huse's shanty.
+
+Comfortable chairs! and newspapers! and blanket carpeting! a fire-place,
+mantelpiece, looking-glass, pipe-rack, shelf of poets and novels, and,
+what! an Irish setter!--a well-bred one too! It was like meeting a
+friend from the old country to find that handsome red muzzle resting on
+one's knee.
+
+"Halls of Montezuma!" ejaculated the Colonel in a reverential voice, as
+he took a seat and glanced round him, in the little adobe room, with its
+canvas roof and red calico decorations. "I have seen the Escurial, and
+Versailles, and the Vatican, and the Dolme Bagtche, and Windsor Castle,
+and lots of those little dug-outs 'over there,' but I'll be darned if
+this establishment of yours, Huse, don't knock any one of them
+gallywest!--gallywest, sir, that's what it does! It just dumps the
+filling out them!"
+
+"Well, I'm lucky in my servant, Colonel. He was in the German
+army--servant to some big dog on the staff--and the consequence is that
+he knows a thing or two. He is an A 1 cook, and a good forager, and--in
+fact, this sort of thing is play to him after the discipline over there.
+This red rag and silver paper business, the pictures, and all that, _he_
+did. He fixed up that mantelpiece with the red calico border--goodness
+knows where he got it from! The silver paper and leadfoil come off
+packets of tea and tobacco. Those silver candlesticks look gorgeous,
+don't they?"
+
+"Well, I should smile!" rejoined the Colonel admiringly. "He's a dandy
+in his business, that chap, and his business is fixing things. Huse, if
+the _señoritas_ in the sister republic only knew what it was like here,
+how they would come and camp with you! They'd come over the border on
+_burros_, and in _carawakis_, and ambulances, and waggons, and--and
+pack-trains of them, and--and--and all their families would be along,
+too. _They_ always come, to be 'brothers,' and '_amigos_,' and so forth;
+and--and they'd stay right with you, and love you. Yes, sir, I suppose
+there'd be no end to the love that you would have--no end to it at all."
+
+"All right, Colonel, let them come," replied Huse laughingly, as he
+stood mixing _mascal_ toddies on the hearth; "let them come. You won't
+mind if we kill one of your fat steers now and then to feast them with,
+I suppose?"
+
+"It would make them sick, Huse," said the Colonel, with some solicitude.
+"Animas beef would be too rich for their blood. Antelope would be better
+for them--antelope and jack-rabbit, with a few of Uncle Sam's canned
+tomatoes now and then."
+
+The camp being a fixture, its inhabitants had had an opportunity of
+displaying their architectural ingenuity, and the variety of dwellings
+there was curious, comprising log-huts, semi-subterraneous dug-outs
+covered in by tents, and every kind of adobe building, in every stage of
+development, from a mere fire-place extension to a complete house with a
+mud and brushwood roof.
+
+During my stay here, I rode out one day with Huse to a spot, about nine
+or ten miles off, where Lieut. Day with a troop of cavalry and a hundred
+Indian scouts were encamped. And here, perhaps, it will be as well to
+notice more particularly the Indian war, which occasioned the presence
+of the troops so frequently referred to.
+
+Several months before the dates concerned in these chapters, a band of
+Chiricaua Apaches had broken out of the San Carlos reservation, and made
+good their escape into the Sierra Madre. Joined here by Apaches of other
+tribes, and by a few renegade Navajos from Arizona, they had divided
+their forces, and roving, or rather sneaking, through the border States
+of Mexico and the United States, in small bands, had murdered soldiers,
+rancheros, and travellers, American or Mexican, with perfect
+impartiality. Their favourite haunts were in Sonora and New Mexico, but
+occasionally they made raids into Arizona and Chihuahua. The rugged
+ranges of hills that intersect the plains in this part of America,
+afforded them highways and sanctuaries for retreat in all directions.
+Here also they found whatever game they required for subsistence.
+
+Old Indian fighters, and others who have the means of judging, assert
+that the Apaches are superior in endurance and physique to any other
+Indians in the States, whilst in intellectual power, prudence, subtilty,
+and tactical skill, they are probably unrivalled, the world over,
+amongst savage races. Although not naturally born to the saddle, like
+some Indians, they covet the possession of horses, and are expert
+horse-thieves. Since they require no baggage; since they find a remount
+depôt in every ranch they pass through, and can, therefore, ride their
+horses to death without inconvenience; since a hundred miles on foot,
+through the roughest country, is a trip that even their squaws will
+accomplish without rest; since they are wise as serpents, prudent as
+elephants, well armed, and intimately acquainted with every cañon, cave,
+and water-hole in the country they infest, it is scarcely to be
+wondered at that the United States troops experience some difficulty in
+recapturing them. The very organisation of regular troops is a
+disadvantage to them in such warfare; it is like setting a team of yoked
+oxen to "round up" wild two-year-old scrub steers.
+
+The Apaches never risked an open conflict. If they attacked a small
+convoy, or surveying party, a few miners, a couple of cow-boys, or a
+teamster, it was always with overwhelming numbers, at a place selected
+with the deepest cunning, whence they themselves, secure of a safe line
+of retreat, were enabled to fire from admirable points of vantage,
+without leaving cover. Under these circumstances they had done a vast
+deal of mischief, their victims amounting to about three hundred, or
+nearly double the number of men that their whole force of men, women,
+and children comprised.
+
+They moved so rapidly, and covered such distances, that it was
+impossible at any time to locate them with certainty. Their presence was
+only announced by some unexpected massacre. Hotly pursued, they
+scattered like a band of quail, to reunite at some preconcerted spot.
+And if, notwithstanding all their advantages, the white troops were
+pressing them dangerously, they vanished for a time into the heart of
+the Sierra Madre, where soldiers could not follow them.
+
+With the policy of leaving these Indians on a reservation that lies
+within spring of their own natural and practically inaccessible
+stronghold, after repeated experience of the results of so doing, we
+have nothing to do. The border population of Mexico and the States is
+not contented with it. But it should be remembered that the _ranchero_,
+whose son or brother has been massacred, and who runs some daily risk
+himself, is hardly able to judge coolly of such a matter; whereas the
+Eastern philanthropist, who really directs the above policy, is far
+enough removed from the seat of danger, and sufficiently disinterested
+in the prosperity of the district involved in it, to view the question
+with an impartial eye. This is as it should be, no doubt.
+
+"You will like Day," said Huse, as we splashed through a pretty little
+stream, and caught sight of the filmy pillars of smoke that curled up
+amongst the cotton-wood trees, from the camp-fires; "all his men like
+him; he can do anything with these Indians. He'll fight, too, you bet!
+and he's as tough as raw-hide. Britton Davis told me that Day did a
+thing which he wouldn't have believed possible, if it hadn't come under
+his immediate notice. He was on a hot trail once with his scouts--they
+had been following it for some days--and it set in to rain. Well, you
+can't travel in mocassins in wet weather, and Day's boots were away
+behind with the regular troops. Do you think he quit? Not he. He just
+pulled off his mocassins, and followed the trail barefooted for three
+days, like the Indians with him--in the Sierra Madre! Eh? just think of
+it! all amongst those rocks and thorns! They got the redskins--killed
+eight of them--but Day was lame for weeks afterwards."
+
+Thus talking we had ridden by the empty picket lines, and little shelter
+tents, which marked the quarters of the cavalry, passed through the
+neatly arranged trappings and lines of the pack-train, and now pulled up
+before the three headquarters tents. A pleasant shout of recognition
+greeted Huse's summons, and the subject of our conversation appeared.
+
+The last man in the world that you would have expected to see, were you
+accustomed to draw portraits in imagination, and drew in this instance
+solely influenced by the Lieutenant's record! The hero of a score of
+Indian fights was slightly built and fair, with pleasant blue eyes, and
+a voice as gentle as a woman's, with one of those delicate complexions
+that the sun cannot tan, a singularly winning smile, and an almost
+caressing gentleness of manner.
+
+It was nearly lunch-time, so we lounged round the tent in the shade, and
+smoked and chatted with our host, and the other officers of his party,
+until it was ready. Apache warfare, and the stratagems which these
+ingenious warriors employ when pushed, furnished an inexhaustible theme
+of conversation.
+
+Amongst other tricks--new to me, though not so, possibly, to my
+reader--is one which might be used upon occasion in civilised
+skirmishing. Hard pressed, and anxious to divert their pursuers'
+attention to a false scent, the Apaches have been known to detach men to
+light small dry wood fires on their flanks, and so place cartridges
+under them, that the latter will explode at intervals in representation
+of a fusillade. Lunch over, we strolled round the camp. This was
+situated in a picturesque glen. Rocky hills towered above us, but we
+were down amidst grassy nooks, screens of willow bush, and groves of
+sycamore and cotton-wood trees.
+
+"Come and see the way that the men bake in our army," said Day, after we
+had witnessed the distribution of rations to the scouts, and experienced
+some amusement from the haggling that ensued on the short measures of
+flour which "Rowdy Jack," one of their fellow-men, served out;--"come
+and see the way that the men bake in our army, it will interest you. It
+is simpler than the means your fellows employ, over the water. There is
+a little cooking stove, used in our service, which I want to show you,
+too."
+
+We repaired to the cavalry camp, and found the process of baking in
+operation. In a small trench, about fifteen inches broad, a foot deep,
+and seven or eight feet long, half-a-dozen flat-bottomed tin bowls or
+basins, containing the dough, were placed. These were covered by
+inverted bowls of a similar material and shape. The trench was then
+partly filled with wood ashes (from a neighbouring fire), mixed with
+sand to regulate the heat and prevent the dough burning, a few ashes
+were scattered on the tops of the inverted bowls, and the make-shift
+oven was complete. A dozen or two of these tins could be packed one
+inside the other; they weighed little, and occupied but little space,
+whilst the bread which could be baked by their means was excellent.
+
+The stove was a small, flat-topped cooking stove of sheet-iron, which
+formed an easy load for one mule. In a country where wood was scarce, it
+would be invaluable, for with a most trifling consumption of fuel, it
+cooked, and cooked rapidly, a meal for a whole company. Both these
+expedients are worth the notice of English officers. _À propos_ of "camp
+fixings," I may mention here an idea which has often occurred to me for
+a camp table--always an awkward and unpackable article. Let the top of
+the table be made on the principle of Tunbridge Wells tea-kettle
+holders, or of laths of wood riveted on to a canvas back. Cross pieces,
+turning on a screw, such as serve to hold the back of a drawing-board in
+its frame, would keep the top flat when unrolled, and when not in use,
+it might be wrapped round the legs, and would pack with ease.
+
+Quitting the cavalry quarters, we proceeded to those of the scouts. They
+also were supplied with shelter tents, which they had pitched face to
+face, in couples, close together, a wood fire smouldering between them,
+and a brush-wood fence snugly surrounding them. No order seemed to
+regulate their choice of site. They had located themselves wherever
+there was a crack or inequality in the broken valley bottom, a bay in
+the banks of the stream, or a nook formed by the fallen trunks of great
+trees, and their camp was thus scattered over a considerable area of
+ground.
+
+For the most part these Apaches were drawn from the White Mountain
+tribe, between which and the Chiricauas a deadly feud existed. Their
+physique was magnificent. Square-shouldered, lean, and supple types of
+feline humanity, six feet in stature were not uncommon amongst them,
+although a lower standard of height naturally ruled. They were handsome,
+too, in a Mephistophelean style. One group that I saw is photographed on
+my memory with peculiar vividness.
+
+The trunk of a giant sycamore had fallen, and, stripped by time of its
+foliage, even of its bark, and all but its larger branches--reduced, in
+fact, to a white skeleton--projected above the stream. Under the bank
+(six or eight feet high at this point), Stove-pipe, the native chief of
+the scouts, had pitched his tent. We visited him, and whilst we were
+conversing together a score of his men collected about us. Some seated
+themselves on drift-wood logs, others on boulders, some lounged with
+their backs against the fallen sycamore, one leant forward with his arms
+on the trunk, another, seated amidst the branches, dangled his legs over
+the pebbly stream, which caught their swaying reflection, and near him,
+a splendid panther-like brute had stretched himself at full length on
+the naked bark, and leaning on his elbow, gazed lazily at us. All faced
+us, and the attitude of each one was perfect in its physical ease and
+unstudied repose. A striking study of heads, too, was afforded by these
+bronze-visaged warriors, with their black snaky locks (bound by the red
+handkerchief, their distinguishing badge), their half-closed, volcanic
+orbs, and scornful features, lit by chill smiles, and gleams of strange
+intelligence. Savages are always interesting as links with the
+past--interesting as dusky shadows that linger to tell us of a phase in
+the history of man obscured now in the twilight of ages--interesting as
+belated wayfarers in the race of human development which they will never
+live to finish.
+
+Stove-pipe's urbanity delighted me; "he was the mildest-mannered man
+that ever raised a scalp, or cut a throat." In his domestic concerns,
+however, he was, to say the least of it, peremptory. Returning to the
+reservation one day, after some Apache war, he learnt that his squaw had
+presented him with triplets. Being a modest man, in respect of family
+his requirements might have been more easily gratified. The news
+disturbed him, and he took action at once, thereupon cracking the three
+little skulls of his offspring upon the nearest available stone. Then he
+warned his wife that "he had not intended to marry a dog, and if she did
+it again, he would treat her pericranium in the same fashion." It was an
+unusual course to have pursued in such a case, perhaps; but, as the
+Secretary of one of the foremost of Liberal Associations in London (an
+extremely pleasant man, and an advanced thinker, enthusiastic, moreover,
+in the cause of civilisation) once remarked to me, concerning the
+infantine victims of some Holy-Russian atrocities in Central Asia, "What
+does it matter?--they would only have been savages after all." One of
+the beauties of civilisation--of being humane and wise, that is--lies in
+the fact that it absolves us of all duty towards our neighbour, if he
+be a savage, and permits us the privilege of "wiping him out" with a
+clear conscience, in the name of God.
+
+The muffled sound of a wild chant reached us from a point hidden by a
+bend in the stream, and on walking to the overhanging bank, we found
+that it issued from a small beehive-shaped tent of blankets on the
+further side of the water. It was a sweat bath. Some large stones are
+heated in a fire, and placed on the floor in the centre of the tent,
+into which ten or a dozen men then crowd. A little water thrown on the
+stones generates steam, and this from time to time is renewed, whilst
+the bathers amuse themselves by chanting a chorus. Having perspired
+sufficiently, they plunge into cold water, and some of those who had
+completed the process, were lying stark naked in the sun to dry, or
+being dry, were sleeping.
+
+We continued our cruise round the camp. Here one or two men were seated
+in a tent full of tanned deer-skins, which they were working up and
+softening with the hands; there, an industrious warrior was embroidering
+a mocassin or shirt; elsewhere were men occupied in hammering ornaments
+out of silver dollar or half-dollar pieces, or in burning patterns on
+the beautifully coloured beans, gathered in the Sierra Madre, with which
+they make bracelets and necklaces. For a little while, we watched a knot
+of men playing Nazouch, a monotonous and uninteresting game, to which
+the Apaches are passionately addicted. Finally we joined a ring of
+spectators that were gathered round some card-players.
+
+It is refreshing, in these times of jaded appetites and _blasé_
+indifference, to see real interest displayed in anything. These men were
+in earnest. Their flashing glances, short, sharp utterances and cries,
+their vivid gestures, the _élan_ with which, having secured the call,
+one or other of them would dash down lead after lead, and the lightning
+pounce with which an opponent would produce a trump or winning card to
+check such a one's career, were positively exciting.
+
+The Apaches are inveterate gamblers, and hold cheating to be legitimate
+in their games, thus eliminating from it the stigma which attaches to it
+in civilised communities. Cards with them involves a trial of skill
+indeed, and I am told that they display a degree of subtilty in such
+trials that the blackleg fraternity in black cloth would have some
+difficulty in checkmating. Occasionally they club together and lay siege
+to a _monte_ or faro bank. Only one of the subscribers to the pool plays
+at a time, but they succeed one another rapidly at the table until one
+or other of them has revealed a vein of luck. He is then allowed to play
+on until his good fortune appears to be wavering, when he is promptly
+superseded. They contrive thus always to play "the man in luck," and are
+_said_ to achieve considerable success by this means.
+
+The afternoon was wearing away when we quitted the charmed circle; we
+had a rough ride before us; and bidding adieu to our good-natured
+cicerone, therefore, once more turned our faces towards the Lang ranch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+ANIMAS VALLEY.--VI.
+
+
+Amongst other trips of a similar nature, which we made about this time,
+was one into the Cojon Bonita, or Beautiful Box, a district adjoining
+Animas Valley (only lying on the Mexican side of the border), where the
+Colonel had lately purchased 360,000 acres of land from the Mexican
+Government. The few cattle that had drifted down there excepted, this
+tract was as yet unstocked, and was said to contain a great quantity of
+game. Unfortunately it was noted also as being a favourite haunt of the
+hostile Apaches, to whom the broken nature of the ground peculiarly
+recommended itself. An Indian there was as safe as a rat in a
+rabbit-warren, and a white man as completely at his mercy as though he
+had been a bound sheep.
+
+As Apaches were known to have been recently in the neighbourhood, it
+would have been foolhardy to go down there and camp with less than six
+or eight men, and these we had not at our disposal. However, Major
+Tupper simplified matters by saying that he himself wished to make a
+reconnaissance in that direction, and would come with us and bring an
+escort of ten men. F. and W., two friends of the Colonel's, accompanied
+us from the Gray Place, and Huse joined us as we passed the Lang ranch.
+With the addition of four packers for the inevitable pack-train,
+therefore, we formed an extensive party. It augured badly for sport, and
+the augury was verified, for the joint bag (and most of the men went
+out) was one black-tail killed by F. Tramping and climbing, wading and
+sliding, I tore two new pair of mocassins to rags, and only saw two head
+of game--two black-tail in the distance--some wild turkey tracks, a
+fresh Indian mocassin track (whether of scout or hostile I knew not, but
+its Indian origin was proved by the in-turned toes, and absence of any
+sign of instep, or of thrown-up dirt at the toes), and a lately deserted
+camp-fire still burning. Nevertheless the trip was a delightful picnic,
+and as such deserves grateful recollection.
+
+A mile or so over the Mexican border-line, the track we followed
+suddenly descended, and we found ourselves in a maze of beautiful glades
+and valleys, the grassy hills which formed them being of the same height
+as the level of the plain that we had quitted. As we proceeded, the
+hills rose rapidly, here and there revealing their rocky framework in
+gaunt cliffs and naked elbows; live-oaks intermingled with the
+cotton-woods in the bottoms and towered above them on the hillsides,
+whilst the richest and most luxuriant grasses spread everywhere. Truly
+the district deserved its name of Beautiful Box.
+
+The old Spaniards, by the way, displayed great felicity in their
+nomenclature. They were evidently closely observant, too, for, in the
+same virile spirit of simplicity and directness which characterises all
+that is really typical of old Spanish art, they generally seized on the
+salient features of the place to be christened, and allowed play to the
+imagination only in so wording the title that, although apt and
+descriptive, it did not become absolutely commonplace. In travelling
+through the States, the poverty of invention, patent lack of
+observation, and vulgarity displayed in the nomenclature is
+extraordinary,[35] and is in striking contrast with the work of the
+superseded Spaniards, or with the exquisitely beautiful names that
+sprang like inspirations from the hearts of those admirable godfathers
+and godmothers, the Indians, and remain a legacy of unset poetic gems,
+croppings up of a great lead of poetry buried now for ever beneath an
+avalanche of the Caucasian race. Nowhere can you find that the untutored
+savage has bestowed his own name on a mountain or river! Such sublime
+insolence is far less frequent even in Mexico (colonised though the
+country was by the proudest and most egotistical race in the world) than
+in the States. But in the States, with everything grand and beautiful in
+nature to stimulate the imagination, the refined product of modern
+culture has found nothing fitter to inscribe upon the newest and fairest
+page that civilisation has turned than his own unmeaning appellation,
+nothing more remarkable to call attention to than his own vulgarity, and
+Jonesvilles, Smithtowns, Robinsonopolises, Brown Cities, and the like,
+besides similarly denominated mountains and rivers, render the map
+hideous and the Anglo-Saxon race ridiculous. Curious indeed is the
+influence of modern culture. Has it not founded the mighty order of
+Snobs, and created the distinctive spirit of modern
+times--vulgarity--the religion without creed or God, fashioned as it has
+been since faith and God-manufacture perished beneath the growing blight
+of egotism?
+
+In the Cojon Bonita we threaded our way along a narrow smuggler's trail,
+through scenery that grew wilder and wilder every moment. The
+topaz-tinted grasses of autumn contrasted with gray or purple cliffs,
+the dark foliage of the live-oak with the pale leaves of the
+cotton-tree, sycamore, or willow. Some of the clouds of colouring that
+the latter triad presented were simply exquisite. Every shade of amber,
+crushed strawberry, and all their next-of-kin, combined to make a chord
+of marvellous delicacy, soft in its gradations as the clouds of heaven,
+and as powerfully relieved against the velvet-toned rocks, as they
+against the azure sky. Through all this chaos of colour and beauty,
+shattered light and shadow, wound a little stream--_lento_, _piano_,
+_dolce_, _allegro_, _vivace_, _forte_--gliding now over gold and
+chocolate bars of shingle, now over purple shelves of rock, now silent
+and deep, now garrulous and shallow, now unimpeded and smooth, now
+checked by a great drift-wood trunk from below which trailed long liquid
+tresses, foamy, rebellious, and white, or undulating, glossy, and dark
+in hue, whilst everywhere amidst the crystal ripples danced flitting
+reflections of blue sky and lovely foliage, crossed by the darting
+phantoms of frightened fish. The _frou-frou_ of dried leaves and
+herbage, the murmur of waters, and the whispering of the afternoon winds
+as they played hide and seek in the thousand cañons of the Cojon Bonita,
+filled the air with a dreamy tumult. It was a wild spot--as wild
+
+
+     "As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
+      By woman wailing for her demon lover."
+
+
+Here, if anywhere, it seemed that the old mythical people of the woods,
+and mountains, and streams--the nymphs, the fauns, and satyrs, and other
+damsels and gentry of irregular habits and questionable record that were
+once the fashion, must have retreated. But if they had done so, like
+"ole Brer Rabbit," they "lay low." No nymph, with scanty costume and
+dishevelled tresses, sprang from the long grass and fled at our
+approach. No satyr appeared and faded from sight amidst the aged trunks.
+We were alone, apparently.
+
+At length we reached the spot where it was decided that we should camp;
+the stream that we had followed was joined here by another, and three
+cañons debouched upon a little open space, trefoil-shaped. It was too
+late to start on a tramp, so the close of the afternoon was spent in
+catching fish. How did we catch them?--we had neither tackle nor nets.
+Well, we exploded a bit of giant powder in the midst of a shoal, and
+that is the shameful truth of it. It was the only possible means at hand
+of getting them, and the Colonel had set his affections on a fry for
+that evening. The confession is disgraceful, but the crime was partly
+expiated by our having to strip and wade into the icy water, in that
+deep corner in the rocks, after sundown, in order to collect the stunned
+fish that floated on the surface.
+
+Hunting, as has been remarked, proved a failure. The size of our party,
+though it ensured our own safety, militated against our success.
+Moreover, not very long before, a band of native scouts had spent three
+days here, and killed over a hundred deer. My most vivid recollections
+of the trip, therefore, are connected with the evenings that we spent
+round the camp-fire. A steep amphitheatre of hills surrounded us,
+overspread by jewelled skies as serene and blue as the deepest coral
+seas; at an hour that grew later and later, the red moon stole up over
+the jagged ridges and shed its gorgeous light on the scene; a hundred
+yards off, on ground below us, were the quarters of the men, and their
+camp-fires flashed and twinkled amidst the cotton-woods, their laughter
+and choruses reached us pleasantly on the night air.
+
+Oh, the songs that were sung, and the tales that were told, the yarns
+that were spun, and the jokes that were cracked in those few nights!
+"Old songs," you say, "that we had each sung hundreds of times before,
+and should have thought intolerably wearisome had we heard them on one
+another's lips! Tales for which we were each prepared, and of which we
+had sometimes even to remind one another in order that the lawful owners
+should dispense them! Yarns which only the narrator believed, and that,
+probably, only from force of repetition! And jokes--God save the
+mark!--mellow already when they were cracked in the fo'k'sle of the
+ark!" Likely enough, gentle cynic. There is nothing new; the freshest
+lily is as old as the world. The "merry jest" may, as Andrew Lang sings,
+descend to us from some Aryan brain. But the laughter is our own, and
+that is all that concerns us.
+
+"Hand me the canteen again, then," says the Major, as with his swarthy
+face beaming joyously in the fire-light, he stands moistening the sugar
+for a second round of toddies, in obedience to a general request. "You
+boys remind me of the fellow who said that, 'When he had taken one drink
+it always made him feel like another man, and then, of course, in common
+politeness he felt obliged to treat the other man.'"
+
+A general laugh followed the Major's sally.
+
+"Do you remember Bat Hogan, at Georgetown, Major?--a fellow with a
+hare-lip," asked Huse.
+
+"Bat Hogan? Yes--every cold night that I miss the pair of Navajo
+blankets he stole from me."
+
+"Bat came in up there from a long drive on the stage one night, and got
+hold of the whisky-bottle and a tumbler at the bar. Well, sir, he poured
+himself out a full glass of it. 'Say! that ain't cider, you know,' said
+the bar-tender. 'I shoul' hope no',' said Bat. 'I woul'n't drink tha'
+much cider for a thousan' dollars.'"
+
+A score of similar anecdotes succeeded this one. The Colonel stroked his
+beard, removed his cigar deliberately, pausing every now and then as
+deliberately at exciting junctures to keep it alight, and reeled off a
+few; and by degrees the conversation drifted on to cards and gambling.
+
+"Were you there, Colonel, the night that the fellows put that job up on
+Mills' partner?" asked F.
+
+"Why, of course I was. Didn't Tom Templeton come down to the 'Depôt' to
+tell us about it? It was the night that that dance was going on
+there,--when Skippy said that when old Mac danced he put on so much
+style that 'he only touched on the high places as he floated round the
+room.'"
+
+"Ah! and nearly got a six-shooter rammed down his throat for it, too!"
+
+"Well, Tom came down just in the middle of that business, and told us
+all that they were going to have a game with--what was his name,
+anyhow?"
+
+"Cuff."
+
+"Old Cuff, yes."
+
+"What was it?" asked some of us.
+
+"Well, Mills and Cuff had a saloon and a faro-bank up town, in Deming,"
+said the Colonel. "Mills was a smart fellow, and a square man, too; but
+old Cuff was a sort of drivelling old jackass, only fit to sit under the
+stoop in front of the house, and give the time of day to the passers
+by. However, he wanted to do things--he would deal at faro, and he would
+meddle in this, that, and the other, until Mills was very often so mad
+that he could have taken him by the heels and dusted the ornaments with
+him. One day he got half-a-dozen tin-horn gamblers together, and between
+them they put up a cold deck[36] in a faro-box. Then, when there was
+nothing particular going on, Mills gave up his place as dealer to Cuff,
+and rung in the new box on him. Well, the tin-horns were there in a
+body, with a few stacks of chips,[37] playing light--waiting for the
+deal, you see--and as soon as Cuff took his place they began doubling
+up, and doubling up, and just sousing it to him red-hot. Before half the
+deal was over, the whole bank of checks was gone, and Cuff was giving
+markers for hundreds as hard as he could go it. At the end of the deal
+he was about nine thousand dollars out. And, by gosh! you never saw a
+man in such a state in your life! The perspiration rolled off him in
+streams; he began laughing and crying like an idiot. I thought he was
+going to choke once."
+
+"How did it all end?"
+
+"Oh, the boys kept him on the 'anxious seat' for two or three days, and
+that cured him. He never wanted to deal any more; he would hardly
+believe that they _had_ been joshing him, when they did tell him the
+truth."
+
+"Talking about 'tin-horns,' Frank Therman used to tell a good yarn,"
+observed the Major presently. "Dick Miller came to him one afternoon,
+and said, 'Look here, Frank! I've got a dead sure thing on--can't lose!
+I want you to lend me fifty dollars to work it with.' Frank gave him the
+money--_he_ didn't care anyhow, he'd stake anybody. Pretty soon, in came
+Jim Baker. 'Say, old pard! do you want to stake me with fifty
+dollars?--it's a real good investment--can't help winning.' 'What's on?'
+asked Frank. 'Oh, some suckers want to play poker.' He got his fifty
+dollars, and quit. Just as soon as he had gone, in came Dutch Henry. 'I
+vas joost looking for you, Fr-r-ank,' says he. 'I hef got something so
+goot vat a man vants.' 'The ---- you have! Have you caught a sucker
+too?' 'Sucker! Ven you poot 'im in zer son, he ron vays--melt, I min!'
+'You don't want that,' said Frank. 'No--no, zir!--you pet! Look here,
+Frenk, olt man! I got no tollars--von't you lent me a feefty-tollar
+pill?' Well, he got his fifty-dollar 'pill,' and he hadn't been gone
+long before Smiling Moses appeared. 'Frank, old pard! I just want fifty
+dollars for an hour or two--give it to you again to-night. I've got a
+"soft snap" on--can't miss it.' 'You don't say!' said Frank. 'Well, I'll
+be good -- --, if those quail showers your tribe used to catch in the
+wilderness were in it with our sucker storms! Here's your bill! go right
+along and make an independent fortune while you can.' Well, Smiling
+Moses skinned out, and the more Frank got to thinking of it, the more he
+couldn't make out what in ---- had come to town to make the boys so
+busy. So as there was very little faro play going on, he left Moore to
+deal, and strolled out to look round a bit. He went into the
+'Corral'--there were none of his men there. He looked into the 'Ranch'
+and the 'Mine'--devil a sign of them. He went pretty well all round
+town, and, finally, it occurred to him to drop into a little 'dive' on
+Jim Street. He walked through the bar and pushed the card-room door
+open. And there they were, sir, playing poker together--all four of
+them! Each tin-horn with the most profound contempt for the others'
+skill. I think that's a delightful bit of satire on humanity."
+
+"Moore tells a tale of the old Mississippi steamer days that isn't bad,"
+said W. "A tender-foot got in amongst the gamblers on board one of the
+boats once, and what with 'strippers,' and 'stocking,' and 'cold decks,'
+and 'bugs,' and 'reflectors,' and 'codes,' and so forth, he hadn't the
+ghost of a show. They played him to h--l and gone in a very short time.
+It was a regular case of 'Shuf', dad, shuf'! it's all you'll get.' They
+soon cleaned him out. Well, walking round the deck afterwards, thinking
+it over quietly, he found a ten-dollar bill left in one of his pockets,
+which he had forgotten, and rushed back at once to the saloon with it.
+'Boys,' he shouted, 'I want to bet this ten-dollar bill that I can
+whistle louder than the engine.' 'Oh, quit!' they said; 'if you've got
+ten dollars left, freeze on to it. Don't throw it away in any such
+fooling.' 'That'll be all right,' he said, 'I know what I'm about; I'll
+bet, anyhow.' So finally one of them took him up, and they went outside
+to see the fun. The chap, he got up on one of the paddle-boxes, and
+asked the captain to let off the whistle. Well, he just turned her
+loose, and there was a shriek that you might have heard in China. Of
+course the 'tender-foot' wasn't in it. However, he didn't seem
+disappointed. He came down, and paid his bill cheerfully enough. 'You
+can laugh, boys,' he said quietly, 'but I'll be durned if that ain't the
+squarest deal I've had on board yet.'"
+
+
+My stay in Animas Valley was drawing to a close when I returned to the
+Gray Place one afternoon, bringing with me an antelope that I had shot,
+and having parted with Jake, who had followed a fresh trail down into
+the Skeleton Cañon, to turn back a small band of cattle that were
+straying in that direction. The house was empty. Don Cabeza had gone
+over to the neighbouring camp to chat with the officers; Murray and Joe
+were still out; and Squito was not seated, as was generally the case, on
+the bench by the door, her curly black head bent over a dime novel.
+While I was yet in the distance, I had noticed her little figure on one
+of the hillocks behind the house, where she would often stand for an
+hour at a time, shading her eyes, and scanning the valley for "old man
+Murray," of whom she was passionately fond. But she had vanished now.
+Unsaddling my horse, I turned him loose to join his fellows on the
+_cienega_, and, lighting a cigarette, strolled up towards Squito's
+favourite coigne of observation to enjoy the stillness which the great
+expanse of the view from thence seemed to accentuate always.
+
+The sky was fretted with the faint fires of a sunset, delicate in its
+colours as pale orchids--colours that might have been conceived by a
+fairy, and broadcast by a gale. The soft air mused and mused in the dry
+crowsfoot gramma grass that clothed the country, making a music that
+seemed a very air-treasured echo and tradition of sweet old-world sounds
+become transiently audible again in the silence of the moment. From the
+yellow slopes around its base, old Animas towered king-like above the
+valley; and dim blue, mystic peaks and crests, like a company of ghosts,
+low down on the horizon to the south, marked the commencement of the
+Sierra Madre.
+
+I was surmounting the brow of the first knoll, when involuntarily I
+stopped. In a little hollow before me, Squito was dancing by herself--a
+dance that probably had its origin in some old Spanish bolero, seen by
+her in her early childhood, and partly retained in memory. But the
+gestures, poses, motive and method of the dance were her own, and it
+seemed that her mind was filled with some theme as she danced. The hot
+blood of her race had sway over her, and totally unconscious of my
+presence (for only my head and shoulders were visible, and these partly
+concealed amidst cacti and rocks), she abandoned herself entirely to the
+impulse of the moment. The slant, rosy gleams from heaven played upon
+her, as she danced, partly in light and partly in shadow, turning and
+swaying, and swiftly moving over the little flat that served her for a
+floor. Pliant as a willow wand, lissom as a rabbit, her light form
+changed its poise rapidly or slowly, but always with swimming ease and
+continuity of motion. Where did her actions begin--where end? It was
+impossible to say. They were, and they were not. They came, they passed
+away; merged into one another, but measurable, distinctly, as little as
+is the sound of something that travels. With steps small, or for a
+moment boldly prolonged, she came and went. And now her little figure
+seemed to dilate with passion, now droop in exquisite languor, her arms
+and head moving in unison with the spirit of her mood--beseeching now,
+now beckoning, scoffing, defying, imperiously commanding.
+
+Oh, Squito, Squito! how many a _première danseuse_ would pledge her
+jewels to acquire a tithe of the natural gift that you possess, of the
+very existence of which you cannot be said to be fully conscious, and
+the evidence of which, only old Animas, and the cacti, and the scored,
+purple boulders of the hills, or, perchance, a select circle of cow-boy
+familiars are permitted to witness.
+
+Breathless she paused, her brown eyes flashing fire, and in a second she
+caught sight of me. She started, halted, then turned precipitously and
+fled. From that moment until when I left, a few days later, she never
+addressed me unless forced to do so, and then only in the brusquest
+monosyllables. However, when the Colonel and I were preparing to start,
+she hovered round us restlessly for some time, and finally conquered her
+shyness sufficiently to speak to me.
+
+"The boys say that you're going down into Mexico--Chihuahua and there?"
+
+"Yes, I shall run down there again shortly, Squito."
+
+"Likely you'll see Sam somewheres."
+
+"Sam? Who is Sam?"
+
+"Sam," she repeated simply, in the glorious egotism of first love taking
+it for granted that all the world knew her Sam. "Sam Rider, who used to
+work in the Animas," and her increasing confusion suddenly reminded me
+of the man she had taken up the cudgels for, on my first evening in the
+valley, and who I had since heard had got into some shooting scrape and
+fled into Mexico.
+
+"Oh, yes, I remember--of course."
+
+"Won't you give him a message for me?"
+
+"Certainly, if I see him. What can I tell him for you?"
+
+"Tell him--tell him----" and hesitating painfully, with a world of
+trouble in her marvellous eyes, the child looked up at me earnestly. The
+colour had faded from her face, all its lines were exquisitely softened,
+and as she smiled apologetically her lips just trembled. "Tell him you
+seen me--and--and--tell him I told yer to say so. Will you?--please. He
+said he'd write."
+
+"I'll tell him, Squito. Anything else?"
+
+"No--_he knows_," she murmured almost inaudibly, turning her crimson
+face aside.
+
+"Good-bye, then."
+
+"Good-bye," and she moved away rapidly.
+
+But as we drove off, we saw the little figure in its broad leaf hat, on
+the hillock behind the house, watching us. And as long as we were in
+sight it remained there.
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+[35] Why is this? Americans lack neither imagination nor artistic
+feeling.
+
+[36] To "ring in a cold deck" is to order in and substitute a fresh
+pack, in which the cards are prearranged.
+
+[37] Counters.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--I.
+
+
+We were seated at dusk on the platform outside the Depôt or railway
+hotel at Deming, enjoying what the Colonel called: "A feast of reason,
+and a flow of souls." "We" consisted of the Colonel himself, Joe,[38] a
+life-long friend of his and an old friend of my own also, Navajo Bill,
+and myself. The Colonel had just returned from Silver City, Joe had just
+broken a journey from New York to San Francisco to visit us, and I had
+just returned from Chihuahua City viâ El Paso. As for Bill, with a vague
+smile flickering on the end of his nose and muzzle--an unengaged smile,
+waiting for a job as it were, he was merely "standing around" on the
+chance of the Colonel saying: "Navajo, here's two-and-a-half for you. Go
+and get drunk."
+
+Who was Navajo? Ah, "that's where you've got me, young man." Heaven
+knows! I don't think Navajo aspired to have as much identity as that
+question would imply. He was a sort of odd-man-out-of-place. He had a
+little shanty up town, and a kind of costermonger's barrow, in which he
+used to "take the air" with Mrs. Navajo, a lady who looked as if she had
+been born and bred to make him a suitable wife. Bill had no particular
+profession. He "went trips" if any one wanted him to. He could drive a
+team, cook indifferently, was cheerful, obliging, a fair worker, had
+good pluck, long hair, a queer amusing smile, a gutta-percha
+physiognomy, a fund of quaint sayings, and altogether was a good man to
+"have along" on a trip. At present, as the Colonel was suffering a good
+deal from rheumatism, he attended him as valet and rubber. Bill, with
+equal confidence, would have undertaken to manage a bank, or transact a
+diplomatic mission to the Court of St. James.
+
+The Colonel "had the floor," and was referring to his visit to Silver
+City. "And whilst they were knocking the sawdust out of the _Pirates of
+Penzance_ all these amateurs--every man and woman in Silver that could
+squawk, in fact--Lindauer, and Louis Timmer, and Judge Falby, and I, we
+played pool."
+
+"It isn't everybody that _could_ play pool, while the _Pirates of
+Penzance_ were catching it like that," commented Joe severely.
+
+"Eh? what does Joe say? Oh, well, Nero fiddled while Rome was burning,
+and we didn't see why we shouldn't be just as cruel as Nero if we liked.
+Anyhow----"
+
+"A letter for you, Colonel!" said the hall porter, approaching.
+
+The Colonel arose, and producing his _pince-nez_ glasses, drew near the
+light that streamed from the hotel door, to glance through the papers
+contained in the envelope.
+
+"I guess it's only to say that some of your old ranch houses have been
+burnt by the Apaches, or that your old cows have got 'black-leg' or
+something," remarked Joe grimly.
+
+"A judgment, likely, for fiddling when the Pirates was a-catching it
+so," suggested Bill, with a grin.
+
+"That's it," chuckled Joe; "that's it, no doubt!"
+
+"Navajo, can you make corn bread?" asked the Colonel, returning to his
+seat.
+
+"Corn bread, Colonel! I can make it so a dog can't eat it."
+
+"You can, eh? Well, that settles it. You _shall_ come, then. Go away up
+to Holgate's stables, and tell them to have the waggon and team ready
+to-morrow at midday--you see yourself that it is properly greased--and
+see that three days' feed of corn are put in for the horses, too. I am
+going down into Mexico."
+
+"And perhaps you won't mind telling us where we come in, in all this?
+What is going to happen to us?" inquired Joe, with some asperity.
+
+"You will both come too," replied the Colonel calmly.
+
+"To Mexico?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, we don't want to know your business, of course--we're not asking
+who your letter is from, or what it's about--we don't want to know how
+little you gave, or how much you got, but we should just like to know
+where _we_'re going to in Mexico, and _what_ we're going for? Are we
+going to 'make a killing,' or to buy a ranch, or only to steal some
+cattle? And what's the matter with our stopping here, and living
+comfortably, until you get back?"
+
+"You won't stop here, you'll come right along with me, both of you; and
+I don't want you to give me any trouble about it, now! Travel improves
+the mind, and enlarges the ideas. You shall come and study the sister
+republic, and Navajo and I will introduce you into society down there.
+If you're smart, you _may_ catch a _señorita_ with a big ranch before we
+get back."
+
+"Where are we going to?"
+
+"The Corralitos ranch. The agreement has just come back from El Paso,
+accepting the final offer that I made for between two and three thousand
+yearling and two-year-old Corralitos steers, and I must go down and
+receive them."
+
+The restaurant at the Depôt was the rendezvous, at meal-times, of all
+the high-toned people in Deming. When we left the hotel after the
+mid-day dinner, therefore, to mount the light waggon in which Navajo
+sat, curbing the impetuosity of our corn-inspired plugs, with a
+magnificent assumption of conscious importance, the _habitués_ of this
+frontier Bignon's, armed with tooth-picks and unlit cigars, assembled on
+the platform to bid farewell to the Colonel. Many a good-humoured sally
+ensued at his expense, but in no wise disconcerted, he returned shot
+for shot, as he walked round the waggon and inspected it, expressed his
+usual surprise that he should be the only man in New Mexico capable of
+packing a waggon properly, had the blankets, grain, provisions, cooking
+utensils, Winchesters, and other baggage taken out, replaced it all with
+his own hands, and finally mounting the box seat, gathered up the whip
+and reins.
+
+Joe was taking a light for his cigar from one of the bystanders. "Joe
+isn't ready yet," observed Don Cabeza in a pleasantly ironic way,
+glancing at the mammoth shoulders that were rounded over the
+cigar-light. Joe vouchsafed no response. "But give him time," pursued
+his tormentor more cheerfully, "give him time and he'll get there. Joe
+will never die _suddenly_."
+
+The old "forty-niner" approached the waggon with a withering glance at
+the repacked cargo.
+
+"Have you shown them all how you can pack?" he asked dryly.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then we're where we were before, I guess--ready to start again, eh?"
+
+"_Ex_actly."
+
+"Ugh!" And Joe silently mounted, and amidst a shower of "good-byes," we
+drove off.
+
+They were types, these two. Though nothing delighted them more than
+systematically to contradict and pooh-pooh one another, to less intimate
+acquaintances they were the essence of kindness and chivalrous courtesy;
+and let any one _coincide_ with them when they spoke slightingly of one
+another, and he would soon find that he had unconsciously undertaken to
+whip a dogged-looking giant, over six feet high in his socks, and,
+without being in the least degree stout, apparently about four feet
+broad across the shoulders.
+
+The Corralitos ranch lay between seventy and eighty miles over the
+border, in Chihuahua, in Mexico, and was a hundred and ten miles from
+Deming. The first day's drive to Smith's Wells was only eighteen miles.
+Thence to Ascension was an easy two days' drive, over a somewhat heavy
+road. On the fourth day Corralitos was reached early in the afternoon.
+Between Smith's Wells and Ascension, it was necessary to camp out on the
+Boca Grande River.
+
+The gradual settling up of waste lands in the United States had already
+begun to turn attention towards Northern Mexico, when railway promoters
+recognised a fresh field in it for their enterprise. But until the lines
+they projected to connect it with the railway systems of the States were
+completed, properties purchased there were comparatively worthless. Now
+the aspect of things is changed; land is rising rapidly in value; and
+the probability that the magnificent provinces which compose the upper
+tier of the Mexican provinces will eventually become incorporated with
+the United States gathers strength each day. American politicians still
+scout this notion. But it must be remembered that such men are for the
+most part politicians by profession--theorists unaffected by the
+interests, and ignorant of the influences that sway the masses, not
+business men engaged in every walk of life and practically cognisant,
+therefore, of the questions submitted to them.
+
+To judge fairly on such a subject as the one now broached, look at the
+map, contrast the characters, condition, strength, and relative rates of
+advance of the two peoples concerned; above all, gather the views of the
+American cattle-men, miners, traders, and railway stock-holders, of the
+large landowners (foreign, American, _and Mexican_) interested in the
+consummation of the union referred to, for these are the people who
+intend to bring it about.
+
+It is idle to talk of justice and the obligations of honour in days when
+the hereditary right of a people to valuable land is hardly recognised,
+certainly not respected, unless they make good that right by
+cultivation. On all sides we see the traditions of law in this respect
+disregarded. Land would appear to belong in reality to those who most
+want it--to those who can render the best account of it. The tenure of
+the sluggard is on sufferance only. Even the strong, conservative, but
+unprofitable oak yields place to the seeded corn-stalk. And where Yankee
+enterprise and British tenacity have penetrated, and are busy, the rule
+of Mexican sloth is doomed. The Eastern politician may say that the
+annexation referred to is impossible, that the United States has land
+enough, and does not require any part of Mexico. But a nation is as
+little able to control its growth as a child. How much of what was once
+Mexican soil lies now within the borders of the United States? What were
+once California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas? How many are the
+sacred contracts that the Washington Government has entered into, to
+respect the reservations of the Indians? Yet one by one these
+reservations have been redeemed by the plough, or overrun by the horned
+hosts of the cattle king. And now, in travelling through the States, one
+frequently hears indignant protests uttered against the Government for
+"giving" (!) the Indians the little land which still remains in their
+possession.
+
+As a matter of fact, there is no unoccupied cattle-range of any
+importance left in the States. The range there is absolutely
+diminishing, since in many places it is being, or already has been,
+eaten out. The ranchero in overcrowded Texas, in full New Mexico, and
+dry Arizona looks over the border and sees in Northern Mexico a vast
+cattle country, superior to anything that the States ever possessed,
+still comparatively unused, in the hands of drones for whom he has an
+undisguised contempt, and under the dominion of a weak and corrupt
+Government. What does he care about the political feelings of his
+rulers, or the diplomatic difficulties of annexation!
+
+Side by side with the temptation afforded by this splendid grazing, lies
+another, equally powerful, but affecting a different class of men,
+namely, the evidence of greater mineral wealth than was discovered even
+in California. The conclusion arrived at many years ago by Humboldt,
+that in these States would eventually be found the richest mineral
+deposits in the world, seems likely to be verified. And has the
+Government at Washington ever shown signs of the qualities that would be
+necessary to preserve Mexico from absorption by the American people
+under these circumstances?
+
+The "Government!" The Government will have little voice in the matter.
+In the United States more than in any other country, is the so-called
+Government merely an institution for formulating, and shedding a legal
+glamour over the wishes of the masses. It deals with and rounds off
+accomplished facts; it does not initiate movements, and dictate them to
+the people. The duty of Government in this case will be to arrange some
+scheme of purchase to tickle the national conscience and soften the
+aspect of the transaction, whilst none the less enabling the United
+States troops to remain in Northern Mexico when once a revolution has
+given them an opportunity of "crossing the border to protect their
+fellow citizens." Talleyrand once said indignantly: "On s'empare des
+couronnes, mais on ne les escamote pas." Things have changed since he
+lived; the latter course now fits far better with our temper.
+
+If there is any cause for surprise in this matter, it lies in the fact
+that Mexico should have remained isolated so long--that so shiftless a
+race should have retained their independence in so rich a country. This
+is due not a little to the ill success which attended the earlier
+speculations there of American capitalists. The causes of this ill
+success were various. A prejudice originated in Mexico against Americans
+during the war, and the behaviour of the "rustlers" and malefactors of
+all kinds, who, flying from justice in the States, have been accustomed
+to seek refuge in the sister republic since then, has kept this feeling
+alive. Even the better class of Americans who penetrated into Mexico,
+have been apt to display there (as, for that matter, they are often apt
+to display elsewhere) an autocratic, impatient, and pugnacious spirit,
+which contrasts oddly with their tolerance of abuses, and free admission
+of the right of "a coon to do as he durned pleases," in the States. The
+American abroad and the American at home are two totally different
+beings. In Mexico they have had to deal with an intensely conservative
+people, whose dilatory and slack way of doing business was the very
+polar antithesis of the slap-dash, energetic, and decisive style to
+which they themselves are accustomed. In place of accommodating
+themselves to these conditions, they appear to have endeavoured to force
+their own methods on the natives, and failing in this, to have treated
+them with systematic contempt. Unfortunately their numbers, and the
+influence of their Government, have not been sufficient until lately to
+sustain them in this mode of procedure, and consequently, in the face of
+an already established ill-feeling, it has resulted in uniform business
+failure. "They could not get on with the Mexicans," they found. It would
+have been strange had it been otherwise. Add to the unfavourable
+impression which the above circumstances left in American minds, the
+unfortunate experience which some investors gained by plunging into land
+speculations, without previously inquiring into Mexican land laws, and
+sifting the titles to the ranch property they coveted--titles which are
+vested sometimes in all the living members of a family--and the once
+marked indisposition of American capitalists to invest in things Mexican
+will be fully understood.
+
+I have said that, as a cattle country, Northern Mexico is preferable to
+any section of the United States. Bold though the assertion may seem, it
+is undoubtedly correct in so far as the greater part of Sonora,
+Chihuahua, and Cohuila are concerned. In Northern Mexico, the percentage
+of increase amongst a hundred cows frequently reaches ninety-five, and
+is rarely below eighty--an average that is unapproached anywhere in the
+States, save in Southern New Mexico. There are no winters to kill the
+young calves, and at intervals sweep off forty or fifty per cent. of the
+whole herd, as in Montana, Wyoming, etc.; no piercing "northers," or
+cold sleet storms to cause cattle to drift a hundred miles or more; no
+droughts, such as entail enormous losses in Colorado, Kansas, Texas, and
+elsewhere in the West (dry seasons do occur, but they are never
+sufficiently dry to prevent the growth of new grass); there is no
+sickness; neither flies nor screw-worms trouble the cattle; no plagues
+of locusts strip the ranches of herbage in a night, as is the case
+sometimes in California; the country is far enough south to be within
+the limits of the semi-tropical rainy season, and yet lies, for the most
+part, at such an altitude that the summer climate is comparatively cool
+and bracing. None of the risks and dangers which face the ranchero in
+other countries have to be encountered here. On the other hand he has
+the advantage of fine breeding and maturing grounds in close
+juxtaposition, inasmuch as the plains are unrivalled in the former
+respect, whilst the gramma-carpeted foot-hills and plateaux of the
+Sierra Madre compare, upon almost equal terms, with the bunch-grass
+valleys of Montana and Wyoming as regards the latter.
+
+Another advantage enjoyed by the ranchero in Mexico--one which cow-men
+will be amongst the first to recognise, and which, as cattle countries
+fill up, will become of more and more importance--is that he is able to
+purchase his ranch entirely, and does not simply graze his cattle on
+Government land which he controls in virtue of the water rights that he
+holds. His herds, therefore, are isolated, and he alone derives the
+advantage of any expense that he may choose to go to in improving their
+breed. No outsider can sink a well or take up a desert claim in the
+midst of his range, and either run cattle there or impound those of the
+original tenant for trespass. If he pleases, he can put a ring-fence
+round his property and remove any intruder from it. And this is no
+slight privilege.
+
+In Sonora and Cohuila very many of the old grants, besides immense
+tracts of public land purchased from the Mexican Government, have
+already passed into the possession of foreigners. In Northern Chihuahua,
+only one large ranch (the Boca Grande) remains in Mexican hands.
+Foreigners also own large bodies of land further south in this province.
+Influenced, no doubt, by the present agitation against them in the
+States, the Mormons are silently but continuously pouring into Sonora
+and Chihuahua, and acquiring land in all directions. Polygamy is a
+little out of date certainly in times when even monogamy is apt to be
+regarded as too irksome a burden. But the United States have no quieter
+or more industrious a class of men to send forth than are these
+much-married individuals. They work systematically and have capital to
+invest if necessary, and the condition of prosperity that they will
+initiate wherever they settle will soon enhance the value of adjoining
+land.
+
+Few people, who have not at intervals passed over waste lands out West,
+can conceive the rapidity with which a country, once opened up, is
+appropriated and developed in these days of steam and telegraphy; few
+people can realise what enormous masses of population year by year roll
+forth from the crowded hives of Europe and the Eastern States.
+
+And be it remembered that the country to which I have referred lies not
+in any remote corner of the world, but close to the centres of trade and
+population in America, and within twelve days' journey of England. The
+"boom" in land, therefore, will be sharp and swift there. Of course, the
+possibility of these provinces being annexed to the States is a question
+of importance for the investor to consider, since the future value of
+property there hinges to some extent upon it. But this aside, the
+advance in the value of ranches will be rapid enough. Already it is
+treble that which it was six or seven years ago. Annexed or not annexed,
+at the rate that foreigners are now occupying the country, the power of
+the Mexican Government there will be merely nominal before long. The
+taxes levied by it are extremely light, and sensible settlers have
+absolutely no trouble with the officials; judicious investments there
+can hardly fail to prove profitable, therefore.
+
+Whilst we have been discussing the fate of Northern Mexico, our waggon
+has made good its way to Smith's Wells, where a little adobe building of
+three small rooms was to be our shelter for the night.
+
+Smith was an Englishman who had been settled for many years in the
+States, but had formerly served as steward on board one of the
+Transatlantic passenger steamers. He was rather amusing, inasmuch as, a
+great talker, he gave absolutely true, or at any rate matter-of-fact
+accounts of things, without using any of that pleasant varnish of
+fiction often adopted even by a whole community as if by mutual consent,
+in the discussion of open secrets of corruption, or the disgraceful
+conduct of affairs, public or otherwise. Smith called murderers
+murderers, thieves thieves, cowards cowards, and so forth; in fact, his
+ill manners were quite refreshing.
+
+He was well informed on the subject of recent Apache wars (having held
+the post of packer, teamster, or something of the kind with the troops),
+and his histories of the battles, skirmishes, etc., that had taken
+place, compared with those currently accepted, were very laughable. They
+were particularly amusing in the present instance, for Navajo Bill
+having been a "long-haired scout" in these campaigns, much of our
+information was derived from him. The Colonel and Joe took a malicious
+delight in leading Smith to narrate events, glowing descriptions of
+which we had already received from Bill. But the latter hero's
+equanimity was not to be disturbed by any matter so trivial as the
+direct controversion of his most brilliant yarns. When Smith
+incidentally remarked that he and Navajo had been twenty miles in the
+rear on the occasion of "a little skirmish with a few Indians, _mostly
+squaws_," which we had been taught to believe was a bloody and decisive
+battle, indissolubly connected with the glory of Navajo--a battle in
+which we had pictured him, or rather he had pictured himself, as
+careering through the awed forces of the enemy with the irresistible
+majesty of the cyclone--the Colonel's imperturbable valet merely shifted
+in his chair, smiled one of his own inimitable smiles, and added to the
+mirth by some quaint remark, without attempting to support his original
+tale.
+
+We left on the following morning, and camped on the Boca Grande River
+after a thirty-mile drive. The Boca Grande ranch is a league broad, and
+follows the course of the river for thirty or forty leagues. The grass
+on it is mostly coarse, and since the soil is light and sandy, would
+trample out if heavily stocked. But the close proximity of the Southern
+Pacific Railway lends the ranch value, and its long stretch of water
+gives it control of a large extent of outside grazing, some of which is
+first-rate.
+
+At this distance from its source the river does not flow uninterruptedly
+throughout the year, but during the dry season (winter and part of
+spring) shrinks and stands in a series of short canals and water-holes,
+where an ample supply of water is always to be found at every hundred
+yards or so. Here and there also a spring occurs, and the river flows
+permanently for a few hundred yards.
+
+Another characteristic of certain rivers in this part of the world may
+as well be mentioned here. In places they sink, flow for some distance
+underground, and then rise again. The explanation given of this is, that
+the bed rock dips, the water filters through the loose surface soil and
+follows it, reappearing only when the natural fall of the country in the
+same direction brings the bed rock near the surface again, and the level
+of the water above it. Of course, in the wet season there is a
+sufficient rainfall in most cases to fill these inequalities, and keep
+the bed bank-full.
+
+I have heard it argued that a dam sunk to the bed rock would have the
+effect of preserving a full head of water. But since the stream must
+inevitably pass these sinks sooner or later, and the only way to
+neutralise the ill effect of them is to fill them, it seems to me that
+one built where the water reappears would be equally effective and less
+expensive. But the matter requires study, and I am only justified in
+offering the most diffident suggestion.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[38] It is needless, I presume, to warn the reader not to confuse this
+"Joe" with the cow-boy who appeared in the last sketch.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--II.
+
+
+On the following day we drove into Ascension,--a small place of recent
+date. When New Mexico was taken over by the Americans, a body of
+Mexicans emigrated thence and settled here. Ascension bears little
+resemblance, therefore, to the ordinary Mexican town; it has no ruins,
+its population is increasing, it is growing in size--an altogether
+unparalleled state of things.
+
+Repairing to the Customs House, we gave bonds for the return of our
+horses and waggon, and submitted our baggage to be searched. A new
+agent, whom none of us knew as yet, having lately arrived from the City
+of Mexico, the search was rigid. However, we had nothing contraband,
+with the exception of a few cartridges, the duty on which was (as it is
+on most things taxed at all) fully equal to their value. Had it been
+levied to protect a home manufacture, it might have been comprehensible;
+but, unless imported, cartridges are not procurable at any rate in
+Northern Mexico. Pillage of this nature is apt to encourage evasions of
+the law; for any one resident in the country to smuggle, or countenance
+smuggling though, is extremely foolish, and in the long run inevitably
+leads to mischief. It is important at present to stand on good terms
+with the official class. Intrigue in the City of Mexico, and the
+jealousy of their neighbours, renders it impossible for the officers to
+wink at anything like systematic smuggling, although a little diplomatic
+hospitality soon serves with these degenerate, albeit still often
+chivalrously polite descendants of Old Spain, to secure the passage,
+unsearched, of such an "outfit" as ours. Moreover, the penalties
+incurred where smuggling has been detected have been rendered so severe
+lately, that the risk is not worth running. Yet there are men with a
+large stake in the country who, for the sake of saving a few dollars,
+live under perpetual suspicion and supervision, in an atmosphere of
+constant annoyance.
+
+A good story was current about the Colonel's first visit to the
+Ascension Customs House. He was on his way with a large party to survey
+a ranch for which he was then in treaty. The Superintendent at that time
+in power was a ceremonious and pompous old gentleman, possessed of
+something of the pride of race characteristic of Spaniards of the old
+school. Reasoning from the number of Don Cabeza's companions that he was
+a man of great importance in his own country, he showed every
+disposition to treat him with consideration. Through the medium of the
+Colonel's interpreter conversation was established; sweet phrases flowed
+and compliments were bandied between the principals with courtier-like
+agility and address. The Customs Superintendent placed his house, his
+subordinates, his resources--in short, with Spanish figurative
+magnificence, placed even his country and fellow-countrymen at the
+disposal of his guest; and not to be surpassed in generosity, the
+Colonel magnanimously gave him the United States, and as many American
+citizens as he wanted. If the old hidalgo, or "son of somebody," were
+"bluffing," he had struck the very man to "see him and raise him back."
+Things were progressing swimmingly when, at Don Cabeza's suggestion,
+some bottles of champagne were produced from the waggons and uncorked.
+The Superintendent had never seen champagne before, and supposing its
+effervescence to be a rare and precious property appertaining only to
+the wines of the great, was more than ever convinced of the exalted rank
+of his new acquaintance. Unfortunately, it occurred to him to inquire at
+this juncture into the position of the other members of the party, and
+to save himself the trouble of a little explanation, the interpreter
+briefly described them as his master's peons. With his own hands the old
+fellow thereupon collected their glasses, and placed them all together
+in the middle of the table. "Since _he_ did not drink with peons," he
+said, "it would only be necessary to fill two glasses." "That settled
+it." All the Colonel's tact and diplomacy were necessary to preserve
+peace now, for the Superintendent, having adopted the peon notion, clung
+to it, and the "boys," some of whom were friends of the Colonel's and
+gentlemen anywhere, and all of whom were gentlemen on the frontier, got
+the "big head," and displayed effervescence scarcely less remarkable
+than that of the champagne itself. The result was that the wine,
+intended to propitiate a dozen thirsty officials, was finished on the
+spot by the indignant "peons," and the interpreter, not permitted to
+drink with the Customs official and the Colonel, was not permitted
+either to partake with the rest of the party, and narrowly escaped
+receiving a far more severe expression than this of their displeasure.
+
+Juan Carrion, an ex-_presidente_ or mayor, with whom we lodged, and the
+avowed "_amigo_" of all Americans who frequented the road, was a
+delightful creature. He kept a little all-sorts shop, the stock in which
+ranged from pastry and sweet-stuff to pins and needles, from wine and
+native spirits to grain or fuel. His _tinada_ in Ascension was what the
+coffeehouses were in old London--the rendezvous of wit and fashion. Here
+prospectors and cattle buyers, immigrant Mormons, _rancheros_, banished
+"rustlers," and Mexican horse thieves, with the local loafers and a
+bibulous local doctor, assembled, and seated on the counter, on benches,
+flour-sacks, inverted boxes, or in the grain-bin, interchanged gossip
+over _copitas de mascal_, and the eternal cigarette.
+
+Little Juan--we apologise--Don Juan had a monkey-melancholy physiognomy,
+furnished with a radiant and an instantaneous smile--an inexhaustibly
+rich smile, which never for a moment slackened or lost its freshness.
+Behold him standing behind the counter, quiescent, for a wonder, and as
+dejected in appearance as a lost dog. "Don Juan!" "Si, Señor." In a
+second, as if it were the surface of still water into which a brick had
+been dropped, his face irradiates with a series of expanding rings of
+cheerful import. Amongst other faculties that he possessed, was one for
+_seeming_ to understand an almost incredible amount of bad Spanish. His
+sympathy with the foreigner, whose incoherent ravings proved him to be
+labouring under the influence of "somebody's Spanish teacher," was
+without end. Don Juan's looks of intelligence and soothing "Si, Señor,"
+cheered such as one in his darkest moments and most agonising paroxysms.
+
+A busy man was Juan--an indispensable man, weighed down by his own, his
+American friends', his clients', his neighbours', and the State's
+affairs. Undoubtedly the conviction haunted him that, were he removed
+from this vale of tears, chaos would come again. To hear him sigh
+inspired a vague impression, not less significant of vast, troublous
+schemes, and ponderous businesses, than the faint rumbling of thunder
+is of the distant thunder-storm. Occasionally he remembered that he
+considered it incumbent upon him to make his importance felt, to "Assume
+the God, affect to nod," to be dignified in demeanour and choice in
+language. Animated by these sentiments, Juan behind his counter giving
+audience to a poor neighbour was a study equal in sublimity to a
+well-executed idol of Buddha. He always had some new long word running
+in his mind, culled from a legal document or newspaper, and under
+circumstances such as the above, would haul it into his conversation
+sideways, head first, anyhow, altogether regardless of how awkwardly or
+heavily it alighted. It was a treat to hear him sling it blindly around,
+prefixing adjective after adjective to it as he did so, until with
+accumulated weight and impetus, at last he brought the whole
+tautological string down "kerflop" full and fairly upon the devoted
+crown of his auditor, and raising his eyes inexorably from the
+destruction that he had caused, would purse his mobile under-lip
+severely, whilst the wretched victim of his eloquence crept mutely from
+the shop.
+
+The Corralitos ranch[39] consisted of 820,000 acres of magnificent
+grazing land, lying, for the most part, in a great basin, through which
+a river of from one to two hundred feet broad flowed for a distance of
+over thirty miles. Besides this, there were several springs upon it, one
+of which gave birth to a stream of seven or eight miles in length, and
+which, with a little work and improvement, might have been made to flow
+much further. The Janos River traversed it for a distance of twelve
+miles in the north-west, and in all directions water was found at a
+depth of from ten to twenty-two feet, which, raised by windmills, would
+have supplied unlimited herds. These various waters gave the owners of
+the property control of at least another million acres of Government
+land for grazing purposes. The grass was of the finest kinds of
+_gramma_, and since the soil was mostly hard, was not likely to pull or
+trample out, however severely it might be grazed. In the Corralitos
+River bottom at least thirty thousand acres of land was susceptible of
+irrigation and cultivation. This principality, to which the Corralitos
+Company possessed a clear title, lay within only a hundred miles of the
+nearest point on the Southern Pacific Railway, the intervening country
+affording easy and well-watered trails by which cattle might be driven
+thither.
+
+
+     "Man seems the only growth that dwindles here,
+     Contrasted faults through all his manners reign;
+     Though poor, luxurious; though submissive, vain;
+     Though grave, yet trifling; zealous, yet untrue,
+     And e'en in penance planning sins anew,"
+
+
+quoted the Colonel with mock solemnity, as we hove in sight of the
+Corralitos country.
+
+"I don't know much about 'luxury,'" ejaculated Joe, "unless you're
+looking for fleas and chilies."
+
+As we surveyed the glorious expanse of country before us I could not
+forbear saying: "Colonel, I thought that the Animas was the 'boss' ranch
+in the country."
+
+"In _another_ country; we're in Mexico now," he rejoined.
+
+"You won't catch _him_," said Joe. "Years ago, when Frisco was blooming,
+and the stock market was alive there, a period of depression occurred
+once, and I asked Cabeza what he thought about it. 'Oh, things have
+reached bottom,' he said. A few days afterwards, when they had gone a
+durned sight lower, I showed him the stock list, and reminded him of
+what he had said. 'Well, well,' said he, 'I meant _high_ bottom, of
+course; we're getting down to _low_ bottom now.'"
+
+The Colonel shook his head hopelessly. "Did Joe say he _remembered_
+that, or invented it? Well, Joe'll say anything; he don't care what he
+says. But this isn't a finer range than the Animas, anyhow--only, of
+course, they own every acre of it, and can put a ring-fence round it if
+they like, and that's an advantage."
+
+We drove on and in due course reached the _hacienda_, which lay near the
+river, and was situated about the centre of the property. In former
+times over a thousand people had dwelt here, but the population had now
+dwindled to half that number, consisting principally of the wives and
+families of the workmen employed by the Corralitos Company on the San
+Pedro mines.
+
+These old Spaniards did things on a grand scale; a ranch with them was a
+little principality of which the _hacienda_ was the capital. Surrounded
+by rows of small adobe houses--like some old country alms-houses--there
+was a _plaza_ here that would have made a magnificent drill-ground; a
+corral capable of holding 10,000 head of cattle; smaller corrals for
+branding, etc.; wool yards, stables where hundreds of horses might have
+been bestowed, yards for killing and drying meat, blacksmiths' forges,
+carpenters' shops, shops of every description, store-houses, a church,
+acres of long-neglected pleasure-grounds, and ruined quarters and
+premises of every description, besides those still in fair condition
+where a strong military force might have been comfortably housed at any
+time.
+
+The prettiest feature of the _hacienda_ was the Caille des Alamos, or
+street of cotton-woods, upon which the head-quarters, visitors'
+quarters, the offices, the laboratory, and store looked. When I was last
+there the trees were in full leaf, and, meeting above the road, formed a
+perfect archway which defied the penetration of the sun's most searching
+rays. "Here in cool grot," with unseen birds in the thick foliage
+filling the air "with their sweet jargoning," Lieut. Britton Davis, the
+manager (an old Indian fighter of wide reputation), Sheldon, Neil,
+Massey, Slocum, Wallace, McGrew, Don Cabeza, "Joe," Follansbee, Murray,
+Roberts, Posehl, Bunsen, and a few cow-boys, in variously mingled
+parties, spent many a bright half-hour, spun many a web of yarns,
+smoked many a score of cigarettes, and submitted to, or took a hand in
+many an attack of good-humoured chaff. The Caille des Alamos, at
+Corralitos, has grown, I find, into one of those memory pictures that
+form the pleasantest relics of travel, and many of which I have gathered
+up and down the world, from the Golden Horn to the Golden Gates, from
+the bays of Alaska to Table Bay, from the banks of the Rhine to the
+banks of the Meinam.
+
+Since the vendors had agreed to deliver the steers in the Plyas Valley,
+only two men had accompanied Murray from the Animas to assist in
+branding and to watch the "round up," preparations for which were
+immediately commenced.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[39] This ranch is, I believe, for sale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--III.
+
+
+There are two things that the settler will find gaining a hold on him
+after a short residence in Mexico, namely, cigarette smoking and
+indolence. Very few foreigners successfully resist the seduction of the
+_siesta_. However fierce their original abhorrence of the practice may
+be, gradually the climate saps and softens it, and induces them to
+regard it leniently. It is hopeless to attempt to combat the native
+predisposition to midday slumber. The custom of generations has become
+an instinct. For the time being all idea of business is as completely
+relinquished as during the hours of midnight. There is nothing for the
+best intentioned and most energetic individual to do but wait until in
+due course the Mexican world wakes again. And this period of enforced
+idleness it is which proves so fatal to the good intentions of the
+stranger in the land.
+
+The laws that govern the attraction of cigarette smoking are more
+mysterious; but their influence is also more swift and certain. I
+believe that no one escapes this injurious habit. As for me, I did not
+endeavour to do so, but avoided a good deal of trouble and
+self-mortification by falling into it at once; and although a rooted
+indisposition to sleep in the day-time under any circumstances preserved
+me from indulging in the _siesta_ during any of my trips into Mexico, I
+must confess that about that period of the day which may be designated
+the fore-afternoon, a sense of most enjoyable laziness would steal upon
+me, when not in the saddle.
+
+No doubt there are lazier creatures than the typical Mexican; for all
+intents and purposes, however, he is lazy enough. He unites with his
+indolence a constitutional indifference which is very enviable. I have
+seen the combination described somewhere as "the tropical philosophy of
+the Mexican." He can be idle without reproaching himself,
+poverty-stricken without repining. His soul is unvexed by envy or those
+yearnings of vulgar ambition, not unfrequently mistaken for the still,
+small voice of conscience, urging us to labour. Life with him is one
+long _siesta_. In the fulness of our restless hearts let us not condemn
+his equanimity too hastily. To struggle and strive are not essentially
+admirable unless the ulterior ends of those who are so occupied are
+disinterested and noble. And, as a rule, unselfish and noble views,
+grand schemes, are usually propounded, not by the hard-working citizen,
+but by the more or less unreliable dreamer, of more or less dubious
+integrity. The "tropical philosophy" of the Mexican is often evinced in
+an amusing fashion.
+
+Whilst we were at Corralitos, the blanket-maker of the _hacienda_ came
+into the office one afternoon on business, and Mr. Neil, the
+book-keeper, took the opportunity of telling him that, upon their last
+regulating his accounts, he had been charged by mistake with owing the
+company three hundred, instead of two hundred and odd dollars. A
+considerable difference this to one in his position. But the ragged old
+weaver merely waved his hand, and shrugging his shoulders indifferently,
+said, with all the air of a prince receiving the intimation: "No hay
+differencia." There may have been some truth in this literally,
+however, inasmuch as, like most Mexican ranch hands, he doubtless
+intended to die, as he had lived, in debt to his employers.
+
+The reply of the Corralitos store-keeper to his customers, when they
+inquired whether the stock of sugar (which had been exhausted some days
+before) had been renewed--sugar being the very light of a Mexican's
+life--was also characteristic. "Azucar? No hay, Señores, pero tengo
+muchos frejoles." Who but a Mexican, when earnestly besought for sugar,
+could placidly answer that he had none, but had "plenty of beans"? To be
+able to distinguish any connection between sugar and beans, and offer
+the latter as a substitute for the former, seems incomprehensible to a
+practical mind. But philosophers tell us that to be able to generalise
+is a rare and precious gift, and surely the above incident evinces the
+possession of it to an unlimited extent.
+
+But for sublime indifference, due, however, not a little in effect to
+the speaker's manner, a response that I received in Janos is not to be
+overlooked. I chanced one morning to ask a "tropical philosopher,"
+seated on an erratic boulder in the street, with his _zarapa_ covering
+his ears, and a cigarette between his fingers, what time it was. He
+lifted his eyelids and gazed at me curiously. "What manner of fool is
+this that waits on time?" his looks said palpably, and smiling
+compassionately, his contempt gaining infinitely from the indolent style
+in which it was expressed, he murmured: "Quien sabe?"
+
+Nevertheless, very winning traits may be found occasionally in these
+expatriated descendants of the old Goths. Whence comes the courtly
+courtesy and dignity displayed by some of the owners of little
+insignificant shops in Mexican towns? Uneducated and untravelled, these
+old fellows have lived all their lives in these out-of-the-way corners
+of the world, yet the demeanour of some of them is as inimitable as is
+any other inspiration of true genius. It is neither taught nor copied,
+but inherited, and is the result of long custom acting upon successive
+generations. "Bon chien chasse de race." These men are polite for the
+same reason. Skin deep! you object. Very likely. But surely the
+beautifully combined colours and variety of artistic designs that adorn
+the surface of Eastern china, are more pleasant to look upon and live
+with, than the rough surface, scanty, vulgar, and monotonous
+ornamentation that offends the eye on Western crockery.
+
+I have heard the advice given by one who knew Mexico well: "Cuff and
+curse the peons, bribe the middle classes, and if you can only outvie
+the old Dons in politeness you are eternally heeled." One is often
+reminded by the native character of Harrington's lines:
+
+
+     "A tailor, thought a man of upright dealing,
+     True but for lying, honest but for stealing."
+
+
+By another who had had a good deal of experience with Mexicans, a broad
+rule for my guidance was offered to me once, in the following words:
+"You don't really want to treat them with delicacy. Pretend to--yes,
+'pretend,' to beat h--l!--the more you pretend the better, if you want
+to get on with them. But don't let it enter into your heart. Never let
+them get a chance at your sentiment; keep that dry." The speaker was a
+shrewd judge of men, and was probably not far wrong. The Colonel dealt
+with them upon a somewhat similar principle, and I was amused upon one
+occasion by an example of it.
+
+During a drive through the country, three of us had spent the night at
+the house of an old fellow at Janos, who had entertained us in a style
+that was simply delightful--I allude, of course, more to the spirit
+displayed by our host than to what he had absolutely offered us, for in
+a land where there is no costly food, and where every one carries his
+own blankets, and requires only a few square feet of floor to sleep
+upon, visitors are not a great trouble or expense. Nevertheless, we were
+unwilling to leave without signifying our appreciation of what had been
+done for us. Money, however, our host unhesitatingly refused to accept,
+saying that his house was ours, and that whenever we came to Janos we
+were to make the freest use of it. Don Cabeza bowed and smiled with
+politeness not less ceremonious than that of our entertainer. "We were
+_amigos_," he said; "we understood that; we did not dream of offering to
+pay for ourselves. We lived in the hope of being able some day to return
+in Deming the hospitality that we had received in Janos. But the Señor
+Don Manuel must accept five dollars for the accommodation that he had so
+kindly afforded our two horses." This was another matter altogether. Don
+Manuel took the five dollars without raising any objections, but
+reiterating with even greater fervour his professions of friendship and
+regard.
+
+A somewhat similar incident came under my notice elsewhere. Travelling
+alone, I was recommended to the house of a small trader, whose courtesy
+and good-nature were perfectly ideal. He was a man of remarkably fine
+presence, and his manners were superb--easy, courtly, thoughtful, and
+charming, yet never for a second anything but deliberate and exquisitely
+dignified. They reminded me of the manners of a thorough-bred Turk, only
+this man had a pleasant smile, his laugh was not unfrequent, and
+altogether he lacked much of the solemnity which governs the usual
+demeanour of the Osmanli.
+
+I had only to express a fancy, to evince, even unconsciously, a desire,
+and the means of gratifying it, were they procurable, were not pressed
+upon me, but unostentatiously placed within my reach and power. And this
+unwearying attention was paid me in such a way, that it never became in
+the least degree irritating or oppressive, as is often the case where
+extreme solicitude is displayed. I spent two afternoons and nights in
+the house of this gentleman (on my way to and from a ranch that I had
+gone to look at), but, unfortunately, I was using hired horses which
+were looked after by my guide, and lodged elsewhere, and being under no
+obligation to my host for their keep therefore, I was unable to avail
+myself of Don Cabeza's expedient, when the remuneration that I offered
+for my own lodging was refused. My host was by no means rich, and I was
+anxious to reimburse him. It happened that I asked him to change a
+ten-dollar United States bill into Mexican paper money. I forget the
+exact value of the Mexican paper dollar at that time, but at any rate it
+was less than seventy cents American money. My host produced some
+Mexican notes, and counted me out ten, of the value of one dollar each.
+Then he paused to see whether this change would satisfy me, and curious
+to find out what he would do, I folded them up as though contented and
+thanked him. On his side, he placed my ten-dollar note with the rest of
+his own bills in his pocket, and bowed gravely, having made at least
+four dollars, Mexican paper, by the transaction. An odd medley of
+qualities therefore exists in the Mexican disposition. Traces of the
+traits that were so marked in their Spanish ancestors still reassert
+themselves, and side by side with something of the old Castilian pride
+and manner is found the same avarice that supported the early settlers,
+under the dangers and hardships which they encountered in order to
+obtain gold in this country.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--IV.
+
+
+Twenty-six miles from Corralitos lay Casas Grandes, a place containing
+between two and three thousand inhabitants, and a fair type of the
+collection of ruins, partial ruins, patched ruins, ruins deserted, ruins
+inhabited, and a few passable adobe houses, that in Northern Mexico is
+dignified by the denomination, town. The site occupied by it appears to
+have been a favourite one from early times, some interesting ruins of
+Aztec buildings still remaining here, and traces of labour that must be
+referred to an even more remote date, occurring in the neighbourhood.
+
+I had visited Casas Grandes twice without seeing the ruins (or "Casas
+Grandes de Montezuma," as they are called), when one morning I found
+myself in the company of the priest of the village. This functionary
+spoke some English--some Ollendorf, perhaps I should say--very little of
+which was intelligible, and still less coherent. But this did not seem
+to concern him. In an unfortunate moment I invited him to take some
+bottled beer at the principal store. He finished four bottles gaily, and
+was preparing to accept a further renewal of the invitation, when it
+occurred to me that, inasmuch as I did not drink beer, and the division
+of labour was scarcely a fair one, it would be wise to vary the
+entertainment. I proposed to visit the ruins, and leaving the shop we
+proceeded in the direction of the "big houses." The _padre's_ somewhat
+high action, the moment that he began to feel the heat of the sun,
+reminded me a good deal of what Skippy had said about Mac's dancing:
+namely, that "he only touched on the high places as he went round the
+room." The successor of the Apostles dipped and soared, and set to every
+pig, passer-by, or obstruction in our way, with bewitching grace and
+lightness. It would not have surprised me at any moment to have seen him
+pause, cover his face in his mantle, and, after an interval of
+self-communion, burst into a prophetic denunciation of the degenerate
+inhabitants of the surrounding hovels. He was in that sort of mood. We
+reached the ruins, however, without this having occurred. To stand
+amidst such remarkable traces of past industry and civilisation, in
+company with an inebriated priest, a mouthpiece of the God of the race
+that expunged the Aztec authors of them from the list of nations, was
+not altogether without its moral.
+
+The ruins still visible lie on the top of the artificial mounds on which
+the Aztecs often built, and extend over a wide surface. Doubtless they
+would still be in a state of much greater preservation but for the fact
+that the Mexicans have been accustomed to borrow materials from them, to
+employ in the construction of their houses and corrals. I am told that
+Coronado, who took part in the expedition of Cortez, refers to these
+remains in his history as being "already old;" but I have had no
+opportunity of consulting his work. The ruins that I saw seemed to be
+those of a large palace, or of some building of that nature, and were
+composed of blocks of a species of adobe cement, 18 x 18 x 24 inches in
+size. The rooms are long and rather narrow; some plaster still adheres
+to the walls in the interior of one of them. Judging from the elevation
+to which the walls still standing rise, the building appears to have
+been two or three storeys high--noteworthy evidence of architectural
+advance if the supposition be correct.
+
+It seemed likely that the natives would from time to time have
+discovered Aztec relics here, but inquiry brought nothing of the kind to
+light, save some "_oyas de Montezuma_," earthenware pots of more or less
+fantastic shapes. The designs in black and red on some of them showed
+considerable finish and skill, and the things themselves were far
+superior to anything of the kind made in the country at the present
+time.
+
+To turn from the Casas Grandes of the Aztecs to the modern town which
+derives its name from them, is to turn from ruined buildings to ruined
+people. In this instance the ruined people are certainly the more
+picturesque. Walls of mud, be they never so mighty, and dust, though it
+be the dust of ages, have not the charm of one of the little groups of
+loafers that may be seen at every street corner in a Mexican village.
+Bronze faces, luminous-eyed; hair, beards, and moustaches black as
+ravens' wings; big _sombreros_ covered with tarnished silver braiding;
+deep-toned, rich-hued _zarapas_, contrasting with white (?) shirts, and
+perhaps a rose-coloured knot at the wearer's throat; great jangling
+spurs, braided breeches, a trailing _lariat_, a wreath or two of
+cigarette smoke, a bit of green foliage, deep shadows, golden sunlight;
+and all mellowed with dirt and perfect repose as a picture mellows with
+age. Turn where you will, such scenes may be found.
+
+There are streets, it is true; but building and rebuilding have rendered
+their lines extremely vague. Here a householder has trenched upon the
+road for space for his pig-sty; there a wattled fence encloses a
+fowl-yard; yonder is a small corral built of old Aztec blocks;
+elsewhere, a stable-shed abuts upon the right of way. But none of the
+domestic animals for whom these offices have been built appear to
+inhabit them. A lean horse, with ribs protruding, stands, looking like a
+big knot, at one end of a raw-hide lasso, which, trailing loosely on the
+ground, is lost to sight inside the door of his master's hotel. Cows
+repose placidly in the thick dust of the path, chewing an apparently
+inexhaustible cud. Cocks and hens stalk here, there, and everywhere, in
+search of their precarious livelihood. There is a large floating
+population of dogs that have neither name nor home; and the pigs of a
+Mexican town (save in the instances of those obese monstrosities that
+are tethered out) have evidently a strolling license to go
+whithersoever they list. There are busy pigs and idle pigs, clean,
+dirty, blatant, pensive, friendly, and aggressive pigs, cynical pigs
+with cold, cruel, alligator eyes, pigs that look the very incarnation of
+sensualism, and pigs that look chaste and pure as matrons of old Rome.
+
+Few animals have so human an eye as this unjustly despised benefactor of
+mankind. For my own part, although reluctantly confessing that vulgar
+prejudice has educated in me a preference for him when he has fallen
+into his baconage, I can never entirely overlook the debt of gratitude
+that is his due. Science has greater records than his; there are figures
+in statecraft, art, theology, and war, to whom it is the custom of giddy
+historians to assign greater prominence when recounting the world's
+great names; but of few can it be said that their unaided genius and
+research has awakened the taste of civilised humanity to a source of
+gratification so universally admitted, and so entirely free from alloy,
+as has the pig. For what, indeed, is the detecter of a new planet, the
+finder or conqueror of a new continent, beside the great discoverer of
+the truffle? Not for us is the planet, to new continents we are
+indifferent. These are vanities for our children to reach and cry for.
+But, as weary and disillusionised we drive "Life's sad post-horses o'er
+the dreary frontier of age," and Time, great proselytiser, gently turns
+the mind to solemn thoughts of turtle-fat and beaver-tail, water-rails
+and canvas-back ducks, caviare, _foie gras_, some fishes, and a few
+wines, the truffle will be found to be connected with most of our
+comfortablest dreams and sweetest hopes. Yet, how have we treated its
+inspired inventor? Have we cherished him, and encouraged his
+investigations? No! The sensitive, tip-tilted nose to which we owe so
+much has been ruthlessly pierced and torn. The iron hath entered into
+poor piggy's snout. The marvellous faculty possessed by him of going to
+the root of things is wantonly destroyed. He will never electrify us
+with another discovery, never present the epicurean world with another
+truffle. When I speak of the truffle, by the way, I no more allude to
+the usual dry chips of black leather of English dinner-tables than I
+should be referring to the London orange, if, with the memory of the
+glorious fruit of the gardens of Chio in my mind, I spoke of oranges.
+
+I could linger for pages in any one of these Mexican towns--now
+sketching a smallpox-marked, villainous-visaged horse-thief, with the
+seat of a centaur, engaged in mid-street in breaking in a colt,
+barebacked, and bridled only with a hackamore; and, whilst the animal
+bucks and bucks untiringly, exchanging jokes and laughter with the
+idlers near; now depicting a dark-eyed, black-haired, slatternly
+_señorita_ (not beautiful--that is extremely rare--but picturesque
+certainly), standing with her pail by the old derrick over the public
+well, in a cotton skirt of pink, a shawl or veil of similar though
+lighter colour covering her head and shoulders and falling to her waist,
+the whole vaguely reminding one of a cloud of apple-blossom; now
+describing the obscure interior of a cottage, and the group of women
+crouching round the wide, open hearth, crushing maize in the _matate_,
+or cooking one of their simple dishes; now picturing----But enough! As
+it is we proceed much too slowly; and many of the towns, ranches, Mormon
+camps, and scenes that I saw, will find no record in the limits that I
+have here assigned myself. For, when the originality of a generation may
+be registered in few lines, no book can be too short.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--V.
+
+
+"Now, boys! now, boys! now, boys! Who--oop! Up you get, now; up you get!
+No loafing! ----and -- --! We ain't going to stop here all day! Come!
+it'll be sun-up directly! I'll be -- -- -- if some of you chaps wouldn't
+sleep round the clock!" cried McGrew, turning out of his blankets at
+Ramos.
+
+Those were busy days at Corralitos, and long before daylight the cattle
+manager's voice was raised thus. Ramos was one of the outlying ranches
+on the property, of which there were four. One lay to the north of the
+_hacienda_, and governed the approaches to the ranch from Janos and
+Ascension; one to the south afforded an effectual check on the formerly
+unimpeded and consequently free attentions which the good folks of Casas
+Grandes had been accustomed to devote to Corralitos beef; Barrancas
+(the ruins of an old mining village) was situated a few miles from
+Corralitos, and was used as a dairy ranch; Ramos itself lay to the west,
+on a stream that issued from springs in the foot-hills of the Sierra
+Madre, and in the neighbourhood of grazing which would make an imported
+cow that had once seen it sing, "It was a dream," for ever afterwards.
+Few cattle ran on the eastern half of the Corralitos property, and those
+few were worked from the San Pedro mining camp or from the main
+_hacienda_.
+
+Ramos, once a village, had been one of the oldest settlements in the
+district, but, "cleaned out" many years ago by Apaches, had never
+recovered its former importance. At present it consisted of a few more
+or less ruined adobes (occupied by the _vaqueros_ and their families),
+which formed with the neighbouring corrals, the old church, and the mill
+that supplied Corralitos with flour, a large square or _plaza_.
+
+A hurried breakfast of coffee, jerked beef, and corn-cake over, every
+one repaired to the horse corral, into which the cow ponies, about a
+hundred and fifty in number, had already been driven. Clouds of dust
+rose in the air as they careered madly round and round in a band, or
+checked, confused, and scattered, halted, and with ears pricked and
+manes and tails flying, shied and dodged nervously amidst a score of
+whirling lassoes. Here they were kicking and biting one another; here,
+fighting wildly at the end of hair or raw-hide ropes; here, with wisdom
+born of experience, following quietly after being captured.
+
+In the _plaza_, too, the scene was a busy one. Before every door there
+were signs of preparation. It might be that a _vaquero_ was vainly
+coaxing a colt that backed and backed steadily as he attempted to
+approach it with saddle or bridle; was taking a last reef in the
+horse-hair _sincha_ or girth; coiling his lasso, or fastening it to the
+pommel of the saddle; bending to accept a light for his cigarette from
+the brand that his dark-eyed wife had brought to the door. There were
+men in every condition of endeavouring to mount restive horses; and
+horses in every stage of enjoying their morning buck; whilst mingled
+with such brutes were a few corn-fed favourites, whose manners and
+appearance were of a different type altogether. Women were standing
+about amongst the men; and future _vaqueros_ clung to their skirts, or,
+having outgrown this support, emulated their fathers and swung little
+ropes, trying to capture every cock and hen, pig or dog, that came
+within their reach.
+
+Having "saddled up," the crowd moved towards the big corral. The gate
+poles were shifted; the great herd of steers already collected streamed
+slowly out, and pointed in the direction in which it was intended that
+it should graze during the day, was allowed to string out on the plain.
+A few men were detached to follow and hold it; and the rest, under
+McGrew's direction, split up into small parties and scattered over the
+country to "cut out" and bring in, from amongst the cattle they saw, all
+the yearling and two-year-old steers. It was not always easy to turn
+these youngsters, and many a short, sharp burst we had over broken
+ground where a false step would have occasioned immeasurable grief.
+Fortunately, however, the nags were sure-footed. Such scenes as these
+recalled many of poor Gordon's lines, and one verse with but slight
+alteration absolutely describes such a day's work:
+
+
+     "'Twas merry in the glowing morn among the gleaming grass,
+       To wander as we wandered many a mile,
+     And blow the cool tobacco cloud, and watch the white wreaths pass,
+       Sitting loosely in the saddle all the while.
+
+     "'Twas merry 'mid the _foot-hills_ when we spied the _Ramos_ roofs,
+       To wheel the wild scrub cattle at the yard,
+     With a running fire of stock-whips, and a fiery run of hoofs;
+       Oh! the hardest day was never then too hard."
+
+
+In and out amongst the foot-hills we wound and reconnoitred, gathering
+steers. Where it was found difficult to separate from the bunch with
+which they ran those of the ages that we required, cows, calves, and
+bulls were driven along with them and turned in with the others, to be
+dropped one by one as they endeavoured naturally to escape on the way
+back to Ramos. In the evening, before mingling the new bands with the
+herd already held, the few cattle of wrong sex or age that remained
+amongst the steers were cut out and driven off. As soon as the "round
+up" was completed, the herd was taken down to the _hacienda_ where the
+branding was to take place.
+
+The following was a gala week at Corralitos. Every man or boy who could
+beg, borrow, or steal a rope presented himself to take part in the
+proceedings. As their services were in most cases dispensed with, they
+sat in flocks on the walls of the corral, and added to the din of shouts
+and bellowing with their cries and applause. Women, in their best
+attire, mounted the roofs of houses that dominated the arena, and
+watched the scene with as much interest as if it had been a bull-fight.
+And truth to tell, it was not always devoid of excitement. These young
+Mexican cattle were as wild and quick as mustangs, and in the band of
+between a hundred and a hundred and thirty that occupied the branding
+corral at a time, there were always four or five, often more, that were
+as wicked as wild cats. In the old-fashioned and narrow enclosure it was
+difficult sometimes to escape their rushes. But fortunately, although a
+good many men were knocked down, no one was seriously hurt, a dozen
+_vaqueros_ being always ready to lasso or draw the "fighting steer's"
+attention from the prostrate individual.
+
+At one end of the corral, near the gate, and the fire for the
+branding-irons, were a couple of "snubbing-posts;" at the other the
+cattle remained crowded together when not disturbed. When steers were
+required two or three men would go in amongst them swinging their
+_lariats_, and endeavouring to separate a bunch of ten or a dozen to
+drive towards the posts. Generally, however, they divided off thirty or
+forty head, sometimes many more, and not unfrequently the whole herd
+would stampede, and thunder round and round the yard. As they passed, a
+dozen _lariats_ would be launched at them. Perhaps one of the foremost
+steers would be lassoed round the horns, and his captor succeed in
+bending the other end of his _riata_ round one of the posts; sometimes
+two steers would be noosed at once, and both ropes hitched to the same
+post, whilst the herd that followed them would rush on and fall over the
+tense ropes, a writhing, struggling mass of frantic animals. The noise,
+the dust, and confusion at such a juncture was indescribable. One by one
+the steers would extricate themselves, and amidst the "swoosh" of
+whirling ropes, the bellowing of their fellow cattle, and the cries of
+the _vaqueros_, would make a few false points or feints from side to
+side, and spring away to the other end of the corral. Kicking and
+rearing frantically, as they entangled themselves and one another more
+and more inextricably in the ropes that held them, the two steers that
+remained would struggle on, until in answer to the shout, "La cola! la
+cola!" gripped by the tails, they were turned adroitly on their sides,
+and covered by half-a-dozen fellows holding horns, legs, and tail, and
+all vociferating, "Hierro! hierro!" With a diamond A iron Murray would
+hasten from the fire then, and set the Colonel's mark upon the right
+hip; whilst with a Corralitos brand, similar to that already borne by
+them on the hip, McGrew would follow and score the opposite
+shoulder--thus venting, or neutralising the meaning of the brand
+altogether.
+
+Not every one who had secured a steer succeeded in attaching his lasso
+to a snubbing-post. Under these circumstances, leaning back, with his
+feet set forward, the luckless one was dragged, sliding, after the rest
+of the herd. Sometimes the steer got away with the rope; sometimes its
+owner fell, and still clinging to it, was tugged about through dust six
+inches deep, until, in answer to his agonised cries of "Otra soga! otra
+soga!" his companions came to his assistance, and entangled in a network
+of _lariats_, the two-year-old was brought to ground, or taken to a
+snubbing-post.
+
+When three or four were being marked at the same time, the order was,
+"No las suelten!" until the last one was finished, lest those who were
+occupied with steers as yet unbranded should be taken at a disadvantage
+by those loosed. But at a given signal the men would all rise together,
+dodge behind the posts, make for the walls, or clinging to the tails of
+the newly-marked victims, start them fairly towards the rest of the
+herd. Amongst the better _vaqueros_ it was a point of honour not to
+mount a wall, unless absolutely obliged to do so. But brought up from
+earliest childhood amongst cattle, as these fellows are, they display a
+degree of confidence and address in a corral which is the best refuge
+they can have. I saw one deep-chested, gorilla-built fellow, when
+charged in mid-corral, wait coolly for the young steer, catch him by the
+horns with both hands, and giving back a little presently check him
+altogether. A second later he sprang aside, brought his lasso down on
+the flanks of the animal, and with a shout started him on again.
+Frequently, instead of quitting them when they were turned loose, the
+boys would sit astride of the steers they had been holding, and "stay
+with them" as they went bucking down the corral towards their fellows,
+until the proximity of these latter warned the riders to roll off and
+"dust."
+
+Throughout the whole proceedings with a running fire of "Carambas!
+carajos!" etc., the air was filled with the warning shouts, "Cuidado!
+cuidado! El Prieto! El Pinto! or El Colorado!" as now a black, now a
+piebald, now a red steer, that "meant business," left the herd and
+charged some one, amidst the laughter and applause of the onlookers.
+Some really fast times were made over short distances; Britton Davis and
+I distinguishing ourselves in this particular occasionally. As for the
+Colonel and Joe, they sat upon the wall and chaffed us, the former
+keeping tally of the ages and number of the cattle branded, in
+conjunction with a representative of the Corralitos Company.
+
+The foregoing proceedings are not mentioned as in any way typical of
+what would take place on a well-ordered ranch in the States, where
+things were worked systematically and carefully. No attempt had been
+made until quite recently to train the Mexican hands employed on the
+Corralitos ranch, and they were consequently extremely rough in their
+style of handling cattle. Lassoing steers by the fore-legs when they are
+running, in order to have the satisfaction of seeing them turn a
+complete somersault, may commend itself to the mind of the untutored
+Mexican cow-puncher, but it is dangerous, and as a rule forbidden where
+broken legs, broken horns, etc., are taken into consideration. The
+Mexicans in California are amongst the finest cow-hands in the United
+States, and although they are a better type of men as a rule than those
+in Sonora, Chihuahua, and Cohuila, there is no reason why in course of
+time the latter should not become good workmen also.
+
+During this week work commenced in the corral at day-break, and about a
+hundred steers were branded before the triangle rang for breakfast.
+Recommencing shortly after nine, branding was continued until dinner at
+12.30. In the afternoons, Lieut. Britton Davis, the manager, and I,
+generally forsook the corrals and went duck-shooting.
+
+The duck-shooting at Corralitos was very good and extremely easy. Any
+day--at any rate during winter--a fair shot with two guns could have
+killed fifty or sixty couple. We never went out until the afternoon, and
+then, in the course of two or three hours, killed about twenty or
+twenty-five couple--that, too, in the constantly-disturbed home reaches
+of the river. The variety of ducks here was scarcely less remarkable
+than their number.
+
+Accompanied by a retriever in the form of a boy mounted on an old pony,
+we either walked along the banks under cover of the cotton-woods or
+willow-trees, or sitting down, directed our attendant to make circuits
+of a few hundred yards and drive the birds to us. In either case we saw
+far more than we required.
+
+I was sitting smoking one afternoon on one of the brick seats outside
+the offices, in the Calle de los Alamos, when a company of Mexican
+soldiers marched in from Casas Grandes. They looked so perfectly "fit"
+after their dusty tramp of twenty-six miles in a hot sun, that I was
+remarking on it, when half-a-dozen women, some of whom carried infants,
+and all of whom had children trotting beside them, came literally
+"sailing" in after them. They were the wives of some of the men, and
+they and their children had travelled the same distance in the same
+manner. It would seem that the walking powers of the Mexican are second
+only to those of the Apache, and if what I heard of them was correct,
+Mexican soldiers are immeasurably superior in this respect to any other
+regular soldiers that I know of. It was no unusual thing, I was told,
+for troops to march in a day from Casas Grandes to a mining camp near
+the north-east corner of the Corralitos property (the name of which I
+have forgotten), the distance being forty-five miles over a rough trail.
+I have heard it asserted two or three times in open company, without
+question, that during the war between Mexico and the States, 22,000 men
+under General Santa Ana marched twenty leagues in twenty-four hours, and
+then fought all day at Buena Vista, doing this extraordinary work on a
+little parched corn, ground and soaked in water with a little sugar.
+Averse though he may be, therefore, to continuous labour, the Mexican is
+able to exert himself to some purpose "upon a compelling occasion."
+
+Whether it was that the bare discussion of these feats made some of us
+thirsty, I know not, but an amicable rivalry in the manufacture of milk
+punches sprang up in the store that afternoon, with the result that one
+of the manufacturers had to be assisted to bed before supper-time. He
+vowed of course on the following day, that it was "the milk that did
+it." It always is the "milk," or the "lemon," or the "sugar," or
+something of that kind.
+
+_À propos_ of the store, by the way, one of the assistants there, a very
+handsome and gentlemanly boy, was named Ponce de Leon. It seemed odd to
+find a namesake of the celebrated Marquess of Cadiz--the light of
+Andalusian chivalry and pride of Ferdinand and Isabella's court, the
+captor of Alhama and leading figure in the reconquest of
+Granada--serving out coffee or sugar for a few cents to peasants. But
+many a name that rings in Spanish history is borne in Mexico by men
+quite as insignificantly placed as this.
+
+I had drifted out of the noisy store into the cool, quiet Calle de los
+Alamos, and was standing talking to Joe when an ambulance containing
+three Americans drove up. As they descended it appeared that one of them
+was handcuffed and manacled. The prisoner was Sam Rider, who had been
+captured by Mexican soldiers in a small village further south, after a
+desperate struggle in a little wine-shop, and was now returning in
+charge of the Marshal of Georgetown to be tried for killing the Deputy
+there. It is not easy to swagger under the embarrassment of handcuffs
+and irons, but Sam made a desperate effort to appear unconcerned. Before
+he left next morning I took the opportunity of giving him Squito's
+message.
+
+"'He knows!' I know? What do I know?" and the man's bold, dark,
+prominent, and rather glassy eyes looked perplexedly in mine. Suddenly a
+light of intelligence grew in them, and I could see that he had caught
+the girl's meaning. He shrugged his shoulders irritably, and was silent
+for a moment. "Oh, ----! D--n Squito! It seems like she'd coppered[40]
+me. Ever since she----since I seen that gal, luck's gone dead against
+me. If you see Squito, tell her I don't 'know' nothing--and don't want.
+Blast Squito!"
+
+Poor little Squito! It was hardly worth while that her first love should
+have been wasted thus. What wonder that
+
+
+     "----our frothed out life's commotion
+     Settles down to Ennui's ocean"
+
+
+as often as it does!
+
+Full of regret at leaving so delightful a place, and of gratitude for
+the exceeding kindness and hospitality that we received at the hands of
+Lieut. Britton Davis and his associates, we took our departure from
+Corralitos as soon as we had seen the herd of steers started. We almost
+had to leave Joe behind. As usual, he wore us out waiting whilst he
+looked about for some more old women and children to tip. On the return
+journey, we made a detour by a couple of extremely pretty ranches
+belonging to Mr. Scobell, and Lord Deleval Beresford and Mr. Corbet, but
+finally arrived again at Ascension, where we were received effusively by
+Don Juan Carrion.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[40] To "copper" a stake at faro, is to cover it with a small check,
+which signifies that the card selected is backed to lose, not win.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--VI.
+
+
+On this occasion we encountered in his shop a character well known in
+this part of the world, one "Apache Bill" by name, who was at present
+residing in Ascension, but had been absent when we previously passed
+through the town. "Apache" was a ragged, six-foot, dark-eyed,
+dark-haired, bottle-nosed, bibulous-looking, able-bodied "loafer," who
+wore mocassins _in town_, and whose hands were never out of his pockets
+save for the purpose of lifting a glass, rolling a cigarette, or making
+an elaborate bow. He had a glib tongue, and spoke Spanish admirably,
+with the language having picked up something of the flowery politeness,
+though not the dignity, of the better class of native. It is odd how
+often good linguists lack common sense and stability. I have noticed
+this frequently all the world over. A trim tongue and a ragged coat is
+always a suspicious combination anyhow, and this instance was no
+exception to the rule. Bill was a fine, candid, unaffected liar. I have
+encountered many men celebrated for their address in the ways of
+untruthfulness, who, to keep him in sight, would have been forced to
+take a long pull at the bottle, and launch out very recklessly indeed.
+His artless style reminded me a good deal of a Levantine servant that I
+once had, who had a great gift in this way, and who, upon my
+remonstrating energetically with him one day for so constantly abusing
+it, said plaintively: "Mais, Monsieur, c'est mon habitude."
+
+Apache had worked once on a ranch of the Colonel's, but finding that
+cattle were not to be handled by the simple exercise of eloquence, nor
+posts set and pastures fenced in by the profession of virtuous
+convictions, had not remained long in his service. When I say "worked,"
+I believe I do him an injustice. It is not on record that he ever did
+that, save on one occasion, and this was when the authorities at
+Ascension condemned him to provide a dollar a day to keep and cure a
+Mexican whom he had wounded in a drunken brawl. Dollars were not easily
+earned there, for labour was cheap, and a dollar a day for lying in bed
+was the best billet that that Mexican had ever had. As may be supposed,
+he was in no hurry to get well, and the matter (over which Bill waxed
+positively tearful when he alluded to it) was long the subject of
+amusement and laughter in the neighbourhood.
+
+At one time he had been chief of scouts in an Apache war, his knowledge
+of the country in Northern Mexico being really considerable. In this
+capacity he had been brought into contact with Navajo Bill. The
+patronising style in which he talked of this personage was delicious.
+
+"Navajo Willy?" he said; "oh, yes, I know Willy--a good boy, sir, a good
+boy!--ignorant, of course--no education, you know, sir; but he means
+well--he does what he can. He served under me once, but I found him
+quite useless. If I sent him out anywhere, he only got lost. However, I
+wasn't hard on him. We were down at Lake Palomas once, and General Bewel
+wanted a messenger to take a note over to a detachment of troops camped
+about ten miles off. So I started Willy off. I showed him the way
+myself. But it was no good--not a bit. In two hours he came back; _he_
+couldn't find it. I sent a Mexican then, and when he brought the answer,
+I gave it to Willy. 'Here, Willy,' said I, 'take it to Bewel and say
+that you fetched it.'"
+
+In point of age there was but little to choose between the two Bills,
+both being men of about five-and-forty. In conversational talents there
+was also some resemblance between them, although, in all other
+particulars, Navajo was an immeasurably better man than his former
+chief.
+
+Apache's anxiety in behalf of his children was very touching. Paternal
+solicitude was a fine theme for him, and he often enlarged upon it.
+"There's the boys," he would say, "they're growing up, sir, and down
+here I can't give them the education they ought to have. I want to take
+'em back to do their schooling in the States. If I could only get some
+regular work there--I shouldn't care how hard it was, or how poor the
+pay was--I would slave like a nigger to get my children well educated.
+And there's the girls; this ain't any place to raise girls; they don't
+get any virtue into 'em here. It ain't right. I do what I can, of
+course; I try to teach 'em what's right, and I set 'em a good example.
+'Be good to your mother, boys,' I always say; 'think of your mother, and
+be kind to her. If you get any money, give her half. And be honest! No
+matter how poor a man is, let him be honest.' My honour--my honour is
+what I look at! And I try to bring the boys up the same way. Am I right,
+gentlemen?--I leave it to you." We naturally applauded these noble
+sentiments. "Well, then, let's take a drink on it--let's hit her a
+lick;" and reaching for the bottle, he would proceed to fill all our
+glasses, and his own too.
+
+He formally introduced us to every other man who entered the shop,
+usually concluding the introduction with some such remark as: "This is a
+good man, gentlemen; he used to be _presidente_ of the town. Treat him,
+gentlemen; he may be useful to you some day." Treating the new
+acquaintance necessitated treating Bill as well. I merely note this as a
+coincidence, and do not in the least degree wish to insinuate that any
+base thought of self influenced his interest in our welfare.
+
+To pass the time in the evening we had him into our room to talk to us;
+and, as he had never seen Joe before, represented the latter as being a
+"tender-foot," or new-comer on the frontier. Since Joe was much better
+dressed than the rest of us, and, talking but little, did not betray his
+familiarity with frontier life, Apache believed us, and anxious to
+astonish "a gentleman from New York," surpassed himself. We had provided
+a bottle of _mascal_ to prime him with, but maliciously delayed
+producing it. By degrees, as he talked, his throat got drier and drier;
+he coughed and expectorated, and expectorated and coughed, and crossed
+first one leg and then the other, shifting in his seat, and fidgeting to
+such an extent that finally Don Cabeza could bear the exhibition of so
+much torture no longer, and told Navajo to hand him the bottle. With a
+look of gratitude that would have softened the heart of a Thug, Bill
+raised it to his lips. When he set it down again he had almost exchanged
+conditions with it. Now he was another man, and for the benefit of the
+"tender-foot," he "spread himself."
+
+"Tracks! Well, when it came to tracking, he believed that he 'took the
+cake.' Tracks! ----! Why, he could tell whether they were made by a
+horse or a mare, and there was a slight difference, too, in geldings'
+tracks, which he would be only too glad to show the gentleman any day.
+He could tell whether the horse that he was tracking ran loose, or was
+ridden, packed, or led, and whether it belonged to a white man or an
+Indian. He could tell from the 'sign,' what part of the country, even
+what particular ranch it had fed on. It was a fact, that when he had
+handled cattle in Colorado, and in a part, too, where half-a-dozen herds
+ran together, and ranged over the same country, he had never wasted time
+in following up strays belonging to his neighbours, because he knew the
+track of every hoof in his own herd!"
+
+But enough of Bill! He was fairly started now, and he did himself
+credit. _In vino veritas_, they say. But in Apache there was no
+_veritas_, and so the _mascal_ could not affect him in this way. I have
+often thought that this proverb would have made an excellent text for
+one of Charles Lamb's "Popular Fallacies."
+
+One of the horses fell sick during the night, and it became necessary to
+purchase a substitute before we set out next morning. This delayed us
+for some time. When finally we started with the invalid in tow, the
+Colonel discovered an ambition to invent a short cut, which took us
+three or four miles astray. Returning, we had proceeded a mile or more
+along the road that we did know, when it was found that the grain-sack
+had been left behind, and consequently we were forced to go back to
+Ascension. We had started a little "on edge" that morning, and we
+reappeared at Don Juan's in the severest silence. Unconscious of his
+danger, that worthy taunted us with our oversight and made merry at our
+expense.
+
+"He's taking big chances if he only knew it, ain't he?" said Navajo
+grimly, jerking his thumb towards Juan.
+
+"Don't you feel, Joe, like getting down and beating him up a little,
+eh?" drawled the Colonel. "Couldn't you swing him around by the heels
+some--dust the side-walk, and knock a few flies off the wall with him?"
+
+"No," replied Joe sturdily; "I haven't got any kick against Don Juan. He
+has treated us like a gentleman. _He_ didn't leave the grain behind, and
+_he_ didn't take us any short cut. Quite right, Don Juan, 'No valle
+nada,' these chaps, eh?--They can't remember anything."
+
+But long before we pitched camp in the evening, we had had a hearty
+laugh over the morning clouds.
+
+The Boca Grande was an "Indian place," and strategically speaking there
+was no point in it that was fit to camp in, no point where, aided by
+cotton-woods, willow-bushes, cane-brake, long grass, broken ground, or
+the river bed, a band of Indians might not have approached unobserved
+within a few yards of a traveller. We trusted to luck, therefore, and
+chose a site without reference to the Apaches. The odds, of course, were
+always long against their showing at any given place, but there was
+never any certainty about it; and this was one of their haunts.
+
+"Indians!" said the Colonel when some one alluded to them. "Well, if I
+kill four I shall be satisfied. If they come we can't help it; but
+they'd better not!--they won't. They know more in a day than we could
+tell them in a week. What a battle it would be, though, if they did
+come! Gettysburg and those kind would be just flirtations to it. There'd
+be you charging 'em; and Navajo, he'd get around behind them, and take
+them in rear, and scare the quill feathers out of them. And there'd be
+Joe raking them fore and aft, and enfilading them, and out-manoeuvring
+them, and reconnoitring and changing his front, and just a-sousing it to
+them red-hot all the time. And as for me, I'd sit right here on this
+stone, under the bank, and sing to them, just to lure them on, like the
+Lorelei, and let you boys have all the glory of killing them. Or, maybe,
+I'd get on one of the six-shooter horses--a six-shooter horse is a heap
+better than a six-shooting gun in these cases--I'd get on one of them
+and go right back to Ascension to fetch up some help for you. I'm not
+wanting to put myself forward, anyhow; there isn't anything mean about
+me."
+
+"That'd be all right, Colonel," said Navajo; "we should know where to
+find you when there was any fighting to be done. The boys do say that
+you're on hand _then_--sure!"
+
+"How do you want these potatoes cut up?" irrelevantly inquired Joe, who
+was phlegmatically attending to business, and peeling some potatoes for
+supper.
+
+"Cut them up just as you'd cut up the Apaches, Joe," said the Colonel.
+
+"Well, how are they going to be cooked?"
+
+"Saratoga chips are good enough for me," suggested the modest Navajo.
+
+"Saratoga chips go then. Joe, you hear what the gentleman says,"
+observed Don Cabeza. He was "bossing" the cooking himself that evening,
+and at that moment was engaged in stirring some beans that he was frying
+in the Mexican style, bacon-fat being substituted for lard. Cook-like he
+tasted them now. "Well, there!" he ejaculated admiringly--"there! When I
+get through with this, it will make you laugh. You boys won't know
+whether you are here, or sitting at the corner table at Delmonico's."
+
+"No," said Joe, with a twinkle of dry humour in his kindly eyes, "we
+shan't know the difference. I always have beans and bacon-fat at
+Delmonico's--when there's enough to go round, that is."
+
+"If we had only got into camp earlier, we might have shot some ducks,"
+regretted Bill.
+
+"There isn't anybody here that could have made a duck stew," remarked
+Joe gravely.
+
+"Can you make a duck stew, Colonel?" I asked laughingly--for this was
+his _chef-d'oeuvre_ in culinary art.
+
+"Can I make a duck stew! Can I make a _duck_ stew!" he echoed
+rapturously. "Well, you may talk about your chickabiddies, and you
+chickaweewees, and your Smart Alicks, and your Joe-dandies and daisies,
+but when it comes to making a duck stew, I'm a darling! I can show you a
+trick with a hole in it. I don't want to make any boast about it,
+though; I can't help cooking well any more than Joe can help cooking
+badly. It's a gift. But duck stews! Lord! I can make a stew with ducks,
+and teal, and snipe, and potatoes, and chilies, and--and things of that
+kind, that will make a rheumatic man go out after dinner, and begin
+jumping backwards and forwards over the house, he'll feel so good."
+
+Joe grunted disparagingly. "If it weren't any better than this coffee,
+he wouldn't jump far before he lay down and died," he observed, grimly.
+
+"The coffee is bad," assented the _chef_; "it's bad coffee. But all that
+you have to do, Joe, is to step right down to the store, close by here,
+and get some more. There is no reason why you should put up with
+anything bad when you're camping out in the middle of a big city like
+this." And he proceeded to prove conclusively, that the fact that the
+coffee was of inferior quality, was entirely the fault of the Deming
+store-keeper.
+
+"When we get back, then, we must just drive up and shoot the handle off
+his door," said Joe cheerfully.
+
+"Why, cer'nly," chimed in Navajo; "like those chaps used to up to Lone
+Mountain."
+
+The particular incident to which he referred had taken place at a little
+mining village in New Mexico. It had become a custom amongst certain of
+the miners, when they came into town on Sunday "to have a time," sooner
+or later in the day to indulge in revolver practice at the handle of the
+door of Platt's saloon. Platt could not be said exactly to have
+encouraged this; but since it brought him custom, and opposition might
+have transferred the attentions of his clients from the door-handle to
+himself, he submitted to it with more or less grace. One day he engaged
+a quiet and industrious youth--a Dutch boy--to assist him in his
+business, and as he intended to be absent from home on the following
+Sunday, he informed him of the above circumstance. The good youth
+evinced a disposition to resist the ungodly miners. Upon the whole,
+Platt counselled him not to do so, but at his request left a Winchester
+and six-shooter with him, and gave him free permission to exercise his
+own discretion in the matter. On Saturday evening the young bar-tender
+removed an adobe brick from the wall beside the door, and commending
+himself to Heaven, slept peacefully, confident of the justice of his
+cause. The following morning the miners appeared as usual in town, and
+drank freely. But when the boy demanded payment for what he supplied
+them with, they took advantage of his youth, and replied that "There was
+no hurry about it, for he was still young; they thought that they might
+perhaps pay him some day. He might ask them again when his moustache had
+grown a little mite." Things got lively, and finally they repaired to
+the street and commenced shooting at the door-handle. This was where the
+real trouble originated. But it was soon over. Putting the muzzle of his
+Winchester through the loophole, the bar-tender began to shoot, too.
+When he had finished, five of his late customers lay stretched out on
+the road, four of whom died immediately, and the fifth shortly
+afterwards. It is recorded that so pleased was Mr. Platt with his
+assistant's devotion that he advanced him rapidly in his service, and
+subsequently took him into partnership with him. I suppose that he
+married his master's daughter eventually, and lived happily ever
+afterwards.
+
+The history is, probably, the American version of the everlasting tale
+of that artful young clerk who dropped a pin unnoticed in the presence
+of his master, the great merchant, and when the latter _was_ looking,
+ostentatiously picked it up again and set it in the collar of his coat.
+
+A rather amusing yarn followed this, detailing an incident that had
+taken place at the little neighbouring village of Eureka. Mr. McKees,
+the superintendent of a mine there, had nailed up a board notice outside
+the office, forbidding revolver practice on the premises. News of this
+was brought by some one who had seen it to a saloon hard by, where Black
+Jack, Russian Bill, Broncho Billy, and some other well-known "rustlers"
+were drinking.
+
+"How's that for high, boys?" concluded the narrator, when he had told
+his tale.
+
+"That's on top," declared Black Jack; "that takes the cake. It's coming
+to something, if a chap can't shoot his gun off where he likes in a free
+country."
+
+"It's a perfect outrage," said Broncho.
+
+"Let's go right down and attend to it at once," proposed Russian Bill.
+
+Black Jack assented, suggesting that Russian Bill, who was a scholar,
+should read the notice aloud, and he himself then shoot it off.
+
+They started, two or three of their associates, armed with Winchesters,
+going with them, to occupy a position behind the "dump," near the mouth
+of the shaft, and see fair play. Russian Bill having read the notice,
+Black Jack drew a long six-shooter, and opened fire. The office was
+constructed of boards, and afforded but little protection, therefore, to
+its inmates. The first shot spoilt the leg of the chair in which the
+superintendent of the mine was seated; the second lodged in his desk.
+But Mr. McKees had already left the room, and gone to "take the air"
+upon the hill-side, nor did he return until the nobility and gentry who
+were visiting him had shot the board off, and carried the splinters away
+in triumph.
+
+Black Jack was a fine shot, and remarkably quick. He prided himself upon
+his ability as a hair-cutter, and was jealous of any rivalry in this
+line. A friend of his once had the temerity to advance his own claims to
+distinction as a barber.
+
+"Oh, pshaw, Jack!" he said, "I can cut hair every durned bit as good as
+you."
+
+But the words had scarcely left his lips when there was a report, and a
+bullet ploughed through his locks, just grazing the skin, and leaving a
+bald track.
+
+"I guess you can't," rejoined Black Jack. "Look at that!"
+
+Such tales as these are current coin out West, and the number of them in
+circulation is countless. How far they are true no one can pretend to
+say, nor does it matter much.
+
+We sought the blankets early, and were up again before it was light;
+indeed, by the time that
+
+
+     "Night was flung off like a mourning suit,
+     Worn for a husband or some other brute,"
+
+
+we had almost finished breakfast.
+
+The gray was worse to-day. As we proceeded he grew weaker and weaker,
+and less and less disposed to follow, until, ten miles from Smith's
+Wells, we were obliged to leave him. The halter was removed, and the
+tried, but now tired out servant, that had been our companion on many a
+long trip, was left alone in the midst of an arid plain. The breeze had
+subsided; the afternoon was growing mellow and still; on the summit of a
+rise, with the blue sky and sun behind him, the old nag stood still, in
+mid trail, looking stupidly after us as we receded. Without changing his
+position, he turned his head from side to side, to gaze around him at
+the desert once. Then, seeming to have realised that we had deserted
+him, and in that one brief survey of the ground to have recognised that
+his position was hopeless, his glance followed us again. There was
+something touching in the immovability with which he accepted the
+situation.
+
+It was easy to imagine a world of pathos in his heavy attitude and
+lowered crest, to picture immeasurable reproach in his great swimming
+eyes--eyes that had never looked viciously at any one. Poor beast! He
+could not even ask: "Did I ever abandon you when you were sick?" Again
+and again I looked back. The wheel-ruts and trail led my glance straight
+to him. The black shadow cast before him on the ground seemed like a
+thing of evil omen. He looked so forlorn. However simple the
+illustration may be, there is always a fascination in the old, cruel
+tale--Deserted. And to desert even a horse in extremity seems cowardly.
+However, we yet expected to see him again.
+
+"Has the old pillar of salt started after us?" inquired the Colonel
+prosaically.
+
+"No." Nor did he move as long as we remained in sight.
+
+"He'll be along directly--just as soon as he has rested. You can't leave
+those old cusses behind when they know the road."
+
+Don Cabeza was right. Before we had finished supper at Smith's Wells,
+the horse appeared at the drinking-trough there.
+
+It was the last typical evening that I expected to spend on the
+frontier, after nine months of almost uninterrupted life amongst
+rancheros and miners, cow-boys and teamsters, gamblers and traders, and
+all the nondescript flotsam and jetsam of humanity that drift "out West"
+from the cradles of mankind, and find rough rest upon the shores of
+unskilled labour. A curious kaleidoscopic field of character lies here.
+Men grow as chance will have them. No rules of etiquette or fashions
+trim and compress them into stereotyped moulds. At least they retain
+some originality, and are not wholly copyists. Rough characters may be
+found amongst the many fine fellows that one meets, and to spare--men
+who are narrow-minded, bigoted, and intolerant to a degree that is
+extraordinary. But since they make no pretence to be what they are not,
+at least they are not vulgar or snobbish. However marked the faults in
+any nature may be, if in the main it is natural, it can never be wholly
+repulsive. The roughest cow-boy is a gentleman by comparison with the
+effeminate New York dude, who copies his very soul from a flash model in
+London, or the "society man" of San Francisco who in turn imitates the
+dude. The one, at any rate, is true metal of its kind, the others are of
+the poorest kind of pinchbeck.
+
+There is a great charm in the climate "out West." The sun gilds
+everything. It matters little how poor a cabin be, if the owner live
+almost entirely outside it. Old Sol sheds a halo of contentment
+everywhere. A scarcely minor attraction exists in the sense of freedom
+and independence--of empire, in fact, that the vast stretches of open
+country which occupy most of the West beget in the native of a land
+where walls and hedges, gates, fences, and trespass notices bristle at
+every turn, and create a constant and irritable impulse to lift the
+elbows and draw deep breaths.
+
+Supper was over, and news of the old gray's reappearance had taken us
+out into the open air.
+
+
+     "The sun was gone now, the curled moon
+       Was like a little feather
+     Fluttering far down the gulf----."
+
+
+A certain clear obscurity was gathering upon the _vega_; the outlines of
+things were unnaturally distinct, but their shading was becoming
+confused. Where the sun had set, still glowed a luminous field of amber
+light. And in the vault thus formed hung tiny isolated clouds of various
+tints like crushed blossoms from an Indian garden. Hills above hills and
+long cloud-reefs were mingled together on the near horizon, and
+stretched farther and farther away until the former resembled
+silhouettes of tissue paper, the latter something even more delicate
+still.
+
+Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred miles of country lay before us. And
+over all the twilight deepened, slowly invading even the mountain-tops,
+where still some light clung tenderly. Once more the impalpable canopy
+of darkness drooped over the quiet plains--tissues of gray dusk and soft
+blue sky, shot with a silver thread of moonlight, all tasselled by dim
+stars, and crossed by the filmy figure of a bat. With an amnesty of
+sweet repose Night had begun her reign, but her dream subjects flocked
+to her sable standard swiftly; the haunted air became filled with the
+vague population of fancy, and Silence was revealed in all its eternal
+nakedness, that for once Sound had lost the power to hide. It was a
+strange night--a night when the spirits of Destiny seemed to hover near,
+and Mystery to be half-indifferent even if her veil were lifted, and her
+secrets penetrated--a night that inspired odd speculation. But the voice
+of the coyote, baying unceasingly in the silence--fit symbol of human
+interest in the world--kept calling us back, calling us back to earth,
+and let no thought escape and fairly rise above the dust and ashes of
+this life.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Saddle and Mocassin, by Francis Francis Jr.
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