Kitabı oku: «The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California», sayfa 8

CHAPTER XV.
THE PATHFINDER'S HONOUR

Here might the author stop, and, in sooth, he was going to write the words "The End," glad that the episode of the pearl fisher had, at least, the happy finis so desired by the novel reader; but my editor,¹ who was smoking a cigar at my elbow, in my sanctum, and who had been interested enough in what I was dashing off to follow the lines over my shoulder, checked my hand abruptly.

"Here, here!" he cried, as "The End" was on the point of flowing from my pen. "Do you mean to tell us that you know nothing more of Benito Vázquez, his bride and his friends?"

"But I do," I answered with a sigh, for a sad memory had been revived by the unexpected inquiry. "But may I not leave the Pearl fisher rich on his hacienda in Sonora?"

"No," said my editor. "Why should you stop here? As long as you do know something more about him, the tale is not told. Our readers, who have become enwrapt in your hero – I may almost say your two heroes – will be charmed, I warrant, to learn all they can further."

"Now, do you really think," I inquired, hesitatingly, "that this continuation will not bore?"

"Far from that, since it will complete the opening. I must acknowledge that your finish struck me as pulling up short. To conclude with, 'And so they were wed, and all lived happy ever after,' is to be met with in every novel and romance."

"Have your own way," I answered, "since you wish more, my dear friend, I shall go on and give you the completion required, which, this time, you may make up your mind to it will not be rounded off at the altar. Only I would like everyone to know that you, and you alone, insisted upon having it so."

"Very well," he said, laughing; "scribble away! I am sure we shall be the gainers!"

And now, dear readers, having protected myself as regards you all, I continue the story with the hope that the conclusion will interest you as much as, I understand, the foregoing has pleased you.

Mr. Gladsden went to England to imitate his friend and comrade by sacrificing to Hymen.

He married, and had two sons. They were still young when he lost their beloved mother, and ere long, in accordance with that very contra-French custom of keeping the children in leading strings which pushes the British boy into life beyond the home, they dwelt remote from him at school. He was, therefore, a lonely man. Politics had no attraction to one still active, fox hunting was tame after his American experience, and yachting was baby play to a genuine mariner.

Gladsden had already shown his remembrance of Mexico by investing heavily in its Western Railway, and hence he was confidently approached by the promoters of that link which should make it fully transcontinental, and by the later projectors, who sought to establish the line between Guaymas and that running down through the wild lands to Santa Fe, El Paso, Topeka, and thus binding the cactus country to that of wheat, corn, and cattle.

From joining the board of the latter companies to volunteering to go out and investigate the causes of a prodigious slowness in building the line was an affair of short duration. Mr. Gladsden's offer was gladly accepted, and he started with alacrity, which proved how deep had been his longing to break away from social trammels.

This time he proceeded overland from New York, and finally surveyed the route of the Great Southern Pacific Railway as far as El Paso. There a chance speech overheard in the Continental House, which enclosed a reference to the rich land proprietor, don Benito de Bustamente, changed his purpose to proceed still westwardly. He engaged a guide and horses, and was, at the beginning of May, traversing the Sierra de las Animas, or Mountains of All Souls.

On the twenty-fifth of that month, going on four of the afternoon, a time clearly indicated by the disproportionately long shadows of the trees on the sandy soil of the savannah, and the coppery red colour of the sun, which appeared like a fiery disc at the level of the lowermost branches, we see Gladsden and his guide mounted on native horses. The superior wore for old acquaintance sake the costume of Mexican rancheros, and his attendant the picturesque and typical garb of the hunter of the West. They were both armed to the teeth, as a matter of course, for, in this quarter, all honest men are exposed to the three heads of the Southwestern Cerberus: that of the "rustlers," or white desperadoes; of the bandoleros, or Mexican thieves; and of the wild Indians, none of them uniting with either of the others, but true Ishmaels.

It was remarkable that the prairie guide, however, had acceded to the progress of improvement in firearms, in lieu of the long and heavy rifle so celebrated along the backbone of the continent in the hands of the trapper and hunter, this man carried, like his employer, a finely finished Winchester breech-loading and repeating rifle, much stronger and larger than the general pattern.

The pair had just emerged from an immense forest of cedar, which had never yet known the woodman's threat, though doomed ere long to feed a locomotive engine's furnace, and were glad to cry halt at the skirts of the covert. Then they trotted down to a pretty stream, which was one of the sources of the Yaqui River, and bending so far to the westward as to make an inexperienced explorer fancy it had something to do rather with the San Miguel.

Indeed, the woodsman examined the muddy waters with serious heed for a long time, and executed some mental calculations in that wonderful untaught trigonometry of the frontiersman. Then, stopping his broncho by a scarcely perceptible pressure of his knees, he bent gracefully towards his employer, and said, as he smiled good-humouredly:

"Hyar you hev it, Mr. Gladsden; this ar the safe ford, though the melting snow has set the sink pits filling, of which I war speaking this noonday."

"Quite certain, eh, Oliver?" remarked the English gentleman.

"I wish I was as sartin sure I shell die with my har on," was the other's laughing answer, showing magnificent teeth for a man of fifty, which hard biscuit and harder deer meat, with plenty of "chaw" in it, seemed nowise to have impaired. "Anybody but me mout go askew, but I have known all these tracks (he meant 'tracts,' for it was a trackless wild, in plain truth), now an' agen, off an' on, for over fifteen year."

"Pray overlook my offensive persistency, Oliver; but I cannot help observing that I do not see any of the sites by which, according to my informants at The Pass, I was to learn the exact position of a crossing line in a treacherous stream. And I have been a sailor, too, and accustomed to go any course, if I have reasonable bearings laid down and visible."

"Oh, I never mind your being cornered, sir," went on the other, still merry; "they forgot to tell you the distances in mapping out the pints. You cannot see the Chinapa Peak even from here. But it's all one, Mr. Gladsden; here is the point of the Yaqui. Yonder, I can see the smoke of a pueblo– the village they call Fronteras, as they do half a dozen such places within a crow's fly along the borderland. That reddish haze is over the Río Bravo, whence we came. Now, to reach the road to Arispe, you cross and you keep dead ahead, and you must strike it."

"Well, I must say, Oliver, that since I have had the pleasure of a journey at your side, all your information has been as credible as gospel. It is a long while since I was in the wilderness; but I did have a taste of it once, and I am confident that on more than one occasion already you have diverged from the apparently true course to save me from something unpleasant. I conjecture my equipment, on which I had no reason to spare money, excited the cupidity of some of the loafers at El Paso, and that we were followed."

"Right you are! And I threw them out clean twice. And a couple of times more, thar hev been injin 'signs' hot as cayenne. That's jest why I say you had best git over the water now, rather than wait any longer, though there will be less fear o' your hoss being carried off his hoofs."

"Fifteen years ago, my friend," said Gladsden, who had not failed to remark mentally, how little the speaker had dwelt on the cares he had already exercised to preserve his charge from the "hostiles," white and red, "I should have been so reckless as to say – since I should like our having a parting meal together – let us sit here and eat away! But I have no right to expose your life to peril, even if I had not two boys at home for whom mine is still desirable. So, if you do not object, let me show you that I have learnt prudence from your continual exercise of it, and that our repast shall take place on the farther side of this shallow, frothing, dirty-hued river."

"Nothing hinders me," answered the hunter. "Have things your own way. Let us hie over before sundown."

He looked to the mustang's already terribly tight girths, shortening the stirrup straps and caught up some of the trappings which dangled in the Mexican style.

"Thar we 'do' the river," he said, pointing, "follow me step by step. I ought to go before, but your saddleback is high, and you must triple your blanket across your shoulders and neck, in case of a shot. If we are fired on from the rear do not turn but fall flat on the horse's neck. If we are fired on from your side, return the shot at anything moving in the froth. If from my side, I'll deal with that. Leave your hoss free to step in the steps of mine, for the crossing line is very narrer, the bottom one mass of holes and quicksands, and the current rushes like lightning where it does have free play; there is, moreover, a gulf below with rapids that grind granite like chalk. The least imprudence will send us, hoss and cavalyers, rolling along like Canady thistle balls in a breeze. You hev your caution – no fooling, mark!"

All the hunter guide's mirthfulness had vanished, and the stern tone made Mr. Gladsden start. We know he was incontestably brave, and that he had gone through some such perils as now confronted him; but the advance of civilisation in the southwest had given him an impression that his former adventures were things of an irrecoverable past.

However, there was no time to meditate, for his guide had pushed his horse into the water; and the other immediately followed it. They, too, seemed imbued with consciousness of the situation being perilous, for, though thirsty, they did not attempt to moisten their muzzles, albeit the bridles, as Oliver directed, were slackened and the cruel Mexican bits ceased their tyranny.

The passage was performed without accident, and soon the pair were on the further bank in about the only break in a ragged, steep ledge.

"Hyar we kin stake out," said the guide, "and await moonrise for our 'forking off.' Meanwhile, that feast, if you still air set on it, sir."

They dismounted, the hunter went and drew water for the horses in an india rubber saddle bag, whilst the Englishman lifted off a huge double sack from the back of his saddle, which is called the alforjas, and took out a deer ham and a plover already cooked, a piece of Dutch cheese so hard as almost to turn the knife, some green fruit, bananas, guavas, and chirimoyas which they had picked on the way to eat as a kind of salad, and lastly, some army biscuit.

By the time the guide had completed his duties, the spread was laid. A very sober man, as most of these borderers are except when they 'break out' and indulge in a week's heavy and uninterrupted drinking, much as seamen of 'temperance ships' do after a rough voyage, Oliver merely added as much brandy, of which they had a couple of flasks full, as would settle the mud in the water freshly drawn. They both drew knives as sharp as their appetites, and fell on the victuals without losing breath in a further word in addition to a brief but feeling grace which the Englishman uttered, and to which the American, whom the innovation reminded of the same religious practice, vague from its early occurrence in his life, said a hearty "Amen."

We take the moment, when this agreeable occupation rewards them both for a long, fatiguing ride, to trace their portraits.

Gladsden had become a trifle portlier, and had lost his sunburns. He was less quick to move, but more irresistible in action than ever. In brief, the hussar was now a heavy cavalrist, whom even these few weeks in the Southwest had improved in mind, wind, and limb. His sight was dimmer, but he had no need of glasses to shoot well and straight.

His companion was a man apparently in the prime of life, but he must have been twenty years older than the three decades which seemed, to the casual observer, to sit so lightly on his broad shoulders. He was rather tall than medium, and the absence of superfluous flesh, and the unusual length of his limbs would make him look like a giant among the small statured Mexicans and squat horse Indians, mostly bowlegged. His neck was short and muscular, and, thus, his head had a small aspect, like Hercules; the features were cold if not stern, and his cast of countenance was devoid of muscular play, except when one of his merry moods was on him. Vigour and rigour distinguished him on active duty.

Under a broad forehead, his somewhat deep set eyes, crowned with bushy brows, were of a changeable nature, for, while almost blue when he was calm, anger caused them to become dull brown, and they could dart flashes like those of felines, they were very movable and were continually examining things around, save when he was addressing anyone, whereupon they were straight, frank, and steadfast. His long brown hair, saturated with bear's grease – for your frontiersman has a sneaking respect for the toilet – and hence almost black, streamed long and freely out from beneath a homemade hat of mountain sheep wool and covered his shoulders.

His two names denoted the extent of his ranging ground, for he was generally known among his own race as "Oregon Ol.," and by the Indians of the Mexican border as "the Ocelot," that being the wild cat of the Mexicans (Ocelolt, in Aztec), a trifle less than the jaguar, but, muscularly speaking, very powerful and no joke for ferocious courage.

In the same way as this well-known guide possessed several names, he could boast various reputations. The United States Army officers wrote him down as kindly, never downhearted in sun or snow, skilful, honest to a button's worth, disinterested, knowing woodcraft thoroughly, always ready, aye, even to help a friend out of pocket, canteen, or with his wits, bold to temerity when boldness was the best card, "reliable," and sticking to his man, friend or foe, to the last gasp.

For the redskins, Oliver was quite other game: he inspired superstitious terror blended with admiration; no one ever succeeded in contests of cunning with him; implacable towards anyone who sought to injure or even annoy him, he would pursue the molester or molesters, one or many, to their final hiding place, cutting off stragglers, reducing the band like a man devouring a bunch of grapes, one by one, and knifing the last at his lone campfire. "That will teach them," he would say, when reproached by new coming dragoon officers, at the forts, who thought it unseemly for a white man to decorate his leggings with human hair like the reds. He meant that his punishment was to save, by its recital filling the Indians with dread, many another white man on the debatable ground, brother hunter, comrade trapper, emigrant, settler, pioneer, railway prospector.

We say "brother" hunter and "comrade" trapper, for Oregon Oliver only shot animals; to him, any other means of obtaining fur and feather would have been ignoble.

Up to some five years back he had been in the habit of transmitting money, acquired by the sale of peltries, by piloting wealthy foreigners over the hunting grounds in fashion, and by schooling army officers in frontier warfare, to some relation in the Eastern States, who had succeeded his parents as the embodiment of the ideal of home; but death having removed this claim, as he generously conceived it to be, upon his purse, he had no need to toil as formerly he did, and he led an easy life, following for the most part his own sweet free will, over the ten thousand miles which separate Southern America from the Polar Seas.

These two men, as opposite in nature and station as well could be, had made acquaintance in the most natural manner.

Mr. Gladsden wanted a guide into Sonora, and the colonel at Fort Fillmore, with whom he had been quail shooting, had recommended "the champion guide."

Once on the road to Arispe, studded with hamlets, all of them, perhaps, increased in importance since Gladsden's previous stay in Sonora, a conductor was superfluous. At least he was under that impression.

Hunters never dally with a meal; a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes at the most suffice, then, if there be more time to spare, there is a chat amid tobacco smoke. Thus acted our two adventurers.

The rest of the provender was restored to the alforjas, and Oliver filled a sweet corncob pipe, whilst Mr. Gladsden selected an excellent regalia in a prettily carved Guayaquil wood box. As soon as they were both under a cloud, they mused for a while in silence.

When the English gentleman broke this stillness, it was in the heartiest tone of good fellowship. It was to pay a compliment again upon the experienced guide and genial companion.

"All right," said the man from Oregon, "you are doing me justice: I hev done my level best. As long as all turns out well, and you have no dirt to cast on me, thar's no bone splinters in my meat."

"Oliver, you are a thorough white man," went on Mr. Gladsden, uttering the acme of western flattery, "all but the liver, and I'd eat that of the rogue I ever caught defaming you or your class!"

It was a savage way of putting it, which was not unfitting the scene.

"At home with a shoal of old servants about me, I would not lie down with the confidence that I feel in the desert beside you."

"You are painting it on mighty thick," was the caustic answer, "but you do not know enough of me to see that I am not any meet-every-next-minute kind of critter. Young in years, I was then aged by tussle and bustle. So, drop this flattery right thar which I shed, like a wild duck the spray of a waterfall. I hev carried out my engagement to a T, and that's all said and done."

"Stop a bit! I shall send you out some special present from England yet, over and above the mere pay. You have a rough mind, mate," said Mr. Gladsden, laughing.

"Not a jot, no! I am a plain man. It is all very well for you city folks when somebody has done you a good turn to talk of shining rewards, with the idee that you thereby put him in a lariat to folly you for the futur', but, how shu'd you! You are about wrong every time! You foun' this coon pooty nigh sweeped out of existence, for when a hunter has lost mules, fixin's, and rifle, all through them durn'd red thieves – Soo or Pawnee – he is an or'nary cuss on'y fit for the Injin boys to switch. Then you begun operations by forcing on me this harnsum shooting iron, which has made me take back all my ripping out agen new fangled machinery in firearms. It's a 'stonisher!" – and he patted the wondrous weapon affectionately. "Think o' that, a marvel in herself, and an outfit in keeping to boot, and all gift-free! It's lordly, that's what it is, though I don't pass out well in knowledge of your lords an' sich. But I am off on a false trail. As I was sayin', the man who swallers promises and who likes praise is a hireling help and never a friend or compadre."

"But I take it, we do part friends as we have journeyed, eh?" asked Mr. Gladsden, offering his hand with unhesitating trustfulness.

"You bet!" replied Oliver, grasping the hand so hastily that one could see that he would not have given any pain by delay for the world. "You were recommended to me by a gentleman whom I hold as of prime vally. I hev seen the Colonel, when we were floundering in the snows of the Sierrar, give up his rags and his last drink of coffee to a poor mixed blood teamster! Why, I'd die for that man, and that man's dog e'enamost! I am ready to die for you, as his friend. And that's why it rode rough on me to have you want to break loose at the bank of this river, and plunge alone into the yaller bellies' district. You mout as well ask me to lead a blind man safe over forty rod of rough ground to the brink of a precipice, and then let go his hand, a-saying: 'Now, let her slide, old dark-y!"

"At all events, you have fully done your task. But why do you again hint of danger? I give you my word that I have pricked up my ears – which is more than our horses have done – and yet not the slightest – "

"Go on talking, and louder," whispered Oliver, significantly.

The Englishman hardly understood, but he obeyed the sudden mysterious injunction, whilst his interrupter continued with a vast relish to puff at his pipe, of which the smoke ascended thickly, and at regular periods. Gladsden listened, and stealthily gazed around, but to no avail. He then glanced at the American, who preserved the same ease of demeanour, and smoked as for a wager, his back to the stream, from which a sound of the turbulent ripple arose; the tobacco glowed in the pipe head, and dully illumined his brooding countenance. It struck the observer, however, that Oliver's left hand was scarcely sensibly lowering upon his rifle, which, of course, was near at his side.

Suddenly, with an action as rapid as thought, that weapon was picked up and levelled at the shoulder upon a bush, very thick with foliage, about a hundred and fifty paces afar, and instantly fired. There rose a little smoke from the touchhole plate, but no shot resounded.

Instantly a dark-complexioned man in hunter's attire bounded out of the shrub with a whoop of triumph, and pointed his gun at the couple in camp. But before the Englishman could do anything, his safe conductor, whose features assumed an expression of scornfulness, pulled the trigger of the breechloader a second time, and the unfailing bullet dashed into the brain of the stranger even as he was about to shoot.

All this passed in less time than it takes to write it.

Up went the man's hands, so that his gun fell just a little before he measured his length on the ground, and curled himself up; no cry, no second spasm; he was slain straightway.

"Thought hisself a smart Aleck, I reckon," remarked the hunter, with continual contempt. "You'll crawl, sneak, and squirm no more."

"If your rifle had snapped again, you or I would have been keeled over," remarked the Englishman.

"Great Scott!"² ejaculated the other, surprised, and laughing heartily, though not aloud. "You ain't a-going to say you were took in, too? Well, I never! It must a'been a 'tarnal choice dodge."

"What do you mean?"

"No great witchcraft. Look here! This man here's a half-breed – Apache and Mexican, I judge. Well, he's been dogging us ever so long, mayhap from The Pass. Anyhow, I thought he got over the water by the False Ford, by the devil's luck, and, anyhow again, I see him lodge himself right plum' centre in that bush. Cou'dn't sight him thar no more nor a fat dog in an Injin village. But I was fixed in the fact that thar he lay, aiming at me or you. So, to fetch him out slick, I resarved some 'bacca smoke in my mouth, and when I clicked my nail on the breech, I just let the smoke blow off's if it come out of the gun, d'ye see? Lor, how the idiot was sucked in, I reckon! He riz up a-whooping his triumph over the old Oregonian, a-thinking me without a load in! So I had a right fa'r shot."

He went up to his victim and turned out his pockets, and transferred his arms to his girdle.

"He's half Apache and half greaser, as I opined," he pronounced on coming back. "So it would puzzle a Supreme Court lawyer to tell whether he is scouting on account o' copper colour or yaller belly. Jest bit the horses, sir. In either case we must file ahead, an' not let his gang catch on to us. Thar's Tiger Cat and his Apaches on the war path, I heerd, and Oneleg Pedrillo, the champion this-side rustler, never smokes the pipe of peace. I am saying nothing, make your notch, of the loafers who may have followed us, full of the prospect of a rich haul, for I rally b'lieve thar's an impression at The Pass that you are an English Prince of the blood r'yal examining the United States to see how far South you want to annex it to Canada, though you ain't out with a four-mule team."

Mr. Gladsden did not laugh at the rhodomontade, while preparing the steeds.

The sight of the corpse, so lately a vigorous man springing out of cover to take his life, had in one little instant made him comprehend on what dangerous ground he groped his, perhaps, henceforth hourly threatened way.