Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

"Sit down," said the master of the house hospitably, pointing to the divan; "take a seat here, Don Estevan. Will you have something to eat?"

"Well, thank you, Don Nepomuceno," answered Stephens, "since you are so kind, I think I will, if it isn't too much trouble. The fact is, I came down without my breakfast."

"Ho, there, Juana!" cried the Mexican, running to the door, "and you, my sister! Make haste, set breakfast for the señor. He is hungry. Be quick now." A scurrying of feet was heard in the kitchen at the sound of his commanding voice. "And make him tortillas of wheat flour," his loud tones went on, "hot tortillas with fat, and coffee; see that you make coffee."

He came back and seated himself beside Stephens. "What do you think about it, señor?" he inquired. "What is the best thing to be done?"

"Well, if you ask me my deliberate opinion," said Stephens, leaning back and crossing his left leg over the other with his hands clasped round the knee, "I should say this: It seems to be perfectly clear that these Indians are outside the law; it's no use to appeal to it with them. Now the mail goes by here to-day, noon, towards Santa Fé. I say, write to the governor of the Territory at Santa Fé, and to the general commanding the United States troops there, and tell them about it, and ask their protection. They're bound to give it you. And write to the Navajo Agency at Fort Defiance, and tell the agent there, and ask him to have Mahletonkwa and his band brought back on to the reservation. And I should tell the Indians exactly what I was doing, and warn them once more that they'll certainly have the United States cavalry after them if they don't behave. If that makes them any more inclined to accept your offer of a hundred and twenty-five dollars, why, of course you'll count them out the money and settle it out of hand. I should call a settlement cheap at a hundred and twenty-five dollars cash down. More than that, if I was you, I'd raise my offer a trifle, if I thought I could afford it, so as to meet them. You heard Mahletonkwa say he wanted gifts, some sheep and a pony, to sacrifice for the dead man's ghost. I gather by what you tell me about their religion, that he thinks that if he kills them for him specially, the dear departed can go and corral the ghosts of the pony and sheep in the happy hunting-grounds, and have the full benefit of them there. Now, you must have in your flock some old six-tooth ewes, that likely will never breed another lamb; give him a dozen or two to butcher. And then, couldn't you trade for, or borrow, some old stove-up pony, very cheap, and let him have that, too? That won't ruin you. I take it the Navajos mean to keep your good hard silver dollars for themselves, and they'll religiously send the foundered old sheep and pony ghosts to keep their defunct relative company in the sweet by-and-by." The notion of this ghostly herd tickled his cynical humour mightily.

"Yes, perhaps I might do that," said Sanchez in a saddened voice. To part with any of his cherished flock is like drawing eye-teeth for a Mexican. "I might let them have a few of my oldest ewes; they come in very useful for mutton, but if I must, I must. And my brother-in-law has a handsome pony who is inyerbado; he ate poison-weed over on the Rio Grande a year ago, and has never been any use since. That dead Navajo was a very poor scrub, and it would be more than good enough for him; he ought to be uncommonly grateful for it."

He spoke so feelingly that it really seemed as if he almost half believed in the Purgatory of the Navajos himself. He hesitated and then went on. "But as for the letters, Don Estevan, it's not so easy. For one thing, the governor and the general don't know Spanish; and then, you know, I haven't much English, and I'm not much of a hand at letter-writing anyhow. I couldn't manage the letters."

"Oh, if that's all," returned the other, "I'll write the letters for you willingly enough. Indeed, as I'm an American, it's just possible they may be a trifle more ready to pay attention to them. Yes, and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll write out an account of the killing of the Navajo for Don Andrés, like an affidavit, and he shall sign it, and then we'll have Mr. Backus witness it and put on the post-office stamp. He's a sort of a United States official, and it may help to make them feel more called upon to take notice of it. That'll come as near to being a regular legal document as anything we can scare up out here. I do like to do everything in correct legal style, when I can. I'm all for law and order every time. That's me."

"Ah, Don Estevan," said the elder Mexican, "it is you that have the clear head. I am very much obliged to you. Your plan is the good one."

"Very well, then," answered Stephens, "I'll just run over to the post-office, and get some paper and envelopes and stamps, and draw up those letters; and as Don Andrés had better not go outside the house before the matter is settled, I'll ask Mr. Backus to step around here in the course of an hour, and bring his post-office stamp with him."

He rose from his seat to go towards the door, but Don Nepomuceno hospitably protested. "Wait till you have had your breakfast first, Don Estevan. It is all ready; here is Manuelita bringing it for you;" and as he spoke the girl entered and set the table for him, as Juana had done on the previous day. She smiled at his greeting, but her eyelids were swollen with crying.

At this moment there came a knocking at the outer door, and the master of the house hastened out to see who it was demanding admittance, and was followed by his son.

"He's all right," said Stephens cheerfully to the girl, as he looked into her anxious eyes. "He's safe enough as long as he stays inside here. They'll none bother him while he's protected by these walls. And I've good hopes that we may be able to bring them to a reasonable settlement, so that he can go about again in perfect safety. Don't you fret yourself over it. We'll make these Navajos sing a proper tune before we've done with them." He spoke with the easy confidence of a man accustomed to deal with serious affairs, and conscious of possessing the ability and the experience for handling them successfully. But he was equally astonished and embarrassed when Manuelita, instead of appearing calmed by his reassuring words, flung her hands over her face and burst into a passion of sobs.

CHAPTER XIII

A GIRL'S TEARS

At the girl's outburst Stephens was completely taken aback. Tears, a woman's tears, were a novelty to him, and he felt the quick leap of his heart in response. But it was ten years since he had heard a woman sob, and his practical sympathy, or at least the power of expressing it, had become blunted. He did not know what to say; half a dozen phrases struggled to be born in his throat; he wanted to explain at once to the pretty creature that it was all right; to tell her that there was nothing to cry about; to say there was no use in getting into a fuss over it; that after all a man had to take his chances; and that anyhow the milk wasn't spilt yet; that it would be time enough to begin to cry when something really happened. But he felt the brutal stupidity of such remarks, and they remained unspoken, while there arose in him at the same instant the urgent desire to do something; to take her by the hand like a frightened child; to smooth her ruffled hair and staunch her tears; to console her, and, by some means or other, stay the sobs that shook the slender body. But he had no right to do any such thing, and he hesitated to intrude himself on her grief, which, moreover, appeared to him, like a child's, a trifle exaggerated. To him who had lived so many years on the frontier, a violent death had come to seem almost the natural end. Few pioneers expected to die in their beds. Along the trails and around the mining-camps were many mounds, each one of which marked a six-by-two claim that was the last that the holder would ever occupy, one that he needed no ever-ready Winchester to defend. Nameless graves they were for the most part, or if there slanted at the head some rude board with a name and date roughly scribbled to say who lay beneath, the brief legend that gave all that would ever be known of how he came there repeated with monotonous regularity the tale of misadventure or of wrong. "Shot, stabbed, stripped and mangled by Thugs," "Killed by Indians," "Murdered by road-agents," "Lynched by Vigilantes," "Blown up by dynamite", "Crushed by a fall of rock," "Died of starvation," "Died of thirst," "Died of cold," – these and such as they were the forms of death with which his Odyssey of toils had made him familiar. Small wonder, then, if he who had lived so long face to face with the possibility of such an end, taking the chances of it freely himself, and seeing them taken as freely by others, now felt as if the young man Don Andrés was a trifle overpitied. He was sorry for him himself, he was trying to help him all he knew, and he was ready to turn out and fight for him at any minute, but he could not see why anybody should want to cry about it. And yet here was this startlingly agitating, insistent noise of a girl sobbing beside him that gripped his heart with an emotion he hardly knew the meaning of.

"Don't you fret yourself," he repeated; "we'll see him through, señorita, never fear."

Instinctively he had risen to his feet and was standing by her; and presently she recovered herself and began to speak, though brokenly at first.

"It is very foolish of me, I know, but I cannot help it. It makes me think how my two uncles were killed by the Indians eight years ago up in the mountain. My grandfather found them both lying dead in the trail; the cruel Navajos had shot them both with arrows from an ambush. My poor grandfather was alone, so he could not carry them down; he had to leave them there, while he came back to San Gabriel for help. He cried so much that he grew blind and could hardly find his way to San Gabriel. And then their bodies were brought down here; I was only a child like Altagracia, but I remember it so well, and indeed this was a house of mourning; and now if they kill my brother too, I don't know what I shall do."

Again Stephens felt the odd sense of surprise at the strength of her feelings. Don Andrés was a fine young fellow enough in his way, but why all this display of emotion because he was now to run rather more risk than usual? Dimly he became conscious that her trouble was due to family affection, and that he himself had forgotten what it was like. His mind fled back to his boyhood, when he and a brother and sister, from whom he had now been long parted, used to play together; memories of that early fondness came back with a curious vividness. A hard crust had formed over the gentler side of his nature during the years of isolation and severance from those natural ties; it seemed ready now to dissolve in a moment at a few tears shed by a girl for a brother's peril. Habituated as he was to hold himself firmly in hand, he was half angry with himself for minding anything so much as he minded her sobs.

"Why, how fond you must be of him!" he remarked crudely; and without his intending it, his secret surprise showed itself in his tone.

"But he is my brother," she returned, and her wet eyes met his half indignantly; "don't you understand that I must care for him very much indeed?"

"Surely yes," he rejoined. "Of course I understand that"; but in his heart came a denial that he did really understand it, or had any right to understand it. "If I had been clubbed to death for witchcraft in the ditch yesterday by those Santiago idiots," he thought, "not one human soul would have cared like this about me." Yes; it was quite true. There was no one now who cared for him in this way, with this warmth of feeling, and there was no one for whom he cared or could care. Thence came a new sense of something lacking in his life; even supposing that all his hopes deferred were to be realised at last, supposing that to-morrow, for instance, he became master of a mine worth a million, who would rejoice? No one, unless it were Rocky, his old pard, who really wasn't a bad-hearted sort of fellow, though he could play the fool at times to such exasperating effect. But now he felt a sudden vacancy in his heart; the need of a comradeship that should be entire, absolute, and inalienable.

"And have you no family, Don Estevan?" she asked; "no brother or sister?"

"Yes," he answered, "I have both, but I haven't seen them in ten years. They are married and settled down away back there in the States; they must have half forgotten me by this time; I was no more than a boy when I started for the West, and I've never been back." And at the recollection his lips parted, and his breast heaved gently. An involuntary sigh escaped him before he knew what it was. The sighing mood had not been much in his line. Manuelita looked at him with a question in her eyes.

"But you love them still?" she said.

"Well, yes," he replied, "I suppose I do, if it comes to that. But it is a long time since I saw them, and much water has run under the bridges between then and now."

"Have the Americans no feelings?" she said; "perhaps it is a good thing for some people to have the heart hard."

"Oh, I guess we've got our feelings right enough," he replied, with an uneasy smile, "but it isn't our way to say much about them; at least, with us, the men don't like to show them. As for the American women, I think they show theirs freely enough; but upon my word it is so long since I have seen any of them that I hardly know. No, señorita, our hearts are not hard."

At this moment, Don Nepomuceno entered, bringing with him one of the three Mexicans who had been sitting with him outside. "Here is my brother-in-law, Don Estevan," he began, "who says that he will gladly let me have the pony that ate poison-weed. He says, too, that the Navajos have gone over to the store, and that he suspects the Texan will sell them whiskey. It is very wrong of him, for whiskey makes them very dangerous."

"It's dead against the law," said Stephens bluntly.

"I know," rejoined the other, "but it is not easy to prove it. But you have eaten no breakfast, my friend. Sit down and have your meal." At the entrance of her father, Manuelita had retired to the kitchen, leaving the sitting-room to the men.

"Thank you," answered Stephens, "I will, then, by your leave"; and he sat down and helped himself, while he continued to discuss with the others the conduct of Mr. Backus and the chances of coming to an arrangement with Mahletonkwa. The conversation went on after he had finished his meal, when the sudden sharp report of a rifle-shot was heard not far away. All stopped and listened; a minute or two later it was followed by a second, and then at pretty regular intervals by a number of others.

"It sounds like somebody practising at a mark," said the American; "do you suppose it's Mr. Backus?" He had risen to his feet and stood intent.

"Who knows?" said his host. "For my part I know not much about this Texan. It may be so; they are unaccountable people." To throw away powder and bullets on practice seemed to him a piece of wanton extravagance.

Stephens caught up his rifle into the hollow of his arm. "I think," said he, "I'll just step across and get that paper and envelopes, and I'll be able to see what they're up to over there as well." The Mexicans accompanied him to the big door, which was carefully unbarred to allow of his departure.

The occasional shots continued as the American walked down towards the stage station, and he presently discerned Mr. Backus and the Navajos in a group behind the store. He went up and joined them. They had set up an empty box against a blank wall, and fastened a piece of white cardboard against it with a nail through the centre, and several black circles in different parts of the cardboard showed where bullets had struck. The Indians were laughing and chaffing one another freely about their shooting; their manner had noticeably altered from the moody and sullen attitude they had exhibited at the pow-wow.

Mahletonkwa came close up to Stephens excitedly.

"Now, then, Don Americano, let's see you take a shot."

Stephens smelt him; there was whiskey in his breath. "Not at present, thank you," said he shortly. "Mr. Backus," and he turned abruptly on the storekeeper, "this Indian has had something to drink. I presume you know it is against the law."

"Well, if he has nobody knows where he got it," said the storekeeper defiantly, "nor nobody need know."

He knew very well himself that there were now two beautiful Navajo blankets rolled up in his store which had not been there an hour ago; also that his stock was diminished to the extent of two bottles of whiskey. The whiskey stood him in exactly one dollar. The pair of Navajo blankets were cheap at ten. Nine hundred per cent. profit was good enough business for any man.

It was a good enough profit, at all events, to tempt Mr. Backus; and it needed to be a good one, for he was not ignorant of the risk that he ran. To give, trade, or sell spirituous liquor to an Indian is a penitentiary offence in the United States. The law is a wise one, and, what is more, is approved by popular feeling. A drunken Indian is about as pleasant to meet with as a mad wolf; he is possessed by a demon that prompts him to fly at the throat of any white man, woman, or child he comes across; and an Indian who has tasted liquor will go any length till he has obtained enough of it to throw him into this horrible frenzy, if he can by any means procure it. Trading whiskey to an Indian is like playing with a tiger. Up to a certain point it is pleasantly exciting. Go one step beyond it and his fangs are in your jugular. Mr. Backus was not a novice at the game; he had been there before. For nine hundred per cent. he would let them have just enough to whet their appetites. Two bottles of whiskey to eleven Indians was about the right dose; while half a dozen would send them crazy, he knew.

"I'm just letting them have a few shots at the mark with my rifle," he continued. "It tickles them to death to shoot with a breech-loader; they aint hardly got any themselves, and it's mighty well worth my while to keep in with them." He winked deliberately. "I've been talking with them, and they know all about this mine upon the Cerro de las Viboras, just as well as those stingy Santiago folks. I believe I'll get 'em to show it me. I tell you I understand Indians, I'm an old hand at dealing with them"; he gave a self-satisfied chuckle.

"I should say that last statement of yours was highly probable," returned the prospector. "Personally, I should have said that with this unsettled difficulty on hand with Don Nepomuceno the very worst thing possible was to let them have any drink, and the next worst was to encourage them to go letting off a gun like this right close to where he lives."

"And why the deuce should I be so cursedly particular about the Don?" replied the storekeeper; "he's an uncommon close-fisted old hunks, if it comes to that; he does most of his trading in Santa Fé anyway, and don't encourage local talent. And I'll warrant you he's got a thumping big hoard of silver dollars buried under the floor somewhere in that old casa of his. I don't see why he shouldn't pay a decent compensation to this Mahletonkwa here." The chance of some of those silver dollars passing from Mahletonkwa's hands over his counter had considerably quickened Mr. Backus's sense of "justice for the poor Indian" in this matter. Also he had had a couple of drinks as well as Mahletonkwa, and they had loosened his tongue a little.

"Well, sir," replied Stephens, "I don't propose to argue the matter with you here, but if you can afford to leave those precious customers of yours I should like to have you come into the store and supply me with some paper and envelopes."

He hated to have to ask this man for anything, but he must procure these things, and there was no other house in San Remo where he could get them. There would not be time before the mail passed to return to the pueblo and get them from his own stock.

At this moment Mahletonkwa fired again with Backus's rifle, and a triumphant exclamation followed the shot. The Indians ran to the target, pointing with pride to a bullet-hole within half an inch of the central nail. Mahletonkwa swaggered up to the American. "Now, you shoot," he exclaimed familiarly, "and show us what you can do."

Stephens had not intended to do anything of the sort. He thought the Indian's familiarity, due to the couple of drinks he had taken, most offensive, and he had meant to leave them to their sport with the least possible delay; but there was something irritating about his swagger that put the American on his mettle. He swung himself half round and took a good look at the target, which stood there in a strong light, beautifully distinct, at some five-and-twenty paces distance.

Up came the rifle to his shoulder; for one instant it remained there, poised level, as he glanced down the sights and got a bead on the centre; "bang!" came the report, and down fell the piece of cardboard. He had driven up the nail.

The Navajos dashed in eagerly to pick up the paper, and were loud in their expression of wonder and admiration. But Mahletonkwa's eyes were still fixed on the Winchester; he came forward and touched it lightly with his hand, and turned with a loud laugh to the others who came crowding round them. Mahletonkwa told them a story in the Navajo language which produced roars of laughter from them all, and Stephens's curiosity was excited.

"What's the joke, Mahletonkwa?" said he. "Why can't you tell it in Spanish so the rest of us may have a chance to join in the fun?" The drinks had made the Indian reckless, and he needed but little urging to repeat the story.

"Once there was a man out in the mountains over yonder," said he, pointing to the west, "and he had a 'heap-shoot' gun like this."

"What sort of a man do you mean?" asked Stephens; "an American?"

The Indian looked at him with eyes that were both bold and cunning. "I didn't ask him," said he; "he was just a man."

"I'll bet he was a lone American prospector," returned Stephens.

The Navajo laughed, and there was insolence in his laugh. "He was alone," he continued, "and the people there got after him – "

"What people do you mean?" asked Stephens; "the Navajos?"

The Indian laughed the same laugh as before.

"Oh, leave him finish," interjected Backus in English. "You can bet he means Navajos. Probably he was there himself."

"The people got after him," repeated the redskin, "and he fired away at them a long time with his 'heap-shoot' gun; but he couldn't do them any harm." An insolent chuckle accompanied this last remark.

"Couldn't he!" rejoined Stephens. "If he was an American prospector, and there's no other sort of man ever went there with a Winchester, I'll bet he laid some of them out."

"And then," continued Mahletonkwa, "one of the people shot him with a common rifle here across the face," he drew his hand across his forehead, "and the blood ran into his eyes and he couldn't see, and the blow of the bullet made him stupid, and then the people went up to him and he was a prisoner. And they took his gun and looked at it with much awe, for they had never seen a 'heap-shoot' gun before. But they did not understand how to make it work. So they gave him some water, and wiped the blood from his face so that he could see, and they asked him to show them the secret of the 'heap-shoot' gun. And he was very happy then, and thought that they were going to make friends with him, so he told them how to work the gun, and showed them how to load it and unload it. And then, when they had found out all they wanted to know about it, one of them took the 'heap-shoot' gun and loaded it just as the Amer – the man had shown them how to do, and pointed it at him and pulled the trigger, and it killed him quite dead." He exploded again in a great roar of laughter, and the rest of the party roared in chorus with equal mirth.

Stephens flushed a dark red, and swore under his breath. "They were a d – d treacherous, sneaking lot of coyotes, that's what they were," he said defiantly to Mahletonkwa, who only laughed the more. "A pretty lot of friends you seem to have been making, Mr. Backus. I wish you joy of them."

The latter looked rather uncomfortable. "It was a low-down, dirty mean trick to play," he said, starting to go towards the store, "but Mahletonkwa aint said as he had any hand in it himself."