Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

"I love this valley," repeated the cacique; "just down there is where, with one companion, I killed seven Navajos." He pointed with the hand that held the cigarette to the lower end of the park.

"You killed seven Navajos!" said Stephens, looking at him with surprise. "When was that? How did you manage it?"

"It was in the time of the war," answered the other proudly. "The Navajos used to hide here in the mountains all the time, and fall upon our people when we were at work in our lands. We could not stir outside the pueblo then without arms for fear of being waylaid by the rascals. And our scouts used to come up here in the mountains, too, and watch along the trails to see if any of the Navajos were prowling about, and give the alarm. Once I came up here on scout with another man of Santiago; and we hid and lay all night in that hill," he pointed to a rocky summit shaggy with pines that rose hard by. "And we struck the tracks of seven Navajos who were prowling about here to wait for their chance to make a descent upon our people in their fields. And for days we lay up there and watched them, and they never knew it, for we kept very still. And the third day we saw them making a sweat-house, and we knew they were going to have a bath. They built their house down there in the brush by the creek, and they covered it with willow twigs and sods to keep in the steam, and they made a fire and heated the stones red-hot, and carried them into the house and poured on water. And six of them left their arms outside with their clothes, and went into the bath, and the seventh covered the door with a blanket to keep in the hot steam. And my comrade and I crawled up on them through the brush very quickly, and making no noise, while the seventh Indian held the blanket over the door. And there I shot him with my gun," – he threw up his rifle to his shoulder, and took aim at an imaginary Navajo as he spoke, his face glowing with pride and excitement over the recollection, – "and there he fell down dead. And we leaped forward, for we had stolen up very close behind his back, and the six Navajos inside came scrambling out of the sweat-house one after another, and we cracked their skulls, so, with our tomahawks, crack, crack, crack," – he made an expressive pantomime of dealing heavy blows on a stooping foe, – "and we killed them all, every one. There was no chance for them; they could not escape. And we took their scalps and the plunder, and brought them home. It was a great triumph. Yes, I do love this valley."

"I don't doubt it," said the American; "you must have been very much pleased with yourselves. You scored there."

"Oh, we always scored against the Navajos," returned the other, "whenever we had fair play. The only way they ever could best us was by sneaking round like wolves and catching some of our men at work and off their guard; but fighting man to man we were far the better warriors. We always beat them then, as I did right here. Yes, I love this place. But come, Sooshiuamo, it is time for us to be moving again."

Forwards, forwards ever, through the shadow of the pine woods, over the silent carpet of brown fir-needles, where the sudden squirrel chattered and barked his alarm ere he rushed to the safety of his tree-top, over open grassy meadows and along willow-fringed streams where the mountain trout leaped and darted in the eddies. It was indeed a lovely land, rich in timber, rich in pasture, rich, too, as Stephens knew, in gold and silver, perhaps even in diamonds – who could tell? What tragedies, though, of torturer and tortured it had seen in the past, – ay, and was likely to see again; nay, what hideous things might not that unhappy girl be enduring now somewhere in its wild recesses! That thought never left Stephens for a single moment. The high, park-like country up here was much more open now that the trail had left the rugged defiles that led up into it. He urged his mare forward alongside the cacique's horse.

"When we catch up with the Navajos, Cacique," said Stephens, "what is your plan?"

"Ah," answered the cacique, "we must try the best way we can. If we can catch them off their guard we will fight them perhaps, and give it them hot. But if they are in a strong place like the Lava Beds ahead of us where we cannot get at them, we must try and make terms with them. But it will not be easy to catch them at a disadvantage and fight them; so very likely Don Nepomuceno will be glad to make terms. If he pays them well and gets his daughter back, it will be the best thing we can do."

There was a certain businesslike air of familiarity with the whole matter apparent in the cacique that struck Stephens. Evidently the carrying off of Manuelita belonged to a class of incidents that were by no means unusual according to his experience. As the prospector rode along pondering this fact, he reflected that Salvador was a man now about forty years of age, and that for thirty-five out of those forty years his people and the Navajos had been deadly enemies. It was only the recent conquest of the latter by the Americans that had put them on the novel footing of peace. Mutual slaughter and the carrying off of women had been the normal condition of things during the greater part of his life.

"I gather from what you say about ransom," said the American after a short silence, "that you think the Navajoes would be willing to restore the señorita if they were paid. But do you think Don Nepomuceno and Don Andrés will be content to recover her like that? Will not the Navajos be certain to have treated her shamefully, and will her father and her brother be content to get her back without taking vengeance? Will they be content before they have shed blood for her wrongs?"

It jarred upon all his instincts of race feeling to even approach the subject of Manuelita's wrongs to this Indian. The Navajoes and Pueblos might be mutually hostile, and the Pueblo cacique for the present was his friend, but he was an Indian after all, a member of the race to which belonged those Sioux and Cheyennes whose dreadful deeds were burned in upon the American's brain. Ill-treatment of women captives makes an unbridgeable division between race and race. It constitutes

" – the inexpiable wrong, the unutterable shame,

That turns the coward's heart to steel, the sluggard's blood to flame."

Nevertheless, so great was his anxiety on the subject that he had broken through the reserve natural to him in this matter.

Before answering, the cacique threw a look of pity at him. It was neither pity for her lot, nor for his state of anxious suspense concerning it. It was the contemptuous pity of superior knowledge for the uninstructed person who did not understand Navajos and their ways.

"She's all right," said he; "the Navajos won't do her any harm unless they are driven to kill her."

"You don't mean to tell me that's true?" cried Stephens eagerly. "I can't understand how it can be. I know some things about the plains Indians, and I know no woman is spared by them for one hour after she becomes a captive. Do you mean to say that the Navajos are different from all other Indians?"

The cacique laughed with conscious superiority.

"Of course they are different," he answered, "and they always have been. Didn't I say before that they are very foolish, ignorant people? And it is quite true that they are afraid to use violence to captive women, and I will tell you why. It is all because of a foolish religion of their own that they have. You know they are mere heathens; they don't know anything about heaven and purgatory and the rest of it, about all the things the padre tells when he comes to see us. They have foolish stories which they believe, and which the devil has taught them."

Stephens could not help interrupting him. "But how about that turkey-feather business of your own," he asked, "and your sacred snakes?"

The cacique looked shocked. "Oh, those are our own Santiago mysteries," he said seriously; "we believe what the padre tells us, but we have our own Shiuana – the spirits – to deal with as well, and we have our own way of doing it. That is right for us. But these Navajos have most foolish ideas about the next world. You know they think when they die they will go to another place?"

"Oh, yes," said the American, "the happy hunting-grounds."

"That's not the name they give it," said the cacique, "but all the same it's a place they want to go to very much, where they can keep plenty of sheep and horses upon grass richer than the grass of the Chusca Mountains. But they think, silly fools, that before they can get to this good place they have to cross a dreadful dark river that it is very hard to get over. If they can't get over they think that they must wander about for ever in cold and dark and misery. And they think that there is in the next world a wonderful old woman, whom they call Whailahay, and she lives there and knows all the fords of this river, and without her help no one can get over it. So they all want to please her very much. But, you see, Whailahay is a woman, and is very angry if women are ill-treated, at least so they think; and then, if they haven't let the women on earth have their own way in everything, and do just what they please, Whailahay is very cross with the men, and she won't help them to get across the dreadful dark river to the good place when they die, but leaves them to starve for ever, wandering about shivering and wretched. It is a most foolish story, and the result is that the Navajos spoil their women entirely. They dare not lay a hand on them to keep them in proper order"; he looked full in Stephens's eyes as he said this, and Stephens looked in his eyes, and each knew the other was thinking of the beating of Josefa.

"No, they dare not touch them in any way against their will," continued the cacique, "and the women are masters of the men, and all in consequence of a foolish story about an old witch. Don't you think it is a foolish story, Sooshiuamo?"

Stephens's heart bounded with exultation, and he felt as if a heavy load were lifted from his breast.

"Foolish!" he cried, turning in his saddle with a triumphant laugh of joy, "why, Cacique, don't you see, if that's so she'll be safe. Foolish! I think it's the very best story I ever heard in my life. Bully for old Madam Whailahay!"

CHAPTER XVIII

HUNTING A TRAIL

On they went, on and on, till beneath the rugged peak of the Cerro de las Viboras they saw before them a glorious open valley of a thousand acres, facing the southern sun, and green with young grass.

"This is the Valle Lindito," said the cacique, "and there is our horse herd." A band of two or three hundred horses and mares were grazing peacefully in the valley. It was early yet for foals, but a few here and there were visible, frisking and capering round their dams.

An Indian stallion nickered proudly at the sight of the strangers, and trotted towards them, high and disposedly, tossing his crest and holding his head aloft; at the sight of him Morgana whinnied back, and lo! from a patch of willow brush leaped forth an Indian youth who was on watch; bareback he came full speed on a flying pony and whirled a lasso round and round, and chivied the guardian of the herd back to his mates. Then he rode up to the four and greeted them, and rapid question and answer ensued. The youth was young Ignacio, son to Josefa's elderly would-be bridegroom. No, they had seen no Navajos, nor any tracks of any. Nothing had troubled the herd except that the mountain lions had killed a foal. The travelling Mexican sheep herds were wandering hither and thither through the mountains, as usual, seeking their appointed stations for the lambing month ere it began. The Jicarilla Apaches had been through not long before and had killed some cattle of the Mexicans – the Indian laughed as he recounted this – and the Mexicans were very angry, but could not catch them. He hinted that Mexican beef tasted sweet, and laughed still more, but the cacique frowned. He did not love the Mexicans – far from it – but his policy was to keep on good terms with them. He repeated his questions about the Navajos.

The rest of the Indian herders came up, and now came news. Yes, they had seen tracks of a travelling party which they supposed to be Indians. Eleven ponies there were altogether, going north-westward from the Mesa del Verendo. No, they had seen no one to speak of, and they had seen no tracks of any party of Mexicans in pursuit. They were astonished when they heard the tale of the abduction of Manuelita, but they had heard of the killing of the Navajo by Don Andrés from the shepherds of a flock of the Preas, which they had met in the Valle Cajon. As for the tracks they had seen that morning, they might be those of Mahletonkwa and his band, or they might have been made by some other Navajos or by Jicarillas. "Quien sabe?" But they told the cacique exactly where he would find them next day and then he could judge for himself.

Three fresh horses were now selected and caught. The cacique's horse and Stephens's mule were now turned loose in the Indian herd, where the mule brayed frantically for his beloved Morgana. A hasty meal was eaten, and with young Ignacio added to their party they set forward once more into the wilderness.

Ere the sun was an hour high next morning the cacique and Miguel and young Ignacio were critically examining the eleven ponies' tracks, and trying to make out whether they were those of Mahletonkwa's band or no.

"Almost certainly, yes," was the verdict, and they followed at once hotly on the trail. The fact that they were exactly eleven in number made the probability very great, and the absence of any other later tracks made it certain that if they had really hit it off they must have cut the trail in front of the Mexicans.

The cacique crowed triumphantly.

"Did I not tell you, Sooshiuamo, that the Navajos would throw the Mexicans off the scent on the Mesa del Verendo. You may be very sure that is what has happened. They all scattered out there on the hard ground, and then they turned their course from west to north, and then met again by agreement miles away, and not on the mesa at all, but down below here. The Mexicans will have wasted half the day yesterday in trying to follow their tracks on the Mesa del Verendo, and I expect they are at it yet; while we, you see, who started hours after them, have cut the trail far ahead. Did I not tell you we were great trailers, Sooshiuamo?"

Sooshiuamo could not help thinking that the success of which the cacique was so proud was a good deal due to the information that had been given them, but he wisely did not say so. And at any rate the cacique was entitled to the credit of having guessed rightly the route Mahletonkwa would take, and having steered on his own authority a judicious course to intercept it. They had left the high upland pastures now, and the sierra lay behind them; they were heading into a rolling country of dry grama grass and cedar- and piñon-trees, a warmer country than the mountains, but not so well watered. Away to the south-west was visible a lofty conical peak standing by itself; it was an extinct volcano. Presently the trail of the eleven ponies turned towards the conical peak.

"I knew it," cried the cacique triumphantly again, "I knew how it would be. The Lava Beds are yonder, and the Navajos are going for them; they have been making a big circuit to throw the Mexicans off the track, but now they have turned for the Beds again. They meant to go there all along. Oh, didn't I know it? Eh, Sooshiuamo?"

Sooshiuamo readily admitted the accuracy with which the Pueblo had grasped the intentions of the Navajos, and praised his skill. Presently they came to a place where the party they were pursuing had halted for a rest and a meal, and here the question as to who they were was decided beyond all doubt. Among the many moccasin-tracks which ran all about the little fire they had made, the keen eyes of the Indians detected the print of a shoe with a heel, the small, dainty shoe of a civilised woman.

"Look," said Miguel, who found it first, pointing it out to Stephens, who, keen-sighted though he was, barely distinguished it in the dry, sandy soil, "there is the foot of the señorita. Look how she is tired and stiff with riding, and walks with little steps. And here is where she lay down on a blanket to rest. Oh, she will be very tired."

Literally, these Indians seemed able to tell every single thing she had done in that camp during the half-hour or hour that had probably been spent there. It was a camp made late in the afternoon of the day before, so they settled. "Just when we were at the horse herd in the Valle Lindito," said the cacique, who seemed to read the signs left by the different members of the band and by their horses with as much ease and confidence as Stephens would have shown in gathering the meaning of a page of a printed book by glancing his eyes over the hundreds of little black crooked marks on the page, known to civilised beings as letters. But in the art of reading signs the cacique was a past master, where Stephens, to follow up the simile, had but just mastered the alphabet and was struggling with words of one syllable.

Forward once more on the trail, with the increased ardour given by the certainty that now there could be no mistake. As they drew near the Lava Beds, and the shades of evening began to fall, the cacique grew anxious.

"The Tinné," – Tinné was the Navajos' own name for themselves, and the cacique now began to use it regularly in speaking of them, feeling himself, as it were, on their ground, – "the Tinné," he said, "are sure to keep a close watch on the edge of the Beds where their trail goes in, so as to see who is following them. Let us turn off their trail here and go aside; there is a spring at the edge of the Beds a little north of here; we will camp there for the night, we can do nothing in the Beds in the dark; also if the Mexicans have found the trail again, as they ought to have done by this time, they may follow it part of the night by moonlight and be able to overtake us here. It would be well to have them here before we go into the Beds. Don't you think so, Sooshiuamo?"

Stephens had to agree. It grated on him terribly to leave Manuelita for a second night in the hands of Mahletonkwa and his band, but it was more than doubtful whether they could possibly find where they had her concealed in the gathering darkness, and there was a good chance of being in a better position to deal with the matter in the morning.

It was already night when the cacique skilfully and cautiously led them to the little spring he knew of near the Beds; they watered their horses here, and drank, too, themselves, and camped under a cedar bush not far away, without a fire lest the light should betray them. They chewed their tough, dried meat, and ate a little parched corn, and kept watch by turns in the moonlight over their horses during the first half of the night. But nothing disturbed them, and Faro gave no sign of suspecting an enemy at hand when Stephens scouted round with him before moonset, and after that they slept securely.

He was awakened after dawn by the cacique. Miguel had already scouted some way on their back trail; there was no sign of the Mexicans coming up; and the cacique now made a somewhat alarming suggestion. Suppose that the Mexicans had not lost the trail on the Mesa del Verendo, as he had conjectured, but had caught the Tinné there and been unlucky enough to be beaten off by them in a fight. It was a contingency that had not occurred to Stephens before, and redoubled his anxiety.

The cacique, as usual, had a plan. He declined, with their small party, to follow the Navajos' trail straight into the Lava Beds. They would be sure to walk into a trap, and if there had been a fight, and the Tinné blood was up, they would be shot down mercilessly from an ambush. He felt sure the Navajos had established themselves on a little oasis there was in the middle of the Beds, where there was grass for their horses; and he proposed to enter the Beds more to the north, where he knew of a practicable place for horses to go in, and so work round to the oasis on the farther side.

This seemed so reasonable that Stephens saw nothing for it but to accede, and accordingly, after watering their stock, they at once proceeded to put it in action.

The Lava Beds were an awful country for horses. From the old volcano an immense mass of lava had flowed over all this part of the country, like a broad river, twenty or thirty feet deep and miles in width. It was a mass of perfectly naked rock, and was incredibly cracked and fissured. The change to it from the open country was instant and abrupt. You could gallop over rolling pasture-lands right to the edge of the Beds, where you must dismount and advance on foot, stepping warily from rock to rock, and choosing carefully a route that it was possible for a sure-footed horse to pick his way over.

After a tedious and toilsome progress of this sort, they came at last to a little opening, a sort of island, as it were, in the lava flow, only that it was lower, most of it, than the actual surface of the flow. Here was a patch of grass, and the cacique suggested that Stephens should remain here with the horses while he and his young men scouted on foot in the direction of the larger opening, or oasis, where he suspected that the Navajos had established themselves.

Stephens was very unwilling to stay behind, but he had to admit that the scouts would probably get on better without him. Accordingly he consented, and stretched himself on his blanket on the ground, holding the end of the mare's lariat in his hand, while the Indians, drawing their belts tighter and grasping their guns, started off in the new direction indicated by the cacique.

Long he lay there waiting; an eagle-hawk, attracted by the sight of the horses, swung lazily through the blue sky overhead, and seeing nothing there to interest him sailed off majestically to a richer hunting-ground beyond the barren lava flow. Many thoughts coursed through the mind of the impatient man. He was disappointed that the Mexicans had not come up, and he was impressed by the intense watchfulness and seriousness of the cacique. The Pueblo chief clearly felt himself now in enemies' country, and knew that they were face to face with the chances of a desperate struggle. Any mistake now might land them instantly in a fight, with the odds more than two to one against them; to say nothing of the additional peril this would bring upon Manuelita. Yet something must be done for her, and that without delay. Stephens could not endure the thought of leaving her another day and night in the power of those savages. He had been partly reassured by the cacique's account of the superstitious influence of Whailahay in protecting women, but still – the possibilities that presented themselves to his mind were too awful. No, come what would, whether the Mexican party arrived in time or not, when he found the Navajos something should be done. And then his eye lit on the figure of the cacique bounding from block to block of the Lava Beds, and coming towards him with manifest excitement in his air.

The Navajos were found.

"We've caught up with them at last," said the Pueblo chief in an excited half-whisper. "All the Tinné are camped in a hollow just beyond there," and he pointed eagerly to a rise in the lava bed that bounded their view to the immediate front.

"And the girl?" queried the American hoarsely. "Is she there too? Have any of you seen her?"

"Oh, she's sure to be there," said the cacique. "She can't fail to be there. No, we didn't any of us positively set eyes on her, but Miguel, who got into the best position to spy on them, was able to count their horses; the whole lot of them, all the eleven, are there in the 'abra,' – the opening or oasis in the Lava Beds, – so of course she must be there."

"True," answered Stephens somewhat doubtfully. "That is, I suppose, you argue that if the horses are there she must be so, too; because if they had taken her elsewhere they'd have had to take a horse to carry her. But," he added, "as Miguel even didn't actually see her, might she not perhaps have escaped on foot?"

The Indian gave a smothered laugh of derision. "She escape?" he said; "escape from the Tinné! Never. No captive ever escapes. Too well watched."

Miguel himself, with Alejandro and young Ignacio, now came up and joined them, and Stephens closely examined them as to what they had seen. They confirmed unanimously the conclusions that the cacique had arrived at. Manuelita was certainly there. Whether the Navajos were aware of their presence or not, was, however, uncertain. All they could say was that they had been most careful not to give the Tinné a chance by exposing themselves to view, and that therefore the probability was that they were still in ignorance. But they might have spotted the Pueblos in spite of all their care, and be simply lying low in order to entrap them.