Lone Pine: The Story of a Lost Mine

Poor Felipe! The first time that it is brought home to us that the scheme of events has not been arranged for our personal satisfaction, nay, that it may involve our extreme personal misery, is a hard trial – too hard sometimes for a philosopher; how much more so for a poor, untaught Indian boy.

"Cruel, savage, barbarous," he groaned, as he thought of the blows that had rained down upon the shrinking form of his sweetheart. "Poor little thing! Poor little Josefa! I can do nothing for you now; I had best go and drown myself – there is nothing left to live for."

He got up and walked deliberately towards the river.

But before he reached the brink he had had time to reflect. "Nothing left to live for?" he thought. "Yes, there is. I could kill Salvador first. I could get my father's gun and do it. I don't care if they do hang me afterwards."

He knelt down on the river-bank, and bending his head over the water he dipped his left hand in, and by a quick throwing movement of the wrist tossed a continuous stream of water into his mouth in the wonderful Indian fashion which gives quite the effect of a dog lapping. As he quenched his burning thirst, and felt the cool, refreshing dash of the water against his face, his spirit rose.

"I'll go straight back," he said to himself, with a dangerous expression on his set face. "I don't need any rest. I'll be there before the sun's much past noon, and he'll be dead before night."

He washed the blood from his right arm and examined the wound. The bullet had struck him between the elbow and shoulder and had passed out again without touching the bone. The second shot had missed him. He tore some strips from his shirt, and bound it up as well as he could with his left hand aided by his teeth.

He drew his belt tighter to keep off hunger, and drank again before facing the long leagues of waterless desert between him and Santiago. He looked at the rolling river and at the farther shore where he had so longed to be. "Rio maldito!" he cried. "Accursed stream, what happiness you have robbed me of! what misery you have wrought us! Why could you not wait only one day longer?" He turned away, set his face towards the pueblo, and began his weary journey.

He soon found the weight of his arm grow more and more painful as his pulse beat faster with movement, and he had to carry it across his body, supporting it with the other. But he pushed on with a steady, untiring gait, showing the marvellous power of his race to bear pain and fatigue and hunger and thirst. On all the Western frontier there is no white man that is not proud to be credited with "Indian endurance."

Curiously enough, he felt no fear. The cacique's threat to kill him did not affect his purpose in the slightest. He had recoiled from instant death when the pistol cracked in his face, but that was only instinctive, defenceless as he was against a man with firearms. He felt no shame at having done so. It did not seem to him cowardly to avoid being killed if he could. But he did not flinch for a moment when he thought of returning to the pueblo. No doubt Salvador would try to carry out his threat. "Well," thought he, "I must be beforehand with him. If I can't hold my father's gun with this sore arm, I must get Tito's pistol; Tito is my friend; he will not be afraid to let me have it."

The sun rose high in the heavens and beat down upon him as he toiled along, parching him with thirst. He was travelling the same trail back to Santiago that he had traversed the night before. The tracks of the horses going and returning were plainly visible. But what a change for him! A few hours before he had ridden that way feeling every inch a man, with his sweetheart in his arms and the happiness of a lifetime within his grasp; and now – As the thought stung him he pulled himself together and forced his weary feet to carry him on faster.

But anger had made him overestimate his own powers, in declaring that he would be back, and the cacique dead, before night. His strength gave out, and he had to lie down time and again to recover force enough to go on at all. Night overtook him, and he was compelled to stop and light a fire under the lee of a cedar bush, and rest himself in the warmth of it till dawn. Then he set forward, once more, slowly and stiffly, but ever pressing onwards, with his face turned towards the village that was his home, the village where his sweetheart must now be lying at the mercy of her pitiless father. What might not he have done to her ere this! That torturing thought goaded him to renewed efforts.

When he reached the edge of the mesa he was crossing, he looked down into the sandy valley that separated him from the next one; and there right below him, coming at brisk pace, was a mounted Indian. He instantly crouched down to watch if the new-comer were friend or foe; but in a minute he sprang from his concealment. It was Tito, – Tito on the mule of the American.

With a joyful cry he ran to meet him. Tito knew him and shouted back in welcome. "Why, Felipe!" he cried, "I was looking for your body, and here you are alive. Jump up and I'll take you right back. But you're wounded," he added, seeing his arm bound up. "Is it bad? Let me help you up," and he jumped off to help his friend to mount to the saddle.

"Salvador gave me a shot," answered Felipe as he got on with Tito's help; "but it's not very bad."

Tito turned the mule's head round towards Santiago, and jumping on behind struck out for home. The tough little mule made light of the double burden, and rejoicing in the prospect of going back to his beloved mare set off briskly.

"Now tell me all about it," said Tito eagerly.

"Tell me first," answered Felipe, "where is Salvador? What has he done with Josefa?"

"Salvador is made prisoner by the Americano," replied Tito, "for killing you. They think you're dead over there, and they've given Josefa to Sooshiuamo, hoping to keep him from taking the cacique to Santa Fé. He asked for her." Felipe's heart gave a sudden bound. He knew of course that there were white men in many of the Indian tribes with half-breed families, but he had never thought of Don Estevan as that sort of man.

"Valgame Dios!" he cried. "What does he want her for?"

"Who knows?" replied Tito guardedly. "Perhaps he wants someone to cook for him and to take care of the house when he is away. It was he that stopped the cacique from beating her."

"Valgame Dios!" said Felipe again. He hardly heard the rest of Tito's story. He was filled with new fears. Was everyone against him? Was the Americano, of all men in the world, to be the one to supplant him? He remained silent a while, but his suspicions were too strong to be entirely concealed.

"How did he ask for her?" he inquired. "Tell me, Tito."

"He said the pueblo had agreed to give him anything he wanted for blasting the rock," answered Tito; "and he said that he wanted her. So Salvador gave her to him. They all told Salvador to do it, for they thought then he wouldn't take him to Santa Fé. They all agreed to it. Sooshiuamo has put her with Reyna. She's there now."

"Tito," said Felipe very earnestly, "will you lend me your pistol?"

"What for?" said Tito.

Felipe hesitated. Two conflicting plans of vengeance were struggling within him. Then he answered, "The cacique said he'd kill me if I came back. If he has a pistol, I ought to have one. It wasn't fair there by the river."

"Nonsense," said Tito; "he's not going to kill you. Didn't Sooshiuamo make him a prisoner because he thought he had? Why, he was going to take him to Santa Fé to be hanged for it. The cacique was frightened, I can tell you. He won't touch you now, Felipe. Sooshiuamo won't let him."

"Oh, I'm sick of hearing of Sooshiuamo," broke in Felipe impatiently. "Why won't you lend it to me, Tito? You used to."

"That was to go after wild cows," said Tito. "Now I don't know what you want."

"I want to defend myself," said Felipe in a hurt tone.

"But there's no need to," said Tito. "Never mind what Salvador said. He was angry then. He is frightened now. Don't you mind him. It'll be all right. I'm taking you straight back to Sooshiuamo, just as he told me. He'll manage it."

It was easy to see who was Tito's hero now.

They came to the edge of the last mesa and looked down upon the Santiago Valley. Tito jumped off to ease the mule, who cleverly picked his way down the steep, rocky escarpment. At the bottom he sprang on again, and they cantered in the last league over the lowlands.

Felipe resigned himself to fate. "If he wrongs her, I'll have his heart's blood," he thought, but the imaginary "he" was not the cacique.

They reached the corrals, and they heard the cry raised of "Tito's coming! Tito's here!" They pushed on through the crowd to the American's house, and Tito, proud of his success, sprang off before the door.

"See, Sooshiuamo, I have brought him," he shouted out joyfully, thinking he was there, as he aided his friend to dismount. "Here's Felipe. He's not dead, but he has a bullet wound."

He pulled the latch-string, but the door refused to open. It was locked.

"I reckon you must shout a bit louder if you want Mr. Sooshiuamo, as you fellers call him," remarked a man who lounged against the wall near Reyna's door, which was only a few yards from Stephens's. "He aint to home just now."

"Why, where is he?" cried the boys in concert.

"Gone off with the cacique," answered Backus, for it was he; "mebbe he thought change of air would be wholesome after all that rumpus they're bin having this morning"; he laughed an evil laugh.

"Oh," cried Tito, "I suppose he's done as he said he would, taken him to Santa Fé for killing Felipe. But why couldn't he wait a little? Here I've brought him back Felipe no more dead than I am."

"No, nor he aint taken him to Santa Fé, neither," rejoined the Texan, with a malicious pleasure in mystifying the boys. He had gone straight to the cacique's house in his dripping garments after his fall into the ditch, and had waited there, meditating revenge, while they were being dried for him, during which interval he had obtained a full account of all that had taken place, including the fact that Josefa had been transferred to the prospector and was now under his protection at Reyna's. He had just walked over to Reyna's, in the hope of interviewing the girl, when the mule with the two boys on his back came in sight.

"All that gas of his about Santa Fé was nothing but a blind," he went on; "what he wanted was to get Miss Josefa for himself. And he's done it, too." He noted the flash in Felipe's eyes as he said this. "Yes, he's got her bottled up tight, inside here." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the house against which he was leaning.

"But that's only to save her from her father," exclaimed Tito hotly. "He was thrashing her like fury, and Sooshiuamo stopped him and took her away from him." Tito did not feel quite sure himself what Stephens's ultimate object might have been, – Americans were such very unaccountable people anyhow, – but he was not going to have this other American saying things about the man who was his particular hero at the moment, without sticking up for him.

"Jes' so," rejoined the Texan, "he's got her away from her daddy, and he's got her for himself. That's the size of it exactly."

Felipe said nothing, but the rage and despair which had taken possession of his heart made him perfectly convinced that the base innuendo of the Texan was only the simple truth. Tito made another effort to withstand the sinister meaning of the words.

"But he hasn't taken her to live with him," he said. "She's not in his house; it's locked up."

"Yes," said Backus, "for a very good reason. He's gone off hunting Navajos, and he's too jealous of her to leave her there by herself. So he's stowed her away, nice and handy, with his most particular friend next door. See? Why, it's as clear as mud."

"What's he gone hunting Navajos for, though?" asked the puzzled young Indian.

"What, don't you know?" said the Texan. "Oh, I suppose the news came after you'd started. Well, there's a pretty kettle of fish. The Navajos have bagged Miss Sanchez, and run her off Lord knows where, and Mr. Sooshiuamo, instead of taking his newly made father-in-law off to jail, is using him as a smell-dog to run their trail. He and Miss Josefa's daddy are as thick as thieves now. Aint it so, what I've said?" and he appealed to the other Indians standing round for confirmation.

The incredulous Tito appealed to them, too; but the Texan had stated the fact correctly enough; and as for the interpretation he put on them, well, that was a matter where everyone must judge for himself. Opinions varied as to that, but the general verdict was in Backus's favour.

Felipe threw up his unwounded arm in adjuration. "If he takes her from me," he cried, "my curse upon him from the bottom of my heart."

"You seem to take it hard, young man," said Backus eyeing him keenly. "Say, though, you're looking rather dilapidated. What's wrong with you anyway?"

"He's got a bullet in his arm," answered Tito for him.

"Then why the mischief couldn't you say so before, you plumb idiot?" exclaimed the Texan, who instantly divined that here was a chance to make friends with the youth who would now and henceforward be Stephens's bitterest enemy. "Come in here, young 'un, and let me look at it," he said, addressing Felipe; "it's a pity if I don't know a thing or two about gunshot wounds." He knocked at Reyna's door, and when she appeared he said apologetically, "Won't you let me bring in a wounded man who wants seeing to?"

Reyna did not want either him or Felipe, seeing that she had already one invalid in the house, in the shape of Josefa, whom she was nursing in an inner room, and she particularly objected to any complications with Felipe in Stephens's absence. But to be hospitable is a cardinal virtue of the race, and she admitted them in spite of the difficulties she felt. After all, Josefa was safely stowed away out of sight and hearing.

The Texan placed the boy on the ground close to the light, and with the rude skill of the frontier undid the makeshift bandage. The wound was naturally somewhat inflamed; he cleansed it with water and clean rags supplied by Reyna, and did it up again for the patient. "There aint no bullet in that," he said, "or I'm a Dutchman. But you're liable to have an ugly arm, if you don't look after it properly. Now you listen to me. You go right home to your mammy, and have a bite to eat, and lie down and keep quiet. Keep plumb still, d'you mark me, and don't go talking. Rest's what you're wanting this minute. But I can't dress your wound properly here, for I haven't the right stuff with me. I've got some rare good stuff at the store, though, that works like a charm. Now, you come down to me there, this evening when you're rested, and I'll fix it for you good. You do jes' as I tell you, and I'll make a well man of you yet. Sabe?" He helped the boy to his feet and led him to the door.

"But I want to see Josefa," said the boy, addressing Reyna; "I've got something to say to her. Where is she?"

"You'd better go right along and lie down," said Backus, disregarding the interruption; "you aint fit to talk to her now, nor she aint fit to talk to you."

"Let me see her," cried the boy passionately. "I must."

"Hush!" said the old squaw severely, "she's asleep. You'll disturb her. Do what the kind gentleman says, and go home."

Backus had said not a word to a soul as to his fracas with Stephens, nor had it been observed by any of the Pueblo people, so that Reyna had no idea of his hostility to Stephens, to whom she was devoted. Had she known of it she would not have called him "kind gentleman," nor even let him inside her door. Now, however, she backed him in starting Felipe for home under Tito's charge, the Texan reiterating his injunctions to keep quiet when he got there. Then he turned quickly to the mistress of the house. "And how's the other invalid getting on? How's the new Mrs. Stephens?"

"She does very well, now," said the squaw cautiously.

"Don't you think I'd better prescribe for her?" asked the Texan; "I'm a boss doctor, me, for wounds and bruises"; in saying which he did but speak the truth. "Come on, let's have a look at her."

"She's resting now," said the squaw. "Better she try to go to sleep."

"Oh, pshaw!" said the storekeeper; "it'll do her all the good in the world to see me. Come along, old lady, trot her out."

But though Mr. Backus had had reason for his boast when he declared that he had had a good deal of experience of Indians, and that too of different sorts, he found now that he knew precious little of Pueblo Indians, and next to nothing of the nature of the Pueblo squaw. This stout, jolly, comfortable-looking old lady (not so very old, either), whom he had imagined he could order about by virtue of his position as one of the superior sex as well as of the superior race, proved to have a decided will of her own. It was her house he was in, her very own, and, what was more, she was mistress in it, and did not for one moment mean to abdicate. She had no notion of being told to do this or that by anybody so long as she was inside her own door, and this she let him know. She was a woman of the Turquoise clan, and the Turquoise women owned that block of buildings, and their motto was, "What's mine's my own."

The astonished storekeeper found he had to swallow the fact that Josefa was invisible to him for the present, and he was sharp enough to see that it would do him not the slightest good to bluster. So he kept a civil tongue in his head, thanked Reyna profusely for allowing him to dress Felipe's wound in her house, and promised to call again soon. Then he went off to the cacique's stable and got his own horse, which was waiting for him there, and rode slowly home revolving fresh schemes of revenge.

CHAPTER XXIII

A PICNIC PARTY

The discovery of Felipe seemed quite a godsend to Backus as he wended his way through the Indian lands back to San Remo. Had he had a pistol on him when Stephens struck him that morning he would have shot him, or tried to shoot him, then and there. But now that his fit of passion had gone by, he determined to pay the prospector out in his own way and at his own time. Looking at the matter in cooler blood he could see that he would let himself in for a lot of trouble if he killed Stephens with his own hand. In the first place, there would be a trial, and lawyers to be paid, and that would come expensive, very expensive; and, secondly, Stephens had friends capable of going on the war-path. These confounded redskin allies of his seemed so unaccountably devoted to him that they might take it into their heads to perforate anyone who harmed him in a highly unpleasant manner, to judge not only by Tito's talk, but by the action of this stubborn old squaw, who had flatly told him at last that he shouldn't even set eyes on Stephens's girl in his absence. And now here was just what he wanted, an instrument prepared to his hand. With a little judicious spurring, a little help on the sly, Felipe would be quite ready to stick a knife in Stephens's back some night, or blow the top of his head off, and he, Backus, would stand entirely clear – ay, need not even lose the trade of the pueblo. Really it seemed quite providential. The only question that occurred to him was, whether Felipe would come down to see him, which would be most convenient, or whether he would have to go back to the pueblo to hunt for him. "But there's small fear of that," said he, as his horse splashed through the Santiago River before entering San Remo; "that sore arm of his'll bring him along, if not to-night, then to-morrow, certain."

* * * * * * *

Mr. Backus was exceedingly accurate in his diagnosis of Felipe's frame of mind, as well as of the condition of his arm. The young Indian obeyed him implicitly in the matter of going home, taking food, and lying down to obtain a good rest. He rose again later in the afternoon, and went for the second time to Reyna's house, only to find that for him there was to be no admission. Reyna was perfectly clear that until Stephens came back and settled what was to be done, the less the young people saw of each other the better it would be for all concerned. She was very friendly, rather amusing, and perfectly inexorable. As to the health of her patient, all Felipe could learn was that she was getting along nicely, thank you, and was in absolute need of rest, and would be so for a day or two longer, – until Stephens came back in fact. At present she would not even go out of doors.

All which did but root more firmly in Felipe's mind the conviction that Josefa was destined for Stephens, and that this was why the door was barred against him. Nursing his wrath, he turned away to meet Tito. For the second time he tried to borrow Tito's pistol, which that discreet young man entirely declined to let him have so long as he continued in his present frame of mind.

"You can't want it to defend yourself, Felipe," he said very decidedly, "for the cacique isn't here."

"Yes," said the boy sullenly, "but he'll be back in two or three days, and I'm not going to have him shooting at me again, and I not have anything to shoot back with."

"Pooh!" said Tito, "don't you fret yourself. He's not going to bother you any more, you may be sure. Take it easy; that's all past and gone."

But Felipe declined to take it easy. Finding Tito's mind was quite made up, he went back to his mother's house, and announced his intention of going down to San Remo to get his arm dressed by the storekeeper. He took his blanket with him, and added, as he started, that if Backus would let him sleep down there, he wasn't coming back till the morrow, or even later. He reached the store at dark, and found Mr. Backus at home.

"Come right in," said the Texan, as the boy with his blanket wrapped round him appeared in the doorway of the house after knocking, "come right in and set down. I was expecting you." He placed him in the light of a kerosene lamp, undid the arm, and dressed the wound again with some stinging stuff out of a bottle that made it smart. But the sharp throb of the wound gave no such stab to Felipe as the inquiry, casually dropped, "Wal', have you called on Mrs. Stephens to pay your respects yet?"

The boy confessed his vain attempt.

"Hah!" said the Texan, "so they're keeping her locked up tight, eh? Well, well; that's rather tough on you. But I don't wonder at it, now that Mr. Stephens and the cacique are in cahoots together. Of course they don't want anybody smelling around there when they are off and out of the way. No, they've got her there and they mean to keep her. But I know what I'd do if a man stole my gal away from me and shut her up."

"What would you do?" inquired Felipe, with averted eyes. He had his head turned to one side, and was looking down at the hole in his arm which Backus was dressing.

"Me!" said Backus, "I'd fill the hound's hide so full of holes that it wouldn't hold shucks. That's what I'd do. And I'd lay for him, too, and get him when he wasn't expecting it. A man like that, as would steal another man's gal away from him, don't deserve any more show than a mad dog."

"I haven't got a pistol," – Felipe's voice trembled a little as he said this, – "but I could buy one, perhaps, if it wasn't too dear, if I knew of one for sale."

"A knife's surer than a pistol," said the Texan cautiously; "though I allow a feller that's only got his left arm to use is rather at a disadvantage with a knife. So he is with a pistol, unless he practises shooting left-handed. However, if he gets up close, and takes his man from behind when he aint looking out for it, he can't hardly miss, and he hadn't ought to need a second shot."

"Do you know of anyone that's got a pistol for sale?" said the boy earnestly.

"Wal', yes," said the Texan, "I do happen to know of a very good pistol that's for sale. In fact, a man left it with me to be disposed of." Mr. Backus did not deal in firearms, but second-hand ones sometimes came in his way as part payment of a debt. "I could sell it for him, and afford to take a very reasonable price for it. It's a first-class weapon." He finished tying up the wounded arm, and released his patient.

"Thank you, señor, a thousand thanks for all your kindness," said Felipe, rising. "May I see the pistol?"

The storekeeper took a key from his pocket, unlocked a chest, and produced a heavy, old-fashioned, muzzle-loading Colt's revolver in a leather holster. He drew it out; it was well smeared with grease. He pulled the hammer to half-cock, and spun the cylinder round, click, click, click, with his finger.