Rancho Del Muerto and Other Stories of Adventure from «Outing» by Various Authors

“Help! Regan, help!” Then crash and blows, the gleam of a knife, a rolling, rough-and-tumble struggle on the ground; then a woman’s scream, a light, and Isabel had bounded into their midst, her mother at her back.

“Leon, my brother! In God’s name, what do you mean?”

Even as she spoke her startled eyes fell on Adriance, staggering to his feet, pale, bleeding, faint. Another instant and he went crashing back against the guitar that, like siren’s song, had lured him. One brave leap and she was at his side, her arms about his neck, his pallid face pillowed on her bosom.

Senora Dolores flew to her aid; then turning, holding her lantern on high, her shrill voice rang out in fury:

“Look at the monstrous work your son has wrought, Pedro Ruiz! Look! Tear off that mantle, senor!” she said, whirling upon another form now slowly rising from the earth. “Coward! murderer that you are! It is you who have ruined this boy and made him what he is!”

“Hush! You fool! there lies your daughter’s betrayer. Leon would have been coward indeed if he had not punished him.”

“Oh, you lie! She never saw him alone in her life!”

“Ask your son,” was the sneering answer. “Ask José, too.”

“She was with him – in his tent – the last night he was here; I swear it!” cried José.

“Mother,” cried the girl, “listen, it was but to warn him – I heard the plot – I heard all. I rushed to him only to tell him of the danger. Mother, believe me. And I dare not tell it even to you, for fear – for fear of him.” And she pointed to the fierce, scowling face of the old Mexican, now striding forward, knife in hand.

“No, Pedro – back! You shall not harm her! No!” and the mother hurled herself before her husband.

“Out of the way!” was the hissing answer, “or you, too, feel my knife. Ah, traitress!”

“O my God! help! There will be murder here! Pedro, husband! O, villain, she is not your child! You shall not kill!” And then a piercing shriek rang out upon the night. But at the same instant there came the rush of hoofs without – a rush of panting men; a brawny trooper sprang into the summer house and with one blow of his revolver butt sent Pedro staggering into a corner, his knife falling from his nerveless hand. A dark, agile figure leaped for the doorway, with muttered curse. And then in came old Rawlins, somewhat “blown,” but preternaturally cool, and the doctor close behind.

“Bring another light here, one of you men!” And a trooper ran to the card room. “Lie still there, Pedro! Blow his brains out if he moves! Doctor, you look to the women and Adriance. Now, where’s that man Staines?”

“Some fellow ran in through here, captain,” said a trooper. “Corporal Watts is after him with Royce.”

“Who was it, you greaser? Speak, damn you! You were here with him!”

“Sonora Bill,” said José, shaking from head to foot.

Then there came the sound of pistol shots out toward the corral, and then the louder bang of a cavalry carbine.

“What is it?” asked Rawlins of a soldier who came running back.

“Can we have the doctor, sir? It was Mr. Staines. He shot the corporal, who was chasing him, but he got a carbine bullet through the heart.”

Four days afterward, lying in a little white room, Mr. Adriance listened to the story of Leon’s confession. It was brief enough. Staines had acquired an ascendency over him in Tucson, and it was not difficult to induce him to become a confederate in every plot. It was Staines who sent him to Manuel and Garcia to warn them that the paymaster’s ambulance would not reach Canyon del Muerto until morning. It was Staines who murdered Sergeant Dinsmore after a quarrel and then had had his throat cut and the body thrown into the Gila near the ranch. Staines had fallen in love with Isabel when she first came from Sonora, but the girl shrank from him; neither would she listen to Sergeant Dinsmore.

After it was safe for Leon to return to the ranch, he found that his mother and Isabel were practically prisoners. His father was furious at the failure of the plan, and daily accused his wife of having, in some way, given warning to Adriance, and swore that he would have the blood of the man or woman who had betrayed the scheme; and then Staines himself came back and wrung from José that he had seen Isabel scurrying from Adri-ance’s tent at daybreak, and so denounced her to Leon as the mistress of an accursed Gringo. Staines wrote the note that was to lure Adriance to the bower, where Leon was to take the guitar and rebosa and the two, with José’s help, were to overpower him. It was his life or theirs said Staines. Pedro was not in the project, for he had prohibited bloodshed about the place – “It would ruin his business” he said. But both Pedro and Leon were now in irons, and Rawlins’ troop was in camp around gloomy old Rancho Ruiz.

A day or two later he heard another story, this time from the lips of Senora Dolores herself: Isabel was not the daughter of Pedro Ruiz.

With sobs and tears the poor, broken woman told her tale. She had been married when quite a young girl to Senor Moreno, an officer of distinction in the Mexican army. Her brave husband made her life a happy one, and the birth of the little daughter strengthened the ties that bound them. Alas! Moreno, colonel of lancers, was killed before Queretaro; and in two years more the widow, with her winsome little girl, had not where to lay her head. It was in the city of Mexico that Senora Dolores then met Ruiz, a widower with an only son, prosperous and apparently respected. He promised to educate Isabel and provide for her as his own, and sought the widow as his wife. For a time all went well; then she learned his true character. He was compelled to leave the city and flee up the coast to Mazatlan, while she remained with little Isabel, who was being educated at the convent. At last they had to join him at Hermosillo, whence he was soon after driven to Tucson. Their lives were wrecked by his scoundrelism. Her papers clearly established the truth of her story.

One soft, still evening, not a week after the tragic events of that rueful night, Captain Rawlins sat by the lieutenant’s side, reading aloud some letters just received from department headquarters. Major Sherrick had been in a state of dismay ever since the news of the death of Staines had reached him, but his dismay changed to wonderment, even gratitude, as he learned the true character of the man. It was Sonora Bill himself, beyond doubt.

“What a blessing you left that note for me to see!” said Rawlins. “How came it you never saw it was a forgery, Phil? Had she never written to you before?”

“Never a line, nor have I seen her to thank her. By Heaven, Rawlins! why am I forbidden?”

“You are not – now, Phil,” was the smiling answer.

Perhaps an hour later, Adriance limped slowly out of the room and down the narrow passageway to the side door. Yonder stood the little summer house “in the gloaming,” and he was right – he had heard women’s voices there – Dolores and her daughter. There were tears in the maiden’s words, and he could not withstand the longing of his heart. He would have hobbled thither, but suddenly there came the sound of rustling skirt and a tiny footfall. It was she – his dark-eyed, dark-haired sweetheart, hastening toward him, her face hidden in her hands. One instant more and he had torn the hands away and had clasped her to his breast.

“Isabel! darling! I have found you at last! No, you shall not go – you shall not until you promise – promise to be my wife!

“O, senor, you cannot – you do not mean it,” she sobbed, Struggling to be free.

“Do not mean it! Why, sweet one, you do not dream how I love you – how I long for you! Not mean it? Isabel, look in my eyes. Look for yourself.” He laughed low and happily. He was brimming over with hope and gladness, for now at last without a struggle she nestled on his heart.

Despite his grizzled beard old Rawlins was best man when that strange, very quiet, yet very happy wedding came off in the Old Mission Church at Tucson early in the spring. Pedro was not there to give the bride away. With considerable escort and much reluctance he had traversed “Cutthroat Crossing” some months before. He went to Yavapai, and Yavapai – we have his own words for it – was “too damn close to ‘ell.” The rancho passed within the year to other hands. It, too, had taken on another name – a grewsome one —Rancho del Muerto.

A MIGHTY HUNTER BEFORE THE LORD, By Virginius Dabney

FIRST PART

THE man unacquainted with the joys of the chase would be surprised if told, as he sauntered through some city market, that there was far more pleasure in hunting those plump little brown birds hanging in bunches around the stalls than in pursuing that imposing beast whose antlers reach the pavement. Yet it would be true.

Deer hunting under its usual conditions leaves something, often much, to be desired. If a dozen men are placed on isolated “stands” the solitary hours of waiting are long and weary. And should you happen to be a tyro the knowing ones hide you away in some unlikely spot, where hardly by any possibility will the chance come to you of seeing and, in the shivers of “buck ague,” missing the game. “Still hunting,” another mode, is well named. As a rule it may be depended upon to afford no end of stillness, and little else. And to be rowed up by a hired guide on a lake to within a few feet of a poor, helpless buck, swimming for dear life, and blow out his brains is almost as bad as shooting pheasants in an English preserve or poultry in a barnyard. Under all these methods deer hunting lacks what is the conspicuous charm of partridge (quail) shooting – vivid and continuous excitement.

For, from the moment when you enter, on a sparkling autumn morning, a brown stubble field, fresh of limb and eager for the fray, till you limp back at sunset, wolfish for dinner, and broken with a delicious fatigue, you have not had one dull moment. You may not have been firing steadily; the birds may even have been a little scarce; but every instant of the day, as you have watched your dogs sweeping to and fro, you have been buoyed up by an ever lively hope that the next moment your heart will be gladdened by seeing them halt – frozen as it were – in their tracks. Ah, there they are! You hurry up, you and your friend, breathing short. Up bursts the brown covey, with startling buzz! You bang away – innocuously it may be, but no matter, you have made a prodigious noise, at any rate – that’s some comfort. And see now! The little brown balls have dropped into the weeds, one here, one there, along the ditch, and a little bunch, all together, in that clump of briars on the hillside. Better luck next time!

Still, after all, “Bob White,” for all his bustle, is but a small chap. It would take hundreds, nay, bushels of him, to outweigh one “antlered monarch.” Toothsome though he be (on toast) he tips the scales at a beggarly half pound. On the other hand, it often takes you a week or so to get one chance at a deer.

Now, it so happens that it was once my fortune to take part in a deer hunt, where the excitement was as continuous as that in a stubble field, and, naturally, far more intense. This was years ago, and in Scott County, Mississippi, two days’ journey on horseback from our plantation.

Every November, as a child, I had eagerly hailed the return from the camp hunt of the big four-mule wagon, laden with tents, cooking utensils and provisions, and upon which were piled high the noble bucks and sleek does. At last, when I had reached the age of sixteen, the longed-for permission was granted me, and one crisp, frosty morning my father and I mounted our horses and set out for Scott County, followed by Beverly and the great covered wagon. Both Beverly and Ned, his whitish-gray saddle mule, had their peculiarities, as will appear later.

As we journeyed on we were joined at successive cross roads by others of our hunting party, and when we reached the ground we numbered, with those already arrived by other routes, about fifteen. The tents were soon pitched and a roaring fire of logs six feet long was sending up its merry sparks into the starry vault above us. Would supper never be ready?

Meanwhile the tents flashed in the fire light, the ruddy glow of which battled with the hosts of darkness that advanced upon us under cover of the primeval, mysterious forest that surrounded us far and wide. And that forest teeming with deer and wolves. Oh, how delightful! And my Latin grammar miles and miles away! And dust accumulating on my arithmetic!

“Why, where is Billy?”

“Detained by business; he will join us in a day or two.”

“Good! A hunt without Billy Blount is no hunt at all.”

At the mere mention of his name every eye brightened. Mr. Blount had more than one peculiarity, all of them pleasant. He was just one of those mortals whom mothers in their fatuity christen William. If ever there was a man born with an inalienable right to be called Billy it was he. A stranger meeting him in the road would know by intuition that that was his name. His twinkling eye suggested it. His ruddy brown dimpled cheek, his breadth of smile proclaimed it, and when he laughed every well-lined rib shouted aloud, “Our name is Billy!”

But he was not with us; so the next best thing was to tell stories of his exploits. To these I listened with wide-eyed delight. I will give one as a sample. But that it may be understood, it will be necessary to show beforehand the very unusual method of hunting that obtained in Scott County.

That portion of Mississippi was in those days almost uninhabited and was covered by a forest – it would be almost correct to call it a grove – of post oaks, beneath which grew waist high underbrush. The oaks which covered the ground almost to the exclusion of other trees stood so far apart that one had an outlook of perhaps a couple of hundred yards in every direction, so that a good rider could gallop in comfort along the open spaces. This tree bears a small but sweet nutritious acorn; hence the great store of deer that frequented these forests.

Such being the nature of the ground the chase is conducted as follows: The hunters throw themselves into a skirmish line at intervals of sixty or eighty yards. In the centre rides the leader of the hunt with a compass fixed upon the pommel of his saddle. The line advances through the woods due north, let us say, for a few hours; then wheels at right angle and moves east; then south, then west – back to camp, venison steaks and wild turkey; for, in the interests of better fare, it was permitted to knock over a gobbler if he were too hospitably saucy to get out of the way. The deer were not equally abundant year after year. Occasionally it was found that “black tongue” had worked havoc among them since the preceding hunt. But they were always numerous enough to maintain a continuous and intense glow of expectation in the breast of every hunter. As a rule you rode straight ahead, swerving neither to the right nor the left, every nerve on the alert, from sunrise till’ sunset. But if you saw a little out of your path an upturned tree you bent your course toward it, your heart in your mouth. I have known as many as seven deer to bound forth from the brown-leaved “lap” of one fallen oak. But at any moment during the day you were liable to be startled by a buck springing up out of the undergrowth, often from beneath the very feet of your horse.

Only an inexperienced hunter would ask: “Why not shoot them where they lie?” You do not know they are there. The detective eye that can make out the form of a deer crouched down on a bed of brown leaves and veiled with a fringe of underbrush is given to few. Among these favored ones was our friend Billy. It was generally believed in camp that he shot most of his game in their beds. Billy himself was at no pains, of course, to spread this view. In his highly-illustrated accounts of his achievements the quarry was always going like the wind; he had not been sure, in fact, what he fired at; he saw a brown flash, that was all; banged away, and down came that thumping buck. Never was so surprised in his life; thought it was a hawk or something. But this is the story of Mr. Jennings, brother of the leader of the hunt: “Blount rides on my right, and I don’t know how I shall get on without him, even for a day or two. However, I may live longer if he is not there, for he sows his buckshot broadcast. Three years ago – I never knew the deer so thick as they were that season – happening to look in his direction, I saw him dismounting with an agility that was surprising considering his 225 pounds. He halted me with an eager wave of his hand and began advancing on tiptoe; every fibre of his vast form tense, his eyes riveted upon some object in front, finger on trigger. Barely had he crept forward ten yards when up sprang a buck hardly twenty feet in front of him and darted to the rear, between Blount and me. Instantly, without once removing his eyes from the game upon which he was stealing, he whirled his gun to the right and pulled the trigger. The buck passed on, while twigs and bark rained on me from the whizzing buckshot. Would you believe it? – but you all know him – not a moment did he halt or once remove his eyes from whatever it was that had fascinated his gaze in front. He still danced forward, light as an Indian, with eyes starting from their sockets. Presently up jumps a doe. She, too, bounded to the rear, but on Blount’s left this time. Again, with his staring eyes still glued to the something in front – bang! ‘What in the – are you about?’ roared Parrish from Blount’s left; ‘you will be shooting somebody the first thing you know. Here is one of your crazy shot through my hat.’ To all which our wild man paid not the least attention. ‘Jennings! Jennings! come here! come here! come here! quick! quick! quick! For God’s sake, man, hurry!’

“I dismounted and ran up to him. ‘There! there! give it to him! Good Lord, man, can’t you see him? There, in that lap!’ I strained my eyes in vain. I could see nothing. ‘Why, don’t you see him turning his head? He is looking at us! My Lord, Jennings, gimme the gun! gimme the gun! gimme the gun!’ Just as I did so a noble buck sprang from the lap and bounded off. Blount drew down upon him. Bound after bound, and still Blount did not fire, though he seemed to be pulling away for dear life at the triggers. Presently the deer, passing behind a clump of trees, disappeared. I carried my gun at half cock. This Blount did not know or remember. He bent both my triggers. Any other man might very well have bagged all three deer with such a chance. And what do you suppose he then said? ‘At any rate, I laid out two of the rascals. Come, Jennings, help me find ‘em.’”

Dogs were not used on these hunts. Two or three trusty old hounds, it is true, hung about the heels of our leader’s horse, but they were employed only in running down badly-wounded animals. For the first day or so these dogs were hard to control, so rich was the scent that met their nostrils at every turn; but after the third day they grew too blasé to take any interest in any trail not sprinkled with blood. We had a number of horn signals. If a gun was heard, followed by a long blast (every man wore a horn), the line halted. A deer had been killed in its tracks. A second blast indicated that the quarry had been strapped behind the saddle of the lucky man; and once more the line moved forward. But if three or four short, excited toots, mingled with shouts, rang out upon the frosty air, a wounded deer was being pursued, and the leader of the hunt galloped up, followed by his little pack, who soon pulled down the game.

After all my boasting about the abundance of deer in these post-oak forests the reader is, I dare say, prepared to learn that with a party of fifteen the spoil of a ten-days hunt would be one thousand head at the very least. Great will be his surprise therefore to learn that at the close of our first day’s hunt we returned to camp without one solitary buck or doe to show to our disgusted cooks. Never had the game been so scarce, and yet not a man of us all had the same loads in his gun with which he had sallied gaily forth full of hope in the morning. One fine buck alone had emptied just thirty barrels for us. Flushed on the extreme right, he had bounded along in front of the whole line, a trifle out of range, perhaps, and each one of us had given him a roaring double salute. As the rolling thunder approached me I almost ceased to breathe. What were conjugations and declensions and rules of three compared with this! It was like a battle, as I have since discovered, with the notable difference that our side made all the noise, and the deer did not shoot back. But none of us had been able, in the language of Mr. Sam Weller’s Dick Turpin ditty, to “prewail upon him for to stop.” Other shots at other deer all of us had, but we supped on bacon that evening.

SECOND PART

ONE who has never tried the experiment can have no idea how easy it is to miss when firing from horseback at a buck who sends your heart up into your mouth by springing up from beneath your horse’s heels, and then speeds away, twisting and turning among the boles of the trees. Men who could bring down a partridge with each barrel have been known to shoot away half a bag of shot before they began to get the hang of the thing.

The shades of evening were falling. Humiliating though it was, we had fallen, too, with a will on our gameless supper.

“S-t! Listen! What’s that?”

We pricked up our ears. Presently there came softly echoing from far away in the forest a long-drawn cry, ringing, melodious, clear as a bugle call.

“Billy!”

The welkin rang with our joyous shouts. Half our party sprang to their feet and red-hot coffee splashed from tin cups. “Hurrah!”

“Marse Billy got the keenest holler I ever hear!” chuckled Beverly. “Bound he fetch luck ‘long wid him! No mo’ bacon for supper arter dis.”

We craned our necks to catch the first glimpse of our mascot. Obviously, from the direction of the joyous yells with which he answered our welcoming shouts, he had abandoned the road and was riding straight through the open woods. Presently we descried through the deepening twilight his portly form looming up atop a tall gray. Then two vivid flashes and two loud reports, followed by a mad rush of the gray, which came tearing down on us in wild terror, and for a minute we were treated to something like an amateur episode from one of Mr. Buffalo Bill’s entertainments. Amid roars of laughing welcome the ponderous knight was at last helped down from his trembling steed, whose bridle Beverly had been able luckily to snatch as he floundered among the tent ropes.

“And where the deuce did you pick up that wild beast? Surely you can’t expect to shoot from him!”

“Oh, I’ll cool him down in a day or two; he’ll soon get used to it.”

In point of fact a horse who dreads a gun gets more and more terror stricken as the hunt goes on, the mere sight of a deer, the cocking of a gun even, sufficing to set him off into plungings that grow day by day more violent. This none should have known better than Blount; for never, by any chance, did he ride to the hunt with an animal that would “stand fire.” The discharge of his gun, the rise of a buck even, was always the opening of a circus with him. But he managed invariably to let off both barrels – one perhaps through the tree tops, the other into the ground. In one particular alone was he provident. He brought always so immense a supply of ammunition that toward the close of the hunt his tent was a supply magazine to the less thoughtful.

“What!” exclaimed Blount, “not a single one! Ah! boys, that was because I was not with you.” The jovial soul had not a trace of conceit; he was merely sanguine – contagiously, gloriously, magnificently sanguine.

“Ah, but won’t we knock ‘em over tomorrow!” And straightway we lifted up our hearts and had faith in this prophet of pleasant things.

“Beverly, will that mule Ned stand fire?”

“I dunno, Marse Billy; nobody ain’t nebber tried him. But I ‘spec’ you wouldn’t ax him no odds.”

“I’ll go and have a look at him.”

Shortly afterward we heard two tremendous explosions, followed by a frenzied clatter of hoofs and the sound of breaking branches, and up there came, running and laughing, a Monsieur Wynen, a Belgian violinist, a real artist, who was one of our party (though never a trigger did he pull during the entire hunt).

“What’s the matter?”