The Desert Trail

Three times he let long pack-trains go by without a word, and then at last, overcome by curiosity, he inquired about the revoltosos.

"What revoltosos?" queried the old man to whom he spoke.

"Why, the men of Bernardo Bravo," answered Bud; "the men who are marching to take Moctezuma."

"When I left Moctezuma," returned the old man politely, "all was quiet – there were no revoltosos. Since then, I cannot say."

"But the soldiers!" cried Bud. "Surely you saw them! They were marching to fight the rebels."

"Perhaps so," shrugged the arriero, laying the lash of his topojo across the rump of a mule; "but I know nothing about it."

"No," muttered Bud, as he continued on his way; "and I'll bet nobody else does."

Inquiry showed that in this, too, he was correct. From those who traveled fast and from those who traveled slow he received the same wondering answer – the country might be filled with revoltosos; but as for them, they knew nothing about it.

Not until he got back to Fortuna and the busy Federals' telegraph-wire did he hear any more news of rapine and bloodshed, and the light which dawned upon him then was gradually dawning upon the whole town.

It was a false alarm, given out for purposes of state and the "higher politics" with which Mexico is cursed, and the most that was ever seen of Bernardo Bravo and his lawless men was twenty miserable creatures, half-starved, but with guns in their hand, who had come down out of the mountains east of Moctezuma and killed a few cows for beef.

Thoroughly disgusted, and yet vaguely alarmed at this bit of opera-bouffe warfare, Bud set himself resolutely to work to hunt up men for their mine, and, as many poor people were out of employment because of the general stagnation of business, he soon had ten Mexicans at his call.

Then, as Phil had dropped out of sight, he ordered supplies at the store and engaged Cruz Mendez – who had spent his fortune in three days – to pack the goods out on his mules.

They were ready to start the next morning if De Lancey could be found to order the powder and tools, and as the afternoon wore on and no Phil appeared, Bud went on a long hunt which finally discovered him in the balcony of their window, making signs in the language of the bear.2

"Say, Phil," he hailed, disregarding his pardner's obvious preoccupation; "break away for a minute and tell me what kind of powder to get to break that schist – the store closes at five o'clock, and – "

He thrust his head out the door as he spoke and paused, abashed. Through the half-closed portal of the next balcony but one he beheld the golden hair of Gracia Aragon, and she fixed her brown eyes upon him with a dazzling, mischievous smile.

"O-ho!" murmured Bud, laying a compelling hand on De Lancey and backing swiftly out of range; "so this is what you're up to – talking signs! But say, Phil," he continued, beckoning him peremptorily with a jerk of his head, "I got ten men hired and a lot of grub bought, and if you don't pick out that mining stuff we're going to lose a day. So get the lady to excuse you and come on now."

"In a minute," pleaded Phil, and he went at the end of his allotted time, and perhaps it was the imp of jealousy that put strength into Hooker's arm.

"Well, that's all right," said Bud, as Phil began his laughing excuses; "but you want to remember the Maine, pardner – we didn't come down here to play the bear. When there's any love-making to be done I want to be in on it. And you want to remember that promise you made me – you said you wouldn't have a thing to do with the Aragon outfit unless I was with you!"

"Why, you aren't – you aren't jealous, are you, Bud?"

"Yes, I'm jealous," answered Hooker harshly; "jealous as the devil! And I want you to keep that promise, see?"

"Aw, Bud – " began De Lancey incredulously; but Hooker silenced him with a look. Perhaps he was really jealous, or perhaps he only said so to have his way, but Phil saw that he was in earnest, and he went quietly by his side.

But love had set his brain in a whirl, and he thought no more of his promise – only of some subtler way of meeting his inamorata, some way which Bud would fail to see.

XIII

For sixty days and more, while the weather had been turning from cold to warm and they had been laboring feebly to clear way the great slide of loose rock that covered up the ledge, the Eagle Tail mine had remained a mystery.

Whether, like the old Eagle Tail of frontier fable, it was so rich that only the eagle's head was needed to turn the chunks into twenty-dollar gold pieces; or whether, like many other frontier mines, it was nothing but a hole in the ground, was a matter still to be settled. And Bud, for one, was determined to settle it quickly.

"Come on," he said, as Phil hesitated to open up the way to the lead; "we got a month, maybe less, to get to the bottom of this; and then the hills will be lousy with rebels. If the's nothing here, we want to find out about it quick and skip – and if we strike it, by grab! the' ain't enough red-flaggers in Sonora to pry me loose from it. So show these hombres where to work and we'll be up against rock by the end of the week."

The original Eagle Tail tunnel had been driven into the side of a steep hill; so steep, in fact, that the loose shale stretched in long shoots from the base of the frowning porphyry dikes that crowned the tops of the hills to the bottom of the cañon. On each side of the discovery gulch sharp ridges, perforated by the gopher-holes of the Mexicans, and the ancient workings of the Spaniards, ran directly up the hill to meet the contact. But it was against the face of the big ridge itself that Kruger had driven his drift and exploded his giant blast of dynamite, and the whole slope had been altered and covered with a slide of rock.

Against this slide, in the days when they were marking time, Bud and his pardner had directed their energies, throwing the loose stones aside, building up walls against the slip, and clearing the way to the solid schist. There, somewhere beneath the jumble of powder-riven rock, lay the ledge which, if they found it, would make them rich; and now, with single-jack and drill, they attacked the last huge fragments, blasting them into pieces and groveling deeper until they could strike the contact, where the schist and porphyry met and the gold spray had spewed up between.

It was slow work; slower than they had thought, and the gang of Mexicans that they had hired for muckers were marvels of ineptitude. Left to themselves, they accomplished nothing, since each problem they encountered seemed to present to them some element of insuperable difficulty, to solve which they either went into caucus or waited for the boss. Meanwhile they kept themselves awake by smoking cigarettes and telling stories about Bernardo Bravo.

To the Mexicans of Sonora Bernardo Bravo was the personification of all the malevolent qualities – he being a bandit chief who had turned first general and then rebel under Madero – and the fact that he had at last been driven out of Chihuahua and therefore over into Sonora, made his malevolence all the more imminent.

Undoubtedly, somewhere over to the east, where the Sierras towered like a blue wall, Bernardo and his outlaw followers were gathering for a raid, and the raid would bring death to Sonora.

He was a bad man, this Bernardo Bravo, and if half of the current stories were true, he killed men whenever they failed to give him money, and was never too hurried to take a fair daughter of the country up behind him, provided she took his fancy.

Yes, surely he was a bad man – but that did not clear away the rock.

For the first week Phil took charge of the gang, urging, directing, and cajoling them, and the work went merrily on, though rather slowly. The Mexicans liked to work for Don Felipe, he was so polite and spoke such good Spanish; but at the end of the week it developed that Bud could get more results out of them.

Every time Phil started to explain anything to one Mexican all the others stopped to listen to him, and that took time. But Bud's favorite way of directing a man was by grunts and signs and bending his own back to the task. Also, he refused to understand Spanish, and cut off all long-winded explanations and suggestions by an impatient motion to go to work, which the trabajadores obeyed with shrugs and grins.

So Don Felipe turned powder-man and blacksmith, sharpening up the drills at the little forge they had fashioned and loading the holes with dynamite when it became necessary to break a rock, while Bud bossed the unwilling Mexicans.

In an old tunnel behind their tent they set a heavy gate, and behind it they stored their precious powder. Then came the portable forge and the blacksmith-shop, just inside the mouth of the cave, and the tent backed up against it for protection. For if there is any one thing, next to horses, that the rebels are wont to steal, it is giant powder to blow up culverts with, or to lay on the counters of timorous country merchants and frighten them into making contributions.

As for their horses, Bud kept them belled and hobbled, close to the house, and no one ever saw him without his gun. In the morning, when he got up, he took it from under his pillow and hung it on his belt, and there it stayed until bedtime.

He also kept a sharp watch on the trail, above and below, and what few men did pass through were conscious of his eye. Therefore it was all the more surprising when, one day, looking up suddenly from heaving at a great rock, he saw the big Yaqui soldier, Amigo, gazing down at him from the cut bank.

Yes, it was the same man, yet with a difference – his rifle and cartridge-belts were absent and his clothes were torn by the brush. But the same good-natured, competent smile was there, and after a few words with Bud he leaped nimbly down the bank and laid hold upon the rock. They pulled together, and the boulder that had balked Bud's gang of Mexicans moved easily for the two of them.

Then Amigo seized a crowbar and slipped it into a cranny and showed them a few things about moving rocks. For half an hour or more he worked along, seemingly bent on displaying his skill, then he sat down on the bank and watched the Mexicans with tolerant, half-amused eyes.

If he was hungry he showed it only by the cigarettes he smoked, and Hooker, studying upon the chances he would take by hiring a deserter, let him wait until he came to a decision.

"Oyez, Amigo," he hailed at last and, rubbing his hand around on his stomach he smiled questioningly, whereat the Yaqui nodded his head avidly.

"Stowano!" said Hooker. "Ven." And he left his Mexicans to dawdle as they would while he led the Indian to camp. There he showed him the coffeepot and the kettle of beans by the fire, set out a slab of Dutch-oven bread and a sack of jerked beef, some stewed fruit and a can of sirup, and left him to do his worst.

In the course of half an hour or so he came back and found the Yaqui sopping up sirup with the last of the bread and humming a little tune. So they sat down and smoked a cigarette and came to the business at hand.

"Where you go?" inquired Bud; but Amigo only shrugged enigmatically.

"You like to work?" continued Bud, and the Indian broke into a smile of assent.

"Muy bien," said Hooker with finality; "I give Mexicans two dollars a day – I give you four. Is that enough?"

"Sí," nodded the Yaqui, and without more words he followed Bud back to the cut. There, in half a day, he accomplished more than all the Mexicans put together, leaping boldly up the bank to dislodge hanging boulders, boosting them by main strength up onto the ramshackle tram they had constructed, and trundling them out to the dump with the shove of a mighty hand.

He was a willing worker, using his head every minute; but though he was such a hustler and made their puny efforts seem so ineffectual by comparison, he managed in some mysterious way to gain the immediate approval of the Mexicans. Perhaps it was his all-pervasive good nature, or the respect inspired by his hardihood; perhaps the qualities of natural leadership which had made him a picked man among his brother Yaquis. But when, late in the afternoon, Bud came back from a trip to the tent he found Amigo in charge of the gang, heaving and struggling and making motions with his head.

"Good enough!" he muttered, after watching him for a minute in silence, and leaving the new boss in command, he went back and started supper.

That was the beginning of a new day at the Eagle Tail, and when De Lancey came back from town – whither he went whenever he could conjure up an errand – he found that, for once, he had not been missed.

Bud was doing the blacksmithing, Amigo was directing the gang, and a fresh mess of beans was on the fire, the first kettleful having gone to reënforce the Yaqui's backbone. But they were beans well spent, and Bud did not regret the raid on his grub-pile. If he could get half as much work for what he fed the Mexicans he could well rest content.

"But how did this Indian happen to find you?" demanded Phil, when his pardner had explained his acquisition. "Say, he must have deserted from his company when they brought them back from Moctezuma!"

"More'n likely," assented Bud. "He ain't talking much, but I notice he keeps his eye out – they'd shoot him for a deserter if they could ketch him. I'd hate to see him go that way."

"Well, if he's as good as this, let's take care of him!" cried Phil with enthusiasm. "I'll tell you, Bud, there's something big coming off pretty soon and I'd like to stay around town a little more if I could. I want to keep track of things."

"F'r instance?" suggested Hooker dryly. It had struck him that Phil was spending a good deal of time in town already.

"Well, there's this revolution. Sure as shooting they're going to pull one soon. There's two thousand Mexican miners working at Fortuna, and they say every one of 'em has got a rifle buried. Now they're beginning to quit and drift out into the hills, and we're likely to hear from them any time."

"All the more reason for staying in camp, then," remarked Bud. "I'll tell you, Phil, I need you here. That dogged ledge is lost, good and plenty, and I need you to say where to dig. We ain't doing much better than old Aragon did – just rooting around in that rock-pile – let's do a little timbering, and sink."

"You can't timber that rock," answered De Lancey decidedly. "And besides, it's cheaper to make a cut twenty feet deep than it is to tunnel or sink a shaft. Wait till we get to that porphyry contact – then we'll know where we're at."

"All right," grumbled Bud; "but seems like we're a long time getting there. What's the news downtown?"

"Well, the fireworks have begun again over in Chihauhua – Orozco and Salazar and that bunch – but it seems there was something to this Moctezuma scare, after all. I was talking to an American mining man from down that way and he told me that the Federals marched out to where the rebels were and then sat down and watched them cross the river without firing on them – some kind of an understanding between Bernardo Bravo and these black-leg Federals.

"The only fighting there was was when a bunch of twenty Yaquis got away from their officers in the rough country and went after Bernardo Bravo by their lonesome. That threw a big scare into him, too, but he managed to fight them off – and if I was making a guess I'd bet that your Yaqui friend was one of that fighting twenty."

"I reckon," assented Bud; "but don't you say nothing. I need that hombre in my business. Come on, let's go up and look at that cut – I come across an old board to-day, down in the muck, and I bet you it's a piece that Kruger left. Funny we don't come across some of his tools, though, or the hole where the powder went off."

"When we do that," observed Phil, "we'll be where we're going. Nothing to do then but lay off the men and wait till I get my papers. That's why I say don't hurry so hard – we haven't got our title to this claim, pardner, and we won't get it, either – not for some time yet. Suppose you'd hit this ledge – "

"Well, if I hit it," remarked Bud, "I'll stay with it – you can trust me for that. Hello, what's the Yaqui found?"

As they came up the cut Amigo quit work and, while the Mexicans followed suit and gathered expectantly behind him, he picked up three rusty drills and an iron drill-spoon and presented them to Bud.

Evidently he had learned the object of their search from the Mexicans, but if he looked for any demonstrations of delight at sight of these much-sought-for tools he was doomed to disappointment, for both Bud and Phil had schooled themselves to keep their faces straight.

"Um-m," said Bud, "old drills, eh? Where you find them?"

The Yaqui led the way to the face of the cut and showed the spot, a hole beneath the pile of riven rock; and a Mexican, not to be outdone, grabbed up a handful of powdered porphyry and indicated where the dynamite had pulverized it.

"Bien," said Phil, pawing solemnly around in the bottom of the hole; and then, filling his handkerchief with fine dirt, he carried it down to the creek. There, in a miner's pan, he washed it out carefully, slopping the waste over the edge and swirling the water around until at last only a little dirt was left in the bottom of the pan. Then, while all the Mexicans looked on, he tailed this toward the edge, scanning the last remnant for gold – and quit without a color.

"Nada!" he cried, throwing down the pan, and in some way the Mexicans sensed the fact that the mine had turned out a failure. Three times he went back to the cut and scooped up the barren dust, and then he told the men they could quit.

"No more work!" he said, affecting a dejected bitterness. "No hay nada– there is nothing!" And with this sad, but by no means unusual, ending to their labors, the Mexicans went away to their camp, speculating among themselves as to whether they could get their pay. But when the last of them had gone Phil beckoned Bud into the tent and showed him a piece of quartz.

"Just take a look at that!" he said, and a single glance told Hooker that it was full of fine particles of gold.

"I picked that up when they weren't looking," whispered De Lancey, his eyes dancing with triumph. "It's the same rock – the same as Kruger's!"

"Well, put 'er there, then, pardner!" cried Bud, grabbing at 'De Lancey's hand. "We've struck it!"

And with a broad grin on their deceitful faces they danced silently around the tent, after which they paid off the Mexicans and bade them "Adios!"

XIV

It is a great sensation – striking it rich – one of the greatest in the world.

Some men punch a burro over the desert all their lives in the hope of achieving it once; Bud and Phil had taken a chance, and the prize lay within their grasp. Only a little while now – a month, maybe, if the officials were slow – and the title would be theirs.

The Mexican miners, blinded by their ignorance, went their way, well contented to get their money. Nobody knew. There was nothing to do but to wait. But to wait, as some people know, is the hardest work in the world.

For the first few days they lingered about the mine, gloating over it in secret, laughing back and forth, singing gay songs – then, as the ecstasy passed and the weariness of waiting set in, they went two ways. Some fascination, unexplained to Bud, drew De Lancey to the town. He left in the morning and came back at night, but Hooker stayed at the mine.

Day and night, week-days and Sundays, he watched it jealously, lest some one should slip in and surprise their secret – and for company he had his pet horse, Copper Bottom, and the Yaqui Indian, Amigo.

Ignacio was the Indian's real name, for the Yaquis are all good Catholics and named uniformly after the saints; but Bud had started to call him Amigo, or friend, and Ignacio had conferred the same name on him.

Poor Ignacio! his four-dollar-a-day job had gone glimmering in half a day, but when the Mexican laborers departed he lingered around the camp, doing odd jobs, until he won a place for himself.

At night he slept up in the rocks, where no treachery could take him unaware, but at the first peep of dawn it was always Amigo who arose and lit the fire.

Then, if no one got up, he cooked a breakfast after his own ideas, boiling the coffee until it was as strong as lye, broiling meat on sticks, and went to turn out the horses.

With the memory of many envious glances cast at Copper Bottom, Hooker had built a stout corral, where he kept the horses up at night, allowing them to graze close-hobbled in the daytime.

A Mexican insurrecto on foot is a contradiction of terms, if there are any horses or mules in the country, and several bands of ex-miners from Fortuna had gone through their camp in that condition, with new rifles in their hands. But if they had any designs on the Eagle Tail live stock they speedily gave them up; for, while he would feed them and even listen to their false tales of patriotism, Bud had no respect for numbers when it came to admiring his horse.

Even with the Yaqui, much as he trusted him, he had reservations about Copper Bottom; and once, when he found him petting him and stroking his nose, he shook his head forbiddingly. And from that day on, though he watered Copper Bottom and cared for his wants, Amigo was careful never to caress him.

But in all other matters, even to lending him his gun, Bud trusted the Yaqui absolutely. It was about a week after he came to camp that Amigo sighted a deer, and when Bud lent him his rifle he killed it with a single shot.

Soon afterward he came loping back from a scouting trip and made signs for the gun again, and this time he brought in a young peccary, which he roasted in a pit, Indian style. After that, when the meat was low, Bud sent him out to hunt, and each time he brought back a wild hog or a deer for every cartridge.

The one cross under which the Yaqui suffered was the apparent failure of the mine and, after slipping up into the cut a few times, he finally came back radiant.

"Mira!" he said, holding out a piece of rock; and when Hooker gazed at the chunk of quartz he pointed to the specks of gold and grunted "Oro!"

"Seguro!" answered Bud, and going down into his pocket, he produced another like it. At this the Yaqui cocked his head to one side and regarded him strangely.

"Why you no dig gold?" he asked at last, and then Bud told him his story.

"We have an enemy," he said, "who might steal it from us. So now we wait for papers. When we get them, we dig!"

"Ah!" breathed Amigo, his face suddenly clearing up. "And can I work for you then?"

"Sí," answered Bud, "for four dollars a day. But now you help me watch, so nobody comes."

"Stawano!" exclaimed the Indian, well satisfied, and after that he spent hours on the hilltop, his black head thrust out over the crest like a chucka-walla lizard as he conned the land below.

So the days went by until three weeks had passed and still no papers came. As his anxiety increased Phil fell into the habit of staying in town overnight, and finally he was gone for two days. The third day was drawing to a close, and Bud was getting restless, when suddenly he beheld the Yaqui bounding down the hill in great leaps and making signs down the cañon.

"Two men," he called, dashing up to the tent; "one of them a rural!"

"Why a rural?" asked Bud, mystified.

"To take me!" cried Amigo, striking himself vehemently on the breast. "Lend me your rifle!"

"No," answered Bud, after a pause; "you might get me into trouble. Run and hide in the rocks – I will signal you when to come back."

"Muy bien," said the Yaqui obediently and, turning, he went up over rocks like a mountain-sheep, bounding from boulder to boulder until he disappeared among the hilltops. Then, as Bud brought in his horse and shut him hastily inside the corral, the two riders came around the point – a rural and Aragon!

Now in Mexico a rural, as Bud well knew, means trouble – and Aragon meant more trouble, trouble for him. Certainly, so busy a man as Don Cipriano would not come clear to his camp to help capture a Yaqui deserter. Bud sensed it from the start that this was another attempt to get possession of their mine, and he awaited their coming grimly.