Overland Tales Part 9

"Very well," said I; "but--," and I did not hesitate to tell him of the peculiarities I had noticed about her. He himself was charmed with her sprightliness, so he only responded with, "Pshaw! woman!" after which I maintained an offended (he said, offensive) silence on the subject.

Not quite four months later, my husband was recalled to Santa Fe, and we again crossed the desert, with only three men as escort. I had heard nothing from either Mrs. Arnold or the Captain in all this time, for our post was farther out than theirs; indeed, so far out that nothing belonging to the same military department pa.s.sed by that way. It was midsummer, and the dreary hills shutting in Fort Desolation, and running down toward the river some distance back of the place, were baked hard and black in the sun; the little stream that had meandered along through the low inclosure of the fort in winter time was now a mere bed of slime, and the plateaux, which had been levelled for the purpose of erecting the Captain's house and the commissary buildings on them, could not boast of a single spear of gra.s.s or any other sign of vegetation.

The Captain's house lay on the highest of these plateaux; lower down, across the creek, were the quartermaster and commissary buildings (here, too, were Lieutenant Rockdale's quarters); and to the left, on the other side of the men's quarters, was the guard-house--part _jacal_, part tent-cloth.

How _could_ any one live here and be happy? Black and bald the earth, as far as the eye could reach; black and dingy the tents and the huts that strewed the flat; murky and dark the ridge of fog that rose on the unseen river; murky and silent the clefts in the rocks where the sun left darkness forever.

It might have been the fading light of the waning day that cast the peculiarly sombre shadow on the Captain's house as we drew up to it; but I thought the same shadow must have fallen on the Captain's face, when he appeared in the door to greet us. Presently Mrs. Arnold fluttered up in white muslin and blue ribbons; and both did their best to make us comfortable. How my husband felt, I don't know; but they did not succeed in making me feel comfortable. Perhaps the absence of the bright fire made the rooms look so dark, even after the lights had been brought in--there was certainly a change. Supper was placed on the table, but I missed Constantia's round face in the dining-room. In answer to my question regarding her, I was told she had expressed so strong a desire to return to the States that she had been sent to Fort ----, there to await an opportunity to go in. Lieutenant Rockdale's absence I noticed also. He did not mess with them any more, I was informed.

My attention was attracted to a conversation between Captain Arnold and my husband. The guard-house, he told him, was at present occupied by two individuals who had made their appearance at Fort Desolation several days ago, and had tried to prevail on the Captain to sell them some of the government horses, and arms and ammunition, offering liberal payment, and promising secrecy. They were Americans; but as the number of American settlers, or white settlers, in this country is so small, it was easy for the Captain to determine that these were not of them, and their dress and general appearance led him to suspect that they belonged to that despicable cla.s.s of white men who make common cause with the Indian, in order to rob and plunder, and, if need be, murder, those of their own race. Of course they had not made these proposals directly and openly to the Captain--at first representing themselves as members of a party of miners going to Pinos Altos; but they soon betrayed a familiarity with the country which only years of roaming through it could have given them. He had felt it his duty to arrest them at once, but had handcuffed them only to-day, and meant to send them, under strong escort, to Fort ----, where their regimental commander was stationed, as soon as some of the men from the picket-posts could be called in.

It was late when we arose from the supper-table, and the Captain and my husband left us, to go down to the guard-house, while Mrs. Arnold led me into the room where their bed stood. This room had but one window--of which window the Captain was very proud. It was a _French_ window, opening down to the ground. Throwing it open, Mrs. Arnold said:

"What a beautiful moon we have to-night; let us put out the candle and enjoy the moons.h.i.+ne"--with which she laughingly extinguished the light, and drew my chair to the window.

From where I sat I could just see the men's quarters and the guard-house, though it might have been difficult from there to see the window. We had not been seated long when I fancied I heard a noise, as though of some one stealthily approaching from somewhere in the direction to which my back was turned; then some one seemed to brush or sc.r.a.pe against the outside wall of the house, behind me. "What's that?"

I asked in quick alarm. It had not remained a secret to Mrs. Arnold that I was an unmitigated coward; so she arose, and saying, "How timid you are!--it is the dog; but I will go and look," she stepped from the low window to the ground outside, and vanished around the corner of the house. Some time pa.s.sed before she returned, and with a little shudder, sprang to light the candle.

"How chilly it is getting," she exclaimed; and then continued, "it was the dog we heard out there. Poor fellow; perhaps the cook had forgotten him, so I gave him his supper."

Rising from my seat to close the window on her remark about the cold, I stepped to the opposite side from where I had been sitting; and there, crossing the planks that lay over the slimy creek, and going towards the commissary buildings, was a man whose figure seemed familiar: I could not be mistaken--it was Lieutenant Rockdale. No doubt the man had a right to walk in any place he might choose; but, somehow, I could not help bringing him in connection with "the dog, poor fellow," for whom Mrs. Arnold had all at once felt such concern.

Soon the gentlemen returned, and we repaired to the parlor, where a game of chess quickly made them inaccessible to our conversation. The game was interrupted by a rap at the front door, and Harry, the sergeant whom Mrs. Arnold had compelled to mount her black horse that day, appeared on the threshold. In his face there was a change, too; his eyes flashed with an unsteady light as he opened the door, and ever and again, while addressing the Captain--whose thoughts were still half with the game--his looks wandered over to where Mrs. Arnold sat. We were so seated that the Captain's back was partly toward her when he turned to the sergeant; and he could not see the quick gesture of impatience, or interrogation, that Mrs. Arnold made as she caught the mulatto's eye.

Involuntarily, I glanced toward him--and saw the nod of a.s.sent, or intelligence he gave in return.

The sergeant had come to report that the prisoners in the guard-house had suddenly asked to see the Captain: they had disclosures to make to him. When Captain Arnold returned, his face was flushed.

"The villains!" he burst out. "They had managed to hide about five thousand dollars in United States bank-notes about them, when they were searched for concealed weapons, and they just now offered it to me, if I would let them escape. Not only that, but from something one of them said, I have gained the certainty that they are implicated in the ma.s.sacre of the party of civilians that pa.s.sed through here about two months ago: you remember, the General ordered out a part of K company, to rescue the one man who was supposed to have been taken prisoner. The wretches! But I'll go myself, in the morning, to relieve the men from picket-duty, and select the best from among them to take the scoundrels to Santa Fe!"

When about to begin my toilet the next morning, I gave a start of surprise. Was _that_ what had made the house look so dark and changed?

Before me stood a large tin wash-basin--of the kind that all common mortals used out here--and the beautiful toilet-set of china, with its splendors of gilt-edge and moss-roses, had all disappeared--all save the soap-dish and hot-water pitcher, which were both defective, and looked as though they had gone through a hard struggle for existence.

When our ambulance made the ascent of the little steep hill that hides Fort Desolation from view, I saw three horses led from the stable to the Captain's house--the Captain's horse and two others. He was as good as his word, and before another day had pa.s.sed, the two men penned up in that tent there would be well on their way to meet justice and retribution. A solitary guard, with ebony face and bayonet flas.h.i.+ng in the morning sun, was pacing back and forth by the tent; and walking briskly from the commissary buildings toward the men's quarters, was Harry, the mulatto sergeant.

From the first glance I had at Mrs. Kline's face, when we reached Fort ----, I knew that the mystery of the change at Fort Desolation would be solved here. Constantia was there, and acting as cook in Dr. Kline's family. She was an excellent cook, and we did ample justice to her skill at suppertime. The gentlemen leaving the table to smoke their cigars, Mrs. Kline and I settled down to another cup of tea and _medisance_.

From what Constantia had stated on coming to Fort ----, it would seem that in some way Captain Arnold's suspicions had been aroused in regard to the friends.h.i.+p of Lieutenant Rockdale for his wife. About two months ago, he one day pretended to start off on a tour of inspection to the picket-posts; but returned, late the same night, by a different road.

Stealing into the house through the kitchen, he had, rather unceremoniously, entered the bed-room, where he found Lieutenant Rockdale toasting his bare feet before the fire. Raising his carbine to shoot the man, Mrs. Arnold had sprung forward, seized his arms and torn the gun from him. In the confusion that followed, the toilet-set referred to, and other articles of furniture, were demolished: but Constantia, who had crept in after the Captain, to prevent mischief, if possible, gave it as her opinion that Mrs. Arnold "had grit enough for ten such men as him an' de leftenant."

"If you did but know the ingrat.i.tude of the creature," continued Mrs.

Kline, "and the devotion her husband has always shown her!" And she gave me a brief sketch of her career: Married to Arnold just at the breaking out of the war, and of poor parents, she had driven him almost to distraction by her treatment, when thrown out of employment some time after. At last he went into the Union forces as subst.i.tute--giving every cent of the few hundred dollars he received to his wife, who spent it on herself for finery. Later, when for bravery and good conduct he was made lieutenant in a negro regiment, she joined her husband, and finally came to the Territory with him. In their regiment, it was well known that he had always blindly wors.h.i.+pped his wife; and that she had always ruled him, his purse, and his company, with absolute power.

Before retiring for the night, we debated the question: Should we remain the next day at Fort ----, or proceed on our journey? The mules needed rest, as well as the horses, for the quartermaster could not furnish fresh mules, which we had rather expected; still, my husband was anxious to reach Santa Fe as soon as possible--and we left the question of our departure where it was, to settle it the next morning at breakfast. The news that came to Fort ----, before the next morning, made us forget our journey--for that day, at least. Captain Arnold had been murdered! The big, true-hearted man was lying at Fort Desolation--dead--with his broken eyes staring up to the heaven that had not had pity on him--his broad breast pierced with the bullet that a woman's treachery had sped!

Before daybreak, a detachment of six men had come in from Fort Desolation to Fort ----, to report to the commander of their regiment that Captain Arnold had been a.s.sa.s.sinated, and Sergeant Henry Tulliver had deserted, taking with him one horse, two revolvers, and a carbine.

Captain Arnold had started out the morning before, with only two men, to call in the picket-posts. An hour later, the two men had come das.h.i.+ng back to the fort, stating that they had been attacked, and Captain Arnold killed, by the two white men who had been confined in the guard-house. It was ascertained then, for the first time, that the prisoners had made their escape. A detachment of men was sent out with a wagon, and the Captain's body brought in--the men, with their black faces and simple hearts, gathered around it, with tears and lamentations, heaping curses on the villains who had slain their kind commander.

Suddenly a rumor had been spread among them that Harry, the sergeant, had set the prisoners free; and instantly, a hundred hoa.r.s.e voices were shouting the mulatto's name--a hundred hands ready to take the traitor's life. Vainly Lieutenant Rockdale--who, after the Captain's departure, had at once repaired to his house--tried to check the confusion, that was quickly ripening into mutiny: the excitement only increased, and soon a crowd of black soldiers moved toward the men's quarters, with anything but peaceful intentions. Perhaps Harry's conscience had warned him of what would come, for while the mob were searching the quarters, a lithe figure sprang over the planks across the creek, ran to the stables below the Captain's house, and the next moment dashed over the road, mounted on a wild-looking, black horse.

Could they but have reached him--the infuriated men, who sent yells and carbine-b.a.l.l.s after the fugitive--he would have been sacrificed by them to the _manes_ of the murdered man; and perhaps this effect had been calculated on, when the fact of his having liberated the prisoners had been brought, to their ears.

"How did it come to their ears?" I asked of the Doctor, under whose care one of the six men, overcome with fatigue and excitement, had been placed. It seems that Mrs. Arnold had expressed her conviction of the sergeant having liberated the prisoners to Lieutenant Rockdale in little Fred's hearing, and the boy had innocently repeated the tale to the men.

In the afternoon of the same day, the detail had been made of the men who brought the news to Fort ----; but when the detachment had been only an hour or two on the way, they found the trail of the escaped prisoners. The men could not withstand the temptation to make an effort, at least, to recapture them. They knew them to be mounted, for the two horses which Sergeant Tulliver had that morning separated from the herd were missing; but the trail they followed showed the tracks of _three_ horses, which led them to suppose that Harry had found the men and joined them.

But the trail led farther and farther from the road, and fearing to be ambushed, they turned back, leaving the man who had been driven from the companions.h.i.+p of his brethren by a woman's treachery, to become one of the vultures that prey on their own kind.

_THE GENTLEMAN FROM SISKIYOU._

In Gilroy, when the sun lies hot and yellow on the roofs of the frame-built houses and the wide meadows, waving with grain or cropped short by herds of grazing cattle, the eye turns instinctively to the mountains, where the dreamy mid-day atmosphere seems to gather coolness from the dark woods that crown its summit.

"Over that way lie the Hot Springs," says one or the other, pointing out the direction to the stranger who comes for the first time to Santa Clara Valley.

If he wait till the early train of the Southern Pacific Railroad comes in from San Francisco, he will see any number of pa.s.sengers alighting at the depot, whose dress and belongings speak of a residence in a place somewhat larger and wealthier than the pretty little town of Gilroy.

After a comfortable dinner at either of the two hotels, carriages, stages, and buggies are in readiness to convey those in search of either health or pleasure on to the Springs.

It is too early in the season yet to feel much inconvenience from the dust; and the drive through the precincts of what is called Old Gilroy is a charming trip. The modest but cheerful houses are just within sight of each other, separated by orchards, grainfields, vineyards; a grove of white oaks here and there, a single live oak, and clumps of willow and sycamore, make the landscape as pleasing as any in the country. Nearer the first rise of the mountain, the view of grainfields, fenced in by the same dry board fence, would become monotonous were it not for the ever-fresh, ever-beautiful white oak that stands, sentinel-like, scattered through the golden fields, its lower branches sometimes hidden in the full-bearing garbs.

First we hardly notice that the road ascends; but soon, as the foot-hills leave an open s.p.a.ce, we can see a vast plain lying beneath us, and then the climb begins in good earnest. "Round and round" the hill it seems to go--a narrow road cut out of the long-resisting rock--the wounds which the pick and shovel have made overgrown by tender, pitying vines, that seek to hide the scars on the face of their fostering mother. Trees high above us shake their leafy heads, and the wild doves who have their nests in the green undergrowth, croon sadly over the invasion of their quiet mountain home. Vain complainings of tree and bird! When the eyes of man have once lighted on nature in her wild, fresh beauty, they are never withdrawn, and they spare not the bird on her nest, nor the tree in its pride.

Here opens a mountain valley before us, and, nestled in the shadow of sycamore and alder, a cosy, home-like cot. The peach and grape-vine cl.u.s.ter by the door; and where a rude tumble-down fence encloses the fields, the Rose of Castile, the native child of California, creeps picturesquely over the crumbling rails, and fills the air with its own matchless fragrance. Bees are drawing honey from geranium and gilli-pink, and the humming-bird, darting through s.p.a.ce like a flash one moment, hangs the next, with a quivering, rapturous kiss, in the petals of the sweet-breathed honeysuckle.

Then the road winds higher, and the hills and rocks above grow steeper, bearing aloft the laurel tree and manzanite bush, the madrone tree and the poison ivy. There is not an inch of ground between the wheels of the stage and the steep declivity; and once in a while a nervous pa.s.senger of the male gender turns away with a shudder, while the female hides her eyes in her veil or handkerchief, never heeding the sight of the bare, bald crags, and the pine-covered heights far above and in the dreamy distance.

As we enter the heart of the _canon_, the rocky, vine-clad walls on either side seem to rea.s.sure the nervous pa.s.senger and the half-fainting lady; and the grade being very easy for quite a while, there is no more lamentation heard till the horses dash full-speed through a laughing, glittering mountain stream, the head-waters of the Cayote, throwing its spray merrily in at the open window. Again and again the brook is crossed, as it makes its quick, flas.h.i.+ng way through blackberry clumps and wild grape-vines, glancing up at sycamore and buckeye tree as it hastens along. Suddenly the driver strikes one of the s.h.i.+ning white rocks on which the water breaks into foam, and then a general commotion ensues in the stage, and before the pa.s.sengers have settled back in their original places, a soft, sad music seems to float toward us on the air--the rustling of the gray-green pines that overhang the last rise in the road, and shade so romantically the white cottages clinging to the mountain-side, and built on the plateau that is crowned by the hotel and gardens of the Gilroy Hot Springs.

The stage halts, and after shaking hands with the dozen friends one is sure to find, and partaking of the dinner, which is consumed with ravenous appet.i.te after the drive of two or three hours, it is still early enough for a walk to the Springs before the balmy moonlit night sets in. The terrace-like walk, partly cut out, partly filled in on the steep mountain-side, is overhung by hills rising again on hills; tiny cottages peering out here, there, and everywhere, from out manzanite, laurel and pine trees. Beneath, the mountain falls off into a deep, narrow valley, clothed in luxuriant green, a towering mountain rising on the other side.

There are thousands of silver trout in the streams in the valley; there is an abundance of game in the wild, rugged, but beautiful mountains back of and above the Springs. As in some cases, however, a horrid, vicious-looking lamprey-eel has been found on the rod, instead of a speckled-back trout, so in other cases have brave hunters returned from the chase with blanched faces and reports of startling sights of huge bears and California lions, instead of the tamer game they had expected to bag.

"But it is delightful here for all that!" is the almost involuntary exclamation of those who, on some bright June morning make their way slowly, slowly--drinking their fill of nature, suns.h.i.+ne, and mountain air--to the bubbling, hissing, seething Springs.

We hear this same remark just now from the midst of the group of ladies who are making their way around the gentle curves of the terrace-walk to the Springs; and as the words come from the lips of one who is to figure as the heroine of our short but veracious story, we must take a closer look at her, as she sweeps by, moving along with the rest, yet always a little apart from them. She is carelessly swinging her hat by the strings, and the sun, now and again, as they round some curve in the road, kisses the auburn of her curls into ripples of golden bronze. The _nonchalance_ expressed in air and carriage was affected, it was said, and that she always knew what was going on around her, without ever asking any questions.

"That gentleman has been devouring you with his eyes this last half hour. I noticed him up at the house as we were getting ready to start--and now he is here before us;" and fat, motherly Mrs. Bradshaw laughed as only such large-framed, large-hearted people can laugh.

"I hope he finds me more palatable than the beefsteak we had this morning--it was horribly tough."

"Are you speaking of the gentleman from Siskiyou?" asked the tall lady with gla.s.ses, who was Miss Kingsley, and popularly supposed to be getting up a book on "The Resources of California."

"No, of the beefsteak," quickly replied she of the auburn curls. Mrs.

Bradshaw nudged her very perceptibly, to which admonition she made answer, _sotto voce_, "I hate old maids and blue-stockings."

Miss Kingsley had drawn herself up to her stateliest height: "I had meant to inquire whether Mrs. Bradshaw was alluding to the gentleman from Siskiyou?"

"Yes, dear; didn't you see how he kept his eyes fixed on Mrs. Clayton, before he turned away when he saw us laughing?"