Saddle And Mocassin Part 13

ANIMAS VALLEY.--V.

At the Gray Place we found Lieut. Huse, who had come up from the supply camp at Lang's; and as he was returning on the following day, and we had decided sooner or later to go there also, we drove down together.

Eighteen miles in the teeth of a wind that would have driven an old Dutch lights.h.i.+p, with only a jury-mast and a small flag set, at the rate of fifteen knots an hour. How it came roaring up the funnel of that valley out of the very heart of the great, mysterious Sierra Madre--steadily, obstinately, unyieldingly!

About eight miles before the Lang ranch was reached, and at the broadest point in the valley, we crossed a very curious d.y.k.e, or levee. Leaving the foot-hills, it stretched across to the valley plain, in a direct line, for about seven or eight miles, turned then at right angles, and ran straight down the valley for about ten miles, and with another bend at right angles rejoined the foot-hills. The s.p.a.ce thus enclosed was perfectly flat, and lay slightly higher than the outside plain. At its base the levee was about 120 ft. broad, diminis.h.i.+ng at the top to thirty or forty, which was raised about twenty-five above the surrounding levels. These dimensions were maintained throughout with perfect regularity, save at one point (in the south-western corner), where a small gap destroyed the completeness of the lines. The labour expended in its construction must have been enormous; and since it is hardly likely to have been built for defence (natural positions of so much greater strength abounding in the neighbourhood), and there is no reason to suppose that it was meant to exclude water, what was the object of it? Possibly it was intended to _hold_ water. Springs still exist within its boundaries, although, at the present date, they are comparatively insignificant. About eight miles off, in the Cojon Bonita, there are some warm springs at which a permanent stream takes its rise, however, and centres of aqueous, like centres of volcanic activity, are liable, I presume, to change. Many Aztec works of the kind mentioned occur in Mexico, although this, I believe, is of unusual magnitude. So far as I know, no satisfactory hypothesis has yet been started to account for the object of these enclosures.

It is certain that, at no very distant date, the whole of the territory now comprising Northern Mexico, New Mexico, and Arizona was thickly populated. The site of an Aztec village remains not far from the levee (at the Cloverdale ranch, in the south-western corner of the valley), where fragments of pottery are often found; and in digging a water-trench there not long since, the workmen discovered a large quant.i.ty of buried maize, which was black and partially petrified. But traces of a vanished population are found in all directions in the districts mentioned, and a curious question arises in connection with such evidence: How did these people live? Under existing circ.u.mstances the country referred to could not support a large population. The rainfall is not great enough to permit of crops being raised in the ordinary way, and the area of land suitable for irrigation is very limited. Can it have been that formerly the climate was not what it is at present, and that the scarcity of rain is a deprivation of recent date? I believe it is claimed, and the claim substantiated by statistics, that, in proportion as population rolls out and settles on the western prairies, the rain-belt extends in that direction also.

Something of this sort may have been the case here.

The influence of population indirectly on climate would be a curious study. In parts of Oregon it was frequently a.s.serted in my hearing that the late spring frosts which once prevented fruit-growing there, had notably decreased since the country had been settled up, vanis.h.i.+ng in some instances altogether. Amongst other extraordinary phenomena, bearing a relation to this subject possibly, is the fact that the agues and fevers prevalent on the Hudson River in early times, disappeared for a long while entirely, but within the last fifteen years have returned, and in places are now more common than ever.

But from Animas Valley to the Hudson River is a "far cry!" Where were we? No matter! Here we are at any rate, on the top of the levee, in a cloud of dust, the wind unabated, and the off-side horse (a good worker, but of uncertain temper) jibbing--jibbing as, fortunately, horses only do jib where the performance can be properly described without hurting anybody's sensibilities. For half-an-hour, exposed on this monument of Aztec industry, we were fully occupied in a battle royal with this monument of equine obstinacy. But without result, until, finally, having exhausted every other expedient, we bent a picket-rope round his fore-legs, and by sawing the inside of them vigorously with it succeeded in starting him again.

_a propos_, the very spot at which we crossed the d.y.k.e was the scene, a few months later, of a peculiarly cold-blooded murder. The proprietor of a canteen at the Lang camp was proceeding on horseback to Separ, when four of his familiars (camp loafers and gamblers), who lay in wait for him behind the d.y.k.e, rode down towards him as he approached and "held him up," _i.e._, covered him with their six-shooters, and made him throw up his hands. He had about six hundred dollars with him, which he begged them to take without murdering him. But, notwithstanding this, and whilst he was in this defenceless position, one of them shot him through the side, the bullet traversing his pocket-book and marking the corner of each note. They took his money, and he having entreated them in his agony "to finish him," one of them shot him through the head. In this condition he lived until a teamster carried him into camp, and although too exhausted to say much, he was able to furnish the names of his murderers. They were all men that he had more or less a.s.sisted, but it transpired subsequently that he had expected them to make an attempt on his life. The gang divided and fled to Mexico, where they reunited, and one of them winning at poker the whole of the sum they had taken, was shot by his companions. One was captured and brought back to the States; one was shot soon afterwards in a horse-stealing sc.r.a.pe; and the fourth was still at large when I left the neighbourhood.

No one was sorry when the drive was over, and having knocked some of the dust off our clothes, we walked up from the ranch house to the camp, where we found a hearty and hospitable welcome in Huse's shanty.

Comfortable chairs! and newspapers! and blanket carpeting! a fire-place, mantelpiece, looking-gla.s.s, pipe-rack, shelf of poets and novels, and, what! an Irish setter!--a well-bred one too! It was like meeting a friend from the old country to find that handsome red muzzle resting on one's knee.

"Halls of Montezuma!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the Colonel in a reverential voice, as he took a seat and glanced round him, in the little adobe room, with its canvas roof and red calico decorations. "I have seen the Escurial, and Versailles, and the Vatican, and the Dolme Bagtche, and Windsor Castle, and lots of those little dug-outs 'over there,' but I'll be darned if this establishment of yours, Huse, don't knock any one of them gallywest!--gallywest, sir, that's what it does! It just dumps the filling out them!"

"Well, I'm lucky in my servant, Colonel. He was in the German army--servant to some big dog on the staff--and the consequence is that he knows a thing or two. He is an A 1 cook, and a good forager, and--in fact, this sort of thing is play to him after the discipline over there.

This red rag and silver paper business, the pictures, and all that, _he_ did. He fixed up that mantelpiece with the red calico border--goodness knows where he got it from! The silver paper and leadfoil come off packets of tea and tobacco. Those silver candlesticks look gorgeous, don't they?"

"Well, I should smile!" rejoined the Colonel admiringly. "He's a dandy in his business, that chap, and his business is fixing things. Huse, if the _senoritas_ in the sister republic only knew what it was like here, how they would come and camp with you! They'd come over the border on _burros_, and in _carawakis_, and ambulances, and waggons, and--and pack-trains of them, and--and--and all their families would be along, too. _They_ always come, to be 'brothers,' and '_amigos_,' and so forth; and--and they'd stay right with you, and love you. Yes, sir, I suppose there'd be no end to the love that you would have--no end to it at all."

"All right, Colonel, let them come," replied Huse laughingly, as he stood mixing _mascal_ toddies on the hearth; "let them come. You won't mind if we kill one of your fat steers now and then to feast them with, I suppose?"

"It would make them sick, Huse," said the Colonel, with some solicitude.

"Animas beef would be too rich for their blood. Antelope would be better for them--antelope and jack-rabbit, with a few of Uncle Sam's canned tomatoes now and then."

The camp being a fixture, its inhabitants had had an opportunity of displaying their architectural ingenuity, and the variety of dwellings there was curious, comprising log-huts, semi-subterraneous dug-outs covered in by tents, and every kind of adobe building, in every stage of development, from a mere fire-place extension to a complete house with a mud and brushwood roof.

During my stay here, I rode out one day with Huse to a spot, about nine or ten miles off, where Lieut. Day with a troop of cavalry and a hundred Indian scouts were encamped. And here, perhaps, it will be as well to notice more particularly the Indian war, which occasioned the presence of the troops so frequently referred to.

Several months before the dates concerned in these chapters, a band of Chiricaua Apaches had broken out of the San Carlos reservation, and made good their escape into the Sierra Madre. Joined here by Apaches of other tribes, and by a few renegade Navajos from Arizona, they had divided their forces, and roving, or rather sneaking, through the border States of Mexico and the United States, in small bands, had murdered soldiers, rancheros, and travellers, American or Mexican, with perfect impartiality. Their favourite haunts were in Sonora and New Mexico, but occasionally they made raids into Arizona and Chihuahua. The rugged ranges of hills that intersect the plains in this part of America, afforded them highways and sanctuaries for retreat in all directions.

Here also they found whatever game they required for subsistence.

Old Indian fighters, and others who have the means of judging, a.s.sert that the Apaches are superior in endurance and physique to any other Indians in the States, whilst in intellectual power, prudence, subtilty, and tactical skill, they are probably unrivalled, the world over, amongst savage races. Although not naturally born to the saddle, like some Indians, they covet the possession of horses, and are expert horse-thieves. Since they require no baggage; since they find a remount depot in every ranch they pa.s.s through, and can, therefore, ride their horses to death without inconvenience; since a hundred miles on foot, through the roughest country, is a trip that even their squaws will accomplish without rest; since they are wise as serpents, prudent as elephants, well armed, and intimately acquainted with every canon, cave, and water-hole in the country they infest, it is scarcely to be wondered at that the United States troops experience some difficulty in recapturing them. The very organisation of regular troops is a disadvantage to them in such warfare; it is like setting a team of yoked oxen to "round up" wild two-year-old scrub steers.

The Apaches never risked an open conflict. If they attacked a small convoy, or surveying party, a few miners, a couple of cow-boys, or a teamster, it was always with overwhelming numbers, at a place selected with the deepest cunning, whence they themselves, secure of a safe line of retreat, were enabled to fire from admirable points of vantage, without leaving cover. Under these circ.u.mstances they had done a vast deal of mischief, their victims amounting to about three hundred, or nearly double the number of men that their whole force of men, women, and children comprised.

They moved so rapidly, and covered such distances, that it was impossible at any time to locate them with certainty. Their presence was only announced by some unexpected ma.s.sacre. Hotly pursued, they scattered like a band of quail, to reunite at some preconcerted spot.

And if, notwithstanding all their advantages, the white troops were pressing them dangerously, they vanished for a time into the heart of the Sierra Madre, where soldiers could not follow them.

With the policy of leaving these Indians on a reservation that lies within spring of their own natural and practically inaccessible stronghold, after repeated experience of the results of so doing, we have nothing to do. The border population of Mexico and the States is not contented with it. But it should be remembered that the _ranchero_, whose son or brother has been ma.s.sacred, and who runs some daily risk himself, is hardly able to judge coolly of such a matter; whereas the Eastern philanthropist, who really directs the above policy, is far enough removed from the seat of danger, and sufficiently disinterested in the prosperity of the district involved in it, to view the question with an impartial eye. This is as it should be, no doubt.

"You will like Day," said Huse, as we splashed through a pretty little stream, and caught sight of the filmy pillars of smoke that curled up amongst the cotton-wood trees, from the camp-fires; "all his men like him; he can do anything with these Indians. He'll fight, too, you bet!

and he's as tough as raw-hide. Britton Davis told me that Day did a thing which he wouldn't have believed possible, if it hadn't come under his immediate notice. He was on a hot trail once with his scouts--they had been following it for some days--and it set in to rain. Well, you can't travel in moca.s.sins in wet weather, and Day's boots were away behind with the regular troops. Do you think he quit? Not he. He just pulled off his moca.s.sins, and followed the trail barefooted for three days, like the Indians with him--in the Sierra Madre! Eh? just think of it! all amongst those rocks and thorns! They got the redskins--killed eight of them--but Day was lame for weeks afterwards."

Thus talking we had ridden by the empty picket lines, and little shelter tents, which marked the quarters of the cavalry, pa.s.sed through the neatly arranged trappings and lines of the pack-train, and now pulled up before the three headquarters tents. A pleasant shout of recognition greeted Huse's summons, and the subject of our conversation appeared.

The last man in the world that you would have expected to see, were you accustomed to draw portraits in imagination, and drew in this instance solely influenced by the Lieutenant's record! The hero of a score of Indian fights was slightly built and fair, with pleasant blue eyes, and a voice as gentle as a woman's, with one of those delicate complexions that the sun cannot tan, a singularly winning smile, and an almost caressing gentleness of manner.

It was nearly lunch-time, so we lounged round the tent in the shade, and smoked and chatted with our host, and the other officers of his party, until it was ready. Apache warfare, and the stratagems which these ingenious warriors employ when pushed, furnished an inexhaustible theme of conversation.

Amongst other tricks--new to me, though not so, possibly, to my reader--is one which might be used upon occasion in civilised skirmis.h.i.+ng. Hard pressed, and anxious to divert their pursuers'

attention to a false scent, the Apaches have been known to detach men to light small dry wood fires on their flanks, and so place cartridges under them, that the latter will explode at intervals in representation of a fusillade. Lunch over, we strolled round the camp. This was situated in a picturesque glen. Rocky hills towered above us, but we were down amidst gra.s.sy nooks, screens of willow bush, and groves of sycamore and cotton-wood trees.

"Come and see the way that the men bake in our army," said Day, after we had witnessed the distribution of rations to the scouts, and experienced some amus.e.m.e.nt from the haggling that ensued on the short measures of flour which "Rowdy Jack," one of their fellow-men, served out;--"come and see the way that the men bake in our army, it will interest you. It is simpler than the means your fellows employ, over the water. There is a little cooking stove, used in our service, which I want to show you, too."

We repaired to the cavalry camp, and found the process of baking in operation. In a small trench, about fifteen inches broad, a foot deep, and seven or eight feet long, half-a-dozen flat-bottomed tin bowls or basins, containing the dough, were placed. These were covered by inverted bowls of a similar material and shape. The trench was then partly filled with wood ashes (from a neighbouring fire), mixed with sand to regulate the heat and prevent the dough burning, a few ashes were scattered on the tops of the inverted bowls, and the make-s.h.i.+ft oven was complete. A dozen or two of these tins could be packed one inside the other; they weighed little, and occupied but little s.p.a.ce, whilst the bread which could be baked by their means was excellent.

The stove was a small, flat-topped cooking stove of sheet-iron, which formed an easy load for one mule. In a country where wood was scarce, it would be invaluable, for with a most trifling consumption of fuel, it cooked, and cooked rapidly, a meal for a whole company. Both these expedients are worth the notice of English officers. _a propos_ of "camp fixings," I may mention here an idea which has often occurred to me for a camp table--always an awkward and unpackable article. Let the top of the table be made on the principle of Tunbridge Wells tea-kettle holders, or of laths of wood riveted on to a canvas back. Cross pieces, turning on a screw, such as serve to hold the back of a drawing-board in its frame, would keep the top flat when unrolled, and when not in use, it might be wrapped round the legs, and would pack with ease.

Quitting the cavalry quarters, we proceeded to those of the scouts. They also were supplied with shelter tents, which they had pitched face to face, in couples, close together, a wood fire smouldering between them, and a brush-wood fence snugly surrounding them. No order seemed to regulate their choice of site. They had located themselves wherever there was a crack or inequality in the broken valley bottom, a bay in the banks of the stream, or a nook formed by the fallen trunks of great trees, and their camp was thus scattered over a considerable area of ground.

For the most part these Apaches were drawn from the White Mountain tribe, between which and the Chiricauas a deadly feud existed. Their physique was magnificent. Square-shouldered, lean, and supple types of feline humanity, six feet in stature were not uncommon amongst them, although a lower standard of height naturally ruled. They were handsome, too, in a Mephistophelean style. One group that I saw is photographed on my memory with peculiar vividness.

The trunk of a giant sycamore had fallen, and, stripped by time of its foliage, even of its bark, and all but its larger branches--reduced, in fact, to a white skeleton--projected above the stream. Under the bank (six or eight feet high at this point), Stove-pipe, the native chief of the scouts, had pitched his tent. We visited him, and whilst we were conversing together a score of his men collected about us. Some seated themselves on drift-wood logs, others on boulders, some lounged with their backs against the fallen sycamore, one leant forward with his arms on the trunk, another, seated amidst the branches, dangled his legs over the pebbly stream, which caught their swaying reflection, and near him, a splendid panther-like brute had stretched himself at full length on the naked bark, and leaning on his elbow, gazed lazily at us. All faced us, and the att.i.tude of each one was perfect in its physical ease and unstudied repose. A striking study of heads, too, was afforded by these bronze-visaged warriors, with their black snaky locks (bound by the red handkerchief, their distinguis.h.i.+ng badge), their half-closed, volcanic orbs, and scornful features, lit by chill smiles, and gleams of strange intelligence. Savages are always interesting as links with the past--interesting as dusky shadows that linger to tell us of a phase in the history of man obscured now in the twilight of ages--interesting as belated wayfarers in the race of human development which they will never live to finish.

Stove-pipe's urbanity delighted me; "he was the mildest-mannered man that ever raised a scalp, or cut a throat." In his domestic concerns, however, he was, to say the least of it, peremptory. Returning to the reservation one day, after some Apache war, he learnt that his squaw had presented him with triplets. Being a modest man, in respect of family his requirements might have been more easily gratified. The news disturbed him, and he took action at once, thereupon cracking the three little skulls of his offspring upon the nearest available stone. Then he warned his wife that "he had not intended to marry a dog, and if she did it again, he would treat her pericranium in the same fas.h.i.+on." It was an unusual course to have pursued in such a case, perhaps; but, as the Secretary of one of the foremost of Liberal a.s.sociations in London (an extremely pleasant man, and an advanced thinker, enthusiastic, moreover, in the cause of civilisation) once remarked to me, concerning the infantine victims of some Holy-Russian atrocities in Central Asia, "What does it matter?--they would only have been savages after all." One of the beauties of civilisation--of being humane and wise, that is--lies in the fact that it absolves us of all duty towards our neighbour, if he be a savage, and permits us the privilege of "wiping him out" with a clear conscience, in the name of G.o.d.

The m.u.f.fled sound of a wild chant reached us from a point hidden by a bend in the stream, and on walking to the overhanging bank, we found that it issued from a small beehive-shaped tent of blankets on the further side of the water. It was a sweat bath. Some large stones are heated in a fire, and placed on the floor in the centre of the tent, into which ten or a dozen men then crowd. A little water thrown on the stones generates steam, and this from time to time is renewed, whilst the bathers amuse themselves by chanting a chorus. Having perspired sufficiently, they plunge into cold water, and some of those who had completed the process, were lying stark naked in the sun to dry, or being dry, were sleeping.

We continued our cruise round the camp. Here one or two men were seated in a tent full of tanned deer-skins, which they were working up and softening with the hands; there, an industrious warrior was embroidering a moca.s.sin or s.h.i.+rt; elsewhere were men occupied in hammering ornaments out of silver dollar or half-dollar pieces, or in burning patterns on the beautifully coloured beans, gathered in the Sierra Madre, with which they make bracelets and necklaces. For a little while, we watched a knot of men playing Nazouch, a monotonous and uninteresting game, to which the Apaches are pa.s.sionately addicted. Finally we joined a ring of spectators that were gathered round some card-players.

It is refres.h.i.+ng, in these times of jaded appet.i.tes and _blase_ indifference, to see real interest displayed in anything. These men were in earnest. Their flas.h.i.+ng glances, short, sharp utterances and cries, their vivid gestures, the _elan_ with which, having secured the call, one or other of them would dash down lead after lead, and the lightning pounce with which an opponent would produce a trump or winning card to check such a one's career, were positively exciting.

The Apaches are inveterate gamblers, and hold cheating to be legitimate in their games, thus eliminating from it the stigma which attaches to it in civilised communities. Cards with them involves a trial of skill indeed, and I am told that they display a degree of subtilty in such trials that the blackleg fraternity in black cloth would have some difficulty in checkmating. Occasionally they club together and lay siege to a _monte_ or faro bank. Only one of the subscribers to the pool plays at a time, but they succeed one another rapidly at the table until one or other of them has revealed a vein of luck. He is then allowed to play on until his good fortune appears to be wavering, when he is promptly superseded. They contrive thus always to play "the man in luck," and are _said_ to achieve considerable success by this means.

The afternoon was wearing away when we quitted the charmed circle; we had a rough ride before us; and bidding adieu to our good-natured cicerone, therefore, once more turned our faces towards the Lang ranch.

CHAPTER XII.

ANIMAS VALLEY.--VI.

Amongst other trips of a similar nature, which we made about this time, was one into the Cojon Bonita, or Beautiful Box, a district adjoining Animas Valley (only lying on the Mexican side of the border), where the Colonel had lately purchased 360,000 acres of land from the Mexican Government. The few cattle that had drifted down there excepted, this tract was as yet unstocked, and was said to contain a great quant.i.ty of game. Unfortunately it was noted also as being a favourite haunt of the hostile Apaches, to whom the broken nature of the ground peculiarly recommended itself. An Indian there was as safe as a rat in a rabbit-warren, and a white man as completely at his mercy as though he had been a bound sheep.

As Apaches were known to have been recently in the neighbourhood, it would have been foolhardy to go down there and camp with less than six or eight men, and these we had not at our disposal. However, Major Tupper simplified matters by saying that he himself wished to make a reconnaissance in that direction, and would come with us and bring an escort of ten men. F. and W., two friends of the Colonel's, accompanied us from the Gray Place, and Huse joined us as we pa.s.sed the Lang ranch.

With the addition of four packers for the inevitable pack-train, therefore, we formed an extensive party. It augured badly for sport, and the augury was verified, for the joint bag (and most of the men went out) was one black-tail killed by F. Tramping and climbing, wading and sliding, I tore two new pair of moca.s.sins to rags, and only saw two head of game--two black-tail in the distance--some wild turkey tracks, a fresh Indian moca.s.sin track (whether of scout or hostile I knew not, but its Indian origin was proved by the in-turned toes, and absence of any sign of instep, or of thrown-up dirt at the toes), and a lately deserted camp-fire still burning. Nevertheless the trip was a delightful picnic, and as such deserves grateful recollection.

A mile or so over the Mexican border-line, the track we followed suddenly descended, and we found ourselves in a maze of beautiful glades and valleys, the gra.s.sy hills which formed them being of the same height as the level of the plain that we had quitted. As we proceeded, the hills rose rapidly, here and there revealing their rocky framework in gaunt cliffs and naked elbows; live-oaks intermingled with the cotton-woods in the bottoms and towered above them on the hillsides, whilst the richest and most luxuriant gra.s.ses spread everywhere. Truly the district deserved its name of Beautiful Box.