Saddle And Mocassin Part 15

"No--_he knows_," she murmured almost inaudibly, turning her crimson face aside.

"Good-bye, then."

"Good-bye," and she moved away rapidly.

But as we drove off, we saw the little figure in its broad leaf hat, on the hillock behind the house, watching us. And as long as we were in sight it remained there.

FOOTNOTES:

[35] Why is this? Americans lack neither imagination nor artistic feeling.

[36] To "ring in a cold deck" is to order in and subst.i.tute a fresh pack, in which the cards are prearranged.

[37] Counters.

CHAPTER XIII.

A CRUISE IN NORTHERN MEXICO.--I.

We were seated at dusk on the platform outside the Depot or railway hotel at Deming, enjoying what the Colonel called: "A feast of reason, and a flow of souls." "We" consisted of the Colonel himself, Joe,[38] a life-long friend of his and an old friend of my own also, Navajo Bill, and myself. The Colonel had just returned from Silver City, Joe had just broken a journey from New York to San Francisco to visit us, and I had just returned from Chihuahua City via El Paso. As for Bill, with a vague smile flickering on the end of his nose and muzzle--an unengaged smile, waiting for a job as it were, he was merely "standing around" on the chance of the Colonel saying: "Navajo, here's two-and-a-half for you. Go and get drunk."

Who was Navajo? Ah, "that's where you've got me, young man." Heaven knows! I don't think Navajo aspired to have as much ident.i.ty as that question would imply. He was a sort of odd-man-out-of-place. He had a little shanty up town, and a kind of costermonger's barrow, in which he used to "take the air" with Mrs. Navajo, a lady who looked as if she had been born and bred to make him a suitable wife. Bill had no particular profession. He "went trips" if any one wanted him to. He could drive a team, cook indifferently, was cheerful, obliging, a fair worker, had good pluck, long hair, a queer amusing smile, a gutta-percha physiognomy, a fund of quaint sayings, and altogether was a good man to "have along" on a trip. At present, as the Colonel was suffering a good deal from rheumatism, he attended him as valet and rubber. Bill, with equal confidence, would have undertaken to manage a bank, or transact a diplomatic mission to the Court of St. James.

The Colonel "had the floor," and was referring to his visit to Silver City. "And whilst they were knocking the sawdust out of the _Pirates of Penzance_ all these amateurs--every man and woman in Silver that could squawk, in fact--Lindauer, and Louis Timmer, and Judge Falby, and I, we played pool."

"It isn't everybody that _could_ play pool, while the _Pirates of Penzance_ were catching it like that," commented Joe severely.

"Eh? what does Joe say? Oh, well, Nero fiddled while Rome was burning, and we didn't see why we shouldn't be just as cruel as Nero if we liked.

Anyhow----"

"A letter for you, Colonel!" said the hall porter, approaching.

The Colonel arose, and producing his _pince-nez_ gla.s.ses, drew near the light that streamed from the hotel door, to glance through the papers contained in the envelope.

"I guess it's only to say that some of your old ranch houses have been burnt by the Apaches, or that your old cows have got 'black-leg' or something," remarked Joe grimly.

"A judgment, likely, for fiddling when the Pirates was a-catching it so," suggested Bill, with a grin.

"That's it," chuckled Joe; "that's it, no doubt!"

"Navajo, can you make corn bread?" asked the Colonel, returning to his seat.

"Corn bread, Colonel! I can make it so a dog can't eat it."

"You can, eh? Well, that settles it. You _shall_ come, then. Go away up to Holgate's stables, and tell them to have the waggon and team ready to-morrow at midday--you see yourself that it is properly greased--and see that three days' feed of corn are put in for the horses, too. I am going down into Mexico."

"And perhaps you won't mind telling us where we come in, in all this?

What is going to happen to us?" inquired Joe, with some asperity.

"You will both come too," replied the Colonel calmly.

"To Mexico?"

"Yes."

"Well, we don't want to know your business, of course--we're not asking who your letter is from, or what it's about--we don't want to know how little you gave, or how much you got, but we should just like to know where _we_'re going to in Mexico, and _what_ we're going for? Are we going to 'make a killing,' or to buy a ranch, or only to steal some cattle? And what's the matter with our stopping here, and living comfortably, until you get back?"

"You won't stop here, you'll come right along with me, both of you; and I don't want you to give me any trouble about it, now! Travel improves the mind, and enlarges the ideas. You shall come and study the sister republic, and Navajo and I will introduce you into society down there.

If you're smart, you _may_ catch a _senorita_ with a big ranch before we get back."

"Where are we going to?"

"The Corralitos ranch. The agreement has just come back from El Paso, accepting the final offer that I made for between two and three thousand yearling and two-year-old Corralitos steers, and I must go down and receive them."

The restaurant at the Depot was the rendezvous, at meal-times, of all the high-toned people in Deming. When we left the hotel after the mid-day dinner, therefore, to mount the light waggon in which Navajo sat, curbing the impetuosity of our corn-inspired plugs, with a magnificent a.s.sumption of conscious importance, the _habitues_ of this frontier Bignon's, armed with tooth-picks and unlit cigars, a.s.sembled on the platform to bid farewell to the Colonel. Many a good-humoured sally ensued at his expense, but in no wise disconcerted, he returned shot for shot, as he walked round the waggon and inspected it, expressed his usual surprise that he should be the only man in New Mexico capable of packing a waggon properly, had the blankets, grain, provisions, cooking utensils, Winchesters, and other baggage taken out, replaced it all with his own hands, and finally mounting the box seat, gathered up the whip and reins.

Joe was taking a light for his cigar from one of the bystanders. "Joe isn't ready yet," observed Don Cabeza in a pleasantly ironic way, glancing at the mammoth shoulders that were rounded over the cigar-light. Joe vouchsafed no response. "But give him time," pursued his tormentor more cheerfully, "give him time and he'll get there. Joe will never die _suddenly_."

The old "forty-niner" approached the waggon with a withering glance at the repacked cargo.

"Have you shown them all how you can pack?" he asked dryly.

"Yes."

"Then we're where we were before, I guess--ready to start again, eh?"

"_Ex_actly."

"Ugh!" And Joe silently mounted, and amidst a shower of "good-byes," we drove off.

They were types, these two. Though nothing delighted them more than systematically to contradict and pooh-pooh one another, to less intimate acquaintances they were the essence of kindness and chivalrous courtesy; and let any one _coincide_ with them when they spoke slightingly of one another, and he would soon find that he had unconsciously undertaken to whip a dogged-looking giant, over six feet high in his socks, and, without being in the least degree stout, apparently about four feet broad across the shoulders.

The Corralitos ranch lay between seventy and eighty miles over the border, in Chihuahua, in Mexico, and was a hundred and ten miles from Deming. The first day's drive to Smith's Wells was only eighteen miles.

Thence to Ascension was an easy two days' drive, over a somewhat heavy road. On the fourth day Corralitos was reached early in the afternoon.

Between Smith's Wells and Ascension, it was necessary to camp out on the Boca Grande River.

The gradual settling up of waste lands in the United States had already begun to turn attention towards Northern Mexico, when railway promoters recognised a fresh field in it for their enterprise. But until the lines they projected to connect it with the railway systems of the States were completed, properties purchased there were comparatively worthless. Now the aspect of things is changed; land is rising rapidly in value; and the probability that the magnificent provinces which compose the upper tier of the Mexican provinces will eventually become incorporated with the United States gathers strength each day. American politicians still scout this notion. But it must be remembered that such men are for the most part politicians by profession--theorists unaffected by the interests, and ignorant of the influences that sway the ma.s.ses, not business men engaged in every walk of life and practically cognisant, therefore, of the questions submitted to them.

To judge fairly on such a subject as the one now broached, look at the map, contrast the characters, condition, strength, and relative rates of advance of the two peoples concerned; above all, gather the views of the American cattle-men, miners, traders, and railway stock-holders, of the large landowners (foreign, American, _and Mexican_) interested in the consummation of the union referred to, for these are the people who intend to bring it about.

It is idle to talk of justice and the obligations of honour in days when the hereditary right of a people to valuable land is hardly recognised, certainly not respected, unless they make good that right by cultivation. On all sides we see the traditions of law in this respect disregarded. Land would appear to belong in reality to those who most want it--to those who can render the best account of it. The tenure of the sluggard is on sufferance only. Even the strong, conservative, but unprofitable oak yields place to the seeded corn-stalk. And where Yankee enterprise and British tenacity have penetrated, and are busy, the rule of Mexican sloth is doomed. The Eastern politician may say that the annexation referred to is impossible, that the United States has land enough, and does not require any part of Mexico. But a nation is as little able to control its growth as a child. How much of what was once Mexican soil lies now within the borders of the United States? What were once California, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas? How many are the sacred contracts that the Was.h.i.+ngton Government has entered into, to respect the reservations of the Indians? Yet one by one these reservations have been redeemed by the plough, or overrun by the horned hosts of the cattle king. And now, in travelling through the States, one frequently hears indignant protests uttered against the Government for "giving" (!) the Indians the little land which still remains in their possession.

As a matter of fact, there is no unoccupied cattle-range of any importance left in the States. The range there is absolutely diminis.h.i.+ng, since in many places it is being, or already has been, eaten out. The ranchero in overcrowded Texas, in full New Mexico, and dry Arizona looks over the border and sees in Northern Mexico a vast cattle country, superior to anything that the States ever possessed, still comparatively unused, in the hands of drones for whom he has an undisguised contempt, and under the dominion of a weak and corrupt Government. What does he care about the political feelings of his rulers, or the diplomatic difficulties of annexation!