Bending low, now creeping on all fours, now running with his body doubled to his knees, diverging to right or left as projections in the Lava Beds seemed to offer a favourable screen, but ever and always making for the front, the solitary man pressed on, his rifle grasped sometimes in the left hand, sometimes in the right, as the need for using one hand or the other in his advance arose. Twice he stopped to recover breath, while pushing his way onward, and cautiously twisted his head around to see what had become of his Pueblo friends; but they were invisible. Their skill in keeping under cover at least was undeniable. On he went again, till finally he reached the brow of the great rise in the lava bed from which Miguel had reconnoitred the Navajo camp. Past this he tried to get without exposing himself unduly, but thrice he failed to find cover, and retreated again to look for a better spot. The fourth time he found a hollow in the lava with a rise on the right of it that promised him some shelter, and flat on his face in this he wormed himself slowly along, the eager bulldog flattening himself against the rock by his side. Often had he crawled like this beside his master to get a chance at a deer. But it was more dangerous game than deer that they were stalking now. Having gained some twenty yards by this creep, Stevens slowly raised his head to get a view of the new ground that he knew should become visible in front of him from here. He caught sight of a little green oasis amid the lava beyond, of a band of ponies grazing in it, and of figures seated in a group on the far side; and, by Heaven! amid the figures his quick eye detected the flutter of a pink muslin which he had often seen Manuelita wear.
"Great Scot!" he ejaculated, "she's found. There she is." He raised himself a little higher to get a better view, and take in the details of the hostile camp, when suddenly a jet of smoke came out of the lava scarce a hundred yards away, the sharp snap of a rifle was heard, and a bullet clapped loudly on the rock close to his head. The Navajos were not taken by surprise.
The Navajos had spotted the Pueblo scouts; they took their appearance as a signal for fight, and now they were ready to give them or anyone with them a warm reception. This bullet was their first greeting.
The lead, splashing off the rock, spattered sharply on Stephens's cheek. Instinctively he threw up his right hand and passed it over the side of his face, but the splashes did not even draw blood, and his eye was happily uninjured. In a moment he raised his rifle to shoot back, but before he could get a bead the gleam of the rifle-barrel from which the shot had come, and the head of the Indian that had aimed it disappeared. "Dropped down to reload," said the frontiersman to himself. "He's a goodish shot, that Navajo son of a gun; that was a close call."
Lowering his head under cover, he decided to try a trick. Opening a recess in the butt of his Winchester, he drew out four little iron rods which, when screwed together, made a cleaning-rod about thirty inches in length. Then he took off his hat, put the end of the cleaning-rod inside it, and slowly hoisted it into view a yard or so away to the right of where he had looked over before. He lay on his left side and elbow, with his Winchester in his left hand, and the right arm extended raising the hat. Snap went the sharp report of a rifle again; there was a hole through the hat; dropping the rod instantly he seized his rifle with both hands and raised himself for a quick shot. But there was nothing visible worth shooting at. Once more the quick dissolving puff of smoke and the gleam of a rifle-barrel disappearing were all that he got a glimpse of. His little ruse had failed, and he was clearly discomfited, while a loud whoop of derision rang out from the rocks; it was the Navajo equivalent for "Sold again!" It was echoed from another quarter, and from another, by wild unearthly yells.
"Aha, white man," those yells seemed to say, "we've caught you now! How do you feel now? This is our country and not yours; aha! it is our home, and it shall be your grave; the vulture and the coyote know the Navajo war-whoop, and they are hurrying to pick your bones. Aha, aha!"
The solitary man felt his heartstrings quiver at the cruel sounds, but he kept his eyes glued to the place where the puffs of smoke had come from; the next time that devilish redskin put up his head to fire he would try who could draw a bead the quicker.
At this moment he was startled by a loud, coarse voice, quite close to him apparently, but coming from an unseen speaker. The words were Spanish. "Es tu, Sooshiuamo?"—"Is it you, Sooshiuamo?" The voice was the unmistakable voice of Mahletonkwa, with its thick, guttural tones.
Stephens hesitated a moment. Should he break silence and answer? He had neither fired a shot nor uttered a sound so far. But he had been discovered, for all that, and was there any further use in trying to conceal his exact position? He decided to answer.
"Si, soy," he called out in a loud voice. "Yes, that's who I am. Is that you there, Mahletonkwa?" But he did not turn his eyes in the direction of the unseen voice that had addressed him; he kept them fastened on the distant spot where he expected the rifle-barrel to reappear. Nor did he judge amiss. The hidden marksman, who thought that the American's gaze would be turned in the direction of the voice in answer to which he had spoken, put up his rifle for a third shot at him. Quick as lightning Stephens brought the Winchester to his shoulder; but even now he did not pull the trigger, for as his rifle came up the Indian's head went down again, and again those wild derisive whoops rang out, and again the voice of the unseen man, concealed so close to him, addressed him in Spanish.
"What are you doing here, Sooshiuamo? and what do you want?"
Was the voice nearer than before? Was this only a trick of the Navajos to get him off his guard? Stephens mistrusted that it was so; but he coolly made reply. "Why do your men shoot at me, Mahletonkwa? I want to talk to you. I want that Mexican girl, the Señorita Sanchez, whom you have carried off." He would see if they were open to an offer.
"Who is with you?" asked the voice of Mahletonkwa. "Who are those behind you? Where are the soldiers?"
Stephens determined to try to run a bluff.
"They're coming," said he confidently. "Don't you delude yourself. We've got force enough to take her back. You'd better surrender her quietly at once."
"Pooh!" answered Mahletonkwa tauntingly, "you've got no soldiers. The storekeeper burnt the letter you sent to the general, I know."
This was a blow to Stephens, and the moment he heard the Indian say it, he recognised the probability of its truth. Backus must have played traitor, and, what was more, he must have told the Navajos that he had done so. This Indian could never have invented such a story himself.
"Suppose he did," returned Stephens, determined to keep up his bluff; "that doesn't prevent me meeting Captain Pfeiffer and a troop of cavalry on the road and bringing them along." He raised his voice so that all those Indians who were within earshot might hear him. "If you dare hurt one hair of the señorita's head, you will every one of you be shot or hanged. You mark me."
While he was speaking the Navajo who had fired at him twice already put up his head for a third shot, but he bobbed it down quicker than before as the ready Winchester came up to the American's cheek.
The prospector lowered his piece once more instead of letting fly; he was determined not to throw away his first shot. He had plenty of cartridges, but he knew that to risk beginning with a miss would only embolden his enemies, and he meant to strike terror from the start.
The red Indian is as brave as the next man, but he objects to getting killed if he can help it, and he will carefully avoid exposing himself to the aim of a dead-shot. These Navajos had all seen Stephens drive the nail.
Stephens's verbal threat, however, only provoked Mahletonkwa's derision. "Pooh!" he retorted jeeringly, "where are your friends now? It is getting time for them to come and save you. You'll see, though, they can't do it. We'll show you what we are. We are Tinné; we are men." The word Tinné means "men" in the Navajo language. They call themselves "the men" par excellence.
"Chin-music's cheap," rejoined Stephens, taunting him back. "Say, have you forgotten your time on the Pecos at Bosque Redondo already? You felt like 'men' there, didn't you, when you were grubbing for roots and catching grasshoppers and lizards to eat like a lot of dirty Diggers?"
"Hah!" replied the Indian indignantly, "I never saw Bosque Redondo. All the soldiers you could get couldn't take me where I didn't choose to go. I don't take orders from any agent or any general. Nobody ever commands me." There spoke the soul of the true son of the desert. Personal liberty was to him as the breath of his nostrils. Nevertheless, beneath his boastful assertions Stephens thought he detected an undertone that might indicate a willingness to treat, and he slightly altered his own tone.
"Mahletonkwa, you're playing the fool. Why don't you bring the girl back quietly?"
"Well, if you want her," answered the Navajo, "why don't you come out of your hole and talk business?"
"Yes, and get shot by treachery for my pains!" answered Stephens indignantly. "I haven't attacked you. Your men began; they've shot at me twice without warning."
"Well," said the Navajo, "you tell your men, if you have any, that they are not to shoot, and I'll tell mine not to shoot, and then you and I can talk together. I'm willing to treat."
An idea struck Stephens; he had already insinuated that he had Captain Pfeiffer—a name of terror to the Navajoes and Apaches—at his back; he would keep up that pretence, at least for a time. He turned and shouted aloud in English at the pitch of his voice, "O Captain Pfeiffer! O Captain Pfeiffer! Keep your soldiers back. Don't let them fire a shot." He paused, and then continued shouting again, but this time in Spanish, "O Captain of the Indian scouts," he would not give away the Santiago cacique in any wise by calling him by name, "let your scouts keep their posts and watch, but let them not fire a shot. Let them wait till I return. Peace talk."
The four Pueblo Indians heard him, and understood, and from their hiding-places they shouted back in assent.
"You see," cried he to his wily foe, "my men are warned. Do you send your men back to your camp, and come out and meet me in the open, eye to eye."
"No treachery?" said the Indian.
"No treachery," answered the white man.
The Navajo called to his companions, and presently Stephens had glimpses here and there of stealthy forms slinking through the Lava Beds back in the direction of the oasis where their horses were grazing.
"Now you come out," called Mahletonkwa to the American.
"Come forward then, you, too," said Stephens.
"You first," returned the savage.
Stephens decided to take the risk and set the example. Grasping his rifle in his left hand, he held it across his body, while he raised his open right hand above his head in sign of amity, as he rose to his full height. Not twenty yards away, across the ridge of rock that had covered him on his right hand, he caught sight of Mahletonkwa's copper-coloured visage, with the watchful dark eyes fastened on him, as they peered through a loophole-like fissure in the lava, where he was crouching.
Stephens, his head a little thrown back, his breast expanded, braced himself to receive, and to return if he could, the treacherous bullet he more than half expected.
"Stand up there you, Mahletonkwa, like me." He spoke proudly. "Be a man; stand up."
Very watchfully, both hands grasping his gun at the ready, the Indian rose to his feet. He looked like a fierce, cunning wolf hesitating whether to snap or to turn tail.
With right hand still extended, Stephens moved step by step towards his enemy, Faro keeping close to his heels. Not for a moment did the white man remove his eye from the Indian, alert to detect the first motion towards raising the gun, as he felt for his footing on the rough lava blocks, careful not to look down lest an unfair advantage should be taken of him. At five yards off he halted. The fissured rock behind which Mahletonkwa had been crouching was now all that separated them.
"Is there not peace between us?" exclaimed Stephens. "What do you fear? Why does your gun point my way?"
"Is not your gun in your hand, too?" returned the Indian. "Put it down and I will put mine down."
Stephens lowered his right hand, and bending his knees slowly he sank his body near enough to the ground to lay his Winchester at his feet, but he never took his eyes off the Indian, and his fingers still encircled the barrel and the small part of the stock.
"Down with yours too, Mahletonkwa," he said quietly.
The Indian placed his piece at his feet, hesitated a moment, and then removed his hands from it and sat up, resting himself on his heels. Stephens likewise took his hands from his weapon and sat on a rock. Mutual confidence had advanced so far, although each was still intensely suspicious of the other.
"Now, tell me," said Stephens, "what did you carry off the girl for?"
"To get our pay for our dead brother," returned the red man.
"You did wrong then. You should have complained to the agent at Fort Defiance if you thought you had a claim to compensation. You should not have done an act of war by carrying her off."
"Huh! Was it not you who tried to send for the soldiers when we came to claim compensation?"
"Certainly I sent for them. You refused a reasonable offer, and you threatened to kill my Mexican friends instead. That was why I sent for them."
"It was you who caused the Mexicans to refuse compensation. They would have paid up and settled with us if it had not been for you."
"No, not so. It was you who asked a ridiculous price. I urged Nepomuceno Sanchez to make terms with you. But not at your price. You asked for the dead man's weight in silver, pretty near. I don't believe you know how much a thousand dollars is; I don't believe you could count it."
"Yes I could," said the Indian sulkily; "it's a back-load for a man to carry a day's journey."
Stephens figured on the weight, as stated by the Indian, for a moment. "Well, I've got to admit you do seem to know something about it, after all," he answered; "your figures come out about right. And, as I said before, it was a perfectly absurd amount to ask. And then, to make it worse, instead of trying to make terms, you commit an outrage of this kind by carrying off an innocent girl by violence."
"She has not been ill-treated," said the Indian; "she has not been subject to violence while we have had her. We have taken good care of her." He spoke very earnestly and with marked emphasis.
"That's your story," returned Stephens; "I only hope it's true. It'll be better for you if it is. But anyways there's no denying the fact that she's been brutally dragged from her home."
"That's nothing much," said the Indian briefly; "she's not been ill-treated"; and he explained clearly enough what he meant by ill-treatment. Stephens understood him, and shuddered to think of that poor girl having lain for two days and nights completely at the mercy of this savage. But he remembered Madam Whailahay, and the cacique's wonderful account of the power of that superstition over the Tinné. It might prove to be true, as Mahletonkwa asserted, that the captive had been spared the worst. And the Navajo really did seem to have a notion of coming to terms. But on what basis were they to deal? How far could they trust each other? That was the crucial question.
"Look here now, Mahletonkwa," said he, "you take me straight to where she is, and let me talk to her quietly; and you give me your solemn promise that you won't try to make me prisoner, but will let me return to my own men unharmed, and I'll see what I can do to make peace for you." He had a special object in making this speech; it was to test the truth of the Indian's words. If the Navajo refused the permission for him to see her, he would be discrediting his own assertion that the girl was not seriously harmed; moreover, though Stephens had small faith in the Indian's honour, and was by no means unprepared to find that the promise, if given, was given only to entrap him, he nevertheless thought it politic thus to require it, that by making such a show of confidence on his own part in Mahletonkwa's honour he might beget a corresponding return of confidence from the other.
The Navajo pondered a moment on the proposition. "Yes," he said presently, looking up, his distrustful eyes, still full of suspicion, resting doubtfully on Stephens. "Promise, you, that your men stay where they are, and do nothing against us, and I'll take you to her."
"I'll do that much," answered the American; "so then it's a bargain."
"It's a bargain," returned the red man; the confidence shown in him was producing its effect.
"That's all right then," said Stephens cheerfully, rising to his feet and leaving his Winchester still on the ground. He was not one whit less on the alert than before, but his cue now was to betray no distrust. For the first time since their meeting he took his eyes off Mahletonkwa and looked back to where he had left his Pueblo friends, who had remained all this time as invisible as ever, waiting on the event with the inexhaustible patience of their race.
"Hullo!" he called back, "you scouts, stay there where you are till I come back again. I am going to the camp of the Navajos to see about settling things."
As before, the Pueblos acknowledged his message from afar with a wild answering shout of assent.
He turned round, picked up his Winchester in a quiet, undemonstrative manner, and threw it into the hollow of his arm. "Go ahead, Mahletonkwa," said he, "you heard what I said. They will keep still till I return. Let's go to your camp, you and me."
The redskin likewise stood up with his weapon in his hand. "I've got to give some orders, too," he said, and he began to speak in his own tongue. Much to Stephens's surprise he was answered at once from a few yards off. The head of a concealed Navajo suddenly appeared from a fissure near at hand. Stephens instantly recognised him as the Notalinkwa whom Don Nepomuceno had said was as big a villain as the other. He rapidly calculated in his mind what this might mean. It was, in a measure, evidence that the Navajo chief had not been intending to keep faith. At any rate, this was proof positive that he had only made a pretence of sending his men away while he met Stephens alone; and yet during their colloquy he had kept this confederate posted within a few yards of him the whole time. "It's all right," said Mahletonkwa, in answer to the look of surprise apparent on Stephens's face; "no treachery, no lies. I leave Notalinkwa here to watch for us that your men don't advance. Come along. It's all right."
That Mahletonkwa should leave a sentinel now seemed natural enough, and Stephens decided promptly to acquiesce. He was in for it now, and he must play the game boldly, and with unhesitating steps he followed the Navajo chief over the rugged lava to the camp where the prisoner was held.
The camp lay in a narrow sunken meadow, of a few acres in extent, bordered on either side by the black, forbidding wall of the lava bed. An unknown cause had here divided the lava stream for some hundreds of yards, leaving the space between unravaged by the desolating flow. And in the little oasis thus shut off the grass grew rich and green, looking tenfold brighter from its contrast with the blackened wilderness around.
"What a perfect place for stock-thieves to hide in," thought Stephens as he beheld it. "Of course these Navajos know every hidden recess like this in the country." His eyes eagerly scanned the scene for the form that was the object of his search. Close under the rocks, on the far side, was the group of which he had already caught a glimpse from the point where he had had his colloquy with the Indian chief. Yes, it was indeed her dress he had discerned. There she was, sitting on the ground amid the saddles and horse furniture, the Navajo guards standing watchfully about in the space between him and her as he and Mahletonkwa approached. Guns were visible in the hands of most of them, but some carried only bows. He took note that the latter were strung, and that besides the bow two or three arrows were held ready in the fingers of the left hand.
But though his swift, wary glance took in every detail, it was to the face of the captive girl that his eyes were most anxiously directed. As he approached she sprang to her feet, and with a cry of recognition ran forward to meet him. Some of the Indians put out their hands as if to restrain her, but at a sign from Mahletonkwa they refrained. His outstretched hand met hers in a vigorous clasp.
"You have come," she cried in broken tones, "you have come at last. And my father,—is he safe?"
"Yes, he's safe," said the American, "and so are you."
"You'll be all right now," said Stephens; "you've nothing to fear." He deliberately assumed a security he was far from feeling, but it was part of the game he must play. Her little hand still lay in his; it was the first time it had ever done so; it seemed as if the firm pressure of his strong fingers must reassure this poor terrified young thing, the wild leaping of whose pulses he could feel. Her breast heaved convulsively as she strove to control her sobs; the great tear-drops gathered under her eyelids and ran down her cheeks.
"Great God!" he said, "that you should have suffered like this! But don't be afraid; we'll get you out of this all right." His voice sounded in his own ears strained and unnatural. He was trying his best to play his part by appearing cheerful and consolatory, while at that very same moment the strongest feeling in him was a burning, fierce desire to pump lead into the gang of savages who had made this tender creature suffer this agony of terror. And but for her presence he might have done it there and then. To preserve her, however, it was above all things necessary to temporise; and to preserve her must be his first thought. He must hear her own story and consult with her on his next move; but to do that he must talk in Spanish, which Mahletonkwa understood. What a pity she did not speak English, but that could not be helped. How could he manage to take her out of earshot.
"Oh, where is my father? where is Andrés?" she sobbed, in a passion of fear for the possible fate of her own people. "I heard two shots, and then I heard no more. Were they there?"
"Oh, they're all right," said the American heartily, in the very cheerfullest tones he could muster. "Don't you fret, señorita," and he patted reassuring the little hand he held in his, loosing his grip of his rifle to do so and squeezing the trusty weapon against his body with his elbow. "It was only me out there that they were shooting at; no harm done. Your father and brother are all right." Nevertheless this repetition by her of her anxious inquiries brought a disturbing idea into his head. Had she any special reason for thinking that her father and her brother were wounded or slain? Could the cacique's conjecture have been true, and had the Mexicans overtaken Mahletonkwa's band on the Mesa del Verendo and fought with them there and been beaten off? He longed to ask her about this, but he did not like to do so within hearing of the Navajos. Still, he reflected, Mahletonkwa would hardly have met him so boldly if there was fresh blood on his hands. Ah, but he might have done that to lure him into this trap; and now, behold, here he was in the wolf's lair! Thoughts raced through his mind like lightning. Then he spoke.
"Mahletonkwa, I suppose you make no objection to her coming with me now?"
"Not go," was the somewhat ominous reply; "stay here; sit down; talk."
"But I want to talk to her by herself," he said; "I suppose you won't object, then, if we go to the middle of the meadow and sit down there?"
"Not go," repeated the Indian deliberately; "yes, you can go and sit in there if you like," and he pointed to the overhanging side of the lava bed, close to which was the camp.
"He means the cave there where the water is," quickly interposed the girl, who was by this time recovering the control of her voice, though her breast still heaved convulsively.
"All right, then, certainly, let's come on there; that'll do as well," said the American with assumed ease. Still keeping her hand in his, he turned in the direction indicated, and made a move as if to start. The other Navajos rapidly exchanged some sentences in their own language.
"You must leave your rifle if you go in there," said Mahletonkwa, turning to Stephens again after listening to what they said.
"No," replied he, "certainly not. I'm no prisoner. No treachery, Mahletonkwa." He slung himself round and faced the chief, placing himself directly in front of the captive girl, as if assuming possession of her.
"No treachery," re-echoed the Indian promptly, "only"—he hesitated to say what was in his mind, but Manuelita divined it instantly.
"Their water is in the cave in a great rock-hole," she said, "and he fears you will take cover in there and then shoot at him from thence."
"No, I won't, Mahletonkwa," said Stephens at once; "I won't do that, and I hadn't ever even thought of such a thing. It was your own suggestion that I should go there. I had rather go out in the middle of the meadow where I proposed first; there's no cover out in the meadow."
"No, not there," said Mahletonkwa; "better you go on into the cave"; and following his direction they went forward together hand in hand.
Right in under the lava bed there was visible a wide, overarching cavity extending some twenty or thirty feet back and at the far end of this lay a deep natural rock-cistern full of clear dark water. It was a hidden well.
"This is their spring," said the girl, pointing to it. "These Navajos know every secret water-spring in the country."
The extraordinary quickness with which she had mastered her feelings, and now the perfectly natural tone in which she spoke, and the straightforward way in which she referred to her captors, greatly relieved the American's anxiety; had she suffered at their hands what his knowledge of the nature of Indians had led him to dread, it seemed to him that she could not have spoken of them in this unembarrassed style. She had raised her eyes to his as she uttered the words, and though they were still wet with the tears that she had shed, their glance was frank and open; there was no trace in her mien of the dull despair of irreparable wrong he remembered in the victim of the Sioux. His relief was shown by the reassured expression in his own eyes as he returned her glance, and said lightly;
"Oh yes, of course they must know them all; why, they're simply bound to know this whole country just like a book. They'd never be able to fly around in it, keeping themselves out of sight in the way they do, if they didn't."
The pair seated themselves on the rock forming the lip of the cistern. They were here out of earshot of the Indians if they did not speak loud.
"Now tell me, señorita," he began in a low voice, "how you were carried off."
She blushed and looked down. "I hardly know how to say it," she said, "it was all so quick. I had got up and gone across the patio, thinking it was near daybreak—you know there was no moon—and never dreaming of the possibility of any danger inside the house, when I was seized from behind, and gagged and bound in a moment; and then they threw a riata round me and lifted me to the top of the house, and down the outside on to a pony's back, and I was hurried off I knew not where. Oh, it was dreadful! I was gagged so that I could not even cry out, and I did not know where they were taking me or what would become of me. Oh, I was terribly frightened!" She paused, quite overcome for the moment by the recollection.
Stephens felt a passion of pity sweep through his whole being at the thought of the helpless plight of this lovely girl in the hands of enemies—such enemies! "Yes," he said soothingly, taking her hand again in his—they had unclasped hands as they sat down; "don't be afraid; you're all right now; but go on and tell me about it."
"There isn't anything to tell," she answered with a little half-laugh that was almost hysterical. "They held me on a horse, and we rode and we rode and we rode, till I was so tired that I thought I should have fainted; but," said she proudly, "I didn't faint. Then, when the daylight came, I was blindfolded with a rag—pah!"—she added with a little moue of disgust—"such a dirty rag!—I don't like these Indians,—they're not at all clean people."
Stephens could not help smiling to himself at this bit of petulance. If she had nothing worse to complain of than their lack of soap and water they could afford to smile a little now, he and she both.
"Yes," he assented with amused gravity, "they do show a most reprehensible neglect of the washtub. In fact, I don't suppose there's such a thing as a proper washboard in the whole Navajo nation."
Their eyes met again, and they both laughed, he of set purpose to raise her spirits, she because she could not help it. The awful tension of her captivity, a tension that had never ceased for a moment, not even in her fitful and broken snatches of sleep, was relaxed at last. In the presence of this brave man who had come to rescue her, confidence returned, and now the reaction of feeling was so strong that, had she let herself go, she could have laughed as wildly as a maniac. But her spirit was unbroken, and she held herself in.
"So, then, with that rag over your eyes you had no sort of idea where you were being taken to?" he said interrogatively.
"No," she answered; "how could I? Except, indeed, for the sun on my neck sometimes; that made me think we were going north or west a good deal,—at least it seemed as if we were."
"Exactly so; you were quite right," he said encouragingly; thinking to himself as he said so that she must have been a real plucky girl to have kept her head cool enough to allow her to observe things with so much accuracy. "Yes," he repeated, "that was exactly your course at first, between north and west. And about your food? What did you do? Had you anything to eat?"
"Nothing but raw dried meat," she answered, her pretty upper lip curving with disgust, "and it was so hard. My mouth aches with the pain of eating it. These savages don't know how to cook it properly; they chew it raw as they go along, generally; or if they stop and camp and make a fire, they have nothing to cook it in; they don't boil it or fry it; they don't always even pound it with a stone to make it soften, but just throw it on the coals till it is scorched, and then eat it so, all blackened and burned. Savages!" and again she made a face to express her contempt for their very rudimentary ideas of cookery. Once more their eyes met, and they both laughed again.
"I am afraid," said he with grave apology, "that I have been careless, too. I haven't brought along anything nice for you to eat. In fact, I have nothing but dried meat myself, not even a scrap of tortilla left, to say nothing of candy; I wish I'd only thought of it when I was starting, but the fact is, I came off in a hurry."
"Yes," she cried in a repentant voice, "and I've been talking about myself the whole time. Did you come with my father? Do you know where he is? How did you find us?"
"The Pueblo Indians knew of this place," he answered; "they led me here." He looked cautiously over his shoulder as he spoke, to see if there was any Navajo near trying to play the eavesdropper on them. "Your father and Don Andrés had set out with a strong party of Mexicans before me. They started within an hour after it was known that you were gone. But your father sent word of it all to me up at the pueblo, and I got some of the Indians to join me and started out, too. But we didn't come the same way as Don Andrés's party; we picked up the trail off towards the Ojo Escondido. You see, my Indians believed that the Navajos certainly were making for this place, and, in short, they led me straight here, and that's how we seem to have got in ahead of Don Andrés."
"How clever of them to guess the hiding-place!" said she. "And now, shall we go home quite quick? Perhaps we might meet my father and my brother on the way."
"I've no doubt that'll be all right now," he said confidently; "I must just fix up things with Mahletonkwa first." He paused; there was a question he could not put to her direct, and yet before treating further with the Indian he wished to feel absolutely certain whether he should deal with him as one guilty of unpardonable wrong or not. He tapped the butt of his revolver significantly with his right hand, looked her full in the face for a moment, and then with an abrupt movement he rose to his feet and turned away from her; his right hand half drew the revolver from its holster, and made a gesture as if to offer it to her behind his back, but his eyes were fixed on the group outside the cave. "Now, señorita," he said, "before I go to speak with him, tell me one thing: are you content to live? Are you content to go back in peace to your people? Or else—I guess you can understand me—here's my revolver for you; you can make an end with that, and I'll go out to those savages, and then, I swear by the wrath of God, you shall be revenged on some of them, anyhow, before I drop."
"But why?" cried she with a little shudder of surprise at him, so unexpected to her was this suggestion. "They haven't done anything bad to me. I don't want anyone to be killed. They are very ignorant, uncivilised folk, but they treated me as well as they knew. I'm sorry if I complained about the dried meat they gave me. Don't begin fighting with them, please,—not on my account. I thought you had made peace. I want to go home."
He turned and looked at her. The naïve simplicity of her language reassured him completely. "All right, señorita," he said, "I'll see that you get safe home. I'll go and arrange with Mahletonkwa now. I'm glad they treated you as well as they knew how. But say," he added, stooping over her and drawing the pistol completely out, "wouldn't you like me to leave this with you, just in case of accidents? There's always a sort of feeling of comfort in having a six-shooter handy."
"No, no," said she, making a movement with her hands as if to push the unaccustomed object away from her, "I've never had one in my life to use. I shouldn't know what to do with it at all."
Half reluctantly he returned it to its case, thinking what a difference there was between a girl like this and the average Western ranch-woman. American girls who lived on the frontier could shoot; they were more like men in that way; they were, comparatively speaking, independent; whereas this pretty creature depended solely upon him to protect her; so much the more reason, then, he argued with himself, for being cautious and diplomatic in his dealings with the Navajos now.
"Well then, señorita," he said, "you'd better stay here a few minutes longer while I go back and speak to Mahletonkwa. I guess it won't take us long to fix things."
He took her hand in his and held it for a moment. It lay there in his firm clasp with a confidingness that thrilled through him; the sensation came on him as a new discovery. "Why, this was what hands were meant for, to clasp each other." The ten long years of the unnatural divorce from womankind in which he had lived seemed to roll away as a dream. He had forgotten what a girl's hand was like; a quick impulse came on him to raise it to his lips, to clasp her in his arms and console her, only to be as quickly checked again. It would not be the fair thing; here she was relying entirely upon him for protection; it was for him to guard her, and to do no more. Anything else must wait—must wait till she was once more in safety, completely mistress of herself again. But the flood of new ideas for the future sped through his mind with lightning rapidity. In moments of danger and excitement the wheels of thought turn at a rate that seems incredible afterwards.
For one last, long minute he stood there, his hand locked in hers, looking into the deep, dark wells of her eyes. Of what joy had not his desolate past robbed him? Oh, why had he been blind to his chances all this winter, when he might have looked in her eyes like this any day; now he had found what made life worth living—and found it, perhaps, too late! Was it too late? He would see about that. With a final pressure of her gentle fingers, each one of which he seemed to feel separately pressing his in response, he turned away and strode out of the cave towards the group of Navajos in the meadow.
And who shall say what were the girl's feelings, left thus alone in the cave while her fate was being decided by the men sitting out there in the sun? Hope lifted her heart high,—hope after despair, like the blue sky after a thunderstorm, unimaginably bright, the hope of recovered freedom, of return to the longed-for hearth, of the embraces of her father and the dear ones at home. But there were fears too: after all, might not her deliverer fail yet? he had reached her,—could he rescue her? would he, single-handed, be able to prevail over these savages? Was there nothing she might do, weak woman as she was, to help him? Instinctively her fingers felt within her dress for the beads she wore, and fast flowed her prayers for his success; when she paused and looked anxiously out she saw him seated on the ground, the rifle in his lap, the Indians in their own style squatting round, and all faces grave with serious debate. It was her fate they were discussing, but it was his, too. In the intense sunlight she could mark the hard-set lines of his face; he was stubborn with the Indians about something or other; they wanted something he would not give? Why would he not give it. "Oh, give way to them," she could have cried to him. "Do let them have it—do. Only make peace, and let us return together"; peace, peace, peace, that was what she yearned for, peace and freedom! But she spoke no word, she knew that she must leave it to him, and once more she fell to her prayers.
And why was this debate between the American and the Navajos so stubborn and tedious?
When two shrewd men are each determined to drive the best bargain he can, and neither trusts the other, the diplomacy between a frontiersman and a redskin may be as lengthy as if it were between rival ambassadors of contending empires. In their secret hearts both Stephens and Mahletonkwa were anxious to come to an understanding, but each thought it politic to simulate comparative indifference, and not to give any advantage to his opponent by betraying undue eagerness.
Stephens demanded at the outset the immediate restoration of the captive to her father, safe and sound. Granted that, he was willing to promise fair compensation for the Navajo who had been slain, and amnesty for the subsequent outrage of carrying off the girl; and also he was ready in person to guarantee these terms. He could offer no less, much as he longed to see her abductors punished, because it was obvious that, as long as they were not secure from retaliation, they would prefer to keep possession of her to the last possible moment, and take their punishment fighting.
To this first demand Mahletonkwa signified his willingness to agree, but only on conditions. Stephens's offer was an amnesty and fair compensation. That was precisely what he wanted. Fair compensation, plus an amnesty. But the question arose, what was fair compensation? and here for a time they split. Stephens maintained that Don Nepomuceno's offer of a hundred and twenty-five dollars cash, was fair. Mahletonkwa would not hear of it. His dead brother was worth a great deal more than that. He had asked a thousand dollars for him, and a thousand dollars he intended to have. Apart from that he had no use for the captive.
"Pay the bill, and take the girl," that was the sum and substance of his argument; "and if her father won't pay, will you?"
Right here the American saw it was essential to make a stand. If he weakly yielded to this preposterous claim, Mahletonkwa would be sure to conclude that he was scared into acquiescence and could have no soldiers or Indian scouts in any force to back him up. That being so, most likely the Navajo would raise his terms, and ask perhaps double, treble, quadruple,—anything he pleased in short,—till the whole affair became a farce! No, Mahletonkwa's thousand-dollar demand was almost certainly a bluff. Then why shouldn't he try a bluff, too?
"I can't do it, Mahletonkwa," said he with an air of finality, but speaking more in sorrow than in anger, as one who sees good business slipping through his fingers. "I'd like to come to terms first-rate, but I can't meet you there. You're too stiff in your figures. It's not a deal."
He thought of the girl sitting there all alone in the cave, and his kindly heart longed to say, "What's a thousand dollars, more or less? Hang it all, here, take it! or rather, take my word for it, and let's be off home." But prudence whispered, No.
Mahletonkwa calmly repeated his demand. He, too, thought it wisest to play the part of the close-fisted trader, and show no hurry to make a bargain.
"Well, look here then, Mahletonkwa and Navajos all," said the American, appealing directly to the cupidity of the followers as well as of the chief. "It's a big thing I've offered you on my own hook already in this matter of the amnesty. It's a big thing for me to say I'll stand between you and Uncle Sam" (he did not say Uncle Sam, but the Great Father at Washington); "but I stick by that, and I'll do it. And I've offered you payment for the dead man, same as Don Nepomuceno, a hundred and twenty-five dollars; and you say it aint enough. Now, I can't meet you the whole way, but I'll raise my offer a bit, and you can take it or leave it. It's my last word." He rose to the level of the part he was playing, and threw himself into it with all the sincerity he was master of. "You see that rifle"—he pointed to the long, heavy, muzzle-loading hunter's rifle that lay beside Mahletonkwa's right knee—"well, I'll give you the weight of that rifle in silver dollars. Me, looking as I do, I'll see that you get them. There's my word upon it. This is my personal offer to compensate you for your dead brother. You shall have silver dollars enough to weigh down that rifle on the scales. I don't know how many that'll take, but it's bound to be a right big pile. Now understand me, you chaps, we'll take a balance, a fair and square balance, and put the rifle in one scale and pour silver dollars into the other till the rifle kicks the beam. Sabe?"
The sons of the desert looked one at another, and curious excited sounds came from their lips, and significant gestures were made. Some of them had actually seen scales used to weigh out the rations at Fort Defiance, and they quite understood what they were for, and made the thing clear to the less instructed among them. The American saw that his offer had created an impression, and he did his best to rub it in.
"You'll find it pay you to accept, Mahletonkwa," he said. "You'll be able to fix things in grand style with all that silver. Here, let's have a look at that rifle of yours, and let me heft it." He put out his hand cautiously—no objection was offered; he laid it on the piece—still no objection; he raised the rifle slowly on both palms, dandling it, as it were, up and down. "Why, it's a real heavy gun. It don't weigh less than twelve or thirteen pounds, I reckon. I tell you that'll come to no end of a lot of silver; all silver dollars, mind you; and it'll take hundreds of them, you bet, to weigh down this gun." He turned his eyes from one to the other of the redskins, and they seemed to understand him as he laid it down again beside the chief.
It was clear that his way of putting it had a great effect on the Navajos. To tell the truth, most of Mahletonkwa's followers had by this time begun to tire of their recent escapade. They had sallied out from their own country under his leadership, at the summons of Ankitona, the headman of their clan, to obtain the redress for the death of a member of their clan called for by their peculiar religion. But so far they had not taken much by their move. They had not as yet got any compensation; they had carried off a Mexican girl; and now they were beginning to feel that in doing so they had decidedly risked putting their heads in a noose. They began to believe they were in danger of being surrounded by United States soldiers, here in the Lava Beds, and were likely to have an extremely unpleasant time of it ere long unless they succeeded in escaping to a new hiding-place. The cool confidence shown by this solitary man coming forward so boldly to treat with them convinced them that he must have a strong force behind him. And now he was making an offer of a complete amnesty, plus a heap of silver dollars. First one and then another began to urge Mahletonkwa to close the bargain. He was a chief, of course, and upon him, as such, rested the responsibility of making decisions; but a Navajo chief is practically very much in the hands of his followers. When actually under fire they may obey him well enough, but when it comes to questions of policy, if the greater number are dissatisfied with his schemes or his methods, they simply leave him, and he finds himself deserted. He has no power to coerce them. Call this anarchy, if you will, or call it liberty, it is at all events the very opposite of despotism. No Navajo chief can play the despot; and Mahletonkwa, conscious that his authority was slipping from him, acceded to the terms, which indeed gave him nearly all he wanted.
"Bueno, Sooshiuamo", said he, using Stephens's Indian name in a friendly way, "I accept your offer, and there shall be peace between us. But you must agree to stay with us when we come out from the Lava Beds, and you must go with us all the way to San Remo for the money, and you must prevent any trouble with the soldiers or with the Mexicans if they try to hurt us. You promise that?"
"Yes," said Stephens slowly, weighing every word of the Indian's speech, "I'll promise that. I'll see you safe to the settlement and pay you the money with my own hands. And if we meet any Americans or Mexicans who are after you, I'll explain that it is peace, and they are not to attack. I'll guarantee that much."
"Then," said the Indian, "it is peace between us; peace is made and sure."
"Peace it is," said Stephens, rising; "and now by your leave I'll go and tell the señorita, and then go and tell my men."
He hurried back to the cave where he had left her, and found her on her knees. He had laughed at the orisons offered up by the Santiago people before blasting the acequia; he did not laugh at hers.
She sprang up at his approach.
"We've fixed it all right," he said, "so don't you fret, señorita. I was real sorry to have to keep you so long in suspense, but I couldn't well help it. I'll explain all that to you later. But peace is made, and we're going back to San Remo together, you and me, along with the Navajos, and we'll start right away. But I've got to go over to where I left my party yonder in the Lave Beds, and explain the whole arrangement to them. Otherwise there might be considerable of a fuss. Now, don't you fret," he took her hand again to reassure her, "you'll be all right, and I won't be gone many minutes. You're sure, now, you won't get scared?"
"If you say you will come back," she answered, "I know you will come back, and I will try to be brave till you do."
With one glad pressure of her hand and one more long look into her eyes he turned away and left her. She watched his active steps as he hastened across the oasis and sprang up the broken lava rocks beyond. On the summit he turned and looked back in her direction, and waved his hand as a signal to her that all was well. Five minutes later he bounded down into the grassy opening where his mare was feeding with the four horses of the Pueblos. The cacique and the three others ran to meet him.
"How have you succeeded?" exclaimed the cacique. "Who was that shooting? Have you shot any of them?"
"Not me," replied Stephens. "I've been making peace, I have. I found Mahletonkwa had just as lief trade as fight, and a bit more so. 'Ditto,' says I to that, and just talked peace talk to him, and we made things square. Cacique, you were plumb right about Whailahay; they haven't harmed the girl. I've fixed it up with them about compensation for their dear departed, and we 're all going back to San Remo together, to take her home and get the silver for them. See?"
The cacique looked rather disconcerted. "I don't want to join company with these Navajos out here," he said decidedly.
"Oh, I didn't mean you," rejoined the American; "I quite understand that you might feel a delicacy in obtruding yourself on them out here in No-man's-land. They might have heard of that little affair of the seven Navajos in the sweat-house, eh? and this might seem a good time and place to pay off old scores?" His spirits had gone up with a bound, and he found it impossible not to chaff the cacique a little. "No, Cacique; you brought me here upon their trail just like a smell-dog, as I wanted you to do, and I've managed the rest of the business myself. Now, what I want you to do is to take their back trail and meet Don Nepomuceno and his party—they're sure to have found it again by now and to be following it up—and you tell them how I've fixed things, and say the señorita's all right and we'll meet them in San Remo. Stop, I'll write it down here on a scrap of paper and you can take it to them; that'll be best." He produced a pencil and a small note-book, tore out a leaf and hastily wrote on it his message to the Mexican. "There, Cacique," said he handing it to him, "give that to Don Nepomuceno when you see him, and tell him the whole show. I'd like to have you wait and meet us at San Remo if you get back there before us. Hasta luego."
He gathered up the riata of the mare, and started to pick his way with her through the Lava Beds to the oasis where the Navajos were camped, while the Pueblos speedily made themselves scarce in the opposite direction.
By the time Stephens reached the camp the Navajos had collected their scanty equipment and bound it on their saddles; they all took a long drink of pure, cool water from the hidden "tinaja" or rock-cistern, and, leading their animals, made the best of their way over the Lava Beds to the open country. Stephens explained to Mahletonkwa before starting that he had arranged for his party to return to San Remo by the route they came.
"Bueno," said Mahletonkwa shortly, "and we will go by another. I know many trails through the sierra; there is one that I like well, and I will take you by it."
"Right you are," said Stephens, "that suits me. Lead on." His object now was to avoid any chance of a collision between the Navajos and Mexicans till they should meet at San Remo.
Manuelita walked beside him as they followed the winding and difficult trail taken, by the Navajos through the Lava Beds, but as soon as they emerged from them and found themselves on the smooth ground beyond, he spread a blanket over the saddle to make it easy for her, and insisted on her riding Morgana while he ran alongside.
After a while the leading Indians came to a halt, and were seen to be examining the ground intently. When Stephens and the girl came up to them he found that they had cut their own trail made by themselves the previous day. But there were more hoof-marks in it now than those of the eleven ponies, and they were busily studying the newer signs. Stephens looked at them, too; they were undoubtedly the tracks of the pursuing party under Don Nepomuceno; it was hard to say just how many of them there were, as they were confused with those of the Indians, and the Mexican horses being barefooted, like the Indian ponies, it was impossible to distinguish them. But there were more than a dozen at least, and not one of them wore shoes.
"No soldiers in this party," said Mahletonkwa, looking up at Stephens suspiciously. United States army horses are always shod, as he well knew.
"Certainly not," answered the American unhesitatingly. "These are not the tracks of my party. I never was over this piece of ground before. My scouts cut your trail farther on."
"You had the Santiago scouts with you?" said the Navajo; "I was sure of that when you came to the Lava Beds so quick. Which of them did you have?—the cacique?" His dark eyes snapped as he mentioned him. "Miguel, perhaps, that tall, slim one with the scar on his cheek?" He knew a good deal about the Santiago folk; after the submission of the Navajos had ended the long wars, there had been some intercourse between the former enemies.
Stephens thought it better not to give any names. "Oh, I got some good trailers," he said easily; "but there are other Pueblos besides Santiago, and there are trailers in all of them. Cochiti has men who are first-class on reading signs."
"I know you had that Santiago cacique," said Mahletonkwa cunningly.
"Then if you think so, you'd better ask him to tell you about it when we get back to the settlement," rejoined the American.
They entered the sierra a little before nightfall, and were soon involved in a difficult and tortuous way amidst pine-crowned crags and precipices. Sometimes their horses' feet clattered upon shady slopes of débris; at times they trod softly upon a padded carpet of fir-needles. They were traversing a little cañon just after sunset, when, nearly two hundred yards away on the opposite side, the forms of a herd of deer were silhouetted against the fading sky.
Instinctively Stephens threw up his rifle to his shoulder; he got a bead as well as he could, though it was too dark to pick the exact spot on the animal's side as he pressed the trigger, and at the sharp report the band of dark forms disappeared as if by magic, but the loud "thud" of the bullet proclaimed that one of them had been struck. Instantly he and three of the Navajo young men dashed on foot across the little gorge and scaled the opposite steep, Faro leading the way. The bulldog nosed around for a moment where the deer had been, and as the climbers emerged on top they heard him give one joyful yelp as he darted forward on the scent; two minutes later they heard his triumphant bark, and when they got up to the spot they found him over the dead carcass of a yearling buck, shot through the lungs. It had run some five hundred yards before it dropped, and the bulldog coming up had seized it by the throat and finished the business.
The Indians were loud in praise of the dog, as their knives rapidly and skilfully dressed and cut up the game, while Stephens looked on and rewarded his pet with the tit-bits. All three of the Navajos spoke Spanish well enough for him to understand them as they praised the dog, but when they turned over the deer, and found the place where the conical bullet had come out on the other side, they changed from Spanish into Navajo, and significant laughter followed as they pointed out to one another the two holes, and then pointed to Stephens's rifle. Suddenly it flashed across him that they had got a joke on about something, and that it was not a thing new to him. Their manner made him think instantly of the day when he drove the nail, and Mahletonkwa pointed to his Winchester and told the funny story—funny, that is to say, for the Navajos—about the murder of the prospector. Though he understood no word of what they said, their gestures were too full of meaning for him to mistake them.
"I say," said he abruptly, but with seeming carelessness, "aint this the place that Mahletonkwa told that story about? About the man who was shot with his own rifle, you know?"
The young Indian who was stooping over the game stopped and withdrew his hand from the deer. "What makes you think that?" he asked.
"Well," said Stephens, "he said it happened up in these mountains, and I heard him say, also, that he was particularly fond of this trail we're on. So I just guessed it might have been pretty nigh where we are now."
"So it was," said the Indian, whom Stephens had learned to know as Kaniache, "it was right up this gulch where it opens out above." They had crossed a divide in their chase after the wounded buck, and were in another little cañon not unlike the one where they had left the rest of the party. The darkness was increasing every minute, but the Indian knew precisely where they were. Stephens marked the place in his memory as well as he could, and resolved that he would return to it as soon as might be, to seek out and bury the bones of the unfortunate victim of Navajo treachery and cunning.
They gathered up the meat of their quarry, and hastening back to where the rest of the party were waiting for them, they pushed on for fully two hours by the light of the moon, in spite of the difficulty of the way. Camp was made at last by a little stream in a park, and a fire was lighted, though Mahletonkwa was so suspicious of being followed that he put a couple of scouts to watch their back trail and signal the approach of any possible pursuers.
Stephens sat down by the fire, and set to work roasting pieces of the venison on spits of willow for Manuelita and himself. She was tired, but not exhausted, and he could not but wonder at the power she exhibited of enduring fatigue, she who ordinarily took no more exercise than that involved in doing her share of the labours of the household, varied by walking over to the store or paying a visit to a neighbour. But she came of a tireless race. It might be said of the Spanish conquistadores, that for them—