HH FRONTIER ^MiM ^J-. eca e s yam ten o'clock we sighted Cozzen's Hotel, and shortly drifted across the parade ground of West Point, its huge battlemented gray walls making one [ 188 ] AN AERIAL BIVOUAC fancy he was looking down into the inner court of some great mediaeval castle. Then we drifted out over the Hudson toward Cold Spring until, caught by a different current, we were swept along the course of the river. As we sailed over mid-stream and two hundred feet above it, with the tall cliffs and mysterious, dark recesses of the Highlands on either hand, the waters turned to a livid gray under the feeble light of the waning moon. No part of our voyage was more im- pressive, no scene more awe-inspiring. It was a re- gion of such weird lights and gruesome shadows as no fancy could people with aught but gaunt goblins and dread demons, come down to us through genera- tions untold, an unspent legacy of terror, from half- savage, superstitious ancestors. Suddenly Ford spoke in a low voice: "Boys, I was in nine or ten battles of the Civil War, from Gaines's Mill to Gettysburg, but in none of them was there a scene which impressed me as so terrible as this, no situation that seemed to me so threatening of irresistible perils. " Nearing Fishkill at eleven, a land breeze caught and whisked us off eastward. At midnight we struck the town of Wappinger's Falls — and struck it hard. Our visitation is doubtless remembered there yet. The town was in darkness and asleep. We were [139] THE RED-BLOODED running low before a stiff breeze, half our drag rope on the ground. The rope began to roar across roofs and upset chimneys with shrieks and crashes that set the folk within believing the end of the world had come. Instantly the streets were filled with flying white figures and the air with men's curses and women's screams. Three shots were fired beneath us. Two of our fellows said they heard the whistle of the balls, so Donaldson thought it prudent to throw out ballast and rise out of range. Here the moon left us and we sailed on throughout the remainder of the night in utter darkness and without any extraordinary incident, all but the watch lying idly in the bottom of the basket viewing the stars and wondering what new mischief the drag rope might be planning. The only duty of the watch was to lighten ship upon too near descent to the earth, and for this pur- pose a handful of Hippodrome circulars usually proved sufficient. Indeed, only eight pounds of bal- last were used from the time we left Miss Thompson till dawn, barring a half-sack spent in getting out of range of the Wappinger's Falls sportsmen, who seemed to want to bag us. Fot*d and Austin were assigned as the lookout from 12:00 to 2:00, Lyons and myself from 2:00 to 3:00, and Donaldson and MacKeever from 3:00 to 4:00. [140] AN AERIAL BIVOUAC From midnight till 3:00 a. m. Donaldson slept as peaceful as a baby, curled up in the basket with a sand-bag for a pillow. The rest of us slept little through the night and talked less, each absorbed in the reflections and speculations inspired by our novel experience. At the approach of dawn we had the most unique and extraordinary experience ever given to man. The balloon was sailing low in a deep valley. To the east of us the Berkshires rose steeply to sum- mits probably fifteen hundred feet above us. Be- neath us a little village lay, snuggled cosily between two small meeting brooks, all dim under the mists of early morning and the shadows of the hills. No flush of dawn yet lit the sky. Donaldson had been consulting his watch. Suddenly he rose and called, pointing eastward across the range: "Watch, boys! Look there!" He then quickly dumped overboard half the con- tents of a ballast bag. Flying upward like an arrow, the balloon soon shot up above the mountain-top, when, lo! a miracle. The phenomenon of sunrise was reversed! We our very selves instead had risen on the sun ! There he stood, full and round, peeping at us through the trees crowning a distant Berkshire hill, as if startled by our temerity. Shortly thereafter, when we had descended to our 1 141 ] THE RED-BLOODED usual level and were running swiftly before a stiff breeze over a rocky hillside, Donaldson yelled: "Hang on, boys, for your lives!" The end of the drag rope had gotten a hitch about a large tree limb. Luckily Donaldson had seen it in time to warn us, else we had there finished our careers. We had barely time to seize the stays when the rope tautened with a shock that nearly turned the basket upside down, spilled out our water-bucket and some ballast, left MacKeever and myself hang- ing in space by our hands, and the other four on the lower side of the basket, scrambling to save them- selves. Instantly, of course, the basket righted and dropped back beneath us. And then began a terrible struggle. The pressure of the wind bore us down within a hundred feet of the ragged rocks. Groaning under the strain, the rope seemed ready to snap. Like a huge leviathan trapped in a net, the gas-bag writhed, twisted, bulged, shrank, gathered into a ball and sprang fiercely out. The loose folds of canvas sucked up until half the netting stood empty, and then fold after fold darted out and back with all the angry menace of a serpent's tongue and with the ominous crash of musketry. It seemed the canvas must inevitably burst and we be dashed to death. But Donaldson was cool [142] AN AERIAL BIVOUAC and smiling, and, taking the only precaution possi- ble, stood with a sheath-knife ready to cut away the drag rope and relieve us of its weight in case our canvas burst. Happily the struggle was brief. The limb that held us snapped, and the balloon sprang forward in mighty bounds that threw us off our feet and tossed the great drag rope about like a whip-lash. But we were free, safe, and our stout vessel soon settled down to the velocity of the wind. By this time we all were beginning to feel hungry, for we had supped the night before in mid-air from a lunch basket that held more delicacies than sub- stantial. So Donaldson proposed a descent and began looking for a likely place. At last he chose a little village, which upon near approach we learned lay in Columbia County of our own good State. We called to two farmers to pull us down, no easy task in the rather high wind then blowing. They grasped the rope and braced themselves as had others the night before, and presently were flying through the air in prodigious if ungraceful somersaults. Amazed but unhurt, they again seized the rope and got a turn about a stout board fence, only to see a section or two of the fence fly into the air as if in pursuit of us. Presently the heat of the rising sun expanded our [143] THE RED-BLOODED gas and sent us up again 2,000 feet, making breakfast farther off than ever. Thus, it being clear that we must sacrifice either our stomachs or our gas, Donaldson held open the safety valve until we were once more safely landed on mother earth, but not until after we had received a pretty severe pounding about, for such a high wind blew that the anchor was slow in holding. This landing was made at 5 :24 a. m. on the farm of John W. Coons near the village of Greenport, four miles from Hudson City, and about one hundred and thirty miles from New York. Here our pilot decided our vessel must be lightened of two men, and thus the lot drawn the night before compelled us to part, regretfully, with MacKeever of the Herald, and Austin of the World. Ford, how- ever, owing allegiance to an afternoon paper, the Graphic, and always bursting with honest journal- istic zeal for a "beat," saw an opportunity to win satisfaction greater even than that of keeping on with us. So he, too, left us here, with the result that the Graphic published a full story of the voyage up to this point, Saturday afternoon, the twenty-fifth, the Herald and the World trailed along for second place in their Sunday editions, while Sun and Tribune readers had to wait till Monday morning for such " News from the Clouds " as Lyons and I had to give them, for wires were not used as freely then as now. [144] AN AERIAL BIVOUAC Our departing mates brought us a rare good break- fast from Mr. Coons' generous kitchen — a four- teen-quart tin pail, well-nigh filled with good things, among them two currant pies on yellow earthen plates, gigantic in size, pale of crust, though anything but anaemic of contents. Lyons finished nearly the half of one before our reascent, to his sorrow, for scarcely were we off the earth before he developed a colic that seemed to interest him more, right up to the finish of the trip, than the scenery. Bidding our mates good-bye, we prepared to re- ascend. Many farmers had been about us holding to our ropes and leaning on the basket, and later we realized we had not taken in sufficient ballast to offset the weight of the three men who had left us. Released, the balloon sprang upward at a pace that all but took our breath away. Instantly the earth disappeared beneath us. We saw Donaldson pull the safety valve wide open, draw his sheath knife ready to cut the drag rope, standing rigid, with his eyes riveted upon the aneroid barometer. The hand of the barometer was sweeping across the dial at a terrific rate. I glanced at Donaldson and saw him smile. Then I looked back at the barometer and saw the hand had stopped — at 10,200 feet! How long we were ascending we did not know. Certain it is that the impressions described were all there was time for, and that when Donaldson turned and spoke we [ 145 ] THE RED-BLOODED saw his lips move but could hear no sound. Our speed had been such that the pressure of the air upon the tympanum of the ear left us deaf for some minutes. We had made a dash of two miles into cloudland and had accomplished it, we three firmly believed, in little more than a minute. Presently Donaldson observed the anchor and grapnel had come up badly clogged with sod, and a good heavy tug he and I had of it to pull them in, for Lyons was still much too busy with his currant pie to help us. Nor indeed were the currant pies yet done with us, for at the end of our tug at the anchor rope, I found I had been kneeling very precisely in the middle of pie No. 2, and had contrived to absorb most of it into the knees of my trousers. Thus at the end of the day, come to Saratoga after all shops were closed, I had to run the gauntlet of the porch and office crowd of visitors at the United States Hotel in a condition that only needed moccasins and a war bonnet to make me a tolerable imitation of an Indian. We remained aloft at an altitude of one or two and one-half miles for three hours and a half, stayed there until the silence became intolerable, until the buzz of a fly or the croak of a frog would have been music to our ears. Here was absolute silence, the silence of the grave and death, a silence never to be experienced by living man in any terrestrial condition. Occasionally the misty clouds in which we hung en- [146] AN AERIAL BIVOUAC shrouded parted beneath us and gave us glimpses of the distant earth, opened and disclosed landscapes of infinite beauty set in gray nebulous frames. Once we passed above a thunderstorm, saw the lightning play beneath us, felt our whole fabric tremble at its shock — and were glad enough when we had left it well behind. Seen from a great height, the earth looked to be a vast expanse of dark green velvet, sometimes shaded to a deeper hue by cloudlets floating beneath the sun, splashed here with the silver and there with the gold garniture reflected from rippilng waters. Toward noon we descended beneath the region of clouds into the realm of light and life, and found our- selves hovering above the Mountain House of the Catskills. And thereabouts we drifted in cross-cur- rents until nearly 4 :00 p. m., when a heavy southerly gale struck us and swept us rapidly northward past Albany at a pace faster than I have ever travelled on a railway. We still had ballast enough left to assure ten or twelve hours more travel. But we did not like our course. The prospects were that we would end our voyage in the wilderness two hundred or more miles north of Ottawa. So we rose to 12,500 feet, seeking an easterly or westerly current, but without avail. We could not escape the southerly gale. Prudence, therefore, dictated a landing before nightfall. Land- ing in the high gale was both difficult and dan- [147] THE RED-BLOODED gerous, and was not accomplished until we were all much bruised and scratched in the oak thicket Donaldson chose for our descent. Thus the first voyage of the good airship Barnum ended at 6 :07 p. m. on the farm of E. R. Young, nine miles north of Saratoga. A year later the Barnum rose for the last time — from Chicago — and to this day the fate of the stanch craft and her brave captain remains an unsolved mystery. tl48l CHAPTER VII THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER LIFE was never dull in Grant County, New Mexico, in the early eighties. There was always something doing — usually something the average law-abiding, peace-loving citizen would have been glad enough to dispense with. To say that life then and there was insecure is to describe altogether too feebly a state of society and an en- vironment wherein Death, in one violent form or an- other, was ever abroad, seldom long idle, always alert for victims. When the San Carlos Apaches, under Victoria, Ju, or Geronimo, were not out gunning for the whites, the whites were usually out gunning for one another over some trivial difference. Everybody carried a gun and was more or less handy with it. Indeed, it was a downright bad plan to carry one unless you were handy. For with gunning — the game most played, if not precisely the most popular — every one was supposed to be familiar with the rules and to know how to play; and In a game where every hand is sure to be " called, " no one ever suspected another of being out on a sheer " bluff. " Thus the coroner [ 149 ] THE RED-BLOODED invariably declared it a case of suicide where one man drew a gun on another and failed to use it. This highly explosive state of society was not due to the fact that there were few peaceable men in the country, for there were many of them, men of char- acter and education, honest, and as law-abiding as their peculiar environment would permit. Moreover, the percentage of professional " bad men " — and this was a profession then — was comparatively small. It was due rather to the fact that every one, no matter how peaceable his inclinations, was compelled to carry arms habitually for self-defence, for the Apaches were constantly raiding outside the towns, and white outlaws inside. And with any class of men who con- stantly carry arms, it always falls out that a weapon is the arbiter of even those minor personal differences which in the older and more effete civilization of the East are settled with fists or in a petty court. The prevailing local contempt for any man who was too timid to "put up a gun fight" when the etiquette of a situation demanded it, was expressed locally in the phrase that one " could take a corncob and a lightning bug and make him run himself to death trying to get away." It is clearly unnecessary to explain why the few men of this sort in the com- munity did not occupy positions of any particular prominence. Their opinions did not seem to carry [150] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER as much weight as those of other gentlemen who were known to be notably quick to draw and shoot. I even recall many instances where the pistol en- tered into the pastimes of the community. One in- stance will stand telling: A game of poker (rather a stiff one) had been going on for about a fortnight in the Red Light Sa- loon. The same group of men, five or six old friends, made up the game every day. All had varying suc- cess but one, who lost every day. And, come to think of it, his luck varied too, for some days he lost more than others. While he did not say much about his losings, it was observed that his temper was not improving. This sort of thing went on for thirteen days. The thirteenth day the loser happened to come in a little late, after the game was started. It also happened that on this particular day one of the players had brought in a friend, a stranger in the town, to join the game. When the loser came in, therefore, he was introduced to the stranger and sat down. A hand was dealt him. He started to play it, stopped, rapped on the table for attention, and said: '^Boys, I want to make a personal explanation to this yere stranger. Stranger, this yere game is sure a tight wad for a smoothbore. I 'm loser in it, an' a heavy one, for exactly thirteen days, and these [151] THE RED-BLOODED boys all understand that the first son of a gun I find I can beat, I 'm going to take a six-shooter an' make him play with me a week. Now, if you has no ob- jections to my rules, you can draw cards. " Luckily for the stranger, perhaps, the thirteenth day was as bad for the loser as its predecessors. Outside the towns there were only three occupa- tions in Grant County in those years, cattle ranch- ing, mining, and fighting Apaches, all of a sort to attract and hold none but the sturdiest types of real manhood, men inured to danger and reckless of it. In the early eighties no faint-heart came to Grant County unless he blundered in — and any such were soon burning the shortest trail out. These men were never better described in a line than when, years ago, at a banquet of California Forty-niners, Joaquin Miller, the poet of the Sierras, speaking of the splendid types the men of forty-nine represented, said: " The cowards never started, and all the weak died on the road!" Within the towns, also, there were only three oc- cupations: first, supplying the cowmen and rainerfl whatever they needed, merchandise wet and dry, law mundane and spiritual, for although neither court nor churches were working overtime, they were avail- able for the few who had any use for them; second, gambling, at monte, poker, or faro ; and, third, figur- [152] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER ing how to slip through the next twenty-four hours without getting a heavier load of lead in one's system than could be conveniently carried, or how to stay happily half shot and yet avoid coming home on a shutter, unhappily shot, or, having an active enemy on hand, how best to "get" him. Thus, while plainly the occupations of Grant County folk were somewhat limited in variety, in the matter of interest and excitement their games were wide open and the roof off. Nor did all the perils to life in Grant County lurk within the burnished grooves of a gun barrel, accord- ing to certain local points of view, for always it is the most unusual that most alarms, as when one of my cowboys " allowed he'd go to town for a week, " and was back on the ranch the evening of the second day. Asked why he was back so soon, he replied : "Well, fellers, one o' them big depot water tanks burnt plumb up this mawnin', an' reckonin' whar that'd happen a feller might ketch fire anywhere in them little old town trails, I jes' nachally pulled my freight for camp!" But a cowboy is the subject of this story — Kit Joy. His genus, and striking types of the genus, have been so cleverly described, especially by Lewis and by Adams (some day I hope to meet Andy) that I need say little of it here. Still, one of the cowboy's most notable and most admirable traits has not [153] THE RED-BLOODED been emphasized so much as it deserves: I mean his downright reverence and respect for womanhood. No real cowboy ever wilfully insulted any woman, or lost a chance to resent any insult offered by another. Indeed, it was an article of the cowboy creed never broken, and all well knew it. So it happened that when one day a cowboy, in a crowded car of a train held up by bandits, was appealed to by an Eastern lady in the next seat, — "Heavens! I have four hundred dollars in my purse which I cannot afford to lose; please, sir, tell me how I can hide it. " Instantly came the answer: " Shucks ! miss, stick it in yer sock ; them fellers has nerve enough to hold up a train an' kill any feller that puts up a fight, but nary one o' them has nerve enough to go into a woman's sock after her bank roll!" Kit Joy was a cowboy working on the X ranch on the Gila. He was a youngster little over twenty. It was said of him that he had left behind him in Texas more or less history not best written in black ink, but whether this was true or not I do not know. Certain it is that he was a reckless dare-devil, always foremost in the little amenities cowboys loved to indulge in when they came to town, such as shooting out the lights in saloons and generally " shelling up the settle- rnent, " — which meant taking a friendly shot at about [ 154 ] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER everything that showed up on the streets. Neverthe- less, Kit in the main was thoroughly good-natured and amiable. Early in his career in Silver City it was observed that perhaps his most distinguishing trait was cu- riosity. Ultimately his curiosity got him into trouble, as it does most people who indulge it. His first dis- play of curiosity in Silver was a very great surprise, even to those who knew him best. It was also a dis- appointment. A tenderfoot, newly arrived, appeared on the streets one day in knickerbockers and stockings. Kit was in town and was observed watching the tender- foot. To the average cowboy a silk top hat was like a red flag to a bull, so much like it in fact that the jhat was usually lucky to escape with less than half a dozen holes through it. But here in these knee- breeches and stockings was something much more bizarre and exasperating than a top hat, from a cow- boy's point of view. The effect on Kit was therefore closely watched by the bystanders. No one fancied for a moment that Kit would do less than undertake to teach the tenderfoot " the cowboy's hornpipe," not a particularly graceful but a very quick step, which is danced most artistically when a bystander is shooting at the dancer's toes. Indeed, the ball was expected to open early. To every one's surprise and disappointment, it did not. Instead, Kit [155] THE RED-BLOODED dropped in behind the tenderfoot and began to follow him about town — followed him for at least an hour. Every one thought he was studying up some more unique penalty for the tenderfoot. But they were wrong, all wrong. As a matter of fact, Kit was so far consumed with curiosity that he forgot everything else, forgot even to be angry. At last, when he could stand it no longer, he walked up to the tenderfoot, detained him gently by the sleeve, and asked in a tone of real sym- pathy and concern: "Say, mistah! To' God, won't yo' mah let yo' wear long pants ? " Naturally the tenderfoot's indignation was aroused and expressed, but Kit's sympathies for a man con- demned to such a juvenile costume were so far stirred that he took no notice of it. Kit was a typical cowboy, industrious, faithful, un- complaining, of the good old Southern Texas breed. In the saddle from daylight till dark, riding com- pletely down to the last jump in them two or three horses a day, it never occurred to him even to growl when a stormy night, with thunder and lightning, pro- longed his customary three-hours' turn at night guard round the herd to an all-night's vigil. He took it as a matter of course. And his rope and running iron were ever ready, and his weather eye alert for a chance to catch and decorate with the X brand any stray cattle that ventured within his range. This [186] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER was a peculiar phase of cowboy character. While not himself profiting a penny by these inroads on neighboring herds, he was never quite so happy as when he had added another maverick to the herd bearing his employer's brand, an increase always obtained at the expense of some of the neighbors. One night on the Spring round-up, the day's work finished, supper eaten, the night horses caught and saddled, the herd in hand driven into a close circle and bedded down for the night in a little glade in the hills. Kit was standing first relief. The day's drive had been a heavy one, the herd was well grazed and watered in the late afternoon, the night was fine ; and so the twelve hundred or fifteen hundred cattle in the herd were lying down quietly, giving no trouble to the night herders. Kit, therefore, was jogging slowly round the herd, softly jingling his spurs and humming some rude love song of the sultry sort cowboys never tire of repeating. The stillness of the night super- induced reflection. With naught to interrupt It, Kit's curiosity ran farther afield than usual. Recently down at X.ordsburg, with the outfit ship- ping a train-load of beeves, he had seen the Overland Express empty its load of passengers for supper, a crowd of well-dressed men and women, the latter bril- liant with the bright colors cowboys love and with glittering gems. To-night he got to thinking about them. [ 157 ] THE RED-BLOODED Wherever did they all come from? IIov/ ever did they get so much money? Surely they must come from 'Frisco. No lesser place could possibly turn out such magnificence. Then Kit let his fancy wan- der off into crude cowboy visions of what 'Frisco might be like, for he had never seen a city. "What a buster of a town 'Frisco must be!" Kit soliloquized. " Must have more'n a hundred saloons an' more slick gals than the X brand has heifers. What a lot o' fun a feller could have out thar! Only I reckon them gals wouldn't look at him more'n about onct unless he was well fixed for dough. Reckon they don't drink nothin' but wine out thar, nor eat nothin' but oysters. An' wine an' oysters costs money, oodles o' money ! That 's the worst of it ! S'pose it'd take more'n a month's pay to git a feller out thar on the kiars, an' then about three months' pay to git to stay a week. Reckon that 's jes' a little too rich for Kit's blood. But, jiminy! Wouldn't I like to have a good, big, fat bank roll an' go thar ! " Here was a crisis suddenly come in Kit's life, although he did not then realize it. It is entirely im- probable he had ever before felt the want of money. His monthly pay of thirty-five dollars enabled him to sport ft pearl-handled six-shooter and silver-mounted bridle bit and spurs, kept him well clothed, and gave him an occasional spree in town. What more could any reasonable cowboy ask.? [158] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER Bui to-night the very elements and all nature were against him. Even a light dash of rain to rouse the sleeping herd, or a hungry cow straying out into the darkness, would have been sufficient to divert and probably save him; but nothing happened. The night continued fine. The herd slept on. And Kit was thus left an easy prey, since covetousness had come to aid curiosity in compassing his ruin. "A bank roll! A big, fat, full-grown, long- horned, four-year-old roll! That's what a feller wants to do 'Frisco right. Nothin' less. But whar 's it comin' from, an' when.? S'pose I brands a few mavericks an' gits a start on my own ? No use. Kit ; that 's too slow ! Time you got a proper roll you'd be so old the skeeters wouldn't even bite you, to say nothin' of a gal a-kissin' of you. 'Pears like you ain't liable to git thar very quick. Kit, 'less you rustles mighty peart somewhar. Talkin' of rustlin', ^what 's the matter with that anyway ? " A cold glitter came in Kit's light blue eyes. The muscles of his lean, square jaws worked nervously. His right hand dropped caressingly on the handle of his pistol. " That 's the proper caper. Kit. Why did n't you think of it before? Rustle, damn you, an', ef you're any good, mebbe so you can git to 'Frisco afore frost comes, or anywhere else you likes. Rustle ! By jiminy, I 've got it ; I '11 jes' stand up that thar Overland Ex- [159] THE RED-BLOODED press. Them fellers what rides on it's got more'n they 've got any sort o' use for. What 's the matter with makin' 'em whack up with a feller? 'Course they '11 kick, an' thar '11 be a whole passle o' marshals an' sheriffs out after you, but what o' that? Reckon Old Blue '11 carry you out o' range. He 's the longest- winded chunk o' horse meat in these parts. Then you '11 have to stay out strictly on the scout fer a few weeks, till they gits tired o' huntin' of you, so you can slip out o' this yere neck o' woods 'thout leavin' a trail. " An' Lord ! but won't it be fun ! 'Bout as much fun, I reckon, as doin' 'Frisco. Won't them ten- derfeet beller when they hears the guns a-crackin' an' the boys a-yellin'! Le' see; wonder who I'd better take along?" Scruples? Kit had none. Bred and raised a merry freebooter on the unbranded spoils of the cat- tle range, it was no long step from stealing a mav- erick to holding up a train. With a man of perhaps any other class, a plan to engage in a new business enterprise of so much greater magnitude than any of those he had been accustomed to would have been made the subject of long consideration. Not so with Kit. Cowboy life compels a man to think quickly, and often to act quicker than he finds it convenient to think. The hand skilled to catch the one possible instant when the [160] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER wide, circling loop of the lariat may be successfully thrown, and the eye and finger trained to accurate snap-shooting, do not well go with a mind likely to be long in reaching a resolution or slow to execute one. So Kit at once began to cast about for two or three of the right sort of boys to join him. Three were quickly chosen out of his own and a neighboring outfit. They were Mitch Lee and Taggart, two white cow- boys of his own type and temper, and George Cleve- land, a negro, known as a desperate fellow, game for anything. It needed no great argument to secure the co-operation of these men. A mere tip of the lark and the loot to be had was enough. The boys saw their respective bosses. They "allowed they'd lay off for a few days and go to town." So they were paid off, slung their Winchesters on their saddles, mounted their favorite horses, and rode away. They met in Silver City, coming in singly. There they purchased a few provisions. Then they separated and rode singly out of town, to rendezvous at a cer- tain point on the Miembres River. The point of attack chosen was the little station of Gage (tended by a lone operator), on the Southern Pacific Railway west of Deming, a point then reached by the west-bound express at twilight. The evening of the second day after leaving the Gila, Kit and his three compadres rode into Gage. One or two signifi- cant passes with a six-shooter hypnotized the station [161] THE RED-BLOODED agent into a docile tool. A dim red light glimmered away off in the east. As the minutes passed, it grew and brightened fast. Then a faint, confused murmur came singing over the rails to the ears of the waiting bandits. The light brightened and grew until it looked like a great dull red sun, and then the thunder of the train was heard. Time for action had come! The agent was made to signal the engineer to stop. With lever reversed and air brakes on, the train was nearly stopped when the engine reached the station. But seeing the agent surrounded by a group of armed men, the engineer shut off the air and sought to throw his throttle open. His purpose discovered, a quick snapshot from Mitch Lee laid him dead, and, spring- ing into the cab, Mitch soon persuaded the fireman to stop the ticain. Instantly a fusillade of pistol shots and a mad chorus of shrill cowboy yells broke out, that ter- rorized train crew and passengers into docility. Within fifteen minutes the express car was sacked, the postal car gutted, the passengers were laid under unwilling contribution, and Kit and his pals were rid- ing northward into the night, heavily loaded with loot. Riding at great speed due north, the party soon reached the main travelled road up the Miembres, in whose loose shifting sands they knew their trail could not be picked up. Still forcing the pace, they reached [ 162 ] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER the rough hill-country east of Silver early in the night, cached their plunder safely, and a little after midnight were carelessly bucking a monte game in a Silver City saloon. The next afternoon they quietly rode out of town and joined their respective outfits, to wait until the excitement should blow over. Of course the telegraph soon started the hue and cry. Officers from Silver, Deming, and Lordsburg were soon on the ground, led by Harvey Whitehill, the famous old sheriff of Grant County. But of clue there was none. Naturally the station agent had come safely out of his trance, but with that absence of memory of what had happened characteristic of the hypnotized. The trail disappeared in the sands of the Miembres road. Shrewd old Harvey Whitehill was at his wit's end. Many days passed in fruitless search. At last, riding one day across the plain at some distance from the line of flight north from Gage, Whitehill found a fragment of a Kansas newspaper. As soon as he saw it he remembered that a certain merchant of Silver came from the Kansas town where this paper was published. Hurrying back to Silver, Whitehill saw the merchant, who identified the paper and said that he undoubtedly was its only subscriber in Silver. Asked if he had given a copy to any one, he finally recalled that some time before, about the period of the robbery, he had wrapped in a piece of this news- [ 163 ] THE RED-BLOODED paper some provisions he had sold to a negro named Cleveland and a white man he did not know. Here was the clue, and Whitehill was quick to fol- low it. Meeting a negro on the street, he pretended to want to hire a cook. The negro had a job. Well, did he not know some one else.? By the way, where was George Cleveland.'^ "Oh, boss, he done left de Gila dis week an' gone ober to Socorro," was the answer. Two days later Whitehill found Cleveland in a So- corro restaurant, got the "drop" on him, told him his pals were arrested and had confessed that they were in the robbery, but that he, Cleveland, had killed Engineer Webster. This brought the whole story. "'Foh God, boss, I nebber killed dat engineer. Mitch Lee done it, an' him an' Taggart an' Kit Joy, dey done lied to you outrageous. " Within a few days, caught singly, in ignorance of Cleveland's arrest, and taken completely by surprise, Joy, Taggart, and Lee were captured on the Gila and jailed, along with Cleveland, at Silver City, held to await the action of the next grand jury. But strong walls did not a prison make adequate to hold these men. Before many weeks passed, an escape was planned and executed. Two other prison- ers, one a man wanted in Arizona, and the other a Mexican horse-thief, were allowed to participate in the outbreak. [ 164 ] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER Taken unawares, their guard was seized and bound with little difficulty. Quickly arming themselves in the jail office, these six desperate men dashed out of the jail and into a neighboring livery stable, seized horses, mounted, and rode madly out of town, firing at every one in sight. In Silver in those days no gen- tleman's trousers fitted comfortably without a pistol stuck in the waistband. Therefore, the flying des- peradoes received as hot a fire as they sent. By this fire Cleveland's horse was killed before they got out of town, but one of his pals stopped and picked him up. Instantly the town was in an uproar of excitement. Every one knew that the capture of these men meant a fight to the death. As usual in such emergencies, there were more talkers than fighters. Nevertheless, six men were in pursuit as soon as they could saddle and mount. The first to start was the driver of an express wagon, a man named Jackson, who cut his horse loose from the traces, mounted bareback, and flew out of town only a few hundred yards behind the prisoners. Six others, led by Charlie Shannon and La Per, were not far behind Jackson. The men of this party were greatly surprised to find that a Boston boy of twenty, a tenderfoot lately come to town, who had scarcely ever ridden a horse or fired a rifle, was among their number, weU mounted and armed — a man with a line of ancestry worth while, and himself a worthy survival of the best of it. [165] THE RED-BLOODED The chase was hot. Jackson was well in advance, engaging the fugitives with his pistol, while the fugi- tives were returning the fire and throwing up puffs of dust all about Jackson. Behind spurred Shannon and his party. At length the pursuit gained. Five miles out of Silver, in the Pinon Hills to the northwest, too close pressed to run farther, the fugitives sprang from their horses and ran into a low post oak thicket covering about two acres, where, crouching, they could not be seen. The six pursuers sent back a man to guide the sheriff's party and hasten reinforcements, and began shelling the thicket and surrounding it. A few minutes later Whitehill rode up with seven more men, and the thicket was effectually surrounded. To the surprise of every one, a hot fire poured into the thicket failed to bring a single answering shot. Whitehill was no man to waste ammunition on such chance firing, so he ordered a charge. His little com- mand rode into and through the thicket at full speed, only to find their quarry gone, gone all save one. The Mexican lay dead, shot through the head ! Kit's party had dashed through the thicket without stop- ping, on to another, and their trail was shortly found leading up a rugged canon of the Pinos Altos Range. Whitehill divided his party. Three men followed up the bottom of the canon on foot, five mounted flankers were thrown out on either side. At last, high [166] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER up the canon, Kit's party was found at bay, lying in some thick underbrush. It was a desperate position to attack, but the pursuers did not hesitate. Dis- mounting, they advanced on foot with rifles cocked, but with all the caution of a hunter trailing a wounded grizzly. The negro opened the ball at barely twenty yards' range with a shot that drove a hole through the Boston boy's hat. Dropping at first with surprise, for he had not seen the negro till the instant he rose to fire, the Boston boy returned a quick shot that hap- pened to hit the negro just above the centre of the forehead and rolled him over dead. Approaching from another direction. Shannon was first to draw Taggart's fire. Taggart was lying hidden in the brush; Shannon standing out in the open. Shot after shot they exchanged, until pres- ently a ball struck the earth in front of Taggart's face and filled his eyes full of gravel and sand. Blinded for the time, he called for quarter, and came out of the brush with his hands up and another man with him. Asked for his pistol, Taggart replied: " Damn you, that 's empty, or I'd be shooting yet." Meantime, Whitehill was engaging Mitch Lee. In a few minutes, shot through and helpless, Lee sur- rendered. It was quick, hot work ! All but Kit were now killed or captured. He had been separated from his party, and La Fer was seen trailing him on a neighboring hillside. [167] THE RED-BLOODED At this juncture the sheriff detailed Shannon to return to town and get a wagon to bring in the dead and wounded, while he started to j oin La Fer in pur- suit of Kit. An hour later, as Shannon was leaving town with a wagon to return to the scene of the fight, a mob of men, led by a shyster lawyer, joined him and swore they proposed to lynch the prisoners. This was too much for Shannon's sense of frontier proprieties. So, rising in his wagon, he made a brief but effective speech. "Boys, none of our men are hurt, although it is no fault of our prisoners. A dozen of us have gone out and risked our lives to capture these men. You men have not seen fit, for what motives we will not discuss, to help us. Now, I tell you right here that any who want can come, but the first man to raise a hand against a prisoner I '11 kill." Shannon's return escort was small. But once more back in the hills of the Pinos Altos, Shannon found a storm raised he could not quell, even if his own sympathies had not drifted with it when he learned its cause. His friend La Fer lay dead, filled full of buckshot by Kit before Whitehill's reinforcements had reached him, while Kit had slipped away through the underbrush, over rocks that left no trail. La Fer*s death maddened his friends. There [168] THE EVOLUTION OF A TRAIN ROBBER was little discussion. Only one opinion prevailed. Taggart and Lee must die. Nothing was known of the prisoner wanted in Arizona, so he was spared. Taggart and Lee were put in the wagon, the for- mer tightly bound, the latter helpless from his wound. Short rope halters barely five feet long were stripped from the horses, knotted round the prisoners' necks, and fastened to the limb of a juniper tree. Taggart climbed to the high wagon seat, took a header and broke his neck. The wagon was then pulled away and Lee strangled. With Cleveland, Lee, and Taggart dead. Engineer Webster and La Fer were fairly well avenged. But Kit was still out, known as the leader and the man who shot La Fer, and for days the hills were full of men hunting him. Hiding in the rugged, thickly tim- bered hills of the Gila, taking needed food at night, at the muzzle of his gun, from some isolated ranch, he was hard to capture. Had Kit chosen to mount himself and ride out of the country, he might have escaped for good. But this he would not do. Dominated still by the fatal curiosity and covetousness that first possessed him, later mastered him, and then drove him into crime, bound to repossess himself of his hidden treasure and go out to see the world. Kit would not leave the Gila. He was alone, unaided, with no man left his friend, [169] THE RED-BLOODED with all men on the alert to capture or to kill him, the unequal contest nevertheless lasted for many weeks. There was only one man Kit at all trusted, a "nester" (small ranchman) named Racketty Smith. One day. looking out from a leafy thicket in which he lay hid, Kit saw Racketty going along the road. A lonely outcast, craving the sound of a human voice, believing Racketty at least neutral, Kit hailed him and approached. As he drew near, Racketty covered him with his rifle and ordered him to surrender. Sur- prised, taken entirely unawares. Kit started to jump for cover, when Racketty fired, shattered his right leg and brought him to earth. To spring upon and dis- arm Kit was the work of an instant. Kit was sentenced to imprisonment at Santa Fe. A few years ago, having gained three years by good behavior, Kit was released, after having served four- teen years. However Kit may still hanker for " a big, fat, four- year-old, long-horned bank roll," and whatever may be his curiositj tc **do 'Frisco proper," it is not likely he will make any more history as a train robber, for at heart Kit was always a better "good man" than " bad man." Cno] CHAPTER Vm CIECUS DAY AT MANCOS COWBOYS were seldom respecters of the feel- ings of their fellows. Few topics were so sacred or incidents so grave they were not made the subject of the rawest jests. Leading a life of such stirring adventure that few days passed with- out some more or less serious mishap, reckless of life, unheedful alike of time and eternity, they made the smallest trifles and the biggest tragedies the subjects of chaff and badinage till the next diverting occur- rence. But to the Cross Canon outfit Mat Barlow's love for Netty Nevins was so obviously a downright worship, an all-absorbing, dominating cult, that, in a way, and all unknown to her, she became the nearest thing to a religion the Cross Caiionites ever had. Eight years before Mat had come among them a green tenderfoot from a South Missouri village, picked up in Durango by Tom McTigh, the foreman, on a glint of the eye and set of the jaw that suggested workable material. Nor was McTigh mistaken. Mat took to range work like a duck to water. Within a year he could rope and tie a mossback with the best, and in scraps with Mancos Jim's Pah-Ute horse raid- I ni ] THE RED-BLOODED ers had proved himself as careless a dare-devil as the oldest and toughest trigger-twitcher of the lot. But persuade and cajole as much as they liked, none of the outfit were ever able to induce Mat to pursue his education as a cowboy beyond the details incident to work and frolic on the open range. Old past-masters in the classics of cowboy town deport- ment, expert light shooters, monte players, dance-hall beaux, elbow-crookers, and red-eye riot-starters la- bored faithfully with Mat, but all to no purpose. To town with them he went, but with them in their de- bauches he never joined; indeed as a rule he even re- fused to discuss such incidents with them academically. Thus he delicately but plainly made it known to the outfit that he proposed to keep his mind as clean as his conduct. Such a curiosity as Mat was naturally closely studied. The combined intelligence of the outfit was trained upon him, for some time without result. He was the knottiest puzzle that ever hit Cross Canon. [At first he was suspected of religious scruples and nicknamed " Circuit Rider." But presently it be- came apparent that he owned ability and will to curse a fighting outlaw bronco till the burning desert air felt chill, and it became plain he feared God as little as man. Mat had joined the outfit in the Autumn, when for several weeks it was on the jump ; first gath- ering and shipping beeves, then branding calves, CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS lastly moving the herd down to its Winter range on the San Juan. Throughout this period Cross Canon's puzzle remained hopeless; but the very first evening after the outfit went into Winter quarters at the home ranch, the puzzle was solved. Ranch mails were always small, no matter how in- frequent their coming or how large the outfit. The owner's business involved little correspondence, the boys' sentiments inspired less. Few with close home- ties exiled themselves on the range. Many were ** on the scout" from the scene of some remote shooting scrape and known by no other than a nickname. For most of them such was the rarity of letters that often have I seen a cowboy turning and studying an un- opened envelope for a half-day or more, wondering whoever it was from and guessing whatever its con- tents could be. Thus it was one of the great sensa- tions of the season for McTigh and his red-sashers, when the ranch cook produced ^\e letters for Circuit Rider, all addressed in the same neat feminine hand, all bearing the same post mark. And when, while the rest were washing for supper, disposing of war sacks, or "making down" blankets. Mat squatted in the chimney corner to read his letters, Lee Skeats impres- sively whispered to Priest : "Ben, I jest nachally hope never to cock another gun ef that thar little oP Circuit hain't got a gal that 's stuck to him tighter'n a tick makin' a gotch [173] THE RED-BLOODED ear, or that ain't got airy damn thing to do to hum but write letters. Size o' them five he 's got must 'a kept her settin' up nights to make 'em ever since Cir- cuit jumped the hum reservation. Did you ever hear of a feller gettin' ^\q letters from a gal to wonst.'^" "I shore never did," answered Ben; "Circuit must 'a been 'prentice to some big Medicine Man back among his tribe and have a bagful o' hoodoos hid out somewhere. He ain't so damn hi jus to look at, but he shore never knocked no gal plum loco that away with his p'rsn'l beauty. Must be some sort o' Injun medicine he works." "Cain't be from his mother," cogitated Lee. "Writin' ain't trembly none — looks like it was writ by a school-marm, an' a lally-cooler at that. Cir- cuit will have to git one o' them pianer-like writin' makers and keep poundin' it on the back till it hollers, ef he allows to lope close up in that gal's writin' class. "Lord! but won't thar be fun for us all Winter he'pin' him 'tend to his correspondence ! " Let 's you an' me slip round and tip off the outfit to shet up till after supper, an' then all be ready with a hot line o' useful hints 'bout his answerin' her." Ben joyously fell in with Lee's plan. The tips were quickly passed round. But none of the hints were ever given, not a single one. A facer lay ahead of them beside which the mere receipt of the five let- ters was nothing. To be sure, the letters were the [174] CIRCUS DAY AT MANGOS greatest sensation the outfit had enjoyed since they stood off successfully two troops of U. S. Cavalry, come to arrest them for killing twenty maurauding Utes. But what soon followed filled them with an astonishment that stilled their mischievous tongues, stirred sentiments long dormant, and ultimately, in a measure, tuned their own heart-strings into chord with the sweet melody ringing over Circuit's own. Supper was called, and upon it the outfit fell — all but Circuit. They attacked it wolf-fashion accord- ing to their habit, bolting the steaming food in a silence absolute but for the crunching of jaws and the shrill hiss of sipped coffee. The meal was half over before Circuit, the last letter finished, tucked his five treasures inside his shirt, stepped over the bench to a vacant place at the table, and hastily swallowed a light meal ; in fact he rose while the rest were still busy gorging themselves. And before Lee or the others were ready to launch at Circuit any shafts of their rude wit, his manoeuvres struck them dumb with curiosity. Having hurried from the table direct to his bunk, Circuit was observed delving in the depths of his war sack, out of which he produced a set of clean under- clothing, complete from shirt to socks, and a razor. Besides these he carefully laid out his best suit of store clothes, and from beneath the ** heading " of the bunk he pulled a new pair of boots. All this was done with [ ns ] THE RED-BLOODED a rapidity and method that evinced some set purpose which the outfit could not fathom, a purpose become the more puzzling when, five minutes later, Circuit re- turned from the kitchen bearing the cook's wash-tub and a pail of warm water. The tub he deposited and filled in an obscure corner of the bunk-room, and shortly thereafter was stripped to the buff, labori- ously bathing himself. The bath finished, Circuit carefully shaved, combed his hair, and dressed him- self in his cleanest and best. While he was dressing. Bill Ball caught breath enough to whisper to Lee : " By cripes ! I've got it. Circuit 's got a hunch some feller 's tryin' to rope an' hobble his gal, an' he 's goin' to ask Tom for his time, fork a cayuse, an' hit a lope for a railroad that'll take him to whatever little oP humanyville his gal lives at." " Lope hell," answered Lee ; " it 's a run he 's goin' to hit, with one spur in the shoulder an' th' other in th' flank. Why, th' way he 's throwin' that whisker- cutter at his face, he 's plumb shore to dewlap and wattle his fool self till you could spot him in airy herd o' humans as fer as you could see him." But Bill's guess proved wide of the mark. As soon as Circuit's dressing was finished and he had received assurance from the angular fragment of mirror nailed above the wash-basin that his hair was smoothly combed and a new neckerchief neatly knot- [176] CIRCUS DAY AT MANGOS ted, he produced paper and an envelope from his war sack, seated himself at the end of the long dinner- table, farthest from the fireplace, lighted a fresh candle, spread out his five treasures, carefully sharp- ened a stub pencil, and duly set its lead end a-soak in his mouth, preparatory to the composition of a letter. The surprise was complete. Such pains- taking preparation and elaborate costuming for the mere writing of a letter none present — or absent, for that matter — had ever heard of. But it was all so obviously eloquent of a most tender respect for his correspondent that boisterous voices were hushed, and for at least a quarter of an hour the Cross Canon- ites sat covertly watching the puckered brows, drawn mouth, and awkwardly crawling pencil of the writer. Presently Lee gently nudged Ball and passed a wink to the rest; then all rose and softly tiptoed their way to the kitchen. Comfortably squatted on his heels before the cook's fireplace, Lee quietly observed : " Fellers, I allow it 's up to us to hold a inquest on th' remains o' my idee about stringin' Circuit over that thar gal o' his'n. I moves that th' idee 's done died a-bomin', an' that we bury her. All that agrees, say so ; any agin it, say so, 'n' then git their guns an' come outside." There were no dissenting votes, Lee's motion was unanimously carried. "Lee 's plumb right," whispered McTigh; "that [ 177 ] THE RED-BLOODED kid 's got it harder an' worse than airy feller I ever heerd tell of, too hard for us to lite in stringin' him 'bout it. Never had no gal myself; leastways, no good one ; been alius like a old buffalo bull whipped out o' th' herd, sorta flockin' by my lonesome, an' — an' — " with a husky catch of the voice, " an' that thar kid 'minds me I must a' been missin' a hell of a lot hit 'pears to me I would n't have no great trouble gittin' to like." Then for a time there was silence in the kitchen. Crouching over his pots, the black cook stared in surprised inquiry at the semicircle of grim bronzed faces, now dimly lit by the flickering embers and then for a moment sharply outlined by the flash of a cigarette deeply inhaled by nervous lips. The situa- tion was tense. In each man emotions long dormant, or perhaps by some never before experienced, were tumultuously surging ; surging the more tumultuously for their long dormancy or first recognition. Pres- ently in a low, hoarse voice that scarcely carried round the semicircle, Chillili Jim spoke : "Fellers, Circuit shore 'minds me pow'ful strong o' my ol' mammy. She was monstrous lovin' to we- uns ; an' th' way she scrubbed an' fixed up my ol' pa when he comes home from the break-up o' Terry's Rangers, with his ol' carcass 'bout as full o' rents an' holes as his ragged gray war clothes! Alius have tho't ef I could git to find a gal stuck on me like [178] CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS mammy on pa, I'd drop my rope on her, throw her "into th' home ranch pasture, an' nail up th' gate fer keeps." " 'Minds me o' goin' to meetin' when I was a six- year-old," mused Mancos Mitch; "when Circuit's pencil got to smokin' over th' paper an' we-uns got so dedburned still, 'peared to me like I was back in th' little ol' meetin'-house in th' mosquito clearin', on th' banks o' th' Leona in ol' Uvalde County. Th' air got that quar sort o' dead smell 'ligion alius 'pears to give to meetin'-houses, an' I could hear th' ol' pa'son a-tellin' us how it 's th' lovinest that alius gits th' longest end o' th' rope o' life. Hits me now that ther ol' sky scout was 'bout right. Feller cain't possibly keep busy all th' love in his system, workin' it off on nothin' but a pet hoss or gun ; thar 's alius a hell of a lot you did n't know you had comes oozin' out when a proper piece o' calico lets you next." " Boys," cut in Bill Ball, the dean of the outfit's shooters-up of town and shooters-out of dance-hall lights; "boys, I allow it 's up to me to 'pologize to Circuit. Ef I was n't such a damned o'nery kiyote I'd o' caught on befo'. But I hain't been runnin' with th' drags o' th' she herd so long that I can't 'preciate th' feelin's o' a feller that 's got a good gal stuck on him, like Circuit. Ef I had one, you-all kin gamble yer alee all bets would be off with them painted dance- hall beer jerkers, an' it would be out in th' brush fo' [179] THE RED-BLOODED me while th' corks was poppin', gals cussin', red-eye flowin', an' chips rattlin'. That thar little oP kid has my 'spects, an' ef airy o' th' Blue Mountain outfit tries to string him 'bout not runnin' with them oreide propositions, I '11 hand 'em lead till my belt 's empty." Ensued a long silence; at length, by common con- sent the inquest was adjourned, and the members of the jury returned to the bunk-room, quiet and solemn as men entering a death chamber. There at the table before the guttering candle still sat Circuit, his hair now badly tousled, his upper lip blackened with pencil lead, his brows more deeply puckered, his entire under- lip apparently swallowed, the table littered with rude- ly scrawled sheets. Slipping softly to their respective bunks, the boys peeled and climbed into their blankets. And there they all lay, wide-awake but silent, for an hour or two, some watching Circuit curiously, some enviously, others staring fixedly into the dying fire until from its dull-glowing embers there rose for some visions of bare-footed, nut-brown, fustian-clad maids, and for others the finer lines of silk and lace draped figures, now long since passed forever out of their lives. Those longest awake were privileged to witness Cir- cuit's final ofi^ering at the shrine of his love. His letter finished, enclosed, addressed, and stamped, he kissed it and laid it aside, apparently all unconscious of the presence of his mates, as he had [ 180 ] CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS been since beginning his letter. Then he drew from beneath his shirt something none of them had seen before, a buckskin bag, out of which he pulled a fat blank memorandum book, into which he proceeded to copy, in as small a hand as he could write, every line of his sweethearfs letters. Later they learned that this bag and its contents never left Circuit's body, nestled always over his heart, suspended by a buckskin thong ! Out of the close intimacies cow-camp life promotes, it was not long before the well-nigh overmastering curiosity of the outfit was satisfied. They learned how the " little ol' blue-eyed sorrel top," as Bill Ball had christened her, had vowed to wait faithfully till Circuit could earn and save enough to make them a home, and how Circuit had sworn to look into no woman's eyes till he could again look into hers. Be- fore many months had passed. Circuit's regular week- ly letter to Netty — regular when on the ranch — and the ceremonial purification and personal decking that preceded it, had become for the Cross Canon outfit a public ceremony all studiously observed. None were ever too tired, none too grumpy, to wash, shave, and " slick up " of letter nights, scrupulously as Moslems bathe their feet before approaching the shrine of Mahomet ; and still as Moslems before their shrine all sat about the bunk-room while Circuit wrote his letter and copied Netty's last. Indeed, more than [ 181 ] THE RED-BLOODED one well-started wild town orgy was stopped short by one^of the boys remarking: "Cut it, you kiyotes! Netty would n't like it!" And thus the months rolled on till they stacked up into years, but the interchange of letters never ceased and the burden of Circuit's buckskin bag grew heavier. Twice Circuit ventured a financial coup, and both times lost — invested his savings in horses, losing one band to Arizona rustlers, and the other to Mancos Jim's Pah-Utes. After the last experience he took no further chances and settled down to the slow but sure plan of hoarding his wages. Come the Fall of the eighth year of his exile from Netty, Circuit had accumulated two thousand dollars, and it was unanimously voted by the Cross Canon out- fit, gathered in solemn conclave at Circuit's request, that he might venture to return to claim her. And be- fore the conclave was adjourned, Lee Skeats, the chairman, remarked : " Circuit, ef Netty shows airy sign o' balkin' at th' size o' your bank roll, you kin jes' tell her that thar 's a bunch out here in Cross Canon that's been lovin' her sort o' by proxy, that'll chip into your matrimonial play, plumb double the size o' your stack, jest fo' th' bono' o' meetin' up wi' her an' th' pleasure o' seein' their pardner hitched." The season's work done and the herd turned loose on its Winter range on the San Juan, the outfit de- [182] CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS cided to escort Circuit into Mancos and there cele- brate his coming nuptials. For them the one hundred and seventy intervening miles of alternating canon and mesa, much of the journey over trails deadly dangerous for any creature less sure-footed than a goat, was no more than a pleasant pasear. Thus it was barely high noon of the third day when the thirty Cross Canonites reached their destination. Deep down in a mighty gorge, nestled beside the stream that gave its name alike to caiion and to town, Mancos stewed contentedly in a temperature that would try the strength and temper of any unaccus- tomed to the climate of southwestern Colorado, Framed in Franciscan-gray sage brush, itself gray as the sage with the dust of pounding hoofs and rushing whirlwinds, at a little distance Mancos looked like an aggregation of dead ash heaps, save where, here and there, dabs of faded paint lent a semblance of patches of dying embers. While raw, uninviting, and even melancholy in its every aspect, for the scattered denizens of a vast re- gion round about Mancos's principal street was the local Great White Way that furnished all the fun and frolic most of them ever knew. To it flocked miners from their dusky, pine-clad gorges in the north, grangers from the then new farming settlement in the Montezuma Valley, cowboys from Blue Mountain, the Dolores, and the San Juan; Navajos from Chillili, [ 183 ] THE RED-BLOODED Utes from their reservation — a motley lot burn- ing with untamed elemental passions that called for pleasure " straight." Joyously descending upon the town at a breakneck lope before a following high wind that completely shrouded them in clouds of dust, it was not until they pulled up before their favorite feed corral that the outfit learned that Mancos was revelling in quite the reddest red-letter day of its existence, the day of its first visitation by a circus — and also its last for many a year thereafter. In the eighties Mancos was forty miles from the nearest railway, but news of the reckless extrava- gances of its visiting miners and cowboys tempted Fells Brothers' ** Greatest Aggregation on Earth of Ring Artists and Monsters " to visit it. Dusted and costumed outside of town, down the main street of Mancos the circus bravely paraded that morning, its red enameled paint and gilt, its many-tinted tights and spangles, making a perfect riot of brilliant colors over the prevailing dull gray of valley and town. Streets, stores, saloons, and dance halls were swarming with the outpouring of the ranches and the mines, men who drank abundantly but in the main a rollicking, good-natured lot. While the Cross Canonites were liquoring at the Fashion Bar (Circuit drinking sarsaparilla), Lame Johny, the barkeeper, remarked: "You-uns missed [184] CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS it a lot, not seein' the pr'cesh. She were a ring-tailed tooter for fair, with the damnedest biggest noise- makin' band jou ever heard, an' th' p'rformers wear- in' more pr'tys than I ever allowed was made. An' say, they've got a gal in th' bunch, rider I reckon, that's jest that damned good to look at it hurts. Damned ef I kin git her outen my eyes yet. Say, she's shore prittier than airy red wagon in th' show — built like a quarter horse, got eyes like a doe, and a sorrel mane she could hide in. She 's sure a chile con came proposition, if I ever see one." " Huh ! " grunted Lee ; " may be a good-looker, but I'll gamble she ain't in it with our Sorrel-top; hey, boys.f* Here 's tb our Sorrel-top, fellers, an' th' day Circuit prances into Mancos wi' her." " Several who tried to drink and cheer at the same time lost much of their liquor, but none of their en- thusiasm. After dinner at Charpiot's, a wretched counterfeit of the splendid old Denver restaurant of that name, the Cross Canonites joined the throng streaming toward the circus. For his sobriety designated treasurer of the outfit for the day and night. Circuit marched up to the ticket wagon, passed in a hundred dollar bill and asked for thirty tickets. The tickets and change were promptly handed him. On the first count the change appeared to be correct, but on a recount Circuit found the ticket-seller had cunningly folded one twenty double, [186] THE RED-BLOODED so that it appeared as two bills instead of one. Turn- ing immediately to the ticket-seller, Circuit showed the deception and demanded correction. " Change was right ; you can't dope and roll me ; gwan ! " growled the ticket-agent. " But it 's plumb wrong, an' you can't rob me none, you kiyote," answered Circuit; '^hand out another twenty, and do it sudden ! " " Chase yourself to hell, you bow-legged hold-up," threatened the ticket-seller. When, a moment later, the ticket man plunged out of the door of his wagon wildly yelling for his clan, it was with eyes flooding with blood from a gash in his forehead due to a resentful tap from the barrel of Cir- cuit's gun. Almost in an instant pandemonium reigned and a massacre was imminent. Stalwart canvasmen rushed to their chief's call till Circuit's bunch were out- numbered three to one by tough trained battlers on many a tented field, armed with hand weapons of all sorts. Victors these men usually were over the town roughs it was customarily theirs to handle; but here before them was a bunch not to be trifled with, a quiet group of thirty bronzed faces, some grinning with the anticipated joy of the combat they loved, some grim as death itself, each affectionately twirling a gleaming gun. One overt act on the part of the circus men, and down they would go like ninepins, [ 186 ] CIRCUS DAY AT MANGOS and they knew it — knew it so well that, within two minutes after they had assembled, all dodged into and lost themselves in the throng of onlookers like rabbits darting into their warrens. "Mighty pore 'pology for real men, them ele- phant busters," disgustedly observed Bill Ball. " Come on, fellers, le's go in." "Nix for me," spoke up Circuit; "I'm that hot in the collar over him tryin' to rob me I've got no use for their old show. You-all go in, an' I'll go down to Chapps' and fix my traps to hit the trail for the rail- road in the momin'." On the crest of a jutting bastion of the lofty es- carpment that formed the west wall of the canon, the sun lingered for a good-night kiss of the eastern cliffs which it loved to paint every evening with all the bril- liant colors of the spectrum; it lingered over loving memories of ancient days when every niche of the Mancos cliffs held its little bronze-hued line of primi- tive worshippers, old and young, devout, prostrate, fearful of their Red God's nightly absences, suppliant of his return and continued largess ; over memories of ceremonials and pastimes barbaric in their elemental violence, but none more primitively savage than the new moon looked down upon an hour later. Supper over, on motion of Lee Skeats the Cross Canonites had adjourned to the feed corral and gone into executive session. [1871 THE RED-BLOODED Lee called the meeting to order. "Fellers," he said, "that dod-bumed show makes my back tired. A few geezers an' gals flipfloopin' in swings an' a bunch o' dead ones on ol' broad -backed work bosses that calls theirselves riders! Shucks! thar hain't one o' th' lot could sit a real twister long enough to git his seat warm ; about th' second jump would have 'em clawin' sand. "Only thing in their hull circus wo'th lookin' at is that red-maned gal, an' she looks that sweet an' innercent she don't 'pear to rightly belong in that thar bare-legged bunch o' she dido-cutters. They-all must 'a mavericked her recent. Looks like a pr'ty ripe red apple among a lot o' rotten ones. " Hated like hell to see her thar, spccir.ll}'^ with next to nothin' on, fer somehow I could n't he}p her 'mind- in' me o' our Sorrel-top. Reckon ef we busted up their damn show, that gal'd git to stay a while in a decent woman's sort o' clothes. What say, shall we bust her?" "Fer one, I sits in an' draw cards in your play cheerful," promptly responded Bill Ball; "kind o' hurt me too to see Reddy thar. An' then them ani- miles hain't gittin' no squar' deal. Never did believe in cagin' animiles more'n men. Ef they need it bad, kill 'em ; ef they don't, give 'm a run fo' their money, way ol' Mahster meant 'em to have when He made 'em. Let's all saddle up, ride down thar, tie onto their tents, [ 188 ] CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS an' pull 'em down, an' then bust open them cages an' give every dod-blamed animile th' liberty I allows he loves same as humans ! An' then, jest to make sure she's a good job, le's whoop all their bosses ove' to th' Dolores an' scatter 'em through th' pinons ! " Bill's motion was unanimously carried, even Cir- cuit cheerfully consenting, from memories of the out- rage attempted upon him earlier in the day. Ten minutes later the outfit charged down upon the cir- cus at top speed, arriving among the first comers for the evening performance. Flaming oil torches lit the scene, making it bright almost as day. By united action, thirty lariats were quickly looped round guy ropes and snubbed to saddle horns, and then, incited by simultaneous spur digs and yells, thirty fractious broncos bounded away from the tent, fetching it down in sheets and ribbons, ropes popping like pistols, the rent canvas shrieking like a creature in pain, startled animals threshing about their cages and crying their alarm. Cowboys were never slow at anything they undertook. In three minutes more the side shows were tentless, the dwarfs trying to swarm up the giant's sturdy legs to safety or to hide among the adipose wrinkles of the fat lady, and the outfit tackled the cages. In another three minutes the elephant, with a so- ciable shot through his off ear to make sure he should not tarry, was thundering down Mancos's main street, [ 189 ] THE RED-BLOODED trumpeting at every jump, followed by the Hon, the great tuft of hair at the end of his tail converted, by a happy thought of Lee Skeats, into a brightly blaz- ing torch that, so long as the fuel lasted, lighted the shortest cut to freedom for his escaping mates — for the lion hit as close a bee-line as possible trying to outrun his own tail. For the outfit, it was the lark of their lives. Crashing pistol shots and ringing yells bore practical testimony to their joy. But they were not to have it entirely their own way. Just as they were all balled up before the rhi- noceros, staggered a bit by his great bulk and threatening horn, out upon them charged a body of canvasmen, all the manager could contrive to rally, for a desperate effort to stop the damage and avenge the outrage. In their lead ran the ticket-seller, armed with a pistol and keen for evening up things with the man who had hit him, dashing straight for Circuit. Circuit did not see him, but Lee did ; and thus in the very instant Circuit staggered and dropped to the crack of his pistol, down beside Circuit pitched the ticket man with a ball through his head. Then for two minutes, perhaps, a hell of fierce hand-to-hand battle raged, cowboy skulls crunching beneath fierce blows, circus men falling like autumn leaves before the cowboys' fire. And so the fight might have lasted till all were down but for a startling diversion. Suddenly, just as Circuit had struggled to his feet, [190] CIBCUS DAY AT MANGOS out from among the wrecked wagons sprang a dainty figure in tulle and tights, masses of hair red as the blood of the battlers streaming in waves behind her, and fired at the nearest of the common enemy, which happened to be poor Circuit. Swaying for a moment with the shock of the wound, down to the ground he settled like an empty sack, falling across the legs of the ticket-seller. Startled and shocked, it seemed, by the con- sequences of her deed, the woman approached and for a moment gazed down, horror-stricken, into Circuit's face. Then suddenly, with a shriek of agony, she dropped beside him, drew his head into her lap, wiped the gathering foam from his lips, fondled and kissed him. Ripping his shirt open at the neck to find his wound, she uncovered Circuit's buckskin bag and memorandum book, showing through its centre the track of a bullet that had finally spent itself in frac- turing a rib over Circuit's heart, the ticket-seller's shot, that would have killed him instantly but for the shielding bulk Netty's treasured letters interposed. Moved, perhaps, by some subtle instinctive suspicion of its contents, she glanced within the book, started to remove it from Circuit's neck, and then gently laid it back above the heart it so long had lain next and so lately had shielded. Meantime about this little group gathered such of the Cross Canonites as were still upon their legs, while, £191] THE RED-BLOODED glad of the diversion, their enemies hurriedly with- drew ; round about the outfit stood, their fingers still clutching smoking guns, but pale and sobered. Circuit lay with eyes closed, feebly gasping for breath, and just as the girl's nervous fingers further rent his shirt and exposed the mortal wound through the right lung made by her own tiny pistol, Circuit half rose on one elbow and whispered : " Boys, write — write Netty I was tryin' to git to her." And then he fell back and lay still. For h\e minutes, perhaps, the girl crouched silent over the body, gazing wide-eyed into the dead face, stunned, every faculty paralyzed. Presently Lee softly spoke: " Sis, if, as I allows, you're Netty, you shore did Mat a good turn killin' him 'fore he saw you. Would 'a hurt him pow'ful to see you in this bunch; hurts us 'bout enough, I reckon." Roused from contemplation of her deed, the girl rose to her knees, still clinging to Circuit's stiffening fingers, and sobbingly murmured, in a voice so low the awed group had to bend to hear her : " Yes, I'm Netty, and every day while I live I shall thank God Mat never knew. This is my husband ly- ing dead beneath Mat. They made me do it — my family — nagged me to marry Tom, then a rich horse-breeder of our county, till home was such a hell I could n't stand it. It was four long years ago, and [19^] CIRCUS DAY AT MANCOS never since have I had the heart to own to Mat the truth. His letters were my greatest joy, and they breathed a love I little have deserved." " Reckon that 's dead right, Netty," broke in Bill Ball ; " hain't a bit shore myself airy critter that ever stood up in petticoats deserved a love big as Circuit's. Excuse us, please," And at a sign from Bill, six bent and gently lifted the body and bore it away into the town. In the twilight of an Autumn day that happened to be the twenty-second anniversary of Circuit's death, two grizzled old ranchmen, ambling slowly out of Mancos along the Dolores trail, rode softly up to a corner of the burying ground and stoppped. There within, hard by, a woman bent and gnarled and gray as the sage-brush about her, was tenderly decking a grave with pinon wreaths. " Hope to never cock another gun. Bill Ball, ef she ain't thar ag'in ! " " She shore is, Lee," answered Bill ; " provin' we-all mislaid no bets reconsiderin', an' stakin' Sorrel-top to a little ranch and brand." Thus, happily, does time sweeten the bitterest memories. [193] CHAPTER IX ACBOSS THE BOEDEE YES, there he was, just ahead of me on the plat- form of the Union Depot in Kansas City, my partner, James Terry Gardiner, who had wired me to meet him there a few weeks after I had closed the sale of our Deadman Ranch, in November, 1882. While his back was turned to me, there was no mistaking the lean but sturdy figure and alert step. From the vigorous slap of cordiality I gave him on the shoulder, he winced and shrank, crying : " Oh, please don't, old man. Been sleeping in Mexican northers for a fortnight, and it's got my shoulder muscles tied in rheumatic knots. Don Nemecio Gar- cia started me off from Lampasos with the assurance that my ambulance was generously provisioned and provided with his own camp-bed, but when night of the first day's journey came, I found the food limited to tortillaSy chorisos, and coffee, and the bed a sheep- skin — no more. Stupid of an old campaigner not to investigate his equipment before starting, was it not?" "Worse than that, I should say — sheer madness," 1 answered. " How did it happen ? " [ 194 ] ACROSS THE BORDER "Well, you see, Don Nemecio is the Alcalde oi his city, and he showered me with such grandiloquent Spanish phrases of concern for my comfort that I fancied he had outfitted me in extraordinary luxury. " But that 's over now, thank goodness. And now to business. " In the north of the State of Coahuila, one hundred miles west of the Rio Grande border, lies the little town called Villa de Musquiz. To the north and west of it for two hundred miles stretches the great plain the natives call El Desierto, known on the map as Bohon de Mapimi, the resort of none but bandits, smuggler Lipans, and Mescaleros. Into it the na- tives never venture, and little of it is known except the scant information brought back by scouting cavalry details. " Just south of the town lie the Cedral Coal Mines I have been examining — but that is neither here nor there. What I want to know is, are you game for a new ranch deal?" When I nodded an affirmative, he continued : "Well, immediately north of the town lies a tract of 250,000 acres in the fork of the Rio Sabinas and the Rio Alamo, which is the greatest ranch bargain I ever saw. Heavily grassed, abundantly watered by its two boundary streams, the valleys thickly tim- bered with Cottonwood, the plains dotted with mes- quite and live oak, in a perfect climate, it is an ideal 1 195 ] THE RED-BLOODED breeding range. And it can be bought, for what, do you think? Fifty thousand Mexican dollars [29,- 000 gold] for a quarter of a million acres ! Go bag it, and together we'll stock it. " Of course you'll run some rather heavy risks — else the place would not be going so cheap — but no more than you have been taking the last five years in the Sioux country. A little bunch of Lipans are constantly on the warpath, Mescalero raiding parties drop in occasionally, and the bandits seem to need a good many prestamos; but all that you have been up against. Better take a pretty strong party, for the authorities thought it necessary to give me a cavalry escort from Lampasos to Musquiz and back. And, by the way, pick up a boy named George E. Thorn- ton, of Socorro, N. M., on your way south. While only a youngster, he is one of the best all-round fron- tiersmen I ever saw, and speaks Spanish tolerably. Had him with me in the Gallup country." Details were settled at breakfast, and there Gardi- ner resumed his journey eastward, while I took the next train for Denver. A fortnight later found me in Socorro, plodding through its sandy streets to an adobe house in the suburbs where Thornton lodged. As I neared the door a big black dog sprang fiercely out at me to the full length of his chain, and directly thereafter the door framed an extraordinary figure. Then barely twenty-one, and downy still of [196] ACROSS THE BORDER lip, Thornton's gray eyes were as cold and calculat- ing, the lines of his face as severe and even hard, his movements as deliberate and expressive of perfect self-mastery as those of any veteran of half a dozen wars. Six feet two in height, straight as a white pine, ideally coupled for great strength without sac- rifice of activity, he looked altogether one of the most capable and safe men one could wish for in a scrap ; and so, later, he well proved himself. He greeted me in carefully correct English; and while quiet, reserved, and cold of speech as of manner, the tones in which he assured me any friend of Mr. Gardiner was welcome, conveyed faint traces of cor- diality that roused some hope that he might prove a more agreeable camp-mate than his dour mien prom- ised. We were not long coming to terms ; indeed the moment I outlined the trip contemplated, and its pos- sible hazards, it became plain he was keen to come on any terms. To my surprise, he proposed bringing his dog. Curly. I objected that so heavy a dog would be likely to play out on our forced marches, and, anyway, would be no mortal use to us. His re- ply was characteristic: " Curly goes if I go, sir ; but any time you can tell me you find him a nuisance, I'll shoot him myself. I've had him four years, had him out all through Victoria's raid of the Gila, and he's a safer night guard than ?iny ten men you can string around camp : [ 197 ] THE RED-BLOODED nothing can approach he won't nail or tell you of. With Curly, a night-camp surprise is impossible." Whatever cross Curly represented was a mystery. Two-thirds the height and weight of a mastiff, he had the broad head and narrow pointed muzzle of a bear, and a shaggy reddish-black coat that further height- ened his resemblance to a cinnamon, with great gray eyes precisely the color of his master's, and as fierce. Whichever character was formed on that of the other I never learned — the man's on the dog's, or the dog's on the man's. Certain it is that not even the luckiest chance could have brought together man and beast so nearly identical in all their traits. Both were honest, almost to a fault. Neither possesssed any vice I ever could discover. Each was wholly happy only when in battle, the more desperate the encounter the happier they. Neither ever actually forced a quar- rel, or failed to get in the way of one when there was the least color of an attempt to fasten one on them. And yet both were always considerate of any weaker than themselves, and quick to go to their defence. Many a time have I seen old Curly seize and throttle a big dog he caught rending a little one — as I have seen George leap to the aid of the defenceless. Each weighed carefully his kind, and found most wanting in something requisite to the winning of his confi- dence; and such as they did admit to familiar inti- macy, man or beast, were the salt of their kind. [ 198 ] ACROSS THE BORDER On the train, south-bound for San Antonio, I learned something of Thornton's history. The son of a judge of Peoria, 111., he had until fifteen the advantage of the best schools of his city. Then, pos- sessed with a longing for a life of adventure in the West, he ran away from home, worked in various places at various tasks, until, at sixteen (in 1887) he had made his way to Socorro. Arrived there, he attached himself to a small party of prospectors go- ing out into the Black Range, into a region then wild and hostile as Boone found Kentucky. And there for the last five years he had dwelt, ranging through the Datils and the Mogallons, prospecting whenever the frequently raiding Apaches left him and his mates time for work. Indeed, it was Thornton who discov- ered and first opened the Gallup coal field, and he held it until Victoria ran him out. During this time he was in eight desperate fights — the only man to escape from one of them; but out of them he came unscathed, and trained to a finish in every trick of Apache warfare. At San Antonio we were met by Sam Cress, who for the last four years had been foreman of my Dead- man Ranch. Cress was born on Powell River, Vir- ginia, but had come to Texas as a mere lad and joined a cow outfit. He had really grown up in the Cross Timbers of the Palo Pinto, where, in those years, any who survived were past masters not only of the weird 11991 THE RED-BLOODED ways and long hours and outlaw broncos, but also of the cunning strategy of the Kiowas and Comanches who in that time were raiding ranches and settlements every " light of the moon." Cress was then twenty- five — just my age — and one of the rare type of men who actually hate and dread a fight, but where neces- sary, go into it with a jest and come out of it with a laugh, as jolly a camp-mate and as steady a stayer as I ever knew. Charlie Crawford, a half-breed Mex- ican, taken on for his fluency in Spanish, completed our outfit. Two mornings later the Mexican Na- tional Express dropped us at the Lampasos depot about daylight, from which we made our way over a mile of dusty road winding through mesquite thickets to the Hotel Diligencia, on the main plaza. A norther was blowing that chilled us to the mar- row, and of course, according to usual Mexican cus- tom, not a room in the hotel was heated. The best the little Italian proprietor could do for us was a pan of charcoal that warmed nothing beyond our fin- ger tips. As soon as the sun rose, we squatted along the east wall of the hotel and there shivered until Providence or his own necessity brought past us a peon driving a burro loaded with mesquite roots. We bbught this wood and dumped it in the central patio of the hotel and there lighted a camp-fire that made us tolerably comfortable until breakfast. Ignorant then of Mexico and its customs, I had [200] ACROSS THE BORDER fancied that when a proper hour arrived for a call on the Alcalde, Don Nemecio Garcia, I should have a chance to warm myself properly and had charitably asked my three mates to accompany me on the visit. But when at ten o'clock Don Nemecio received us in his office, we found him tramping up and down the room, wrapped in the warm folds of an ample cloak, his neck and face swathed in mufflers to the eyes, arc- tics on his feet, and no stove or fireplace in the room. As leading merchant of the town, he soon supplied us with provisions and various articles, and with four saddle and three pack horses for our journey. The next da}^, while my men were busy arranging our camp outfit, I took train for Monterey to get a letter from General Trevino, commanding the Depart- ment of Coahuila, to the comandante of the garrison at Musquiz. On this short forenoon's journey I had my first taste of the disordered state of the country. About ten o'clock our train stopped at the depot of Villaldama, where I observed six guardias aduan- eras (customs guards) removing the packs from a dozen mules, and transferring them to the baggage car. Just as this work was nearing completion, a band of fourteen contrahandistas dashed up out of the surrounding chaparral, dropped off their horses, and opened at thirty yards a deadly fire on the guards. With others in the smoker, next behind the baggage car, I had a fine view of the battle, but a part [ 201 ] THE RED-BLOODED of the time we were directly in the line of fire, for four of our car windows were smashed by bullets, and many bullets were buried in the car body. Such encoun- ters between guards and smugglers in Mexico were always a fight to the death, for under the law the guards received one-half the value of their captures, while of course the smugglers stood to win or lose all. As soon as fire opened, the guards jumped for the best cover available, and put up the best fight they could. But the odds were hopelessly against them. In five minutes it was all over. Three of the guards lay dead, one was crippled, and the other two were in flight. To be sure two of the smugglers were bowled over, dead, and two badly wounded, but the remaining ten were not long in repossessing themselves of their goods; and when our train pulled out, the baggage car riddled with bullets till it looked like a sieve, the ten were hurriedly repacking their mules for flight west to the Sierras. Later I learned that early that morning the guards had caught the conducta with only two men in charge, who had shrewdly skipped and scattered to gather the party that ar- rived just in time to save their plunder. Mexican import duties in those days were so enor- mous that very many of the best people then living along the border engaged regularly in smuggling, as the most profitable enterprise offering. American hams, I remember, were then sixty cents a pound, and [202] ACROSS THE BORDER everything else in proportion. Even in the city ol Monterey, stores that displayed on their open shelves little but native products, had warehouses where you could buy (at three times their value in the States) al- most any American or European goods you wanted. Well recommended to General Treviiio from kins- men of his wife, who was a daughter of General Ord of our army, he gave me a letter to Captain Abran de la Garza, commanding at Musquiz, direct- ing him to furnish me any cavalry escort or supplies I might ask for, and the following day we started north from Lampasos on our one-hundred-mile march to Musquiz. The first two days of the journey, for fully sixty miles, we travelled across the lands of Don Patricio Milmo, who thirty years earlier had arrived in Mon- terey, a bare-handed Irish lad, as Patrick Miles. Through thrift, cunning trading, and a diplomatic marriage into one of the most powerful families of the city, he had oreid his name and gilded the pros- pects of his progeny, for he had become the richest merchant of Monterey and the largest land-holder of the State. On this march north Curly's value was well dem- onstrated. The first two nights I divided our little party into four watches, so that one man should always be awake, and on the qui vive. But it took us no more than these two nights to discover that [ 203 ] THE RED-BLOODED Curly was a better guard than all of us put together. Throughout the noon and early evening camp he slept, but as soon as we were in our blankets he was on the alert, and nothing could move near the camp that he did not tell us of it in low growls, delivered at the ear of one or another of the sleepers. How- ever, nothing happened on the journey up, save at the camp just north of Progreso, where some of the villagers tried to slip up on our horses toward mid- night, and Curly's growls kept them off. Their trails about our camp were plain in the morning. The evening of the third day we reached Musquiz, one of the oldest towns of the northern border, nestled at the foot of a tall sierra amid wide fields of sugar cane, irrigated by the clear, sweet waters of the Sabinas. At eight o'clock the next morning I called on Cap- tain Abran de la Garza, the Comandante, to present my letter from General Trevino. Like the monarch of all he surveyed, he received me in his bed-chamber. As soon as I entered, it be- came apparent the Captain was a sportsman as well as a soldier. The room was perhaps thirty by twenty feet in size. Midway of the north wall stood a rude writing- table on which were a few official papers. Ranged about the room were a dozen or more rawhide-seated chairs, each standing stiffly at " attention " against the wall in scrupulously equidistant order. Glaring I 204 ] ACROSS THE BORDER at me in crude lettering from a broad rafter facing the door was the grimly patriotic sentiment, ^^Lihertad o Muerte.^^ (Liberty or Death!) In the southwest corner of the room stood a low and narrow cot, be- neath whose thin serape covering a tall, gaunt cadav- erous frame was plainly outlined. From the headpost of the cot dangled a sword and two pistols. And to every hed, table, stand, and chair leg was hobbled a gamecock — a rarely high-bred lot by their looks, that joined in saluting my entrance with a volley of questioning crows ! It was, I fancy, altogether the most startling reception visitor ever had. In a momentary pause in the crowing, there is- sued from a throat riven and deep-seamed from fre- quent floodings with fiery torrents of mescal, and out of lungs perpetually surcharged with cigarette smoke, a hoarse, croaking, but friendly toned, '^Buenos dias, senor. Sirvase tomar un asiento, Aqui tiene vd su casa!" and peering more closely into the dusky cor- ner, I beheld a great face, lean to emaciation, domi- nated by a magnificent Roman nose, with two great dark eyes sunk so deep on either side of its base they must forever remain strangers to one another. The nose supported a splendid breadth of high forehead, which was crowned with a shock of coal-black hair, while the jaws were bearded to the eyes. It was the face of an ascetic Crusader, sensualized in a measure by years of isolated frontier service and its attendant [ 205 ] THE RED-BLOODED vices and degeneration, but still a face full of the no- ble melancholy of a Quixote. Propping himself on a great bony knot of an el- bow, the Captain made polite inquiry respecting my journey, and then asked in what could he serve me. But when I had explained that I wanted to meet the owner of the Santa Rosa Ranch, and contemplated going out to see it, it was only to learn, to my great disappointment, that it had been sold the week pre- vious to two Scotchmen. Fancy ! in a country visited by foreigners, as a rule, not so often as once a year. Nor was I consoled when, noting my obvious cha- grin, the Captain sought to lighten the blow by say- ing : " But, my dear sir, this is indeed evidence God is guarding you. That ranch has been a legacy of contention and feud for generations. Besides, what good could you get of it? Its nearest line to the town is six miles distant, and no life or property would be safe there a fortnight. Far the best cattle ranch in this section, a fourth of it irrigable, and as fine sugar-cane land as one could find, do you fancy it would be tenantless as when God first made it if safe for occupancy? Why, my dear sir, within the last six months Juan Galan's Lipans have killed no less than seventy of our townsmen, some in their fields, some in the very suburbs of the town, while Mescaleros are raiding a little lower down the river, and Nicanor R as con is apt to sweep down any day with his ban- [ 206 ] ACROSS THE BORDER didos and plunder strong boxes and stores. It is with shame I admit it, for I, Don Abran, am responsi- ble for the peace and safety of this district. But, mil demonios! what can I do with one troop of cavalry against bandits ruthless as savages, and savages cun- ning as bandits ? " Oh ! but if I only had horses ! Those devils take remounts when they like from the remoudas of ranch- eroSy but I, carajo! I am always limited to my troop allotment. " Burn a hundred candles to the Virgin, amlgo mioy as a thank offering for your deliverance, and wait and see what happens to the Scotchmen; and while waiting, it will be my great pleasure to show you some of the grandest cock-fighting you ever saw. Look at them! Beauties, are they not? Purest blood in all Mexico ! Kept me poor four years getting them to- gether ! But now ! Ah ! now, it will not be long till they win me ranches and remoudas! "Ah! me. Time was not so very long ago when Abran de la Garza was called the most dashing jefe de tropa in the service, when senoritas fell to him as alamo leaves shower down to autumn winds; when pride consumed him, and ambition for a Division was burning in his brain. But now this demon of a fron- tier has scorched and driven him till naught remains to him but the chance of an occasional fruitless skir- mish, his thirst for mescal, his greed for aguilas, and [ Wl ] THE RED-BLOODED his cocks to win them! But, seiior, bet no money against them, for it would grieve me to win from a stranger introduced by my GeneraL" Then, with a grave nod of friendly warning, he turned an affectionate gaze upon his pets. Mean- time, as if conscious of his pride in them, the cocks were boastfully crowing paeans to their own victories, past and to come, in shrill and ill-timed but uninter- rupted concert, bronze wings flapping, crimson crests truculently tossing insolent challenge for all comers. With the one plan of my trip completely smashed, I felt too much upset to continue the interview, and excused myself. But after a forenoon spent alone beside the broad and swift current the Sabinas was pouring past me, gazing at the dim blue mountain- crests in the west that I had learned marked its source, the irresistible call to penetrate the unknown impressed and then possessed me so completely that, at our midday breakfast, I announced to the Captain I had decided to follow the river to its head, and pass thence into the desert for a thirty-days' circle to the north and west. "But, valga nu Dios, man,** he objected, "I have no force I can spare for sufficient time to give you adequate escort for such a journey. It would be madness to undertake it with less than fifty men. I am responsible to my General for your safety, and cannot sanction it. Beyond the Alamo Cafion the [208] ACROSS THE BORDER only waters are in isolated springs in the plains and in natural rain-fall tanks along the mountain crests, known to none except the Indians and Tomas Alva- rez, an old half-breed Kickapoo long attached to my command as scout, who ranged that country years ago with his tribe, and who guides my troop on such short scouts as we have been able to make beyond the Alamo, and — " "Pardon," I ventured to interrupt, "that will do nicely; give me Alvarez and one good trustworthy soldier, and we'll make the circle without trouble." " Six of you ! Why, you'd never get twenty miles out of town in that direction. I can't permit it." " Pardon again, Don Abran," I broke in, "but we have for years been accustomed to move in small par- ties through country that held a hundred times more hostiles than you have here, and you can trust us to take care of ourselves. Go we shall in any event, without your men if you withhold them." "Well, well, hijo mior he responded, "if you are bound to go, we will see. Only I shall write my Gen- eral that I have sought to restrain you." To us the prevailing local fears seemed absurd. Admittedly there were only sixteen of the Lipans then left, men, women, and children, their chief, Juan Ga- lan, the son by a Lipan squaw, of the father of Garza Galan, then the leading merchant of the town, and later a distinguished Governor of his State. Orig- [^09] THE BED-BLOODED inally a powerful tribe occupying both banks of the lower Rio Grande to the south of the Comanches, in their wars with Texans and Mexicans the Lipans had dwindled until only this handful remained. Three years earlier the entire band had been captured, after a desperate fight, and removed by the Mexican au- thorities to a small reservation five hundred miles southwest of Musquiz. But at the end of two years, as soon as the guard over them relaxed, indomitable as Dull Knife and his Cheyennes in their desperate fight (in 1879) to regain their northern highland home, Juan Galan and his pathetically small follow- ing jumped their reservation and dodged and fought their way back to the Musquiz Mountains ; and there for the last ten months, constantly harassed and harassing, they had been fighting for the right to die among the hills they loved. To the natives they were bloodthirsty wolves, beasts to be exterminated; to an impartial onlooker they were a heroic band courting death in a splendid last fight for fatherland. Their bold deeds would fill a book. Even in this town of fifteen hundred people guarded by a troop of cavalry, no one ventured out at night except from the most pressing necessity ; and of the seventy killed by them since their return, nearly a third were macheted in the streets of Musquiz during Juan Galan's night raids on the town. The most effective work against them wa^ done by [ 210 1 ACROSS THE BORDER a band of about a hundred Seminole-negro half- breeds, to whom the Government had made a grant of four square leagues twentj-five miles west of Mus- quiz, on the Nacimiento. Come originally out of the Indian Territory in the United States, where the Seminoles had cross-bred with their negro slaves, this same band a few years earlier had been most efficient scouts for our own troops at Fort Clark, and other border garrisons, and it was this record that led the Mexican Government to seek and lodge them on the Nacimiento, as a buffer against the Lipans. That night arrangements for our trip were con- cluded: the Captain consented to furnish me old Tomas Alvarez and a young soldier named Manuel, but only on condition that he himself should escort us, with fifty men of his troop, one day's march up the river, which would carry us beyond the recent range of the Lipans. So early the next morning we marched out westward, passing the last house a half- mile outside the centre of the town, along a dim, little- travelled trail that followed the river to the Seminole village on the Nacimiento. The day's journey was without incident, other than our amusement at what seemed to us the Captain's overzealous caution in keeping scouts out ahead and to right and left of the column, and in posting sentries about our night camp. The following morning, a Sunday, after much good advice, the kindly Captain bade us a reluctant fare- [ 211 ] THE RED-BLOODED well, and led his troops down-river toward home, while our little party of six headed westward up-river. Near noon we sighted the Seminole village, and shortly entered it, a close cluster of low jacals built of poles and mud. Odd it looked, as we entered, a deserted village, no living thing in sight but a few dogs. Thus our surprise was all the greater when, n earing the farther edge of the village, our ears were greeted with the familiar strains of " Jesus, Lover of My Soul," issuing from a large jacal which we soon learned was the Seminole church. Fancy it ! the last thing one could have dreamed of! An honest old Methodist hymn sung in English by several score de- vout worshippers in the heart of Mexico, on the very dead line between savagery and civilization, and at that, sung by a people all savage on one side of their ancestry and semi-savage on the other ! Before the singing of the hymn was finished, star- tled by the barking of their dogs, out of the low door- way sprang half a dozen men, strapping big fellows, — one, the chief, bent half double with age, — all heav- ily armed. The moment they saw we were Ameri- cans we were most cordially received, and even urged to stop a few days with them, and give them news of the Texas border. But for this we had no time ; and after a short visit — for which the congregation ad- journed service — we filled our canteens, let our horses drink their fill at the great Nacimiento spring [313] ACROSS THE BORDER that burst forth a veritable young river from beneath a low bluff beside the town, and struck out westward for Alamo Canon. Our afternoon march gave us little concern, for our route lay across rolling, lightly timbered uplands that offered little opportunity for ambush. That night we made a " dry camp " on the divide, preferring to approach the Alamo in day- light. Having struck camp before dawn the next morn- ing, by noon we saw ahead of us a great gorge divid- ing the mountain we were approaching — great in its height, but of a scant fifty yards in breadth, perpen- dicular of sides, a narrow line of brush and timber creeping down along its bottom, but stopping just short of the open plains. Scouting was useless. If there were any Indians about, we certainly had been seen, and they lay in ambush for us in a place of their own choosing. We must have water, and to get it must enter the canon. So straight into the timber that filled the mouth of the gorge we rode at a run, riding a few paces apart to avoid the possible potting of our little bunch, and a hundred yards within the outer fringe of timber we reached the water our ani- mals so badly needed. And right there, all about the " sink " of the Alamo, where the last drops of the stream sank into the thirsty sands, the bottom was covered thick with fresh moccasin tracks, and in a little opening in the bush [213] THE RED-BLOODED near to the sink smouldered the embers of that morn- ing's camp-fire of a band of Lipans. Apparently we were in for it, and seriously debated a retreat. Our position could not be worse. Tomas told us that the trail of the Lipans led straight up the valley, and for eight miles the canon was never more than three hundred yards wide, and often no more than fifty, with almost perpendicular walls rising on either side two hundred or more feet in height, so nearly perpen- dicular that we would for the entire distance be in range from the bordering cliff crests, while any enemy there ambushed would be so safely covered they could follow our route and pick us off at their leisure. To be sure, the brush along the stream afforded some shelter, but no real protection. However, out now nearly fifty miles from Musquiz, and well into the country we had come to see, we pushed ahead. Cress, Thornton, and Manuel prowling afoot through the brush a hundred yards in advance, Crawford, Tomas and myself bringing up the rear with the horses. And so we advanced for nearly half a mile, when the Lipan trail turned east, toward Musquiz, up a crevice in the cliff a goat would have no easy time ascending. Thus we were led to argue that the Lipans had left their camp before discovering our approach, and by this time were probably miles away to the east. Mounting, therefore, we made the best pace our pack animals could stand up through the eight miles [214] ACROSS THE BORDER of the narrows, riding well apart from each other, the only safeguard we could take, all craning our necks for view of the cliif crests ahead of us. But no living thing showed save a few deer and coyotes, and two mountain lions that, alarmed by our clattering pace, slipped past us back down the gorge. When at last we reached the end of the narrows and the canon broadened to a width of several hundred yards, all but fifty or seventy-five yards of the belt of timber lining the stream along the south wall being compara- tively level grassy bunch land, nearly devoid of cover, we congratulated ourselves that we had not been scared into a retreat. Keen to put as much distance as we could between us and the Lipans, we travelled on up the canon at a sharp trot, keeping well to its middle, until about five p. m., when we reached a point where it widened into a broad bay, nearly seven hundred yards from crest to crest, with a dense thicket of mesquite trees near its centre that made fine shelter and an excellent point of defence for a night camp. The stream hugged the east wall of the canon, where it had carved out a tor- tuous bed perhaps one hundred and fifty yards wide, and so deep below the bench we occupied that only the tops of tall cottonwoods were visible from the thicket. While the rest of us were busy unsaddling and un- packing, Thornton slung all our canteens over his [215] THE RED-BLOODED shoulder, and started for the stream. But no sooner had he disappeared below the edge of the bench, a scant two hundred yards from our camp, before a rapid rifle fire opened which, while we knew it must proceed from his direction, echoed back from one cliff wall to the other until it appeared like an attack on our position from all sides, while the echoes multi- plied to the volume of cannon fire at the sound of each shot. Indeed, never have I heard such thunderous, crashing, ear-splitting gun-detonations except on one other occasion, when aboard the British battle ship Invincible and in her six-inch gun battery while a salute was being fired. Frightened by the fire, one of our pack horses stampeded down the canon. Sending Manuel in pur- suit, and leaving Tomas at the camp, Crawford, Cress, and I ran for the break of benchland, to reach and aid Thornton. Nearing it, all three dropped flat, and crawled to its edge, just in time to see George make a neat snap shot at a Lipan midway of a flying leap over a log, and drop him dead. Old George was standing quietly on the lower slope of the bench just above the timber, while the shots from eight or ten Lipan rifles were raining all about him ! The Lipans lay in the timber only one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards away, and it was a miracle they did not get him. Instantly Cress and Crawford slipped back out of range, made a detour that brought them to [ 216 ] ACROSS THE BORDER the bench edge within fifty yards of the Lipans' posi- tion, and opened on them a cross fire, while I lay above George and shelled away at the smoke of their discharge, for not one showed a head after George potted the jumper. Five minutes after Cress and Crawford opened on them, the Lipan fire ceased entirely. For an hour we scouted along the bank trying to locate them, but apparently they had with- drawn. Then, while the others covered us, George and I slipped through the bush to investigate his kill, and found a great gaunt old warrior at least sixty years old, wrinkled of face as if he might be a hundred, but sound of teeth and coal-black of hair as a youth, his face and body scarred in nearly a score of places from bullet and machete wounds, — the sign manual writ indelibly on his war-worn frame by many a doughty enemy. We carried him to the bench crest, Crawford fetched a spade and we dug a grave and buried him with his weapons laid upon his breast, as his own people would have buried him, and then we fired across his grave the final salute he obviously so well had earned. More than he would have done for us ? Yes, I dare say. But then our points of view were different. Throughout his long life a terror to all whites he doubtless had been; upon us he was stealthily slip- ping, ruthless as a tiger ; but then he and his tribes- [217] THE RED-BLOODED men and lands had so long been prey to the greed of white invaders of his domain that it is hard to blame him for fighting, according to the traditions of his race, to the death. Lying in camp within the thicket that night, nat- urally without a fire, Thornton made it plain that his voluntary start for water was providentially timed. He told us that, while descending the slope to the timber, he saw the head of a little column of Indians, stealing up the valley through the brush, saw them before they saw him; but just as he saw them, he slipped on some pebbles and nearly fell, making a noise that attracted their attention. In- stantly they slid into cover, and opened fire on him. Asked by me why he himself had not sought cover, George answered, "No show to get one except by keeping out in the open on the high ground, and I tvanted one! " It was plain the Lipans had sighted us when too late to lay an ambush for us in the narrows, had made a short cut through the hills and dropped down into the stream bed with the plan to attack us at our night camp. Evidently they had not expected us to camp so early, and were jogging easily along through the brush, for once off their guard. But for George's chance start for the stream, nothing but faithful old Curly's perpetual watchfulness could have saved us from a bad mix-up that night. Already it had been [218] 1 ACROSS THE BORDER so well proved that we could safely trust Curly to guard us against surprise, we slept soundly through the night, without disturbance of any sort. The next forenoon's march to the head waters of the Alamo was an anxious one, and was made with the utmost caution, for we were sure the Lipans would be lying in wait for us ; but no sign of them did we again see for three weeks. Leaving the Alamo, we made a great circle through the desert, swinging first north toward the Sierra Mojada, then south, and ultimately eastward toward Monclova. The trip proved to be one of great hard- ship and danger, but only from scarcity of water; for while at isolated springs we found recent camps of one sort of desert prowler or another, we neither met nor saw any. Finally, late one night of the fourth week, we reach a little spring called Zacate, out in the open plain only about thirty miles south of Mus- quiz. But between us and only five miles south of the town stretched a tall range through which Tomas knew of only two passes practicable for horsemen: one, to the west, via the Alamo, the route we had come, would involve a journey of eighty miles, while by the other, an old Indian and smugglers' trail crossing the summit directly south of Musquiz, we could make the town in thirty-two miles. The latter route Tomas strongly opposed as too dangerous. Twelve miles from where we lay it entered the range, and for fifteen miles fol- [319] THE BED-BLOODED lowed terrible rough canons wherein, every step of the way, we should be right in the heart of the recent range of the Lipans, and where every turn offered chance of a perfect ambush. But with our horses exhausted, worn to mere shadows from long marches through country affording scant feed, with not one left that could much more than raise a trot, we finally decided to chance the shorter route. That night we supped on cold antelope meat and biscuits, to avoid building a fire, and rolled up in our blankets, but not to rest long undisturbed. Shortly after midnight Curly roused us with low growls. Though the moon was full, the night was so clouded one could hardly see the length of a gun- barrel. Curly's warnings continuing, George and Tomas rolled out of their blankets and crawled out among and about the horses, and lay near them an hour or more, till Curly's growls finally ceased. Then we called them in and all lay down, and finished the night in peace. Early the next morning, however, a short circle discovered the trail of tlfree Indians who had crept near to the horses and reconnoitred our position. Their back trail led due northeast, the direction we had to follow; and when we had ridden out half a mile from the Ojo Zacate, we found where their trail joined that of the main band. The " sign " showed they had been south toward Monclova on a successful horse-stealing raid, for it was plain [«20] ACROSS THE BORDER thej had passed us In the night with a bunch of at least twenty horses, heading toward a point of the range only five or six miles west of where we should be compelled to enter it. We were in about as bad a hole as could be con- ceived. Plainly the Indians knew of our presence in the vicinity. It was equally certain their scouts would be watching our every move throughout the day, and there was not one chance in a thousand of our cross- ing the range without attack from some ambush of such vantage as to leave small ground for hope that we could survive it. All but Cress and Thornton urged me to turn back, although we were all nearly afoot, and had no food left except two or three pounds of flour, and a little meat. After very short deliberation I decided to go ahead. The Lipans knew precisely where we were, and if they wanted us they could (in the event of a retreat) easily run us down and surround us and hold us off food and water until we were starved out sufficiently to charge their position and be shot down. Better far put up a bold bluff and take chances of cutting through them. So on we plodded slowly toward the hills, all of us walking most of the way to save our horses all we could. At 2 p. m. we cut the old trail Tomas was heading us toward, and shortly thereafter entered the mouth of a frightfully rough canon, its bottom and slopes thickly covered with nopal, sotol, and mesquite, [ ^21 ], THE RED-BLOODED and, later, higher up, with pines, junipers, oaks, and spruces, with here and there groups of great boul- ders that would easily conceal a regiment. Two or three miles in, the gorge deepened until tall mountain slopes were rising steeply on either side of us, and narrowed until we had to pick our way over the rough boulders of the dry stream-bed. Our advance was slow, for it had to be made with the utmost caution. Thornton, Cress, and Tomas scouted afoot, one in the bottom of the gorge, and one-half way up each of its side walls, while Manuel and Crawford followed two hundred yards behind them, also afoot, driving the saddle and pack horses ; and I trailed two hundred yards behind the horses, watching for any sign of an attempted surprise from the rear. Thus scattered, we gave them no chance to bowl over several of us at the first fire from any ambush they might have arranged. From the windings of the canon we were out of sight of each other much of the time; personally, I recall that afternoon as one of the most lonely and uncomfortable I ever passed. I slipped watchfully along, stopping often to listen, eyes sweeping the hill- sides and the gulch below me, searching every tree and boulder, with no sound but the soughing of the wind through the tree-tops, and an occasional soft clatter of shingle beneath the slipping hoofs of my unshod horse. [ 222 ] ACROSS THE BORDER But throughout the afternoon the only sign of man or beast that I saw was a lot of sotol plants recently uprooted, and their roots eaten by bears. Shortly after dark we reached the only permanent water in the canon, a clear, cold, sweet spring, bursting out from beneath a rock, only to sink immediately into the arid sands of the dry stream-bed. Immediately below the spring and midway of the gorge bottom stood an island-like uplift, twenty yards in length by ten in width, covered with brush, leaving on either side a narrow, rocky channel, and from either side of these two channels the canon walls, heavily timbered, rose very steeply. Just above these narrows, the gorge widened into seven or eight acres of level, park-like, well-grassed benchland, and into this little park we turned our horses loose for the night, for they were too worn to stray. Having made eight or ten miles up the canon dur- ing the afternoon march, we were now within a mile of the summit, and no more than seven miles from Musquiz. Indeed we should have tried to reach the town that night had not Tomas told us the next three miles of the trail were so steep and rough he could not undertake to fetch us over it unless we abandoned our animals, saddles, and packs. We turned into our blankets early, after a cold supper, for we did not care to chance a fire. Cress and I slept together in the channel to the west of the THE EED-BLOODED island ; Manuel and Tomas to the east of it, quite out of our sight; Thornton and Crawford ten paces north, in sight of both ourselves and the Mexicans. A little moonlight filtered down through the trees, but not enough to enable us to see any distance. Scarcely were we asleep, it seemed to me, before Curly awakened Cress and myself, growing immedi- ately at our heads. Rising in our blankets, guns in hand, and listening intently, we could hear on the hillside above us what sounded like the movements of a bear. Whatever it might be, it was approaching. Not a word had been spoken, and Curly 's growls were so low we had no idea any of the others had been roused. So we sat on the alert for perhaps fifteen minutes, when the sounds above us began receding, and we lay down again. But just as we were passing back into dreamland. Curly again startled us with a sharper, fiercer note that meant trouble at hand. As we rose to a sitting posture, in the dim moon- light we could plainly see a dark crouching figure twenty yards below, which advanced a step or two, stopped as if to listen, and again advanced and stopped. What it was we could not make out. At first I thought it must be a bear, but presently I felt sure I caught the glimmer of a gun barrel, and nudged Cress with my elbow. We were in the act of raising our rifles to down it, whatever it might be, when Thornton sang out, " Hold on, boys ; that 's old [ 224 ] ACROSS THE BORDER Tomas ! " And, indeed, so it proved. All had been awakened at the first alarm, and Thornton had seen Tomas roil from his blankets into the bottom of the east channel, and crawl away on the scout for the cause of Curly's uneasiness that so nearly had cost him his life. He had been so intent for movement on the hill sides that he had not noticed us watching him. The next morning we were moving by dawn, Tomas, Cress, and myself in the lead, the others trail- ing along one hundred or two hundred yards behind us. For half a mile the gorge widened, as most moun- tain gorges do near their heads, into beautiful grassy slopes rising steeply before us, thickly timbered with post oak. Then, issuing from the X^ber, we saw it was a blind canon we were in, a cul de sac, with no pass through the crest of the range. Before us rose a. very nearly perpendicular wall for probably six hundred feet, up which the old trail zigzagged, climbing from ledge to ledge, so steep that when, later, we were fetching our horses up it, one of the pack horses lost its balance and fell fifty feet, crip- pling it so badly we had to kill it. The cliif face, about three hundred yards in width, and flanked to right and left by the walls of the canon, was entirely bare of trees, but thickly strewn with boulders. From an enemy on the top of the two flanking walls, climb- ers of the cliff face could get no shelter whatever. Thus it was important that our advance should reach [ 225 ] THE RED-BLOODED the summit as quickly as possible. So up the three of us scrambled, about thirty yards apart, disregarding the trail. When we were nearly half-way up, and just as we had paused to catch our breath, several rifle shots rang out in quick succession, which, from some pecu- liar echo of the canon, sounded as if they had been fired beneath us. Upon turning, we could see noth- ing of our three mates or the horses — they were hid- den from our view by the timber. Fancying they were attacked from the rear, I was about to call a return to their relief, when I saw Thornton run to the near edge of the timber, drop on one knee behind a tree, and open fire on the cliff-crest directly above our heads. Whirling and looking up, I was just in time to see eight or ten men bob up on the crest and take quick snap-shots at the three of us in the lead, and then duck to cover. We were so nearly straight under them, however, that they overshot us, although they were barely one hundred yards from us. Dropping behind boulders we peppered back at the flashes of their rifles, which was all we three in the lead there- after saw of them; for after the first volley most of them lay close and directed their fire at the men in the edge of the timber, but occasionally a rifle was tipped over the edge of a boulder and fired at random in our direction. And all the time they were yelling [ 226 ] ACROSS THE BORDER at us, '* Que vienen, puercos! Que vienenr^ (Come on, pigs ! Come on !) I was puzzled. Both Cress and I thought they were Mexicans, but Tomas insisted they were Lipans. And true enough it was the Lipans all spoke Spanish and dressed like Mexican peons. Whoever they might be, we could not stay where we were. By the firing and voices there were at least a dozen of them, and obviously it was only a matter of moments before they would occupy the two flanking walls and have us openly exposed. It was a bad dilemma. Retreat was impossible, down a gorge commanded at short range from both sides. If we took shelter in it, they could starve us out; if we attempted to descend it, they could easily pick us off; if any of us escaped back to the plain it would only be to incur greater exposure if they pur- sued, or probably to perish of hunger before we could reach any settlements. Thus the situation called for no reflection — it was charge and dislodge them, or die. Yelling to the boys below to close up on us, we three settled down to the maintenance of the hottest fire we could deliver at the rifle flashes above us, to cover their advance. Luckily there were many boui- ders scattered along the grassy treeless slope they had to advance across to reach the foot of the cliff. Thus by darting from one boulder to another they had tol- [ 227 ] THE RED-BLOODED erable cover and were able to reach us with no worse casualties than a comparatively slight flesh wound through Manuel's side and the shooting away of Thornton's belt buckle. Then we started the charge, led really by Thorn- ton, who, active as a goat, would have raced straight into the downpour of lead if I had not continually re- strained him. Three would scramble up fifteen or twenty feet,, and then drop behind boulders, while the other three kept up a heavy fire on the summit; and then the rear rank would advance to a line with their position, while they shelled the enemy. All the time a rain of bullets was splashing on the rocks all about us, but luckily for us they did not expose themselves enough to deliver an accurate fire. After we had made five or six such rushes, and were about half-way up, we could hear the voices of what sounded like the larger part of the band reced- ing. Supposing they were swinging for the two side walls to flank us, we doubled our speed and presently dropped beneath the shelter of a wall of rock about four feet high, from behind which our enemy had been firing. Two or three minutes earlier their fire had ceased, and what to make of it we did not know. We found that an exposure of our hats on our gun-muzzles drew no fire ; yet, driven by sheer desperation, and expect- ing that every man of us would get shot full of holes, [ 228 ] ACROSS THE BORDER we simultaneously sprang over the rock, and dropped flat on the summit — amid utter silence, about the most happily surprised lot of men in all Mexico! The enemy had decamped. But where? And with what purpose? And why had they not flanked us? Careful scouting soon showed they had retired in a body down the trail we must follow to reach Mus- quiz, as for nearly three miles the descent was as rough and difficult as the ascent had been. Leaving Cress, who was ill, and Manuel, who was weak from loss of blood, to hold the summit, the rest of us descended to fetch up our horses, and a hard hour's job we had of it, for we packed on our backs the load of the dead pack horse and those of his mates the last half of the ascent, rather than risk losing another animal. Upon our return we found Manuel gloating over three trophies — a hat shot through the side by a ball that had evidently " creased " the wearer's head, an old Spanish spur, and a gun scab- bard — which he seemed to find salve for the burning wound in his side. Beneath us to the north lay Musquiz, in plain sight, a scant six miles distant. In the clear dry air of the hills, it looked so near that a good running jump might land one in the plaza, and yet none of us ex- pected we all should enter it again. The odds were against it, for below us lay three miles of hill trail any step down which might land us in a worse ambush [ 2^9 ] THE RED-BLOODED than the last, and we never imagined the enemy would fail to engage us again. But the descent had to be made, and down it we started, Cress and Manuel bringing up the rear with the horses, the rest of us scouting ahead, dodging from rock to tree, advancing slowly, expecting a volley, but receiving none. For a mile the band followed the trail, and we fol- lowed their fresh tracks ; then they left the trail and turned west through the timber. However, we never abated our watchfulness until well cut of the hills and near the outskirts of the town, which we reached shortly after noon. There, breakfasting generously if not comfortably with Don Abran and his gamecocks, I got news that made me less regretful of my failure to obtain the Santa Rosa Ranch; one of its two Scotch purchasers had been killed two days before my re- turn, in attempting to repel a raid on his camp by Nicanor Rascon! With Cress too ill to travel, the next morning I left Crawford to care for him, bade farewell to good old Don Abran, and started for Larapasos with Thornton and Curly. We nooned at Santa Cruz, a big sheep ranch mid- way between Musquiz and Progreso, leaving there about two o'clock. An hour later, we heard behind us a clatter of racing hoofs, and presently were over- taken by a hatless Mexican, riding bareback at top speed, who told us that shortly after our departure [S30] ACROSS THE BORDER the Lipans had raided Santa Cruz, and that of Its twelve inhabitants, men, women, and children, he was the only survivor. Thus were the Lipans still levy- ing heavy toll for their wrongs ! Toward evening we entered Progreso, a village re- puted among the natives to be a nest of thieves and assassins. While Thornton was away buying meat and I was rearranging our pack, six of the ugliest- looking Mexicans I ever saw strolled across the plaza, evidently to size up our outfit. Apparently it was to their liking, for when, twenty minutes later, we were riding into the ford of the Rio Salado just south of the town, the six, all heavily armed, loped past us, and when they emerged from the ford openly and impudently divided, three taking to the brush on one side of the road, and three on the other, riding forward and flanking the trail we had to follow. From then till dark their hats were almost constantly visible, two or three hundred yards ahead of us. Our horses be- ing so jaded, we were sure they were not the prize sought, and it remained certain they were after our saddles and arms. Riding quietly on behind them until it was too dark to see our move or follow the trail, we slipped off to the westward of the road, and camped in a deep de- pression in the plain, where we thought we could ven- ture a small fire to cook our supper. But the fire proved a blunder. Before the water was faJHy boil- [ 231 ] THE RED-BLOODED mg in the coffee pot, Curly signalled trouble, and we jumped out of the fire-light and dropped flat in the bush just as the six fired a volley into the camp, one of the shots hitting the fire and filling our frying-pan with cinders and ashes. For an hour or more they sneaked about the camp, constantly firing into it, while we lay close without returning a single shot, confident they would not dare try to rush us while uncertain of our position. And so it proved, for at length Curly's warnings ceased, and we knew they had withdrawn. Waiting till midnight, we saddled and packed and made a wide detour to the west, striking the road again perhaps four miles nearer Lampasos, which we reached safely late in the next afternoon, our grand old camp-guard. Curly, in better condition than either of us. Curiously, seven months later, in August, 1883, while on another ranch-hunting trip in Mexico, this time along the eastern slope of the Sierra Madre in northern Chihuahua, at least five hundred miles dis- tant from Musquiz, I learned the solution of our puz- zle as to whether our last fight in Coahuila was with Lipans or Mexicans. The manager of the Corrali- tos Ranch, which I was then engaged in examining, was Adolph Munzenberger. The previous Winter he had lived in Musquiz, as Superintendent of the Cedral [ 232 ] ACROSS THE BORDER Coal Mines. While there, however, I had not met him or his family. One evening at dinner, Mrs. Munzenberger asked me, " Have you ever, perchance, been in Coahuila ? " " Yes," I answered, " I spent several weeks in the State last winter." "And how did you like it.?" she asked. " Well, I must say I found rather too many thrills there for comfort," I replied. And when I men- tioned our affair on the sierra south of Musquiz, she broke in with: "Indeed! And you are the crazy gringo Don Abran tried to stop from going into the desert ! We heard of it; in fact, it was the talk of the town, and no one expected you would ever get back. And by the way, it was a contraband conduct a owned by friends of ours who attacked you back of the town! Droll, is it not.?" "Perhaps — now," I doubtfully answered. " Yes," Mrs. Munzenberger continued, " they were on their way to Monclova. The night before the at- tack, the wife of the owner (one of the leading mer- chants of the town) took me to their camp in the brush near town to see their goods ; and a lovely lot of American things they had." " But why did they attack us ? " I queried. "Well, you see, it was this way," she explained. "The smugglers broke camp long before dawn, and [ S33 ] THE RED-BLOODED started south over the same trail by which you were approaching; they wanted to get over the summit before the Lipans or guards were likely to be stirring, for it was a point at which conductas were often at- tacked. But shortly after sunrise, and just as their advance guard reached the summit, they discovered your party ascending, and, mistaking your uniformed soldiers for guardias, the leader lined a dozen of his men along the ridge, and opened on you, while his mayordomo rushed the pack mules of the conducta back down the trail they had come. Early in the fight they discovered you were a party of gringos, and not guards, and decamped as soon as their con- ducta had time to reach a point where they could leave the trail. "Had their goods not been at stake, they would have wiped you out, if they could, for the leader's brother got a shot in the head of which he died the same day. Indeed, when the two men you left behind started to leave the country, he had planned to follow and kill them, but luckily Don Abran heard of it, and re- strained him." And this explained the mystery why they had not flanked us ! Brave to downright rashness, George Thornton lasted only about two years longer. The Winter of 1883-84 he spent with me on my [234] ACROSS THE BORDER Pecos Ranch. Early in the Spring he came to me and said: '^Old man, if you want to do me a favor, get me an appointment as Deputy United States Marshal in the Indian Territory. I'm going to quit you, any- way. My guns are getting rusty. It 's too slow for me here." " Why, George," I replied, " if you are bound to die, why don't you blow your brains out yourself ? " — for at the time few new marshals in the Indian Ter- ritory survived the first year of their appointment. "Never mind about me," he answered; "I'll take care of George. Anyway, I 'd rather get leaded there than rust here." So I got him the appointment. A few months later, when the Territory was thrown open to settlement, Thornton homesteaded one hun- dred and sixty acres of land which early became a town site, and now is the business centre of the city of Guthrie. Had he lived and retained possession of his homestead, it would have made him a millionaire. But greedy speculators soon started a contest of his title. While this contest was at its height, one day Thorn- ton learned some Indians living a few miles from the town were selling whiskey, contrary to Federal law. As he was mounting for the raid, having intended to go alone, a man he scarcely knew offered to accom- pany him, and Thornton finally deputized him. [ 2^5 I THE RED-BLOODED The story of his end was told by the Indians them- selves, who later were captured by a large force of marshals, and tried for his murder. They said that just at dusk they saw two horsemen approaching. Presently they recognized Marshal Thornton and at once opened fire on him, eight of them, from behind the little grove of cottonwoods in which they were camped. Immediately Thornton shifted his bridle to his teeth, and charged them straight, firing with his two ".41 " Colts. The moment he charged, his com- panion dodged into a clump of timber, where they saw him dismount. On came Thornton straight into their fire, shooting with deadly accuracy, killing two of their number, and wounding another before he fell. Presently, at the flash of a rifle from the brush where his companion had dismounted, Thornton pitched from his horse dead. They had done their best to kill him, they frankly swore, but it was his own deputy's shot that laid him low. All the collateral circumstantial evidence so fully corrobrated this that the Indians were acquitted. The shot that killed him hit him in the back of the head and was of a calibre different from that of the Indians' guns; and his deputy never returned to Guthrie. That it was a murder prearranged by some of the greedy contestants for his land, was further proved [236] ACROSS THE BORDER by the fact that every scrap of his private papers was found to have disappeared, and, through their loss, his family lost the homestead. Curly's end is another story. Happily he was spared to me some years. tasT] CHAPTER X THE THEEE-LEGGED DOE AND THE BLIND BUCK WE had just pulled the canoe out of the water and turned it over after a wet day in the bush across Giant's Lake, and were drying ourselves before the camp-fire, when Con taught a lesson and perpetrated a confidence. His keen, shrewd eyes twinkling, and a broad smile shortening his long, lean face till its great Roman nose and pointed chin were hobnobbing sociably together, the best hunter and guide on the Gatineau sat pouring boiling water through the barrel and into the inner- most holy of holies of the intricate lock mechanism of his .303 Winchester — to dry it out and prevent rusting from the wetting it had received in the bush. "Sure! youse never heerd of it before.'*" he asked in surprise. " Dryin' a gun with hot water 's safest way to keep her from rustin'; carries out all th' old water hangin' round her insides 'n' makes her so damned hot Mr. Rust don't even have time to throw up a lean-to 'n' get to eatin' of her 'fore the new water's all gone; 'n' Mr. Rust can't get to eat none 'thout water, no more 'n a deer can stay out of a salt lick, or Erne Moore can keep away from the hahitaw [ 288 ] THE DOE AND THE BUCK gals, or Tit Moody can get his own consent to stop his tongue waggin' off tales 'bout how women winks down t' Tupper Lake — when he *s rowin' 'em." " Should n't think such a little water as you have used would make the gun hot enough to dry it out," I suggested. "Hot! Won't make her hot! Why, she's hotter now 'n' billy Buell got last October when that loony habitaw cook o' ourn made up all our marmalade and currant jelly into pies that looked 'n' bit 'n' tasted like wagon dope wropt in tough brown paper; hot! 's hot this minute 's Elise Lievre's woman got last Spring when she heerd o' him a-sittin' up t' a Otter Lake squaw. Why, say! youse couldn't no more keep a gun from rustin' in this wet bush 'thout hot water than Warry Hilliams can kill anything goin' faster than three-legged deer. "Rust ! Youse might 's well try to catch a habitaw goin' to a weddin' 'thout more ribbons on his bridle 'n' harness than his gal has on her gown 's hunt for rust in a hot- watered gun ! " Catching a hint of a yarn, I asked if there were many three-legged deer in the bush. "W'an't but one ever, far 's I know," he replied. " 'N' almighty lucky it was for Warry that one come a-limpin' along his way, for it give him th' only chance he '11 probably ever have to say he got to shoot a deer. "Warry? Why he's jest the best ever happened [ 239 ] THE RED-BLOODED — 't least the best ever happened 'round this end o' the bush. Lives down to ; better not tell you right where he lives, for I stirred up th' letters in his name, so 'f any of his friends heerd you tell th' story they won't know it's on him; fer he's jest that good I'd rather hurt anybody, 'cept my woman or bird, than hurt him. "Warry? Why, with a rod 'n' line 'n' reel, whether it's with flies, spoons, or minnows, castin' or trollin', or spearin' or nettin', Warry's th' ^arpertest fish-catcher that ever waded the rapids or paddled th' lakes o' this old Province o' Quebec. But it 's gettin' a leetle hard for Warry late years — fish's come to know him so well that after he's made a few casts 'n' hooked one or two that's got away, they know his tricks so well they just passes the word 'round, 'n' it's 'pike' for th' pike, 'beat it' for th' bass, 'trot' for th' trout, 'n' 'skip' for the salmon, until now, after th' first day or two, 'bout all Warry can get in reach of 's mud turtles. " 'N'd that 's what comes o' knowin' too much and gettin' too damned smart — nobody or nothin' left to play with ! Warry? Why, say, if he 'd only knowed it thirty or forty years ago, Warry had th' chance to live 'n' die with th' repute o' bein' th' greatest sport specialist that ever busted through the Quebec bush — if he'd only jest kept to fishin'. But the hell o' it is, Warry's always had a fool idee in his head he can [240] THE DOE AND THE BUCK hunt, 'n' he can't, can't sort o' begin to hunt! 'N' darned if I could ever quite figure out why, 'n' him so smart, 'nless because he goes poundin' through the bush like a bunch o' shantymen to their choppin', with his head stuck in his stummick, studyin' some new trick to play on a trout, makin' so much noise th' deer must nigh laugh theirselves to death at him a- packin' o' a gun. "Hunt? Warry? Does he hunt? Sure, every year for th' last thirty years to my knowledge — only that's all; he jest hunts, never kills nothin'. Least- ways he never did till three year ago, 'n' I ought t' know, for I always guides for him. Why, I mind one time he was stayin' over on the Kagama, he got so hungry for meat he up 'n' chunks 'n' kills 'n' cooks 'n' eats a porcupine, th' p'rmiscous shootin' o' which is forbid by Quebec law, 'cause they 're so slow a feller can run 'em down 'n' get 'em with a stick or stone, 'n' don't need t' starve just 'cause he 's got no gun. " Three years ago he 'd been up for the fly fishin' in late June 'n' trollin' for gray trout in September, 'n' then here he comes again th' last week in October t' hunt. 'N' she was the same old story : nothing do- ing! " I could set him on th' best runways, 'n' Erne 'n' me could dog th' bush till our tongues hung out 'n' we could hardly open our mouths 'thout barkin'; [^41] THE RED-BLOODED could run deer past him till it must 'a looked — if he'd had a loose look about him — like a. Grsice^eld habit aw weddin' pr'cession, 'n' thar he'd set with his eyes fast on th' end o' his gun, I guess, a-waitin' for a sign of a hite 'fore he'd jerk her up to try 'n' get somethin'. 'N' the queerest part was, he seemed to enjoy it just 's much 's if he'd brought down a three-hundred- pound buck to drag the wind out o' Erne 'n' me at th' end o' a tump-line. Most fellers 'd got mad 'n' cussed their luck. But not him — kindest, sweetest-tempered man I ever knew. Guess he knowed we'd done our best 'n' had some kind o' secret inside information that he had n't. " O' course, sometimes Warry 'd get his gun off, but by that time th' deer had quit th' runway 'n' was in th' lake up to their bellies pullin' lily pads, or curled up in th' long grass o' a swale fast asleep. "But all fellers has a day sometime, if they lives long enough — though some o' them seems t' have t' get t' live a almighty long time t' get t' see it. At last Warry's came. " Erne 'n' me been doggin' a swamp where th' dead- fall tangle was so thick we was so nigh stripped o' clothes we couldn't *a gone t' camp if there 'd been any women about. Drivin' toward where a runway crossed a neck 'tween two lakes, a neck so narrow two pike could scarce pass each other on it, there we'd sot Warry 't th' end o' th' neck. Jest 'fore we got t' [ 242 ] THE DOE AND THE BUCK him we heard a shot, 'n' I remarked t' Erne, * Guess th' old man thinks he 's got a bite J 'N' then we broke through a thick bunch o' spruce ; 'n' we both nigh fell dead to see old Warry sawin' at th' throat o' a doe, trjin' to 'pear 's natural 's if he 'd never done nothin' else but kill 'n' dress deer. Mebbe Erne 'n' me wan't pleased none th' old man had made a kill ! "Erne was ahead; 'n' just as Warry rose up from th' throat-cuttin', Erne dropped into th' weeds 'n' rolled 'n' 'round holdin' o' his stummick, laughin' fit t' kill his fool self, till I thought he'd gone crazy. Then my eye lit on th' fore quarters o' th' doe, 'n' I guess I throwed more twists laughin' than Erne did — for that there doe was shy a leg, hadn't but three legs ; nigh fore leg gone midway 'tween knee and dew- claw, shot off 'n' healed up Godo'mi'ty knows when. '* Warry? He didn't seem t' care none, too darned glad t' get anythin' shape o' a deer." That same evening one of us asked Con if he had ever run across any other mutilated game, recovered of old wounds. " Sure ! " he answered, " 'specially once when I was almighty glad to git it, 'n' a whole lot gladder still that nobody was 'round t' see 'n' know 'n' tell just what I got 'n' how I got it. She 's been a secret these five year; stuck t' her tighter 'n' Erne Moore holds th' gals down t' Pickanock dances, 'n' that 's closer 'n a burl on a birch. Fact is, I never told no- [243 J THE RED-BLOODED body 'fore now; 'n' I wouldn't be tellin' it t' youse now, only just 'fore we come up here I got a letter from one o' th' two brothers we blindfolded, sayin' his brother was dead an' he goin' t' Californy t' live, 'n' wa'n't comin' into th' bush no more. " If that feller got hold o' her, my brother 'n' me 'd have t' go t' Australia or th' Cape, for him that 's still livin' 's just about 's mean a feller 's Warry 's a good one ; an' any little repute we 've built up 's guides 'n' hunters, he 'd put in th' rest o' his life tryin' t' smash 's flat 's that fool hahitaw cook got when Larry Adams sot on him for cookin' pa'tridges as soup. He 'd just par'lyze her till we could n't even get a job goin' t' hunt 'n' fetch th' cows out o' a ten acre pasture. 'N' th' worst o' 't is I don't know that I 'd blame him so almighty much for doin' it, for there was sure somethin' comin' t' us for foolin' them I don't believe we got yet. " Th' two o' them came up from across th' line — ain't goin' t' tell you what place they come from or even th' State — in late October, for th' two weeks dog-runnin' season; youse know there is only two weeks th' Quebec law lets us run hounds, 'thout a heavy fine. Never 'd seen either o' them before, but friends o' theirs we 'd been guidin' for gave brother 'n* me a big recommend, 'n' they wrote up ahead 'n' hired us t' put up th' teams t' haul them 'n' their traps in, 'n' then guide 'em. [ ^44 ] THE DOE AND THE BUCK " Soon 's they showed up on th' depot platform at Gracefield, I knowed brother 'n' me was up agin it hard. Train must 'a been a half-hour late gettin' to Maniwaki for th' time she lost unloadin' them two fellers' necessities for a two-weeks' deer hunt : 'bout a dozen gun cases, 'n' fishin' tackle 'nough for ten men, 'n' trunks 'n' boxes that took three teams t' haul 'eiii out t' th' Bertrand farm. Fact is, them boxes held enough ca'tridges t' lick out another Riel rebellion 'n' leave over 'nough t' run all th' deer 'tween Thirty- one Mile Lake 'n' the Lievre plumb north into James's Bay, for if there's anythin' your average sportin' deer-hunters can be counted on for sure's death 'n' taxes, it 's t' begin throwin' lead, at th' rate o' about ten pound apiece a day, the minute they gets into th' bush, at rocks 'n' trees 'n' loons 'n' chipmucks — never kill in' nothin' but their chance o' seein' a deer. " 'N' these bloomin' beauties o' our'n was no excep- tion. Th' lead they wasted on th' two-mile portage from th' Government road t' th' lake would equip all the Injuns on the Desert Reservation for a winter's hunt. " Why, when Tom 'n' me got hold o' th' box they 'd been takin' ca'tridges from t' heave her into the boat, she was so light, compared t' th' others we'd been handlin', we landed her plumb over th' boat in th' water ; 'n' damned if she did n't nigh float. She was the only thing they had light 'nough t' even try t' [245] THE RED-BLOODED float ('cept their own shootin', which sure wasn't heavy 'nough t' sink none, 'n' could 'a fell out o' a canoe 'n' been picked up a week later bumpin' 'round with th' other worthless drift. " Took us a whole day to run their stuff over t' th' camp, 'n' it only a mile across th' lake from tb* landin' ; 'n' when night come we was 's near dead beat 's if we'd been portagin' a man's load apiece on a tump-line — 'n' that 's a tub o' pork 'n' a sack 'o flour weighin' two hundred and seventy five pounds — over every portage 'tween Pointe a Gatineau 'n' th' Baska- tong. "O' course th' gettin' them fellers over theirselves was a easy diversion, they was that t' home 'bout a canoe ! Youse may not believe it, but after tryin' a half-hour 'n' findin' we couldn't even get them into a canoe at th' landin' 'thout upsettin' or knockin' th' bottom outen her, we had t' help them into a thirty- foot 'pointer' made t' carry a crew o' eight shanty- men 'n' their supplies on the spring drives, 'n' then had t' pull our damnedest t' get them across th' lake 'fore they upset her, jumpin' 'round 't shoot at some- thin' they could n't hit ! " 'N' eat ! Well, they ate a few. We was only out for two weeks, 'n' when we loaded th' teams 'peared t' me like we had 'nough feed for six months, but after th' first meal 't looked t' me we'd be down t' eatin' what we could kill inside o' a week. Looked like no [U6] THE DOE AND THE BUCK human's stummick could hold all they put In their faces, 'n' brother, he said he thought their legs 'n' arms must be holler. " 'N' sleep ! When 't come t' wakin' of 'em up th' next mornin' they was like a pair o' bears that 'd holed up for th' winter, 'n' it nigh took violence t' get 'em out at all. We started in runnin' th' hounds, 'n' brother 'n' me had the best on th' Gatineau — Frank 'n' Loud, 'n' old Blue, 'n' Spot — dogs that can scent a deer trail 's far 's Erne Moore can smell supper cookin', 'n' that 's far from home 's Le Blanc farm his father used to own, over Kagama way, 'bout eight miles from Pickanock, where he lives. We run th' dogs for four days, 'n' it was discouragin', most discouragin'. Country was full o' deer when we was last out, three weeks before, 'n' th' dogs voiced 'n' seemed t' run plenty right down to 'n' past where we 'd sot th' two on th' runways ; but they swore they never see nothin', said th' hounds been runnin' on old scent, sign made the night before. "Then brother 'n' me took t' doggin' too, makin' six dogs, 'n' givin' us a chance t' see anythin' that jumped up in th' bush. Still nothin' came past 'em, they said, though we saw many a deer jump up out o' th' swamps 'n' go white flaggin' theirselves down th' runways toward the two ' hunters'. "We just couldn't understand it 'n' made up our minds t' try 'n' find out why they never got t' see none. [247] THE RED-BLOODED " So the sixth day I placed one o' them myself on a runway half as wide 'n' beat most 's hard 's th' Government road, full o' fresh sign, picked a place where a big pine stump stood plumb in th' middle o' th' runway, 'n' sot him behind it where he had a open view thirty yards up th' runway th' direction we 'd be doggin' from. "Then I let on t' break through th' bush t' th' swamp we was goin' t' dog, but 'stead o' that I only went a little piece 'n' left brother to start th' hounds at a time we 'd arranged ahead, while I lay quiet be- hind a bunch o' balsam 'thin fifty yards o' my hunter. After 'bout twenty minutes, the time I .was supposed t' need t' get t' th' place t' start th' hounds, I heard old Frank give tongue — must 'a struck a fresh trail th' minute he was turned loose. Then it wa'n't long 'till th' other three began t' sing, rimin' 'n' singin' a chorus that's jest th' swetest music on earth t' my ears. " Talk about your war 'n' patriotic songs, your 'Rule Britannias' 'n' * Maple Leaves,' your church hymns 'n' love songs, 'n' fancy French op'ras like they have down t' Ottawa that Warry Hilliams took me to wonst ! Why, say, do youse think any o' them 16 in it with a hound chorus, th' deep bass o' th' old hounds 'n' th' shrill tenor o' th' young ones — risin' 'n' swellin' 'n' ringin' through th' bush till every idle echo loafin' in th' coves o' th' ridges wakes up V [ 248 ] THE DOE AND THE BUCK joins in her best, 'n' you 'd think all th' hounds in this old Province was runnin' 'n' chorusin' 'tween the Bubs 'n' Mud Bay; V then th' chorus dyin' down softer 'n' softer till she's low 'n' sweet 'n' sorta holy- soundin', like your own woman's voice chantin' t' your youngest — say, do youse think there's any music in th' world 's good 's th' hounds make runnin'? " Well, I sot there behind th' balsams till th' dogs was drawin' near, 'n' then I slips softly through th' bush t' where I'd left Mr. Hunter; 'n' how do I youse s'pose I found him, 'n' it no more'n half past seven in th' mornin' ? Youse never 'd guess in a thou- sand year. I'll jest tump-line th' whole bunch o' youse 't one load from th' landin' 't' th' Bertrand farm ff that feller wa'n't settin' with his back t' th' stump, facin' up th' runway, his rifle 'tween his knees 'n' his fool head lopped over on one shoulder, dead asleep! No wonder they never see nothin', was it? "First I thought I'd wake him. Then I heard a deer comin' jumpin' down th' runway, 'n' knowin' 'fore I could get him wide awake 'nough t' cock 'n' sight his gun th' deer'd be on us, I slipped up behind th' stump 'n' laid my rifle 'cross its top, th' muzzle not over a foot above his noddin' head. I was no more 'n ready 'fore here come — a buck? No, I guess not, 'cause they was jest crazy for some good buck heads; no, jest a doe, but a good big one. Here she come boundin' along, her head half turned listening t' th* [249] THE RED-BLOODED dogs, 'n' never seein' hirriy he sot so still. When she got 'thin 'bout fifty feet I fired 'n' dropped her — 'n' then hell popped th' other side o' th' stump ! Guess he thought he was jumped by Injuns. Slung his gun one way 'n' split th' bush runnin' th' other, leapin' deadfalls 'n' crashin' through tangles so fast I had t' run him 'bout fifty acres t' get t' cotch 'n' stop him. " That feller was with us jest about ten days longer, but he never got time t' tell us jest what he thought was follerin' him or what was goin' t' happen if he got cotched. Likely 's not he 'd been runnin' yet if I hadn't collared him. " O' course they was glad at last t' get some veni- son — leastways youse'd think so t' see them stuiBn' theirselves with it — but they never let up a minute round camp roastin' brother 'n' me for not runnin' them a buck; swore that we hadn't run 'em any was proved by my gettin' nothin' but th' doe. "Finally, they up 'n' wants a still-hunt! Them still-hunt, that we could scarce get along the broadest runway 'thout makin' noises a deer'd hear half a mile! Still-hunt! Still-hunt, after we'd been run- nin' the hounds for a week and they 'd shot off 'bout a thousand rounds o' ca'tridges round camp 'n' comin' back from doggin', till there wa'n't a deer within eight miles o' th' lake that wa'n't upon his hind legs listenin' where th' next bunch o' trouble was comin' from. But still-hunt it was for our'n, 'n' at [250] THE DOE AND THE BUCK it we went for th' next two days. Don't believe we 'd even 'a started, though, if we had n't known two days at th' most'd cure them o' still-huntin'. Gettin' out 'fore sun-up, with every log in th' brules frosted slip- pery 's ice, 'n' every bunch o' brush a pitfall, climbin' 'n' slidin', jumpin' 'n' balancin', any 'n' every kind o' leg motion 'cept plain honest walkin', was several sizes too big a order for them. So th' second mornin' out settled their still-huntin'. "Then they wanted brother 'n' me t' still-hunt — while they laid round camp, I guess, 'n' boozed, th' way they smelled 'n' talked nights when we got in. " 'N' still-hunt we did, plumb faithful, 'n' hard 's ever in our lives when we was in bad need o' th' meat, for several days ; 'n' would youse believe it? We never got a single shot. Sometimes we saw a white flag for a second hangin' on top o' a bunch o' berry bushes — that was all; most o' th' deer scared out o' th' country, 'n' th' rest wilder 'n' Erne gets when another feller dances with his best gal. "Well, we just had t' give up 'n' own up beat. 'N' Goda'mi'ty ! but did n't them two cheap imitation hunters tell us what they thought o' us pr'f essionals — said 'bout everything anybody could think of, 'cept cuss us. 'N' there was no doubt in our minds they wanted to do that. If they 'd been plumb strangers, 'stead o' friends o' one o' our parties, it's more'n likely brother 'n' me'd wore out a pair o' saplings [251] THE RED-BLOODED over their fool heads, 'n' paddled off 'n' left them t' tump-line theirselves out o' th' bush. But I told brother 't was only a day or two more, 'n' we 'd chew our own cheeks 'stead o' their ears. "The last day we had in camp they asked us t' make one more try with th' hounds. We took th' two ridges north o' th' shanty deer-lick 'n' drove west, with them on a runway sure to get a deer if there was any left t' start runnin'. Scarcely ten minutes after we loosed th' hounds I heard them stopped 'n' bayin', over on th' slope o' th' ridge brother was on, bayin' in a way made me just dead sure they had a bear. "Now a bear-kill, right then t' go home 'n' lie about, tellin' how they fit with it, would 'a suited our sham hunters better 'n' a whole passlc o' antlers; so I busted through th' bush fast as I could, fallin' 'n' rippin' my clothes nigh off — only t' find our hounds snappin' 'n' bayin' round a mighty big buck, that when I first sighted him, seemed to be jest standin' still watchin' th' hounds. Never saw a deer act that way before, 'n' him not wounded, 'n' nobody 'd shot. Jest could n't figure 't out at all. But I was so keen t' get them fellers a bunch o' horns I didn't stop t' study long what p'rsonal private reasons that buck had for stoppin' 'n' facin' th' hounds. " I was in the act o' throwin' my .303 t' my face, when brother hollered not t' shoot, 'n' t' come over t' him. 'N' by cripes! while I was crossin' over t' [262] * THE DOE AND THE BUCK brother, what in th' name o' all th' old hunters that ever drawed a sight do youse think I noted about that buck? Darned if that buck wa'n't blind — stone blind — blind 's a bat! " Poor old warrior ! He 'd stand with his head on one side listenin' t' th' hounds till he had one located close up, 'n' then he 'd rear 'n' plunge at th' hound ; 'n' if there happened t' be a tree or dead timber in his way, he'd smash into it, sometimes knockin' himself a'most stiff. But when all was clear th' hounds stood no show agin him, blind as he was. Old Loud 'n' Frank, that naturally put up a better fight than th' young dogs, he tore up with his front hoofs so bad they like t' died. "Run th' buck knowed he couldn't, 'n' there he stood at bay t' fight to a finish 'n' sell out dear 's he could. If it had n't been a real kindness t' kill him, I'd never 'a shot that brave old buck, 'n' left our hunters t' buy any horns they had t' have down t' Ottawa. But he was already pore 'n' thin 's deer come out in March, 'n' if we let him go 'd be sure t' starve or be ate by th' wolves. So I put a .303 be- hind his shoulder, 'n' brother 'n' me ran up 'n' chunked th' dogs off. "'N' what do youse think we found had blinded that buck? Been lately in a terrible fight with an- other buck. His head 'n' neck 'n' shoulders was covered with half-healed wounds where he'd been [ 253 ] THE RED-BLOODED gashed 'n' tore by th' other's horns 'n' hoofs; 'n' somehow in the fight both his eyes'd got put out! Guess when he lost his eyes th' other buck must 'a been 'bout dead himself, or it'd 'a killed him 'fore quittin'. " Then it hit brother 'n' me all of a heap that ^e 'd be up agin it jest a leetle bit too hard t' stand if we hauled a blind buck into camp; fellers 'd swear that t' get t' kill a buck at all brother 'n' me had t' range th' bush till we struck a blind one; 'n' then they'd probably want us t' go out 'n' see if we could n't find some sick or crippled 'nough so we could get to shoot 'em. ''Brother was for leavin' him 'n' sayin' nothin'; but th' old feller had a grand pair o' horns it seemed a pity t' lose, 'n' so I just drove a .303 sideways through his eyes ; 'n' when we got t' camp we 'counted for th' two shots in him by tellin' them he was circlin' back past us 'n' we both fired t' wonst. " 'N' by cripes ! t' this day nobody but youse knows that Con Teeples dogged 'n' still-hunted th' bush for two weeks for horns 'thout killin' nothin' but a blind buck." [254] CHAPTER XI THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT ONE crisp winter morning a party of us left New York to spend the week end at the Lemon County Hunt Club. It was there I first met Sol, the dean of Lemon County hunters and for eight seasons the winner, against all comers, of the famous annual Lemon County Steeple Chase. At the hurdles, whether in the great public set events or in private contests, Sol was never beaten, while in the drag hunts it was seldom indeed he was not close up on the hounds from " throw-in " to " worry." To the Club Mews he had come under the tragic name of Avenger, but such was the marvellous equine wisdom he displayed that at the finish of his third hunt in Lemon County, he was rechristened Solomon by his new owner — soon shortened to Sol for tighter fit among sulphurous hunt expletives. At that night's dinner Sol and his deeds were the chief topic of con- versation and also its principal toast. And why not, when no hunting stable in the world holds a horse in all respects his equal? Why not toast a horse now twenty-six years old who has missed no run of the Lemon County hounds for the last eight years, never [ 255 ] THE RED-BLOODED for a single hunting-day off his feed or legs? Why not toast a horse that takes ordinary timber in his stride and eats up the stiifest stone walls for eight full hunting seasons without a single fall? Why not toast a horse with the prescience and generalship of a Napoleon, a horse who drives straight at all obsta- cles in a fair field, but who never imperils his rider's head beneath overhanging boughs ; who foresees and evades the "blind ditches" and other perils lurking behind hedges and walls, and who lands as steady and safe on ice as he takes off out of muck? Why not toast this venerable but still indomitable King of Hunters ? The next morning it was my privilege to meet him. In midwinter, he of course was not in condition. De- scriptions of his weird physique, and jests over his grotesquely large and ill-shaped head, made by half a dozen voluble huntsmen over post-prandial bottles, I thought had prepared me against surprise. Cer- tainly they had described such a horse as I had never seen. But having come to the door of his box, I was astoimded to see slouching lazily in a comer with eyes closed, the nigh hip dropped low, a horse that at first glance appeared to be Don Quixote's Rosinante reincarnate, a gigantic "crowbait" with a head as long and coarse as an eighteen-hand mule's, an under lip pendulous as a camel's dropping ears nearly long [ 256 ] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT enough to brush flies off his nostrils, with such an ingrowing concavity of under jaw and convexity of face as would have enabled his head to supply the third of a nine-foot circle, a face curved as a scimitar and nearly as sharp. Both in shape and dimensions it was the grossest possible caricature of a Roman- nosed equine head the maddest fancy could conceive. Slapped lightly on the quarter, Sol was instantly transformed. Eyes out of which shone wisdom preternatural in a horse, opened and looked down upon us with the calm questioning reproach one might expect from a rude awakening of the Sphinx; then the tall ears straightened and the great bulk rose to the full majesty of its seventeen hands; and while slats, hip bones, and shoulder blades were distressingly promi- nent, a glance got the full story of Sol's wonderful deeds and matchless record for safe, sure work. With massive, low-sloping shoulders, tremendous quarters, exceptionally short of cannon bone and long from hock to stifle as a greyhound; with a breadth of chest and a depth of barrel beneath the withers that indicated most unusual lung capacity, behind the throat-latch Sol showed, in extraordinary perfection, all the best points of a thoroughbred hunter that make for speed, jumping ability, and endurance. And as he so stood, a flea-bitten, speckled white in [ 257 ] THE RED-BLOODED color, he looked like a section out of the main snowy range of the Rocky Mountains : the two wide-set ears representing the Spanish Peaks; his sloping neck their northern declivity; his high withers, sharply outlined vertebrae, and towering quarters the serrated range crest; his banged tail a glacier reaching down toward its moraine! Sol needed exercise, and that afternoon I was per- mitted the privilege of riding him. Mounted from a chair and settled in the saddle, I felt as if I must surely be bestriding St. Patrick's Cathedral. But at a shake of the reins the parallel ceased. His pas- terns were supple as an Arab four-year-old's, his muscles steel springs. Myself quite as gray as Sol and, relatively, of about the same age, as lives of men and horses go, we early fell into a mutual sympathy that soon ripened into a fast friendship. At Christmas I returned to the Club to spend holiday week, in fact sought the invitation to be with Sol. Every day we went out together, Sol and I, morning and afternoon. Bright, warm, open winter days, so soon as the spin he loved was finished, I slid off him, slipped the bit from his mouth (leaving head-stall hanging about his neck), and left him free to nibble the juicy green grasses of some woodland glade and, between nibble times, to spin me yams of his experiences. For the subtle sym- pathy that existed between us — sprung of our trust £ 258 ] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT in one another, and sublimated in the heat of our mutual affection — had sharpened our perceptions until intellectual inter-communication became possible to us. I know Sol understood all I told him, and I don't think I misunderstood much he told me. So here is his tale, as nearly as I can recall it. " Ye know I 'm Irish, and proud of it. It 's there they knew best how to make and condition an able hunter. No pamperin', softenin' idleness in box stalls or fat pastures, or light road-joggin', goes in Ireland between huntin' seasons. It's muscle and wind we need at our trade in Ireland, and neither can be more than half diviloped in the few weeks' light conditionin' work that all English and most American cross-country riders give their hunters. Steady gruellin' work is what it takes to toughen sinews and expand lungs, and it 's the Irish huntsman that knows it. So between seasons we drag the ploughs and pull the wains, toil at the rudest farm tasks, and thus are kept in condition on a day's notice to make the run or take the jump of our lives. *^ Humiliatin' ? Hardly, when we find' it gives us strength and staying power to lead the best the shires can send against us : they 've neither power nor stom- ach to take Irish stone and timber. " ' It 's a royal line of blood, his,' I 've often heard Sir Patrick say ; ' a clean strain of the best for a hundred years, by records of me own family. His [ 259 ] THE RED-BLOODED head? There was never a frealc m the line till he came; and where the divil and by what misbegotten luck he came by it is the mystery of Roscommon. And it 's by that same token we call him Avenger, for no sneerin' stranger ever hunted with him that did n't get the diviPs own peltin' with clods off his handy Irish heels.' "And the head groom had it from the butler and passed it on to me that the old Master of the Roscom- mon Hounds was ever swearin' over his third bottle, of hunt nights, when I was no more than a five-year- old and the youngsters would be fleerin' at Sir Pat over the shape of me head : " * Faith, an' it 's Avenger's head ye don't like, lads, is it ? By the powers o' the Holy Virgin but it 's me pity ye have that none of ye can show the likes in your stables. By the gray mare that broke King Charlie's neck, it's the head of him holds brains enough to distinguish ten average hunters, brains no ordinary brain pan could hold; an' it's a brain-box shape of a shot sock makin' the disfigurin' hump be- low his eyes. It's a four-legged gineral is Avenger, with the cunnin' foresight of a Bonaparte and the cool judgment of a Wellington.' "Ah! but they were happy days on tlie old sod, buckin' timber, flyin' over brooks, stretchin' over stone or lightin' light as bird atop of walls too broad to carry and springin' on, with a good light-handed [ 260 ] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT man up that knew his work and left ye free to do yours ! And a sad night it was for me when Sir Pat, stripped by years of gambling of all he owned but the clothes he stood in and me, staked and lost me to a hunt visitor from Quebec! " I was a youngster then, only a nine-year-old, but I '11 niver forget the two weeks' run from Queenstown to Quebec whereon hunting tables were reversed and I became the rider and the ship me mount, across coun- try the roughest hunter ever lived through: niver a moment of easy flat goin', but an endless series of gigantic leaps that nigh jouted me teeth loose, churned me insides till they wouldn't even hold dry feed, and gave me more of a taste than I liked of what I had been givin' Roscommon huntsmen over lane side wall jumps — a rise and a jolt, a rise and a jolt, till it was wonderin' I was the ears were not shaken from me head. "Humiliation? It was there at Quebec I got it! In old Roscommon usually it was lords and ladies rode me of hunt days, men and women bred to the game as I meself was. "But at Quebec, the best — and I had the best — were beefy members of their dinkey Colonial Govern- ment or fussy, timid barristers I had to carry on me mouth. Seldom it was I carried a good pair of hands and a cool head in me nine years' runnin' with the Quebec and Montreal hounds. And lucky the same [261] THE RED-BLOODED was for me, for it forced me to take the bit in me teeth, rely on meself, and regard me rider no more than if he were a sack of flour: I jist had it to do to save me own legs and me rider's neck, for to run by their reinin' and pullin' would have brought us a cropper at about two out of every three obstacles. Faith, and I believe it 's an honest leaper's luck I 've always had with me, anyway, for me Quebec work was jist what I needed to train me for an honorable finish with the Lemon County Yankees. '^One Autumn night years ago, when I was eigh- teen, a clever young Yankee visitor from New York appeared at our club. For two days I watched his work on other mounts, and liked it. He was good as any two-legged product of the old sod itself, a handsome youngster a bit heavier than Sir Pat, a reckless, deep drinkin', hard swearin', straight ridin' sort, but with a head and hands ye knew in a minute ye could trust, by name Jack Lounsend. The third hunt after his arrival, it was me delight to carry him, and for the first time in years to allow me rider his will of me. And you can bet your stud and gear, I gave him the best I had, for the sheer love of him, and him so near the likes of me dear Sir Pat. " Nor was me work to go unvalued, for, to me great delight, he bought me and brought me to the States — straight away to Lemon County — along [ 26« ] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT with two of me huntmates he fancied. And a sweet country I found this same Lemon County, with tim- ber and stone nigh as stiff, and sod as sound as old Roscommon's own. "But troubles lay ahead of me I'd not foreseen. Instead of goin' into Jack's private string, as I'd hoped, the early record I made for close finishes and safe, sure work made me wanted by the chief patron of the hunt, a New York multi-railroad-aire with a well diviloped habit of gettin' everything he goes after. So, while I venture to believe Jack hated to part with me, the patron got me. "And a good man up the patron himself proved, one I'd always be proud enough to carry; but, as Jack used to say, the hell of it was the Lemon County Hunt numbered more bunglin' duffers than straight riders, the sort a youngster or a hot-head would be sure to kill. " So when, as often happened, the patron was busy with faster runs and a hotter "worry" than our hunt afforded, it frequently fell to me lot to carry the half-broke of all ages, seldom a one bridle-wise to our game, as sure to pull me at the take-off of a leap as to give me me head on a run through heavy mud, the sort no horse could carry and finish dacently with ex- cept by takin' the bit in his teeth and himself makin' the runnin'. And even so, it was a tough task fightin' [2631 THE RED-BLOODED their rotten heavy hands and loose seat! But, by the glory of old Roscommon, never once have I been down in me eight years with the Lemons ! ** Once, to be sure, on me first run, by the way, I slashed into one of your brutal wire fences, the first I 'd ever seen — looked a filmy thing you could smash right through — caught a shoe in it, and nigh wrenched a shoulder blade in two. Sure, I never lost me feet, but it laid me up a few days ; and you can gamble any odds you like no wire has ever caught me since ; and, more, that I now hold record as the only horse in the County that takes wire as readily as tim- ber, where it's necessary — though sure it is I '11 dodge for timber every time where I won't lose too much in place. "Down they come to Lemon County, a lot of those New York beauties, men and women, togged out so properly you 'd think they 'd spent their whole lives in the huntin' field ; but at the first obstacle you 'd see their faces go white as their stocks, and then all over you they 'd ride from tail to ears, their arms sawin' at your mouth fit to rip your under jaw off, like they thought it was a backin' contest they were entered for. And sure back to the rear it soon was for them, back till the hounds were mere glintin' specks flyin' across a distant hill-crest, the riders' red coats noddin' pop- pies ; back till only faint echoes reached them of the swellin', quaverin' chorus of the madly racin' pack; [ 264 ] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT back for all but him or her whom old Sol had his will of, — for rider never lived could hold me to the wrong jump or throw me from my stride, nor was fence ever built I 'd not find a place to leap without layin' a toe on it. "Once the hounds give voice, it's the divil himself couldn't hold me, whether it's the short, sharp war- cry of the Irish or the sweet, deep bell-notes of these Yankee hounds that to me ever seem chantin' a mourn- ful dirge for the quarry. Sure, it 's the faster Irish hounds that make the grandest runnin', but it's the deep-throated, mellow chorus of a Yankee pack I love best to hear. ^* Nouveaux riches^ whatever kind of bounders that spells, is what Bob Berry calls the lot of mouth-sawers New York sends us ; and whenever the patron is out or Jack has his way, it 's niver one of them I 'm dis- graced with. " Sometimes it 's me good old Jack up ; sometimes hard swearin', straight goin' Bob; sometimes little Raven, as true a pair of hands and light and tight a seat as hunter ever had; sometimes Lory Ling, as reckless as the old Roscommon sire of him I used to carry when I was a five-year-old, with a ring in his swears, a stab in his heels, and a cut in his crop that can lift a dead-beat one over as tall gates as the best and freshest can take ; sometimes it's Priest, that with the language of him and the hell-at-a-split pace he '11 [ 265 ] THE RED-BLOODED hold a tired one to but ill desarves the holy name he wears; and sometimes — my happiest times — it's a daughter of the patron up, with hands like velvet and the nerve and seat of a veteran. " Horse or human, it 's blood that tells every time, me word for that. Be they old or young, you can niver mistake it. Can't stop anything with good blood in it — gallops straight, takes timber in its stride, and finishes smartly every time. Know it may not, but it balks at nothing, sets its teeth and drives ahead till it learns. " And perhaps that was n't driven well home on me last Fall ! " Out to us came a little woman, a scant ninety- pounder I should say, so frail she would n't look safe in a drag, and a good bit away on the off side of mid- dle age ; but the mouth of her had a set that showed she 'd never run off the bit in her life, and her eye — my eye ! but she had an eye, did that woman. And it was hell-bent to hunt she was, bound to follow the hounds, though all she knew of a saddle came of five- mile-an-hour jogs along town park bridle paths, and all her hands looked fit for was holdin' a spaniel. "Well, it was Lory and Priest took her on, turn about, usually me that carried her, and it was break her slender little neck I thought the divils would in spite of me. Took her at everything and spared her nowhere, bowled her along across meadow and furrow, [266] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT over water, timber, and walls, like she was a lusty five- year-old, and all the time a guyin' her in a way to take the heart out of anything but a thoroughbred. "Don't mind the fence ! " Lory would sing out, ' if you get a fall, just throw your legs in the air and keep kickin' to show you 're not dead ; we never want to stop for any but the dead on this hunt.' And smash on my quarters would come her crop, and on we'd go! " Again, when we 'd be nearin' a fence across which two were scramblin' up from croppers, Lory would brace her with: 'Don't git scared at that smoke across the fence; it's nothin' but the boys that couldn't get over burnin' up their chance of salva- tion!' And into me slats her little heel would sock the steel, and high over the timber I'd lift her for sheer joy of the nerve of her! "But it was not always me that had her. One day I saw a cold-blood give her a fall you'd think would smash the tiny little thing into bran ; landed so low on a ditch bank he could n't gather, and up over his head she flew and on till I thought she was for takin' the next wall by her lonesome. And when finally she hit the ground it was to so near bury her- self among soft furrows that it looked for a second as if she'd taken earth like any other wily old fox tired of the runnin'. " But tired ? She ? Not on your bran mash ! Up she springs like a yearlin' and asks Lory is her hat |[ ^67 ] THE RED-BLOODED on straight — which it was, straight up and down over her nigh ear. 'Oh, damn your hat,' answers Lory; * give us your foot for a mount if your 're not rattled. Why, next year you '11 be showin' your friends holes in the ground on this hunt course you've dug with your own head!' And up it was for her and away again on old cold-blood. Faith, but those cold-bloods make it a shame they're ever called hunters. Fall the best must, one day or another; but while the thoroughbred goes down fightin', strugglin' for his feet and ginerally either winnin' out or givin' his rider time to fall free if down he must go, the cold-blood falls loose and flabby as an empty sack, and he and his rider hit the ground like the divil had kicked them off Durham Terrace. Ah, but it was the heart of a true thoroughbred had Mrs. Bruner, and whether up on cold or hot blood, along she'd drive at anything those two hare-brained dare-devils would point her at, spur diggin', crop splashin' ! " Nor is all our fun of hunt days. Between times the lads are always larkin' and puttin' up games on each other out of the stock of divilment that won't keep till the next run, each never quite so happy as when he can git the best of a mate on a trade or a wager. "One day little Raven and I galloped over to Lory's place. " * Whatever mischief are you and His Wisdom up [268] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT to?' sings out Lory to Raven, the minute we stopped at his porch. "'Nary a mischief,' answers Raven; 'want some help of you.' " ' Give it a name,' says Lory. " ' Easy,' says Raven ; ' the master's got a new fad — crazy to mount the hunt on white horses. I've old Sol here, and Jack has a pair of handy white ones for the two whips, but where to get a white mount for Jack stumps us. Jogged over to see If you could help us out.' " Lory was lollin' in an easy-chair, lookin' out west across his spring lot. Directly I saw a twinkle in his eye, and followin' the line of his glance, there slouchin' in a fence comer I saw Lory's old white work-mare, Molly. Sometimes Molly pulled the buggy and the little Lings, but usually it was a plough or a mower for hers. I 'd heard Lory say she was eighteen years old and that once she was graj, but now she ^3 white as a first snow-fall. ' " ' How would old gray Molly do, Raven ? ' pres- ently asks Lory. " ' Do ? Has she ever hunted ? ' asks Raven. " * DIvIl a hunt of anything but a chance for a rest,' says Lory ; ' never had a saddle on, as far as I know, but she has the quarters and low sloping shoulders of a born jumper, and it's you must admit It. Let's have a look at her.' [ 269 ] THE RED-BLOODED " So out across the spring lot the three of us went, to the corner where Molly was dozin.' And true for Lor J it was, the old lady had fine points ; when lightly slapped with Raven's crop she showed spirit and a good bit of action. " ' She 's sure got a good strain in her,' says Raven ; ' where did j^ou get her, Lory ? ' " * Had her twelve years,' says Lory ; * brought her on from my Wyoming ranch; she and a skullful of experience and a heartful of disappointment made up about all two bad winters left of my ranch invest- ments. The freight on her made her look more like a back-set than an asset, but she was a link of the old life I could n't leave/ " ' Well, give her a try out,' laughs Raven, * and if she'll run a bit and jump, we may have some fun passin' her up to Jack.' " So Lory takes her to the stable, has her saddled and mounts, and I hope never to have another rub- down if she did n't gallop off like she'd never done anything else — stiff in the pasterns and hittin' the ground fit to bust herself wide open, but poundin' along a fair pace. Then we went into a narrow lane and I gave her a lead over some low bars, and here came game old Molly stretchin' over after me like fences and her were old stable-mates. "*Well, I mil be damned,' says Raven; 'she's a hoary wonder. Give her a week of handlin' and trim [ 270 ] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT her up, and it'll be Jack for mother at a stiff price ; he's so bent on his fad, he'll take a chance on her age.' "And then it was clinkin' glasses and roarin' laughter in the house with them, while I began tippin' Molly a few useful points at the game as soon as the groom left us in adjoinin' stalls. '^Four days later Lory brought Molly over to the hunt-club mews, and if I 'd not been on to their mis- chievous plot, I '11 be fired if I 'd known her. It was a cunnin' one, was Lory, and he'd banged her tail, hogged her mane, clipped her pasterns, polished her hoofs, groomed, fed up, and conditioned her, and (I do believe) polished her yellow old fangs, till she looked as fit a filly as you'd want to see. "And soon after, when Molly was unsaddled and stalled, into an empty box alongside of me slips Lory with Tom, the best whip and seat of our hunt, and says Lory: *You never seem to mind riskin' your neck, Tom.' "* Thank ye kindly, sir,' says Tom; *hall in the day's work.' " * Well, if you '11 give the old gray mare a week's practice at wall and timber, gettin' out early when none but the sun and the pair of you are yet up, I '11 gi^e you the little rifle you lovin'ly handled at my place the other day. But mind, it's your neck she may break at the first wall, for I've niver taken her over anything much higher than a pig sty.' [271] THE RED-BLOODED "*Right-o, sir,' says Tom; * an' there's any jump in the old girl, I '11 git it out of 'er.* "The next Saturday afternoon, the biggest meet of the season, up rides that divil of a Lory on Molly, him in a brand-new suit of ridin' togs and her heavy- curbed and martingaled like she was a wild four-year- old, the pair lookin' so fine I scarce knew the man or Raven the mare. "'Hi, there. Lory!' says Raven; * wherever did you get the corkin' white un ? ' " ' Sh-h-h ! you damn fool,' says Lory. " * The hell you say ! ' whispers Raven, reins aside, chucklin' low to the two of us, and with a knee-press which I knew meant, * Sol, jist you watch 'em!' "And we were no more than turned about when up rides the master. Jack, both ears pointin' Molly, and says: "* Good-looker you have there, Lory. New pur- chase ? ' "'No, indeed,' says Lory; *old hunter I've had some years; brought her on from the West; just up off grass and not quite prime yet ; guess she'll finish, though.' "Think of it — the nerve of the divil — and him knowin' she was more likely to finish at the first fence than ever to reach the check. For the day's course was a full ten-mile run, and a check was laid half way for a blow or a change of mounts. THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT " Presently the hounds opened at the ' throw-in,' an Irish pack it takes near a steeplechase pace to stay with, and we were off on as stiff a course as even Lemon County can show. And a holy miracle was Lory's ridin' that day. For nigh four miles he held tight behind two duffers who, while up on top-notch- ers, pulled their mounts so heavily that they took a top rail off nearly every fence they rose to and swerved for low wall-gaps, till he'd got Molly's nerve up a bit. Then, takin' a chance on the last mile. Lory threw crop and spur into her and raced straight ahead, liftin' her over wall and timber to try the best, until close up on Jack. Just then Jack turned and watched them, just as they were approachin' a heavy four-foot jump, a broad stone wall and ditch. Sure, I thought it was all up with Lory, but at it he hurled her, and I'll be curbed if she did n't take it as cleverly as I «ould. "Old Molly finished third at the check, but at the expense of a pair of badly torn and bleedin' knees, got scrapin' over stone and wood, which that rascal of a Lory hid by swervin' to a white clay bank and plasterin' her w^ounds with the clay, and then she was led away by his groom. " Joggin' back from the ' worry ' that evenin'. Jack lay tight in Lory's flank till Lory had consented, ap- parently with great reluctance, to sell him Molly for five hundred dollars. [273] THE RED-BLOODED "The v6ry next jw^eek, Jack, Raven, and the two whips turned out on white hunters, Jack of course upon Molly and happy over the successful workin' out of his fad. But good old Jack's happiness was short-lived, for after the 'throw-in' he was not seen again of the hunt that day. The first fence Molly negotiated in fine style, but at the second she came a terrible cropper that badly jolted Jack and knocked every last ounce of heart out of her, cowed her so completely that she 'd be in that same meadow yet if there'd not been a pair of bars to lead her through, and divil a man was ever found could make her try another jump. "Great was the quiet fun of Lory and Raven, though Lory's lasted little longer than Jack's joy of his white mount. Of course Jack was too game to let on he knew he'd been done, but not too busy to sharpen a rowel for Lory. " And the rankest wonder it was Lory niver saw it till Jack had him raked from flank to shoulder — • Ijust stood and took it without a blink, like a donkey takes a lash. " Within a week of Molly's downfall Lory was out on me one day, when up rides Jack and says : "* There's a splendid hunter in me stable I want ye to have, Lory. Got more than I can keep, and your stable must be a bit shy since you parted with the white mare. He's the bay seventeen-hander in the [274] THE LEMON COUNTY HUNT Irish lot. Stands me over a thousand, but you can have him at your own price ; don't want the hardest, straightest rider of the hunt shy of fit meat and bone to carry him.' "Belikes it was the blarney caught him, but any- way Lory buried his muzzle in Jack's pail till he could see nothin' but what Jack said it held, and took the bay at six hundred dollars just on a casual look- over. " It was a good action, a grand jimipin' form, and rare pace the bay showed on a short try-out that af- ternoon, so much so I overheard Lory tellin' himself, when he was after dismountin' just outside me box: *Gad! but ain't old Jack easy money!' "But when Lory and the bay showed up at the next day's meet, I noticed the bay's ears lay in' back or workin' in a way to tell any but a blind one it was dirty mischief he was plannin'. Nor was he long playin' it. For about a thirdof the run the bay raced like a steeplechaser tight on the heels of the hounds, leadin' even the master, for Lory could no more hold him than his own glee at the grand way they were takin' gates and walls. But suddenly that bay divil's- spawn swerves from the course, dashes up and stops bang broadside against a barn ; and there, with ears laid back tight to his head and muzzle half upturned, for four mortal hours the bay held Lory's off leg jammed so tight against the barn that, rowel and [275] THE RED-BLOODED crop-cut hard as he might, the only thing Lory was able to free was such a flow of language, It was a holy wonder Providence did n't fire the barn and burn up the pair of them. "And as Jack passed them I heard the divil smg out : * Ha ! Ha ! Lory ! 'it was the gray mare wanted to jump but could n't, and it 's the bay can jump but won't! It's an "oh hell!" for you and a "ha! ha!" for me this time ! ' "Which, while they're still fast friends, was the last word ever passed between them on the subject of the funker and the balker. [276] CHAPTER XII Eli TIGRE A CAT may look at a king, but the son of a village lawyer may not venture to bare his heart to the daughter of the Duque de la Torrevieja. And yet a man of our blood was enno- bled early in the wars with the Moors, while the Duke's forebears were still simple men-at-arms, knighted under a name that in itself carries the ring of the heroic deeds that earned it." The speaker, Mauro de la Lucha-sangre (literally "Mauro of the Bloody Battle"), stood one June morning of 1874 beneath the shade of a gnarled olive- tree on the banks of the Guadaira River, rebelliously stamping a heel into the soft turf. Son of the fore- most lawyer of his native town of Utrera, educated in Sevilla at the best university of his province, already at twenty-four himself a fully accredited licenciado, Mauro's future held actually brilliant prospects for a man of the station into which he was born. And yet, most envied of his classmates though he was, to Mauro himself the future loomed black, forbidding, cheerless. Mauro's father, by legacy from his father, was the [ 277 ] THE RED-BLOODED attorney and counsellor of the Duque de la Torre- vieja; and so might Mauro have been for the next Duke had there not cropped out In him the daring, the love of adventure, the pride, and the confidence that had lifted the first Lucha-sangre above his fel- lows. It was a case of breeding back — away back over and past generations of fawning commoners to the times when Lucha-sangre swords were splitting Moorish casques and winning guerdons. Nor in spirit alone was Mauro bred back. He was deep of chest, broad of shoulder, lithe and graceful. His massive neck upbore a head of Augustan beauty, lighted by eyes that alternately blazed with the pride and resolution of a Cid and softened with the musings of a Manrique. Mauro was a Lucha-sangre of the twelfth century, reincarnate. Little is it to be wondered at that, as the lad was often his father's message-bearer to the Duke, he found favor in the eyes of the Duke's only daughter, Sofia; and still less is it to be wondered at that he early became her thrall. Of nights at the university he was ever dreaming of her ; up out of his text-books her lovely face was ever rising before him in class. Of a rare type was Sofia In Andalusia, where nearly all are dark, for she was a true ruhta, blue of eye, fair of skin, and with hair of the wondrously changing tints of a cooling Iron Ingot. And now here was Mauro, just back from SeviUa, [ 278 ] EL TIGRE almost within arm's-reach of his divinity, and yet not free to seek her. And as the ripphng current of the Guadaira crimsoned and then reddened and darkened till it seemed to him like a great ruddy tress of Sofia's waving hair, Mauro sprang to his feet and fiercely whispered: *' Mil demoniosl but she shall at least know, and then I'll kiss the old padre and his musty office good-bye and go try my hand at some man's task!" Opportunity came earlier than he had dared hope. The very next morning the elder Lucha-sangre sent t Mauro to the castle with some papers for the Duke's approval and signature. Still at breakfast, the Duke received him in the great banquet-hall of the castle, the walls covered with portraits of Torreviejas gone before, several of the earlier generations so dim and gray with age they looked mere spectres of the lim- ner's art. While the Duke was reading the papers, Mauro stood with eyes riveted to the newest portrait of them all, that of Sofia's mother — Sofia's very self ma- tured — herself a native of a northern province wherein to this day red hair and blue eyes are a fre- quent, almost a prevailing type, that tell the story of early Gothic invasions. So absorbed in the picture, so completely possessed by it was Mauro, that when the Duke turned and spoke to him, he did not hear. And so he stood for some moments while the Duke [279] THE RED-BLOODED sat contemplating the fine lines of his face and the splendid pose of his figure; his eyes lightened with admiration, his head nodding approval. Then gently touching Mauro's arm, the Duke queried: "And so you admire the Duchess, young man?" With a start Mauro answered, after a dazed stare at the Duke: "A thousand pardons. Excellency! But yes, sir ; who in all the world could fail to admire her?" "Yes, yes," replied the Duke; "God never made but one other quite her equal, and her He made in her own very Image — Sofia; que Dios la aguarda!** Mauro gravely bowed, received the papers from the Duke, and withdrew. Turning to his secretary, the Duke sighed deeply and murmured: ^* Dios miol if only I had a son of my own blood like that boy ! What a pity he should be tied down to paltry pettifoggery ! " Meantime Mauro, striding disconsolate past an angle of the narrow garden of the inner courtyard. Was detained by a soft voice issuing from the seclu- sion of a bench beneath the drooping boughs of an ancient fig tree : " Buenos dias, Don Mauro. Bueno es verte revuelto" " Buenos diaSy Condesa; and it is indeed good to me to be back, good to hear thy voice — the first real hap- [ 280 ] EL TIGRE piness I have known since mj ears last welcomed its sweet tones. Good to be back! ah! Condesa Sofia, for me it is to live again." "But, Don Mauro— " "A thousand pardons, Condesa, but thy duenna may join thee at any moment, and my heart has long guarded a message for thee it can no longer hold and stay whole, — a message thou mayest well resent for its gross presumption, and yet a message I would here and now deliver if I knew I must die for it the next minute. "From childhood hast thus possessed me. Never a night for the last ten years have I lain down with- out a prayer to the Virgin for thy safety and happi- ness ; never a day but I have so lived that my conduct should be worthy of thee. Though I am the son of thy father's licenciado, thou well knowest the blood of a long line of proud warriors bums in my veins. Hope that thou mightst ever even deign to listen to me I have never ventured to cherish — " "But Don Mauro-—" " Again a thousand pardons, Condesa, but I must tell thee thou art the light of my soul. Without thee all the world is a valley of bitterness ; with thee its most arid desert would be an Eden. The birds are ever chanting to me thy name. Every pool reflects thy sweet face. Every breeze wafts me the fragrance [ 281 ] THE RED-BLOODED of thy dear presence. Every thunderous roll of the Almighty's war-drums calls me to attempt some great heroic deed in thine honor, some deed that shall prove to thee the lawyer's son, in heart and soul if not in present station, is not unworthy to tell to thee his love. And — " "But, Mauro, Mauro m — mior* And with a sob she arose and actually fled through the shrubbery. Two days later the betrothal of the Countess Sofia to the Count Leon, the eldest son and heir to the Duke de Oviedo, was announced by her father. And that, indeed, was what she had tried but lacked the heart to tell him — that, wherever her heart might lie, her father had already promised her hand ! It was a bitter night for Mauro, that of the an- nouncement, and a sad one for his father. Their conference lasted till near morning. The son pleaded he must have a life of action and hazard ; his country at peace, he would train for the bull ring. " Why not the opera, my son ? " the thrifty father replied. " Thou hast a grand tenor voice ; indeed the Bishop has asked that thou wilt lead the choir of the Cathedral. With such a voice thou wouldst have ac- tion, see the world, gain riches, while all the time playing the parts, fighting the battles of some great historic character." "But no, father," answered Mauro; "such be no [282] EL TIGRE more than sham fights. Not only must I wear a sword as did the early Lucha-sangres, but I must hear it ring and ring against that of a worthy foe, feel it steal within the cover of his guard, see the good blade drip red in fair battle. True, there be no Moors or French to fight, but what soldier on reddened field ever took greater odds than a lone espada takes every time he challenges a fierce Utrera bull? And I swear to thee, padre mio, whatever my calling, I shall ever be heedful of and cherish the. motto that Lucha-sangre swords have always borne: '^ No me sacas sin razon; no me metes sin honor. ^* (Do not draw me without good cause; do not sheath me without honor!) The less strong-minded of the two, the father yielded, and even furnished funds sufficient for a year's private tutoring by Frascueloj then the great- est matador in all Spain. Thus the first time Mauro ever appeared before a public assembly was as chief espada of a cuadrilla of his own, at Valladolid. An apt pupil from the start, bent upon reaching the highest rank, of extra- ordinary strength and activity, utterly fearless but cool headed, a natural general, at the close of his first corrida he was acclaimed the certain successor of the great Frascuelo himself, and at the same time chris- tened El Tigre (the Tiger) for the feline swiftness of his movements and the ferocity of his attacks. [283] THE RED-BLOODED The next eight years were for El Tigre fruitful of fame and riches but utterly arid and barren of even the most casual feminine attachment. Well educated, clever, with the manners of a courtier, and with physical beauty and personal charm few men equalled, he was invited by the nobility often, received as an equal by the men and literally courted by the women. But the attentions of women were all to no purpose. For El Tigre only one woman existed — Sofia, now the Duchess de Oviedo — though he had never again set eyes on her from the hour of their parting beneath the fig tree. Owners of large Mexican sugar estates in the valley of Cuautla, the Duke and Sofia divided their time be- tween Paris and Mexico. Their marriage was far from happy. Before their union, busy tongues had brought Count Leon rumors of her admiration for Mauro, rousing suspicions that were not long crys- tallizing into certainty that, while she was a faithful, honest wife, he could never win of her the affection he gave and craved. Obviously proud of her, always devoted and kind, he received from her respect and consideration in return, which indeed was all she had to give, for the loss of Mauro remained to her an ever-gnawing grief. Oddly enough, fate decreed that the destiny of Mauro and Sofia should be worked out far afield from [«84] EL TIGRE their burning Utreran plains, high up on the cool plateau of Central Mexico. For several years most generous offers had been made El Tigre to bring his cuadrilla to Mexico, but, surfeited with fame and rolling in riches, he had de- clined them. At last, however, in 188 — , an offer was made him which he felt forced to accept — six thou- sand dollars a performance for ten corridas, to be given on successive Sundays in the Plaza Bucareli In the City of Mexico, all expenses of himself and his cuadrilla to be paid by the management. And so, late in April of that year El Tigre arrived in Mexico with his cuadrilla and (as stipulated in his contract) sixty great Utreran bulls, for the bulls of Utrera are famed in toreador history and song as the fiercest, most desperate fighters espada ever confronted. At the first performance El Tigre took the Mexi- can public by storm. No such execution, daring, and grace had ever been seen in either Bucareli or Colon. El Tigre was the toast in every club and cafe of the city. Every shop window displayed his portrait. All the journals sung his praises. Maids and ma- trons sighed for him. Youth and age envied him. El Tigress coffers were well-nigh bursting and his cups of joy overflowing, all but the one none but Sofia could fill. Where she was at the time El Tigre had no idea. And yet, wholly unsuspected by him, not only were [ 285 ] THE RED-BLOODED she and the Duke in Mexico, but both had attended all his performances at Bucareli, up to the last, in- conspicuous behind parties of friends they enter- tained in their box. Whether it was the Duke caught the pallor of Sofia's face in moments of peril for Mauro, or the light of pride and admiration in her eyes during his moments of triumph, sure it is the smouldering fires of the Duke's jealousy were rekindled, and he was prompted to plan a test of her bearing, when free of the restraint of his presence. On the morning of the last performance he announced that he must spend the afternoon with his attorneys, and must leave Sofia free to make her own arrangements for attendance at the last corrida. And glad enough was she of the chance. The boxes were far too high above, and distant from, the arena. For days she had coveted any of the seats along the lower rows of open benches, close down to the six-foot barrier between the ring and the audi- torium, close down where she could catch every shift- ing expression of Mauro's mobile face, and — where he could scarcely fail to see and recognize her. The thought of seeking in any way to meet or speak to him never entered her clean mind, but she had been more nearly a saint than a woman if she had been able to deny herself such an opportunity to convey to him, in one long burning glance, a knowledge of the r 286 ] EL TIGRE endurance of the love her frightened "Mauro mio'* had plainly confessed the night of their parting be- neath the fig tree. So it naturally followed that the Duke was barely out of the house before Sofia rushed away a messenger to reserve a section of the lower benches immediately beneath the box of the Presi- dente, directly in front of which Mauro must come, at the head of his cuadrilla, to salute the Presidente. The city was thronged with visitors come to see El Tigre. Hotels and clubs were overflowing with them. And thousands of poor peons had for months stinted themselves, often even gone hungry, to save enough tlacos to buy admission to the spectacle, to them the greatest and most magnificent it could ever be their good fortune to witness. The day was perfect, as indeed are most June days in Mexico. For two hours before the performance the principal thoroughfares leading to the Plaza Bucareli were packed solid with a moving throng, all dressed en fete. ' In no country in the world may one see such great picturesqueness, variety, and brilliancy of color in the costumes of the masses as then still prevailed in Mexico. Largely of more or less pure Indian blood, come of a race Cortez found habited in feather tunics and head-dresses brilliant as the plumage of parrots, great lovers of flowers, three and a half centuries of contact with civilization had not served to deprive them of any of their fondness for bright colors. [287] THE RED-BLOODED Thus with the horsemen in the graceful traje de chorro — sombreros and tight fitting soft leather jackets and trousers loaded with gold or silver orna- ments, the footmen swaggering in scrapes of ever}' color of the rainbow, the women wrapped in more delicately tinted rebosas and crowned with flowers, the winding streets looked like strips of flower garden ambulant. Bucareli seated twenty thousand, and when all standing-room had been filled and the gates closed, thousands of late comers were shut out. The level, sanded ring, the theatre of action, was surrounded by a six-foot solid-planked barrier. Be- hind and above the barrier rose the benches of the auditorium, the "bleachers" of the populace; they rose to a height of perhaps forty or fifty feet, while above the uppermost line of benches were the private boxes of the elite. Within the ring were five heavily planked nooks of refuge, set close to the barrier, be- hind which a hard pressed toreador might find safety from a charging bull. These refuges were little used, however, except by the underlings, the capadores, or by capsized picadores; espadas and banderilleros disdained them. On the west of the ring was the box of the Presidente of the corrida (in this instance, the Grovernor of the Federal District) ; on the east the main gate of the ring through which the cuadrilla entered ; on the north the gate of the bull pen. [288] EL TIGRE At a bugle call from the Presidente's box, the main gate swung wide and the cuadrilla entered, a band of lithe, slender, clean-shaven men, in slippers, white stockings, knee breeches, and jackets of silk orna- mented with silver, each wearing the little queue and black rosette attached thereto that from time im- memorial Andalusian toreadores have sported. El Tigre headed the squad, followed by two junior TTiatadores, three banderilleros, three capadores, and two mounted picadores, while at the rear of the column came two teams of little, half-wild, prancing, dancing Spanish mules, one team black, the other white, each composed of three mules harnessed abreast as for a chariot race but dragging behind them nothing but a heavy double tree, to which the dead of the day's fight might be attached and dragged out of the arena. Each of the footmen was wrapped in a large black cloak passed over the left shoulder and beneath the right, the loose end of the cloak draped gracefully over the left shoulder, the right arm swinging free. The picadores were mounted (as usual) on old crowbaits of horses, mere bags of skin and bones, so poor and thin that neither could even raise a trot ; a broad leather blindfold fastened to their head-stalls. Each rider was seated in a saddle high of cantle and ancient of form as those Knights Templar jousted in. The breast of each horse was guarded by a great side [289 J THE RED-BLOODED of sole leather falling nearly to the knees, while the right leg of each rider was incased in such a stiff and heavy leather leg-guard as to render him afoot almost helpless ; and he was further guarded by still another side of sole leather swung from the saddle horn and covering his left leg and much of his horse's barrel. On the right stirrup of each picador rested the butt of his lance, a stout eight-foot shaft tipped with a sharp steel prod, barely long enough to catch and hold in the bull's hide. As the cuadrilla entered, a regimental band played El Hymno Nacional, the National Anthem, while the vast audience roared and shrieked a welcome to the gladiators. Marching to the time of the music in long tragic strides, heads proudly erect, right arms swinging and shoulders slightly swaying in the challenging swag- ger which toreadores affect, the cuadrilla crossed the arena and halted, close to the barrier, in front of the Presidente's box, bared their heads, gracefully sa- luted the Presidentey and received the key to the bull pen and his permission to begin the fight. And as El Tigress eyes fell from the salute to the Presidente they rested upon Sofia, doubtless from some subtle tele- pathic message, for it was a veritable hill of faces he confronted. There she sat on the second bench-row above the top of the barrier, matured and fuller of figure but radiant as at their Utreran parting; ther* [290] EL TIGRE she sat, her gloved hands tightly clenched, her lips trembling, her great blue eyes pouring into his mes- sages of a love so deep and pure that it needed all his self-command to keep from leaping the barrier and falling at her feet. For a moment he stood transfixed, staggered, almost overcome with surprise and delight again to see her, thrilled with the joy of her message, blazing with revolt at the painful consciousness that she was and must remain another's. His emotions well-nigh stopped the beating of his heart. And so he stood gazing into Sofia's eyes until, self-possession recov- ered, he gravely bowed, turned, and waved his men to their posts. Instantly all was action, swift action. Cloaks were tossed to attendants, each footman received a red cape, the two picadores took position one on either side of the bull pen gate, the band struck up a tune, the gate was opened and a great Utreran bull bounded into the arena, maddened with the pain of a short handerillay with long streaming ribbons, stuck in his neck as he entered, by an attendant perched above the gate. His equal had never been seen in a Mexican bull ring. While typical of his Utreran brothers, all princes of bovine fighting stock, this coal-black monster was by the spectators voted their King. Relatively light of quarters and shallow of flank and [ 291 ] THE RED-BLOODED barrel, he was unusually high and humped of withers, broad and deep of chest and heavy of shoulders — indeed a well-nigh perfect four-legged type of a finely trained two-legged athlete, with a pair of peculiarly straight-upstanding horns that were long and almost as sharp as rapiers. Evidently by his build, he was of a strong strain of East Indian Brahminic blood. For his great weight, his activity was phenomenal — his leaps like a panther's, his turns as quick. Dazed for an instant by the crash of the music and the brilliant banks of color about him, he stood an- grily lashing his tail and pawing up the sand in clouds — "digging a grave," as Texas cowboys used to call it — his eyes blazing and head tossing, but only for a moment. Then he charged the nearest picador, literally leaped so high at him that head and cruel horns crossed above the horse's neck, his own great chest striking the horse just behind the shoul- der with such force that man and mount hit the ground stunned and helpless. Barely were they down when he was upon them and, with a single twitch of his mighty neck, had ripped open the horse's barrel and half amputated one of the rider's legs. Then, diverted by the capadores, he whirled upon the second picador and in another ten seconds had left his horse dead and the rider badly trampled. Next the handerilleros tackled him, but [292] EL TIGRE such was his speed and ferocity that all three funked the work, and not one of them fastened his flag in the black shoulders. When the bull had entered the ring, El Tigre left the arena — a most unusual proceeding. Now he re- turned, clad in snow-white from head to foot, a white cap covering head and hair, his face heavily pow- dered. He slipped in behind and unseen by the bull to the centre of the arena, and there stood erect, with arms folded, motionless as a graven image. Presently the bull turned, saw El Tigre, and charged him straight. El Tigre was not even facing him, for the bull was approaching from his left. But there he stood without the twitch of a muscle or the flicker of an eye lid, still as a figure of stone. A great sob arose from the audience, and all gave him up for lost, when, at the last instant before the bull must have struck, it turned and passed him. Once more the bull so charged and passed. Whether because it mistook him for the ghost of a man or rec- ognized in him a spirit mightier than its own, only the bull knew. Before the audience had well caught its breath, El Tigre, wearing again his usual costume, was striding again to the middle of the arena, carrying a light chair, in which presently he seated himself, facing the bull, a short banderilla, no more than six inches long, [293] THE RED-BLOODED held in his teeth. And so he awaited the charge until the bull was within actual arm's-reach, when with a swift rise from the chair and a turn of his body quick as that of a fencer's supple wrist, he bent and stuck the teeth-held handerilla in the bull's shoulder as he swept past. Now was the time for the kill. El Tigre received his sword, muleta, and cape. The muleta is a straight two-foot stick over which the cape is draped, and, held in the matador^s left hand, usually is extended well to the right of his body. Thus in an ordinary fight the bull is actually charg- ing the blood-i;ed cape, and not the matador. But, with Sofia an onlooker, determined to make this the fight of his life. El Tigre tossed aside the muleta, wrapped the crimson cape about his body, and stood alone awaiting the bull's charge, his malleable sword- blade bent slightly downward, sufficiently to give a true thrust behind the shoulder, a down-curve into heart or lungs. With a bull of such extraordinary activity the act was almost suicidal, but El Tigre smilingly took the chance. By toreador etiquette, the matador must re- ceive and dodge the first two charges : not until the third may he strike. On the first charge El Tigre stood like a rock until the bi;ll had almost reached him, and then lightly leaped diagonally across his [ 294 ] EL TIGRE lowered neck. The second charge, come an instant after the first, before most men could even turn, he dodged. The third he swiftly side-stepped, thrust true, and dropped the great Utreran midway of a leap aimed at his elusive enemy. It was a deed magnificent, epic, and the plaza rung with plaudits while hats, fans, and even purses and jewels showered into the arena — all of which, by toreador etiquette, were tossed back across the bar- rier to their owners. Then the teams entered and quickly dragged the dead from the arena ; the ugly, dangerously slippery red patches were fresh sanded, and the second bull was admitted. Thus^ with more or less like incident, three more bulls were fought and killed. The fifth and last, however, proved a disgrace to his race. Bluff he did, but fight he would not ; the noise and crowd unnerved him. At last, frenzied with fear and seeking escape, he made a mighty leap to mount the barrier directly in front of the box of the Presidente. And mount it he did, and down it I crashed beneath his weight, leaving the bull for a moment half down and tangled in the wreckage, struggling to regain his feet. Directly in front of the bull, not six feet beyond the sharp points of his deadly horns, sat Sofia. In- deed none about her had risen ; all sat as if frozen in [295] THE RED-BLOODED their places. And just as well they might have been, for escape into or through the dense mass of specta- tors about them was utterly impossible. Whatever horror came they must await, helpless. But at the bull's very start for the barrier, El Ti- gre realized Sofia's peril and instantly sprang empty- handed in pursuit; for it was early in this the last corrida and he did not have his sword. Leaping the wreckage. El Tigre landed directly in front of the bull, happily at the instant it regained its feet, where, with his right hand seizing the bull by the nose — his thumb and two fore-fingers thrust well within its nostrils — and with his left hand grabbing the right horn, with a mighty heave he uplifted the bull's muzzle and bore down upon its horn until he threw it with a crash upon its side that left it mo- mentarily helpless. But, himself slipping in the loose wreckage, down also El Tigre fell, the bull's sharp right horn impal- ing his left thigh and pinning him to the ground. Before the bull could rise, the men of the cuadrilla had it safely bound and El Tigre released. El Tigre, however, did not know it. With the shock and pain of his wound he had fainted. When at length he regained consciousness, it was to find his head pillowed in Sofia's lap, her soft fingers caressing his brow, her tearful eyes looking into his, and to hear her whisper: "Mauro mio!** [296] EL TIGRE Just at this moment the Duke de Oviedo ap- proached, no one knew whence. White with jealousy but steady and cool, he quietly remarked : "Madame, I ought to kill you both, but that my rank precludes. Lucha-sangre, in yourself, as son of a notary and hired toreador and purveyor of specta- cles, you are unworthy of my sword; nevertheless blood once noble is in your veins. And so as noble it suits me now to count you. As soon as you are re- covered of your wound I will send you my second." "Most happy, Duke," answered Mauro; "mine shall be ready to meet him." One evening a week later, while the Duke de Oviedo and two Mexican army officers were having drinks at the bar of the Cafe Concordia, General Delmonte, a Cuban long resident in New York and a distin- guished veteran of three wars, entered with two American friends. Delmonte was describing to his friends El Tigress last fight, lauding his prowess, ex- tolling his noble presence and high character. Infu- riated by the ardent praise of his enemy, the Duke grossly insulted General Delmonte — and was very promptly slapped in the face. They fought at daylight the next morning, be- neath an arch of the ancient aqueduct, just outside the city. Encountering in Delmonte one of the best im-\. THE RED-BLOODED swordsmen of his time, early in the combat the Duke received a mortal wound. And as he there lay gasp- ing out his life, he murmured a phrase that, at the moment, greatly puzzled his seconds: "Gana El Tigre," (The Tiger Wins!) t298] CHAPTER Xni BUNKERED IT seems It must have been somewhere about the year 4000 B. C. that we lost sight of the tall peaks of the architectural topography of Man- hattan Island, and yet the log of the Black Pnnce makes it no more than twenty days. Not that our day-to-day time has been dragging, for it has done nothing of the sort. All my life long I have dreamed of indulging in the jo}^ of a really long voyage, and now at last I've got it. New York to Cape Town, South Africa, 6,900 miles, thirty days' straight-away run, and thence another twenty-four days' sail to Mombasa, on a 7,000-ton cargo boat, deliberate and stately rather than fast of pace, but otherwise as trim, well groomed, and well found as a liner, with an official mess that numbers as fine a set of fellows as ever trod a bridge. The Captain, when not busy hunting up a stray planet to check his latitude, puts in his spare time hunting kindly things to do for his two passen- gers — for there are only two of us, the Doctor and myself. The Doctor signed on the ship's articles as surgeon, I as purser. [ 299 ] THE RED-BLOODED Fancy it! Thirty days' clear respite from the daily papers^ the telephone, the subway crowds, and the constant wear and tear on one's muscular system reaching for change, large and small! Thirty days free of the daily struggle either for place on the lad- der of ambition or for the privilege to stay on earth and stand about and watch the others mount, that saps metropolitan nerves and squeezes the humanities out of metropolitan life until its hearts are arid and barren and cruel as those of the cave-men! Thirty days' repose, practically alone amid one of nature's greatest solitudes, awed by her silences, uplifted by the majesty of her mighty forces, with naught to do but humble oneself before the consciousness of his own littleness and unfitness, and study how to right the wrongs he has done. Indeed a voyage like this makes it certain one will come actually to know one's own self so intimately that, unless well convinced that he will esteem and enjoy the acquaintance, he had best stay at home. Of my personal experience in this particular I beg to be excused from writing. Lonesome out here? Far from it. Behind, to be sure, are those so near and dear, one would gladly give all the remaining years allotted him for one blessed half-hour with them. Otherwise, time liter- ally flies aboard the Black Prince; the days slip by at [500] BUNKERED puzzling speed. Roughly speaking, I should say the meals consume about half one's waking hours, for we are fed five times a day, and fed so well one cannot get his own consent to dodge any of them. Indeed I've only one complaint to make of this ship : she is a " water-wagon " in a double sense, which makes it awkward for a man who never could drink comfortably alone. With every man of the mess a teetotaler, one is now and then possessed with a con- suming desire for communion with some dear soul of thirsty memory who can be trusted to take his "straight." Of course I don't mean to imply that this mess cannot be trusted, for you can rely on it implicitly every time — to take tea; you can trust it with any mortal or material thing, except your pet brew of tea, if you have one, which, luckily, I have n't. Indeed, for the thirsty man Nature herself in these latitudes is discouraging, for the Big Dipper stays persistently upside down, dry ! — perhaps out of sym- pathy with the teetotal principles of this ship. And most of the way down here there has been such a high sea running that the only dry places I have noticed have been the upper bridge and my throat. The fact is, about everything aboard this ship is distressingly suggestive to a faithful knight of the tankard : he is surrounded with "ports" that won't flow and giant " funnels " that might easily carry spirits enough to [ 301 ] THE RED-BLOODED wet the whistles of an army division (but don't), un- til he is tempted in sheer desperation to take a pull at the "main brace." All of which, assisted by the advent of a covey of flying fishes and a (Sunday) "school" of porpoises, is responsible for the following, which is adventured with profuse apologies to Mr. Kipling: ON THE EOAD TO MOMBASA Take me north of the Equator Where 'er gleams the polar star, Where " The Dipper " ne'er is empty And Orion is not far, Where the eagle at them gazes And up toward them thrusts the pine — 'Anywhere strong men drink spirits On the right side of "the line." On the road to Mombas-a, Drawing nearer toward Cathay, Where the north star now is under, 'Neath the Southern Cross's ray. Take me off this water wagon Where the Captain's ribbon 's blue, Where the Doctor, yclept Barthwaite, And each man- jack of the crew [802] BUNKERED Never get a drop of poteen, Never know the cheer of beer — Anywhere a thirsty man may Wet his whistle without fear. On the road to Mombas-a, With the Blacli Prince day by day RolHng her tall taffrail under, 'Neath a sky o'ercast and gray. Take me back to good old Proctor's Where a man may quench his thirst, Where a purser with a shilling Need n't feel he is accursed By an ironclad owners' ship rule That her officers should n't drink- — Anywhere the ringing glasses Merrily clink! clink! On the road to Mombas-a, Where the only drink is " tay," Where a thirst that is a wonder Bums the throat from day to day. Take me somewhere close to Rector's Where a man can get a crab, Where the blondined waves are tossing And every eye-glance is a stab, [303] THE RED-BLOODED Where there 's froufrou of the jupon And there 's popping of the cork — Anywhere the men and women Snap their fingers at the stork. On the road to Mombas-a, Where e'en mermaids never play, Where to come would be a blunder Hunting hot birds and Roger. But lonesome out here? Never — with the sympa- thetic North Atlantic winds ever ready to roar you a grim dirge in your moments of melancholy contem- plation of the inverted Dipper, with the gentle trop- ical breezes softly singing through the rigging notes of soothing cadence, with the lethal ocean billows ever leaping up the sides of the ship, foaming with the joy of what they would do to you if they once got you in their embrace! Lonesome? With the coming and the going of each day's sun gilding cloud-crests, silvering waves, setting you matchless scenes in color effect, some rav- ishing in their gorgeous splendor, some soft and ten- der of tone as the light in the eyes of the woman you worship, scenes beside which the most brilliant stage settings which metropolitans flock like sheep to see are pathetically paltry counterfeits. Lonesome? With a mighty, joyously bounding [ 304 ] BUNKERED charger like the Black Prince beneath your feet if not between your knees, gayly taking the tallest bil- lows in his stride, whose ever steady pulse-beat be- speaks a soundness of wind and limb you can trust to land you well at the finish ! Lonesome? Where privileged to descend into the very vitals of your charger and sit throughout the midnight watch, an awed listener to the throbs of the mighty heart that vitalizes his every function, while each vigorously thrusting piston, each smug, palm- rubbing eccentric, each somnolently nodding lever, drives deeper into your lay brain an overwhelming sense of pride in such of your kind as have had the genius to conceive, and such others as have had the skill and patience to perfect, the conversion of inert masses of crude metal into the magnificently power- ful and obviously sentient entity that is bearing you ! Lonesome? Skirting the coastline of Africa, a country whose potentates, from the Ptolemies to Tom Ryan, have never failed to make world history worth thinking about! Lonesome? Bearing up toward that sea-made manacle of fallen majesty, St. Helena, absorbed in memories of Bonaparte's magnificent dreams of world-wide dominion, and of his pathetic end on one of its smallest and most isolated patches ! Lonesome? With a chum at your elbow so close a student of the manly game of war that he can glibly [305] THE RED-BLOODED reel off for jou every important manoeuvre of all the great battles of history, from those of Alexander the Great down to Tommy Bums's latest! And now and then the elements themselves sit in and take a hand in our game, sometimes a hand we could very well do without — as twice lately. The first instance happened early last week. Tues- day tropical weather hit us and drove us into pa- jamas — a cloudless sky, blazing sun, high humidity, while we ploughed our way across long, slow-rolling, unrippled swells that looked so much like a vast, gently heaving sea of petroleum that, had John D. Standardoil been with us he would have suffered a probably fatal attack of heart disease if prevented from stopping right there and planning a pipe line. Throughout the day close about the ship clouds of flying fish skimmed the sea, and great schools of porpoises leaped from it and raced us, as if, even to them, their native element had become hateful, or as if they sensed something ominous and fearsome abroad from which they sought shelter in our com- pany. One slender little opal-hued diaphanous- winged bird-fish came aboard, and before he was picked up had the happy life grilled out of him on our scorching iron deck, hot almost as boiler plates. Poor little chap! he found with us anything but sanctuary ; but perhaps he lived long enough to sig- nal the fact to his mates, for no others boarded us. [306] BUNKERED And yet for one other opal-hued winged wanderer we have been sanctuary ; for when we were about one hundred and fifty miles out of New York a highly bred carrier pigeon, bearing on his leg a metal tag marked "32," hovered about us for a time, finally alighted on our rail, and then fluttered to the deck when offered a pan of water — and drank and drank until it semed best to stop him. By kindness and in- genuity of Chief Engineer Tucker he now occupies a tin house with a wonderful mansard roof, from which he issues every afternoon for an aerial consti- tutional, giving us a fright occasionally with a flight over far a-sea, but always returning safely enough to his new diggings. That Tuesday morning the sun rose fiery red out of the steaming Guinea jungles to the east of us, across its lower half two narrow black bars sinister. It looked as if it had blood in its eye, while the still, heavy, brooding air felt to be ominous of evil, har- boring devilment of some sort. All the mess were cross-grained, silent, or irritable, raw-edged for the first time, for a better lot of fellows one could not ask to ship with. Nor throughout the day did weather conditions or tempers improve. All day long the sky was heavily overcast with dense, low-hanging, dark gray clouds, which, while wholly obscuring the sun, seemed to focus its rays upon us like a vast burning- glass ; wherefore it was expedient for the two pa jama- [307] THE RED-BLOODED clad passengers to keep well within the shelter of the bridge-deck awning. Toward sunset, a dense black wall of cloud settled upon the western horrizon, aft of us. But suddenly, just at the moment the sun must have been descending below the horizon to the south of it, the black wall of cloud slowly parted, and the opening so made widened until it became an enor- mous oval, reaching from horizon half way to zenith, framing a scene of astounding beauty and grandeur. Range after range of cloud crests that looked like mountain folds rose one above another, with the appearance of vast intervening space between, some of the ranges a most delicate blue or pink, some opalescent, some gloriously gilded, while behind the farthest and tallest range, at what seemed an inconceivably remote distance, but in a perspective entirely harmonious with the foreground, appeared the sky itself, a soft luminous straw-yellow in color^ flecked thickly over with tiny snow-white cloudlets.; It was like a glimpse into another and more beautiful world than ours — the actual celestial world. But, whether or not ominous of our future, we were permitted no more than a brief glimpse of it, for presently the pall of black cloud fell like a vast drop curtain and shut it from our sight. Then night came down upon us, black, starless, forbidding, although in the absence of any fall of the barometer nothing more than a downpour of rain was expected. [308] BUNKERED But shortly after I had gone to sleep, at two o'clock, suddenly something in the nature of a tropical tornado flew up and struck us hard. I was awak- ened by a tremendous crash on the bridge-deck above my cabin, a heeling over of the ship that nearly dumped me out of my berth, and what seemed like a solid spout of water pouring in through my open weather porthole, with the wind howling a devil's death-song through the rigging and an uninterrupted smash — bang! above my head. Throwing on a rain coat over my pajamas, I went outside and up the ladder leading to the bridge-deck ; and as head and shoulders rose above the deck level, a wall of hot, wind-born rain struck me — rain so hot it felt almost scalding — that almost swept me off the ladder. If it had I should probably have become food for the fishes. I got to the upper deck just in time to see Captain Thomas get a crack on the head .^^from a fragment of flying spar of the wreckage from the upper bridge — luckily a glancing blow that did no more damage than leave him groggy for a mo- ment. For the next fifteen minutes I was busy hugging a bridge stanchion, dodging flying wreckage and try- ing to breathe; for, driven by the violence of the wind, the rain came horizontally in such suffocatingly hot dense masses as nearly to stifle one. It was the watch of Second Mate Isitt. Afterwards [309] THE RED-BLOODED h he told me that a few minutes before the storm broke he saw a particularly dense black cloud coming up upon us out of the southeast, where it had appar- ently been lying in ambush for us behind the north- ernmost headland of the Gulf of Guinea, an ambush so successful that even the barometer failed to detect it, for when Mate Isitt ran to the chart-room he found that the instrument showed no fall. But scarcely was he back on the bridge before the approaching cloud flashed into a solid mass of sheet lightning that cov- ered the ship like a fiery canopy ; and instantly there- after, a wall of wind and rain hit the ship, heeled her over to the rail, swung her head at right angles to her course, ripped the heavy canvas awning of the upper bridge to tatters, bent and tore loose from their sockets the thick iron stanchions supporting it, made kindling wood of its heavy spars, and strewed the bridge and forward deck with a pounding tangle of wreckage. How the mate and helmsman, who were directly beneath it, escaped injury, is a mystery. In twenty minutes the riot of wind and water liad swept past us out to sea in search of easier game, leaving behind it a dead calm above but mountain- ous seas beneath, that played ball with us the rest of the night. Heaven help any wind-jammer it may have struck, for if caught as completely unwarned as were we, with all sails set, she and all her crew are [310] BUNKERED likely to be still slowly settling through the dense darksome depths of the twenty-five hundred fathoms the chart showed thereabouts, and weeping wives and anxious underwriters will long be scanning the news columns that report all sea goings and comings — except arrivals In the port of sunken ships. The second fall the elements have essayed to take out of us remains yet undecided. The fact is, I am now writing over a young volcano we are all hoping will not grow much older. Two nights ago I was awakened half suffocated, to find my cabin full of strong sulphurous fumes ; but fancying them brought in through my open portholes from the smoke-stack by a shift aft of the wind, I paid no further attention to them. But when the next morning I as usual turned out on deck to see the sun rise, a commotion aft of me attracted my at- tention. Looking, I saw the first mate, chief en- gineer, and a party of sailors, all so begrimed with sweat and coal dust one could scarcely pick officers from seamen, rapidly ripping off the cover of one of the midship hatches, while others were flying about connecting up the deck fire hose. This did n't look a bit good to me, and when, an Instant later, off came the hatch and out poured thick volumes of smoke, I failed to observe that it looked any better. When the hatch was removed, the men thrust tlie [3"l THE RED-BLOODED hose through it, and hegan deluging the burning bunker with water; for, luckily, it is only a bunker fire, — in a lower and comparatively small bunker. The fire had been discovered early the day previ- ous, and for nearly twenty-four hours officers and seaimen had been fighting it from below, without any mention to their two passengers of its existence, fight- ing by tireless shovelling to reach its seat. And now they were on deck, attacking it from above, only be- cause the heat and fumes below had become so over- powering they could no longer work there. But after an hour's ventilation through the hatch and a continuous downpour of water, the first mate again led his men below. And so, the usual watches being divided into two- hour relays, the fight has gone on wearily but persist- ently, until now, the evening of the fourth day, the men are wan and haggard from the killing heat and foul air. In the engine-room in these latitudes the thermometer ranges from rarely under 108 degrees up to 130, and one has to stay down there only an hour, as I often have, until he is streaming with sweat as if he were in the unholiest heat of a Turkish bath. And as the burning bunker immediately adjoins the other end of the boiler room, to the heat of its own smouldering mass is added that of the fire boxes, until the temperature is probably close to 140 degrees. While the fire is confined to the bunker where it [ 312 ] BUNKERED started, we are in no particular danger; but if it reaches the bunker immediately above, it will have a free run to the after hold, where several thousand packages of case oil are stored. In the open waist above the oil are a score or more big tanks of gaso* line, and, on the poop immediately aft of that, a quantity of dynamite and several thousand detonat- ing caps. Thus if the fire ever gets aft, things are apt to happen a trifle quicker than they can be dodged. To denizens of terra firma, the mere thought of being aboard a ship on fire in mid-sea — we are now five hundred miles from the little British island of Ascension and one thousand and eighty off the Congo (mainland) Coast — is nothing short of appalling. But here with us, in actual experience, it is taken by the officers of the ship as such a simple matter of course, in so far as they show or will admit, that we are even denied the privilege of a mild thrill of excitement. In the meantime there is nothing for the Doctor and myself to do but sit about and guess whether it is to be a boost from the explosives, a simple grill, a descent to Davy Jones, an adventure while athirst and hungering in an open boat on the tossing South Atlantic, a successful run of the ship to the nearest land — or victory over the fire. I wonder which it will be ! THE RED-BLOODED If the worst comes to the worst, I intend to do fot these pages what no one these last three weeks has done for me — commit them to a bottle, if I can find one aboard this ship, which is by no means certain. Indeed it is so uncertain I think I had best start hunting one right now. After nearly a twenty-four hours' search I've got it — a craft to bear these sheets, wide of hatch, gen- erously broad and deep of hull, but destitute of aught of the stimulating aroma I had hoped might cheer them on their voyage — more than I have been cheered on mine. For the best I am able to procure for them is — a jam bottle! While the Doctor and I are not novices at golf, this is one *' bunker " we are making so little headway getting out of, that both now seem likely to quit "down" to it. I wonder when the little derelict, tiny and incon- spicuous as a Portuguese man-of-war, may be picked up ; I wonder when the sheets it bears may reach my publisher to whom it is consigned. Perhaps not for years — a score, two score; perhaps not until he himself, whom a few weeks ago I left in the lusty vigor of early manhood, is gathered to his fathers ; perhaps not, therefore, until the writer has no publisher left and IS himself no longer remembered. The burning bunker is now a glowing furnace, the BUNKERED men worked down to mere shadows. Plainly the fire is getting the best of them and, what is even more discouraging, there is little more fight left in them. First Mate Watson, who, almost without rest, has led the fight below since it started, says that another half -hour will — 215] CHAPTER XIV THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED FEW mightier monarchs than Menelek H of Abyssinia ever swayed the destinies of a peo- ple. Throughout the vast territory of the Abyssinian highlands his individual will is law to some millions of subjects; law also to hordes of sav- age Mohammedan and pagan tribesmen without the confines of his kingdom. His court includes no coun- cillors. Alone throughout the long years of his reign Menelek has dealt with all domestic and foreign af- fairs of state. But now this last splendid survival of the feudal absolutism exercised and enjoyed by mediaeval rulers is about to disappear beneath encroaching waves of civilization, that do not long spare the picturesque. Cables from far-off Adis Ababa, Menelek's capital, bring news that he has formed a cabinet and pub- lished the appointment of Ministers of War, Finance, Justice, Foreign Affairs, and Commerce. And this change has come, not from the pressure of any party or faction within his kingdom, for such do not exist, but out of the fount of his own wisdom. So sound is this wisdom as to prove him a most worthy descendant [316] THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED of the sage Hebrew King whom Menelek claims as ancestor — if, indeed, more proofs were necessary than the statesmanlike way in which he has dealt with jealous diplomats, and the martial skill with which, at Adowa in 1896, he defeated the flower of the Ital- ian army and won from Italy an honorable truce. No existing royal house owns lineage so ancient as that claimed by Menelek II, Negus Negusti, "King of the Kings of Ethiopa, and Conquering Lion of Judah." Old Abyssinian tradition has it that in the tentK century, B. C, early in her reign, Makeda, Queen of Sheba, paid a ceremonial visit to the Court of King Solomon, coming with her entire court and a magnifi- cent retinue bearing royal gifts of frankincense and balm, gold and ivory and precious stones. Her gor- geous caravan was bright with the many-colored plumes and silks of litters, blazing with the golden ornaments of elephant and camel caparisons, glitter- ing with the glint of spears and bucklers. That the two greatest souls of their time, so met, should fuse and blend is little to be wondered at. She of Sheba bore Solomon a son and called him Menelek, so the legend runs. Later the boy was twitted by playmates for that he had no father. In this annoyance the Queen sent an embassy to Solo- mon asking some act that should establish their son's royal paternity. Promptly Solomon returned the [ 317 ] THE RED-BLOODED embassy bearing to Sheba's court in far southwest Arabia a royal decree declaring Menelek his son, and accompanied it by a son of each of the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel, enjoined to serve as a sort of juvenile royal court to Menelek. Whether or not the claim of Menelek II be true, that he himself is lineally descended from the son of Solomon and Sheba's Queen, certain it is that In rac€ type Abyssinians are plainly come of sons of Israel, crossed and modified with Coptic, Hamite, and Ethi- opian blood. To this day they cling closely as the most orthodox Hebrew, to some of the dearest Israel- itish tenets, notably abstention from pork and from meat not killed by bleeding, observance of the Sab- bath, and the rite of circumcision. Notwithstanding this the Abyssinians have been Christians since the fourth century of this era, when, only eight years after the great Constantine decreed the recognition of Christianity by the State, a proselyting monk came among them with a faith so strong, a heart so pure, and an eloquence so irresistible, that, singlehanded, he accomplished the ' conversion of the Abyssinian race. Throughout the centuries the Abyssinians have held fast to their faith as first it was taught them. The great wave of Mohapimedanism that swept up the Nile and across the Indian Ocean broke and parted the moment it struck the Abyssinian plateau. [318] THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED It completely surrounded, but never could mount the tableland. Thus cut off for centuries from all other Christian Churches, the Abyssinian religion remains to-day but little changed. Could Paul or John return to earth, of all the Christian sects throughout the world, the forms and tenets of the Abyssinian Church would be the only ones they would find nearly all their own; for the ritual is older than that of either Rome or Moscow. And remembering the Abyssinian folklore tale of the twelve sons of the chiefs of the twelve tribes of Israel sent by Solomon to Makeda as attendants on Menelek I, it is most curious and interesting to know that the heads of certain twelve Abyssinian families (none of whom are longer notables, some even the rudest ignorant herdsmen), and their forebears from time immemorial, have had and still possess inaliena- ble right of audience with their monarch at any time they may ask it, even taking precedence over royalty itself. Indeed Mr. George Clerk, for the last five years assistant to Sir John Harrington, British Minister to the Court of Menelek, recently told me that he and other diplomats accredited to Adis Ababa, were not infrequently subjected to the annoyance of having an audience interrupted or delayed by the unannounced coming for a hearing of one of these favored twelve. Many of Menelek's judgments are masterpieces. THE RED-BLOODED Recently two brothers came before him, the younger with the plaint that the elder sought the larger and better part of certain property they had to divide. Promptly Menelek ordered the elder to describe fully the entire property and state what part he wanted for himself. It was done. "And this," questioned Menelek, "you consider a just division of the property into two parts of equal value?" " Yes, Negus," answered the elder. "Then," decreed Menelek, "give your brother first choice ! " Over wide territory beyond the Abyssinian border, Menelek's power is as much feared and his will as much respected as among his own subjects. Of this there occurred recently a most dramatic proof. Bordering Abyssinia on the east is the Danakil country. It adjoins the Province of Shoa, of which Menelek was Ras, or feudal King, before his acces- sion to the Abyssinian throne. The Danakils are a savage pagan people of mixed Hamite (early Egyp- tian) and Ethiopian ancestry. They are perhaps the most tirelessly warlike race in all Africa. Often severely beaten by their Italian and Somali neighbors, they have never been subdued. Indeed slaughter may, in a way, be said to be a part of their religion, for it is the fetich every young warrior must provide for the worship of the woman of his choice before he [ 320 ] THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED may hope to win and have her. It is necessary that he should have killed royal game — lion, rhinoceros, or elephant — but not enough. Singlehanded he must kill a man and bring the maid a trophy of the slaugh- ter before she will even consider him, and Danakil maids of spirit often demand some plurality of tro- phies. Thus the license for each Danakil mating is written in the life blood of some neighboring tribes- man ; thus are the few poltroons in Danakilland con- demned to stay celibate. Only Menelek's word do they heed ; his might they dread. Through the Danakil country, between Errer Gotto and Oder, not long ago travelled the caravan of William Northrup McMillan, conveying the sec- tions of several steel boats with which he purposed navigating and exploring the Blue Nile from its source to Khartoom, a region that had never been traversed by white men. In the party was M. Dubois- DesauUe, a gay and reckless ex-officer of the French Foreign Legion who had long served in Algiers against raiding Arab sheiks. He harbored no fear of the unorganized wild tribesmen through whose coun- try they were travelling. McMillan knew them bet- ter, however ; he held his command under strict mili- tary discipline, marched in close order with scouts out, forbade straying from the column, and zareba-ed his night camps. For the march was a severe one [321] THE RED-BLOODED and he had neither the time nor sufficient force to search for or to succor missing stragglers. tirged with the rest never to go unarmed and to stay close with the caravan, Dubois-DesauUe's only reply was a laughing, ^^ Jamais! Jamais. Je ne porte pas des armes pour ces hahouins! Je les feral s^enfuir avec des batons! NHnquietez pas de moV* Interested in botany and entomology, holding the natives in utter contempt, repeatedly he strayed from the column for hours without even so much as a pis- tol by way of arms, until finally McMillan told him that if he again so strayed he would be placed under guard for the balance of the march. But the very next day, riding a mule with the advance guard led by H. Morgan Brown, Dubois-Desaulle slipped un- observed into the bush, probably in pursuit of some winged wonder that had crossed his path. Camp was made early in the afternoon on the banks of the Doha River, and a strong party, with shikari trackers, led by Brown, was sent out in search of the straggler. Night came on before they could pick up his trail, and nothing further could be done except to build signal fires on adjacent hills ; but all without result. Anxiety for his safety crystallized into chill fear for his life, when the dull glow of the signal fires was suddenly extinguished by the next morning's sun ; for the desert knows neither twilight nor dawn — the [ 322 ] THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED sun bursts up blood-red out of shrouding darkness like a rocket from its case, and at once it is day. An hour later Brown's shikaris found the place where Dubois-Desaulle had strayed from the column, followed his trail through the bush hither and thither for two miles, to a point where he had found a native warrior seated beneath a tree. They read, with their unerring skill at *^ sign " lore, that there he had stood and talked for some time with the native, and then pressed on, rider and footman travelling side by side, till, within the shelter of especially dense sur- rounding bush, the footman had dropped behind the rider — for what dastardly assassin's purpose the next twenty steps revealed. There stark lay the body of gay Dubois-Desaulle, dropped from his mule without a struggle by a mortal spear-thrust in his back, the manner of his mutilation a Danakil's sign manual ! Immediately messengers were sent to the caravan bearing the news and asking reinforcements. At this time the indomitable chief, McMillan, was laid up with veldt sores on the legs, unable to walk or even to ride except in a litter. Promptly, however, he despatched Lieutenant Fairfax and William Marlow, with about thirty more men, to Brown's Support, with orders never to quit till he got the murderer. By a forced march, Fairfax reached Brown at four in the afternoon. [ 3S3 ] THE RED-BLOODED When journeying in desert places and amid deadly perils, it is always an unusually terrible shock to lose one from among sa few, and to be forced to lay him in unconsecrated ground remote from home and friends. So it was a sobbing, saddened trio that stood by while a grave was dug to receive all that was mortal of their gallant comrade. And witliin it they laid him, wrapped in the ample folds of an Abyssin- ian tope; stones were heaped above the grave — at least the four-footed beasts should not have a chance to rend him ! — and three volleys were fired as a last honor to Dubois-Desaulle, ex-legionary of the Army of Algiers. Tears dried, eyes hardened, jaws tightened, and away on the plain trail of the murderer marched the little column. Turning at the edge of the thick jun- gle for a last look back, the three noted an extraordi- nary circumstance that touched them deeply and made them feel that even the savage desert S3^mpa- thized. A miniature whirlwind of the sort frequent in the desert was slowly circling the grave ; and even as they looked it swung immediately over it and there stood for some moments, its tall dust column rising up into the zenith like the smoke of a funeral pyre! Then on they marched and there they left him, sure that by night lions would be roaring him a requiem not unfitting his wild spirit. Just at dusk the party reached a large Danakil [324] THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED town into which the murderer's trail led, and camped before it. Told that one of his men had killed their comrade and that they wanted him, Ali Gorah, the chief, was surly and insolent. He refused to give him up, said that he wished no war with them, but that if they wanted any of his people they must fight for them. Then guards were set about the camp and the little command lay down to sleep within a spear's throw of thousands of Ali Gorah's wild Danakils. The night passed without alarms, and then conference was re- sumed. Fairfax cajoled and threatened, threatened summoning an army that would wipe Danakil's land off the map; but all to no purpose. The chief re- mained obdurate. Early in the day a courier was sent to McMillan with the story of their plight and a request for sup- plies and more men. These were instantly sent, leav- ing McMillan himself well nigh helpless, fuming at his own enforced inaction, alone with the Marlow, his personal attendant, a handful of men, and a total of only two rifles, as the sole guard of the caravan for ten more anxious days. Daily councils were held, always ending in mutual threats, Fairfax could make no progress, but he would not leave. One day Ali Gorah lined up two thousand warriors in battle array before Fairfax's small command and [325] ,THE RED-BLOODED ordered him to move off, under pain of instant attack. But there Fairfax stubbornly stayed, in the very face of the certainty that his command could not last ten minutes if the chief should actually order a charge. His dauntless courage won, and the war party was withdrawn. In the meantime some of his Somalis had learned from the Danakils that the murderer's name was Mirach, and that he was the greatest warrior of the tribe, a man with trophies of all sorts of royal game and of no less than forty men to his matrimonial credit. By the eleventh day mutual irritation had nigh reached the fusing point. Fairfax had care- fully trained a gun crew to handle a Colt machine- gun that McMillan was bringing as a present to Ras Makonnen, the victor of the field of Adowa, and de- bated with his mates the question of risking an at- tack. Luckily, however, the previous day McMillan had bethought him of a letter of Menelek's he carried, a letter ordering all his subjects to lend the bearer any aid or succor he might need. This letter he sent by his Abyssinian headman to Mantoock, the nearest Abyssinian Ras and a sort of overlord of the Dana- kils, with request for his advice and aid. Promptly came Mantoock, with only one attendant, heard the story, begged McMillan to have no further care, and raced away for AH Gorah's village, where happily [326] THEY WHO MUST BE OBEYED he arrived in mid afternoon of the eleventh day, just as Fairfax was making dispositions for opening a finish fight. Mantoock's first act was to advise Fairfax to with- draw his command and rejoin the caravan; and, assured that Mirach would be brought away a pris- oner, Fairfax assented and withdrew. Then Man- toock entered alone the village of Ali Gorah and there spent the night. What passed that night between the Christian and the pagan chiefs we do not know. Probably little was said; nothing more was needed, indeed, than the interpretation of the letter of the Negus and the exhibition of the royal seal it bore. Full well Ali Gorah knew the heavy penalty of dis- obedience. So it happened that near noon of the twelfth day Mantoock brought Mirach into McMillan's camp, accompanied by thirty of his family and the headmen of the tribe, Mirach marching in fully armed with spears and shield, insolent and fearless. Asked why he had done the deed, Mirach replied: "I was resting in the shade. The Feringee ap- proached and asked me to guide him to the river. I told him to pass on and not to disturb me. Then he stayed and talked and talked till I got tired and told him not to tempt me further ; for I had never yet had such a chance to kill a white man. Still he annoyed jne with his foolish talk until, weary of it, I led him THE RED-BLOODED away into the thickets to his death and won trophies dear to Danakil's maidens." Three camels, worth twenty dollars each, or a total of sixty dollars, Is usual blood-money In Abyssinia. When that Is paid and received, feuds among the tribesmen end, and murders are soon forgotten. But Mirach was so highly valued as a warrior by his peo- ple that they offered McMillan no less than three hundred camels for his life. They were dumbfounded when their offer was refused. Disarmed and shackled, Mirach remained a sullen but defiant prisoner with the caravan for the next two weeks' march, when the crossing of the Hawash River brought them well Into Abyssinian territory and made it safe to rush him forward, in the charge of a small escort, to Adis Ababa. There he was tried beneath the sombre shade of the famous Judgment Tree, condemned, and two months later hanged In the market place : and there for days his grinning face and shriveling carcass swung, a menacing proof to the wildest visiting tribesmen of them all of the vast power of the Negus Negusti. ta«8] CHAPTER XV DJAMA AOUt's heroism 7 I THROUGHOUT Somaliland, among a race I famous for their fearlessness, the name of Djama Aout is held a synonym for reckless courage. He did the bravest deed I ever saw, a deed heroic in its purpose, ferociously sage in its execu- tion ; the deed of a man bred of a race that knew no longer-range weapon than an assegai, trained from youth to fight and kill at arm's length or in hand grapple ; a deed that, incidentally, saved my life." The speaker was C. W. L. Bulpett, himself well qualified by personal experience to sit in judgment, as Court of Last Resort, on any act of courage; a man who, at forty, without training and on a heavy wager that he could not walk a mile, run a mile, and ride a mile, all in sixteen and a half minutes, finished the three miles in sixteen minutes and seven seconds; a man who, midway of a dinner at Greenwich, bet that he could swim the half-mile across the Thames and back in his evening clothes before the coffee was served, and did it ; and who has crossed Africa from Khartoom to the Red Sea. If more were needed to prove Mr. Bulpett's past- [329] THE RED-BLOODED mastership in hardihood, it is perhaps sufficient to mention that he voluntarily got himself in the fix that needed Djama Aout's aid, although in telling the story he did not convey the impression that his own part in it was more than secondary and inconsequen- tial. "We were big-game hunting, lion and rhino pre- ferred, along the border of Somaliland," he contin- ued. *' Besides the pony and camel men, we had four Somali shikaris, trained trackers, who knew the hab- its of beasts and read their tracks and signs like a book ; men of a breed whose women will not give them- selves as wives except to men who have scored kills of both royal game and men. *' Sahib McMillan's personal shikari was Djama Aout; mine, Abdi Dereh. At the time of this inci- dent the Sahib had several lions to his credit, while I yet had none. So the Sahib kindly declared that, however and by whomsoever jumped, the try at the next lion should be mine. The section we were in was the usual *lion country' of East Africa, wide stretches of dry, level plain with occasional low roll- ing hills, thinly timbered everywhere with the thorny mimosa, most of it low bush, some grown to small trees twenty or thirty feet in height. ** To cover a wider range of shooting, we one day decided to divide the camp, and I moved off about tour miles and pitched my tent on a low hill, which [330] DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM left the old camp in clear view across the plain. Early the next morning I went out after eland and had an excellent morning's sport. Returned to camp shortly after noon tired and dusty, I took a bath, got into pajamas and slippers, had my luncheon, and was sitting comfortably smoking within my tent, when one of my men hurried in to say a messenger was coming on a pony at top speed. Presently he ar- rived, with word from the Sahib that he had a big male lion at bay in a thicket bordering the river and urging me to hurry to him. *'This my first chance at lion, I seized my rifle, mounted a pony, without stopping to dress, and, fol- lowed by Abdi Dereh and another shikari^ dashed away behind the messenger at my pony's best pace. Arrived, I found the Sahib and about a dozen men, shikaris and pony men, surrounding a dense mimosa thicket no more than thirty or forty yards in di- ameter. Nigh two-thirds of its circumference was bounded by a bend of a deep stream the lion was not likely to try to cross, which left a comparatively narrow front to guard against a charge. "'Here you are, Don Carlos!' called the Sahib, as I jumped off my pony. 'Here's your lion in the bush. Up to you to get him out. Djama Aout and the rest will stay to help you while I go back and move the caravan to a new camp-site. No sugges- tion to make, except I scarcely think I'd go in the, [331] THE BED-BLOODED bush after him; too thick to see ten feet ahead of you,' and away he rode toward his camp. " The situation was simple, even to a novice at the game of lion-shooting. With my line of shouting men forced to range themselves across the narrow land front of the thicket and no chance of his exit on the river front, only two lines of strategy remained: it was either fire the bush and drive him out upon us or enter the bush on hands and knees and creep about till I sighted him. The latter was well-nigh suicidal, for it was absolutely sure he would scent, hear, and locate me before I could see him, and thus would be almost complete master of the situation. Naturally, therefore, I first had the bush fired, as near to wind- ward as the bend of the river permitted, and took a stand covering his probable line of exit from the thicket. But it was a failure — not enough dead wood to carry the fire through the bush and it soon flickered and died out. Thus nothing remained but the last alternative, and I took it. "Dropping on hands and knees, I began to creep into the thicket. Soon my hands were bleeding from the dry mimosa thorns littering the ground, my back from the thorny boughs arching low above me. For 8ome distance I could see no more than the length of my rifle before me or to right or left. Presently, when near the centre of the brush patch, Abdi Dereh next behind me, a second shikari behind him, and [332] DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM Djama Aout bringing up the rear, I caught a glimpse of the lion's hind quarters and tail, scarcely six feet ahead of me. " I fired at once, most imprudently, for the expo- sure could not possibly afford a fatal shot. Instantly after the shot, the lion circled the dense clump imme- diately in front of me and charged me through a nar- row opening. As he came, I gave him my second barrel from the hip — no time to aim -— and in trying to spring aside out of his path, slipped in my loose slippers and fell flat on my back. "Later we learned that my first shot had torn through his loins and my second had struck between neck and shoulder and ranged the entire length of his body. But even the terrible shock of two great .450 cordite-driven balls did not serve to stop him, and the very moment I hit the ground he lit diagonally across my body, his belly pressing mine, his hot breath burning my cheek, his fierce eyes glaring into mine. " Though it seemed an age, the rest was a matter of seconds. Abdi Dereh, my rifle-bearer, was in the act of shoving the gun muzzle against the lion's ribs for a shot through the heart, when a shot from with- out the bush — we never learned by whom fired, prob- ably by one of the pony men — broke his arm and knocked him flat. Then the second shikari sprang forward and bent to pick up the gun, when one stroke of the lion's great fore paw tore away most of the [333] THE RED-BLOODED flesh from one side of his head and face and laid him senseless. " Freed for an instant from the attacks of my men, the lion turned to the prey held helpless beneath him, and with a fierce roar, was in the very act of advanc- ing his cavernous mouth and gleaming fangs to seize me by the head, when in jumped Djama Aout to my succor. His only weapon was the SahiVs .38 Smith & Wesson self-cocking six-shooter. His was the quickest piece of sound thinking, shrewd acting, and desperate valor conceivable. I was staring death in the face — he knew it at a glance. Just within those enormous jaws, and all would be over with me. The light charge of the pistol, however placed, would be little more than a flea-bite on a monster already ripped laterally and longitudinally through and through by two great .450 cordite shells. Indeed the lion was not even gasping from his wounds; his great heart was beating strong and steady against mine. Of what avail a little pistol-ball, or six of them? "All this must have raced through Djama Aout's brain in a second, in the very second Shikali Number Two was falling under the lion's blow. In another second he conceived a plan, absolutely the only one that possibly could have saved me. "Just at the instant the lion turned and opened [334] DJAMA AOUT'S HEROISM his jaws to seize and crush mj head, forward sprang Djania Aout ; within the lion's jaws and into his great yawning mouth Djama Aout thrust pistol, hand, and forearm, and, though the hard-driven teeth crunched cruelly through sinews and into bone, steadily pulled the trigger till the pistol's six loads were discharged down the lion's very throat! "Shrinking from the shock of the shots, the lion released Djama Aout's mangled arm and freed me of his weight. Unhurt, even unscratched by the lion, I quickly swung myself up into the biggest mimosa near, a poor four feet from the ground, within easy reach of our enemy if he had not been too sick of his wounds to leap at me. "Having fallen from the pain and shock of his wounded arm, Djama Aout rose, backed off a little distance, and stood at bay, the pistol clubbed in his left hand. " While apparently sick unto death, the lion might muster strength for a last attack, so I called to Marlow, who, under orders, had waited without the thicket, bearing an elephant gun. Ignorant of whether or not the lion was even wounded, in the brave boy came, crept in range and fired a great eight-bore ball fair through the lion's heart. " It was only a few hours until, working with knife and tweezers, the Sahib had all the mimosa thorns dug THE RED-BLOODED out of my back and legs, but it was many months before Djama Aout recovered partial use of his good right arm, and it may very well be generations be- fore the story of \vs heroic deed ceases to be sung in Somali villages.'* [836] CHAPTER XVI A MODERN CfEUR-DE-LION TO seek to come to death grips with the King of Beasts, a man must himself be nothing short of lion-hearted. Such men there are, a few, men with an inborn lust of battle, a love of staking their own lives against the heaviest odds ; men who, lacking a Crusader's cult or a country's need to cut and thrust for, go out among the savage denizens of the desert seeking opportunity to fight for their faith in their own strong arms and steady nerves ; men who shrink from a laurel but treasure a trophy. William Northrup McMillan, a native of St. Louis, who has spent the last eight years in exploration of the Blue Nile and in travel through Abyssinia and British East Africa, is such a man. A friend of Mr. McMillan has told me the follow- ing story of one of his hunting experiences. While I can only tell it in simple prose, the deed described deserves perpetuity in the stately metre of a saga. The Jig-Jigga country, a province of Abyssinia lying near the border of British Somaliland and gov- erned by Abdullah Dowa, an Arab sheik owing alle- giance to King Menelek, is the best lion country in all [337] THE RED-BLOODED Africa. 3"ig-Jigga is an arid plateau averaging 5,000 feet above sea level, poorly watered but gener- ously grassed, sparsely timbered with the thorny mi- mosa (full brother to our own Texas mesquite), and swarming everywhere with innumerable varieties of the wild game on which the lion preys and fattens — eland, oryx, hartebeest, gazelle, and zebra. There are two ways of hunting lion. First, from the perfectly safe shelter of a zareha, a tightly en- closed hut built of thorny mimosa bows, with no open- ing but a narrow porthole for rifle fire. Within the zareha the hunter is shut in at nightfall by his shika- riSi usually having one shikari with him, sometimes with a goat as a third companion and a lure for lion. An occasional bite of the goat's ear by sharp shikari teeth inspires shrill bleats sure to bring any lion lurk- ing near in range of the hunter's rifle. At other times goat ears are spared, and the loudest-braying donkey of the caravan is picketed immediately in front of the zareba^s porthole, his normal vocal activ- ities stimulated by the occasional prod of a stick. Sometimes several weary sleepless nights are spent without result, but sooner or later, without the slight- est sound hinting his approach, suddenly a great yel- low body flashes out of the darkness and upon the cringing lure. For an instant there are the sinister sounds of savage snarls, rending flesh, cracking bones, and screams of pain and fear, and then a dull red [338] A MODERN C(EUR-DE~LION flash heralds the rifle's roar, and the tawny terror falls gasping his life out across his prey. The second, and the only sportsmanlike way of lion-hunting, is by tracking him in the open. The pony men circle till they find a trail, follow it till close enough to the game to race ahead and bring it to bay, circle about it while a messenger brings up the Sahib, who dismounts and advances afoot to a combat wherein the echo of a misplaced shot may sound his own death-knell. One morning while camped in the Jig-Jigga coun- try, William Mario w, our SahiVs valet, was out with the pony men trailing a wounded oryx, while the Sahib himself was three miles away shooting eland. In mid forenoon Marlow's men struck the fresh track of two great male lions, plainly out on a hunting party of their own. Instantly Marlow rushed a messenger away to fetch the Sahib, and he and the pony men then took the trail at a run. Within two hours the pony men succeeded in circling the quarry and stopping it in a mimosa thicket. Shortly thereafter, while they were circling and shouting about the thicket to pre- vent a charge before the SahiVs arrival, an incident occurred which proves alike the utter fearlessness and the marvellous knowledge of the game of the Somali. Suddenly out of the shadows of the thicket sprang one of the lions and launched himself like a thunder- [ 339 ] THE RED-BLOODED bolt upon one of the ponj men, bearing horse and rider to the ground. Losing his spear in the fall and held fast bj one leg beneath his horse, the rider was defenceless. However, he seized a thorny stick and began beating the lion across the face, while the lion tore at the pony's flank and quarters. Then down from his horse sprang another pony man, and know- ing he could not kill the lion with his spear quickly enough to save his companion, approached and crouched directly in front of the lion till his own face was scarcely two feet from the lion's, and there made such frightful grimaces and let off such shrill shrieks, that, frightened from his prey, the lion slunk snarling to the edge of the thicket. Just at this moment the Sahib raced upon the scene, accompanied by his Secretary, H. Morgan Brown. In the run he had far outdistanced his gun- bearers. Marlow was unarmed and Brown carried nothing but a camera. Thus the Sahib* s single-shot .577 rifle was the only effective weapon in the party, and for it he did not even have a single spare car- tridge. The one little cylinder of brass within the chamber of his rifle, with the few grains of powder and nickeled lead it held, was the only certain safe- guard of the group against death or mangling. All this must have flashed across the Sahib* 8 mind as he leaped from his pony and took stand in the open, sixty step^ from where the lion stood roaring and [ 340 ] A MODERN CGEUR-DE-LION savagely lashing his tail. A little back of the Sahib and to his left stood Brown with his camera, beside him Marlow. Instantly, firm planted on his feet, the Sahib threw the rifle to his face for a steady standing shot. But quicker even than this act, instinctively, the furious King of Beasts had marked the giant bulk of the Sahib as the one foeman of the half-score round him worthy of his gleaming ivory weapons, and at him straight he charged the very instant the gun was levelled, com- ing in great bounds that tossed clouds of dust behind him, coming with hoarse roars at every bound, roars to shake nerves not made of steel and still the beating of the stoutest heart. On came the lion, and there stood the Sahib — on and yet on — till it must have seemed to his companions that the Sahib was frozen in his tracks. But all the time a firm hand and a true eye held the bead of the rifle sight to close pursuit of the lion's every move, so held it till only a narrow sixteen yards separated man and beast. Then the Sahib's rifle cracked; and, with marvellous nerve. Brown snapped his camera a second later and caught the picture of the kill. Hitting the beast squarely in the forehead just at the take-off of a bound, the heavy .577 bullet cleaned out the lion's brain pan and killed him in- stantly, his body turning in mid-air and hitting the ground inert. A better rifle-shot would be impossi- [341] THE RED-BLOODED ble, and as good a camera snapshot has certainly never been made in the very face of instant, impend- ing, deadly peril. A half -hour later Lion Number Two, slower of res- olution than his mate, fell to theSahiys^rst shot, with a broken neck, while lashing himself into fit fury for a charge. This was more even than a royal kill; each of the lions was, in size, a record among Jig- Jigga hunters, the first measuring eleven feet, one inch from tip of nose to tip of tail, the second eleven feet. And then the party marched back to camp with the trophies, Djama Aout, the head shikari, chanting paeans to his Sahib's prowess, while his mates roared a hoarse Somali chorus, and all night long, by ancient law of shikari, the camp feasted, chanted, and danced, one sable saga-maker after another chanting his pride to serve so valiant a Sahib. THE END THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY OVERDUE. JUL 25 U35 15 1937 Wt ieNov'58ju MAY 15 19^^ ^£C'n I >. MAY 11 1 93( NOV 4 iggg JUN 10 1939 10AprS4ViP ''CB 25 1971 (J fUpf i4it,/^oL Ai- O ' T ' . '" " ll lA^ r ? . r ^ 1 7/ ■iun^ MAY 1 1971 IQAN DFPABTMIJMT ll( AY7-19 R6 l .g sjWuy^ JUL V/1 -7PM 81 >=?FC'n Qj I JUNS^IKil LD 21-100m-8,'84 YB 44%8 U.C.BERKELEY LIBRARIES CDS13bS3^3 55820 4tN^ UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY