The Lone Ranche

One of the men composing this party was he already remarked upon as having a large beard and whiskers. A second was one of those spoken of as more slightly furnished with these appendages, while the other two were beardless.

All four were of deep bronze complexion, and to all appearance pure-blooded aboriginals. That the two with hirsute sign spoke to one another in Spanish was no sure evidence of their not being Indians. It was within the limits of New Mexican territory, where there are many Indians who converse in Castilian as an ordinary language.

He with the whiskered cheeks – the chief of the quartet, as well as the tallest of them – had not left behind the share of plunder that had been allotted to him. It was still in his train, borne on the backs of seven strong mules, heavily loaded. These formed an atajo or pack-train, guided and driven by the two beardless men of the party, who seemed to understand mule driving as thoroughly as if they had been trained to the calling of the arriero; and perhaps so had they been.

The other two took no trouble with the pack-animals, but rode on in front, conversing sans souci, and in a somewhat jocular vein.

The heavily-bearded man was astride a splendid black horse; not a Mexican mustang, like that of his companions, but a large sinewy animal, that showed the breed of Kentucky. And so should he – since he was the same steed Frank Hamersley had been compelled to leave behind in that rapid rush into the crevice of the cliff.

“This time, Roblez, we’ve made a pretty fair haul of it,” remarked he who bestrode the black. “What with the silks and laces – to say nothing of this splendid mount between my legs – I think I may say that our time has not been thrown away.”

“Yours hasn’t, anyhow. My share won’t be much.”

“Come, come, teniente! don’t talk in that way. You should be satisfied with a share proportioned to your rank. Besides, you must remember the man who puts down the stake has the right to draw the winnings. But for me there would have been no spoils to share. Isn’t it so?”

This truth seeming to produce an impression on Roblez’s mind, he made response in the affirmative.

“Well, I’m glad you acknowledge it,” pursued the rider of the black. “Let there be no disputes between us; for you know, Roblez, we can’t afford to quarrel. You shall have a liberal percentage on this lucky venture; I promise it. By the bye, how much do you think the plunder ought to realise?”

“Well,” responded Roblez, restored to a cheerful humour, “if properly disposed of in El Paso or Chihuahua, the lot ought to fetch from fifteen to twenty thousand dollars. I see some silk-velvet among the stuff that would sell high, if you could get it shown to the rich damsels of Durango or Zacatecas. One thing sure, you’ve got a good third of the caravan stock.”

“Ha! ha! More than half of it in value. The Horned lizard went in for bulk. I let him have it to his heart’s content. He thinks more of those cheap cotton prints, with their red and green and yellow flowers, than all the silk ever spun since the days of Mother Eve. Ha! ha! ha!”

The laugh, in which Roblez heartily joined, was still echoing on the air as the two horsemen entered a pass leading through the mountains. It was the depression in the sierra, seen shortly after parting with the Horned Lizard and his band. It was a pass rugged with rock, and almost trackless, here and there winding about, and sometimes continued through canons or clefts barely wide enough to give way to the mules with the loads upon their backs.

For all this the animals of the travellers seemed to journey along it without difficulty, only the American horse showing signs of awkwardness. All the others went as if they had trodden it before.

For several hours they kept on through this series of canons and gorges – here and there crossing a transverse ridge that, cutting off a bend, shortened the distance.

Just before sunset the party came to a halt; not in the defile itself, but in one of still more rugged aspect, that led laterally into the side of the mountain. In this there was no trace or sign of travel – no appearance of its having been entered by man or animal.

Yet the horse ridden by Roblez, and the pack-mules coming after, entered with as free a step as if going into a well-known enclosure. True, the chief of the party, mounted on the Kentucky steed, had gone in before them; though this scarce accounted for their confidence.

Up this unknown gorge they rode until they had reached its end. There was no outlet, for it was a cul-de-sac– a natural court – such as are often found among the amygdaloidal mountains of Mexico.

At its extremity, where it narrowed to a width of about fifty feet, lay a huge boulder of granite that appeared to block up the path; though there was a clear space between it and the cliff rising vertically behind it.

The obstruction was only apparent, and did not cause the leading savage of the party to make even a temporary stop. At one side there was an opening large enough to admit the passage of a horse; and into this he rode, Roblez following, and also the mules in a string, one after the other.

Behind the boulder was an open space of a few square yards, of extent sufficient to allow room for turning a horse. The savage chief wheeled his steed, and headed him direct for the cliff; not with the design of dashing his brains against the rock, but to force him into a cavern, whose entrance showed its disc in the façade of the precipice, dark and dismal as the door of an Inquisitorial prison.

The horse snorted, and shied back; but the ponderous Mexican spur, with its long sharp rowel-points, soon drove him in; whither he was followed by the mustang of Roblez and the mules – the latter going in as unconcernedly as if entering a stable whose stalls were familiar to them.

Chapter Twenty.

A Transformation

It was well on in the afternoon of the following day before the four spoil-laden savages who had sought shelter in the cave again showed themselves outside. Then came they filing forth, one after the other, in the same order as they had entered; but so changed in appearance that no one seeing them come out of the cavern could by any possibility have recognised them as the same men who had the night before gone into it. Even their animals had undergone some transformation. The horses were differently caparisoned; the flat American saddle having been removed from the back of the grand Kentucky steed, and replaced by the deep-tree Mexican silla, with its corona of stamped leather and wooden estribos. The mules, too, were rigged in a different manner, each having the regular alpareja, or pack-saddle, with the broad apishamores breeched upon its hips; while the spoils, no longer in loose, carelessly tied-up bundles, were made up into neat packs, as goods in regular transportation by an atajo.

The two men who conducted them had altogether a changed appearance. Their skins were still of the same colour – the pure bronze-black of the Indian – but, instead of the eagle’s feathers late sticking up above their crowns, both had their heads now covered with simple straw hats; while sleeveless coats of coarse woollen stuff, with stripes running transversely —tilmas– shrouded their shoulders, their limbs having free play in white cotton drawers of ample width. A leathern belt, and apron of reddish-coloured sheepskin, tanned, completed the costume of an arriero of the humbler class – the mozo, or assistant.

But the change in the two other men – the chief and him addressed as Roblez – was of a far more striking kind. They had entered the cave as Indians, warriors of the first rank, plumed, painted, and adorned with all the devices and insignia of savage heraldry. They came out of it as white men, wearing the costume of well-to-do rancheros – or rather that of town traders – broad glazed hats upon their heads, cloth jackets and trousers – the latter having the seats and insides of the legs fended with a lining of stamped leather; boots with heavy spurs upon their feet, crape sashes around the waist, machetes strapped along the flaps of their saddles, and seraphs resting folded over the croup, gave the finishing touch to their travelling equipment. These, with the well appointed atajo of mules, made the party one of peaceful merchants transporting their merchandise from town to town.

On coming out of the cave, the leader, looking fresh and bright from his change of toilet and late purification of his skin, glanced up towards the sky, as if to consult the sun as to the hour. At the same time he drew a gold watch from his vest pocket, and looked also at that.

“We’ll be just in the right time, Roblez,” he said. “Six hours yet before sunset. That will get us out into the valley, and in the river road. We’re not likely to meet any one after nightfall in these days of Indian alarms. Four more will bring us to Albuquerque, long after the sleepy townsfolk have gone to bed. We’ve let it go late enough, anyhow, and mustn’t delay here any longer. Look well to your mules, mozos! Vamonos!”

At the word all started together down the gorge, the speaker, as before, leading the way, Roblez next, and the mozos with their laden mules stringing out in the rear.

Soon after, they re-entered the mountain defile, and, once more heading north-westward, silently continued on for the valley of the Rio del Norte. Their road, as before, led tortuously through canons and rugged ravines – no road at all, but a mere bridle path, faintly indicated by the previous passage of an occasional wayfarer or the tracks of straying cattle.

The sun was just sinking over the far western Cordilleras when the precipitous wall of the Sierra Blanca, opening wider on each side of the defile, disclosed to the spoil-laden party a view of the broad level plain known as the valley of the Del Norte.

Soon after, they had descended to it; and in the midst of night, with a starry sky overhead, were traversing the level road upon which the broad wheel-tracks of rude country carts —carretas– told of the proximity of settlements. It was a country road, leading out from the foot-hills of the sierra to a crossing of the river, near the village of Tomé, where it intersected with the main route of travel running from El Paso in the south through all the riverine towns of New Mexico.

Turning northward from Tomé, the white robbers, late disguised as Indians, pursued their course towards the town of Albuquerque. Any one meeting them on the road would have mistaken them for a party of traders en route from the Rio Abajo to the capital of Santa Fé.

But they went not so far. Albuquerque was the goal of their journey, though on arriving there – which they did a little after midnight – they made no stop in the town, nor any noise to disturb its inhabitants, at that hour asleep.

Passing silently through the unpaved streets, they kept on a little farther. A large house or hacienda, tree shaded, and standing outside the suburbs, was the stopping place they were aiming at; and towards this they directed their course. There was a mirador or belvidere upon the roof – the same beside which Colonel Miranda and his American guest, just twelve months before, had stood smoking cigars.

As then, there was a guard of soldiers within the covered entrance, with a sentry outside the gate. He was leaning against the postern, his form in the darkness just distinguishable against the grey-white of the wall.

“Quien-viva?” he hailed as the two horsemen rode up, the hoof-strokes startling him out of a half-drunken doze.

“El Coronel-Commandante!” responded the tall man in a tone that told of authority.

It proved to be countersign sufficient, the speaker’s voice being instantly recognised.

The sentry, bringing his piece to the salute, permitted the horsemen to pass without further parley, as also the atajo in their train, all entering and disappearing within the dark doorway, just as they had made entrance into the mouth of the mountain cavern.

While listening to the hoof-strokes of the animals ringing on the pavement of the patio inside, the sentinel had his reflections and conjectures. He wondered where the colonel-commandant could have been to keep him so long absent from his command, and he had perhaps other conjectures of an equally perplexing nature. They did not much trouble him, however. What mattered it to him how the commandant employed his time, or where it was spent, so long as he got his sueldo and rations? He had them with due regularity, and with this consoling reflection he wrapped his yellow cloak around him, leaned against the wall, and soon after succumbed to the state of semi-watchfulness from which the unexpected event had aroused him.

“Carrambo!” exclaimed the Colonel to his subordinate, when, after looking to the stowage of the plunder, the two men sat together in a well-furnished apartment of the hacienda, with a table, decanters, and glasses between them. “It’s been a long, tedious tramp, hasn’t it? Well, we’ve not wasted our time, nor had our toil for nothing. Come, teniente, fill your glass again, and let us drink to our commercial adventure. Here’s that in the disposal of our goods we may be as successful as in their purchase!”

Right merrily the lieutenant refilled his glass, and responded to the toast of his superior officer.

“I suspect, Roblez,” continued the Colonel, “that you have been all the while wondering how I came to know about this caravan whose spoil is to enrich us – its route – the exact time of its arrival, the strength of its defenders – everything? You think our friend the Horned Lizard gave me all this information.”

“No, I don’t; since that could not well be. How was Horned Lizard to know himself – that is, in time to have sent word to you? In truth, mio Coronel, I am, as you say, in a quandary about all that. I cannot even guess at the explanation.”

“This would give it to you, if you could read; but I know you cannot, mio teniente; your education has been sadly neglected. Never mind, I shall read it for you.”

As the colonel was speaking he had taken from the drawer of a cabinet that stood close by a sheet of paper folded in the form of a letter. It was one, though it bore no postmark. For all that, it looked as if it had travelled far – perchance carried by hand. It had in truth come all the way across the prairies. Its superscription was: —

“El Coronel Miranda, Commandante del Distrito Militario de Albuquerque, Nuevo Mexico.”

Its contents, also in Spanish, translated read thus: —