Wood Rangers: The Trappers of Sonora

And he shook the young man gently.

With head thrown back, to inhale more freely the air necessary to his lungs, the stag flew like an arrow along the plain. Behind him a hungry pack of wolves, a few white, but the greater number black, pursued him at full speed. The stag had an immense start, but on the sand heaps, almost lost in the horizon, the piercing eye of the hunter might distinguish other wolves watching. The noble animal either did not see, or else disdained them, for he flew straight towards them. As he neared them he halted a moment. Indeed, he found himself shut in by a circle of enemies, who constantly advanced upon him as he stopped to take breath. All at once he turned round, faced the other wolves, and tried one last effort to escape. But he could not now clear the solid masses that had formed around him, and he fell in the midst of them. Some rolled under his feet, and two or three were tossed in the air. Then, with a wolf hanging to his flanks, bleeding and with tongue protruding, the poor animal advanced to the edge of the water, in front of the three spectators of the strange chase.

“It is magnificent!” cried Fabian clapping his hands, and carried away by the hunter’s enthusiasm, which for the time silences humanity in the heart of men.

“Is it not fine?” cried Bois-Rose, doubly pleased, happy at Fabian’s pleasure, and at his own. “And we shall witness many such fine sights, my Fabian! here you see only the worst side of these American solitudes, but when you go with Pepé and me to the great rivers, and the great lakes of the north – ”

“The animal has got rid of his enemy,” interrupted Fabian, “he is about to spring into the river!”

The water bubbled after the leap of the stag, then a dozen times more as the wolves followed; then amidst the foam were visible the head of the stag, and those of the wolves who were pursuing him, howling with hunger, while the more timid ones ran along the banks uttering their lamentable howls. The stag had neared the island, when the wolves on the bank suddenly ceased their cries and fled precipitately away.

“What is that?” cried Pepé; “what causes this sudden panic?” but no sooner had he spoken than he cried again, “Hide yourselves, in God’s name! the Indians are in chase also.”

Other and more formidable hunters now appeared in their turn upon the arena. A dozen of the wild horses, which they had seen before, were now seen galloping wildly over the plain, while some Indians, mounted bareback on their horses (having taken their saddles off for greater speed), with their knees almost up to their chins, were pursuing the terrified animals. At first there were but three Indians visible; but one by one about twenty appeared, some armed with lances, and others brandishing their lassoes of plaited leather – all uttering those cries by which they express their joy or anger.

Pepé glanced at the Canadian as though to ask whether he had calculated these terrible chances when he wished to make Fabian share their adventurous career. For the first time, at such a crisis, the intrepid hunter looked deadly pale. An eloquent but sad glance was his reply to the Spaniard’s mute interrogation.

“A too great affection in the heart of the bravest man,” thought Pepé, “makes him tremble for him who he loves more than life; and adventurers like us should have no ties. There is Bois-Rose trembling like a woman!”

However, they felt almost certain that even the practiced eyes of the Indians could not discover them in their retreat; and the three men, after their first alarm had passed over, watched coolly the manoeuvres of the Indians. These continued to pursue the flying horses; the numberless obstacles so thickly strewn over the plain – the ravines, the hillocks, and the sharp-pointed cacti – could not stop them. Without slackening the impetuosity of their pace or turning aside from any obstacle, these horsemen cleared them with wonderful address. Bold rider as he was himself, Fabian looked with enthusiasm on the astonishing agility of these wild hunters, but the precautions which they were forced to take, in order to conceal themselves, made the three friends lose a part of this imposing spectacle.

The vast savannahs, late so deserted, were suddenly changed into a scene of tumult and confusion. The stag, returning to the bank, continued to fly, with the wolves still after him. The wild horses galloped before the Indians – whose howlings equalled that of the wolves – and described great circles to avoid the lance or the lasso, while numerous echoes repeated these various sounds.

The sight of Fabian, who followed with an ardent eye all these tumultuous evolutions, not appearing to disquiet himself about a danger which he now braved for the first time, deprived Bois-Rose of that confidence in himself which had brought him safe and sound out of perils apparently greater than this.

“Ah!” muttered he, “these are scenes which the inhabitants of cities can never see, it is only in the desert one can meet with them.”

But his voice trembled in spite of himself; and he stopped, for he felt that he would have given a year of his life that Fabian had not been present. At this moment a new subject of apprehension added to his anguish.

The scene became more solemn; for a new actor, whose rôle was to be short though terrible, now appeared upon it. It was a man, whom by his dress the three recognised with terror as a white man like themselves. The unlucky man suddenly discovered in one of the evolutions of the chase, had become in his turn the exclusive object of pursuit. Wild horses, wolves, the stag, had all disappeared in the distant fog. There remained only the twenty Indians scattered over a circle, of which the white man occupied the centre. For an instant the friends could see him cast around him a glance of despair and anguish. But, excepting on the river-side, the Indians were everywhere. It was, therefore, in this direction that he must fly; and he turned his horse towards the opening opposite to the island. But his single moment of indecision had sufficed for the Indians to get near him.

“The unhappy man is lost, and no help for it,” said Bois-Rose; “he is too late now to cross the river.”

“But,” said Fabian, “if we can save a Christian, shall we let him be murdered before our eyes?”

Pepé looked at Bois-Rose.

“I answer for your life before God,” said the Canadian, solemnly, “if we are discovered we are but three against twenty. The life of three men – yours especially, Fabian – is more precious than that of one; we must let this unhappy man meet his fate.”

“But intrenched as we are?” persisted Fabian.

“Intrenched! Do you call this frail rampart of osiers and reeds an intrenchment? Do you think these leaves are ball proof? And these Indians are but twenty now; but let one of our shots be fired at them, and you will soon see one hundred instead of twenty. May God pardon me if I am unfeeling, but it is necessary.”

Fabian said no more; this last reason seemed conclusive, for, like his companions, he was ignorant that the rest of the Indians were at the camp of Don Estevan.

Meanwhile the white fled like a man the speed of whose horse is his last resource. Already they could see the terror depicted on his face, but just as he was about twenty feet from the river, the lasso of an Indian caught him, and the unlucky wretch, thrown violently from his saddle fell upon the sand.

Chapter Forty

An Indian Diplomat

After the cries of triumph which announced the capture of the unlucky white man, there was a moment of profound silence. The men on the island exchanged looks of consternation and pity. “Thank God! they have not killed him!” said Fabian.

The prisoner indeed arose, although bruised with his fall, and one of the Indians disengaged him from the lasso. Bois-Rose and Pepé shook their heads.

“So much the worse for him, for his sufferings would now be over,” said Pepé; “the silence of the Indians shows that each is considering what punishment to inflict. The capture of one white is more precious in their eyes than that of a whole troop of horses.”

The Indians, still on horseback, surrounded the prisoner, who, casting around him a despairing glance, saw on every side only bronzed and hardened faces. Then the Indians began to deliberate.

Meanwhile, one who appeared to be the chief, and who was distinguished by his black plumes, jumped off his horse, and, throwing the bridle to one of the men, advanced towards the island. Having reached the bank, he seemed to seek for footsteps on the sand. Bois-Rose’s heart beat violently, for this movement appeared to show some suspicion as to their presence.

“Can this wretch,” whispered he to Pepé, “smell flesh like the ogres in the fairy tales?”

“Quien sabe– who knows?” replied the Spaniard, in the phrase which is the common answer of his native country.

But the sand trampled over by the wild horses who had come to drink, showed no traces of a human foot, and the Indian walked up the stream, still apparently seeking.

“The demon has some suspicion,” said Bois-Rose; “and he will discover the traces that we left half-a-mile off when we entered the bed of the river to get at this island. I told you,” added he, “that we should have entered two miles higher up; but neither you nor Fabian wished it, and like a fool, I yielded to you.”

The deliberation as to the fate of the prisoner was now doubtless over; for cries of joy welcomed some proposition made by one of the Indians. But it was necessary to await the return and approbation of the chief, who was the man already known to us as the “Blackbird.” He had continued his researches, and having reached the place where they had left the sand to enter the river, no longer doubted that the report brought to them had been correct; and having his own private objects, he determined to follow it. Once assured of the presence of the three whites, he returned to his men, listened gravely to the result of their deliberations, answered in a few words, and then advanced slowly towards the river – after having given an order to five of his men who set off at full gallop to execute it.

The aquatic plants were open in the sunshine; the breeze agitated the leaves of the osiers on the banks of the island, which was to all appearance as uninhabited as when the stream flowed only for the birds of heaven, and the buffaloes and wild horses of the plains. But an Indian could not be deceived by this apparent calm. The “Blackbird” made a speaking-trumpet of his hand, and cried in a language half Indian, half-Spanish —

“The white warriors of the north may show themselves; the ‘Blackbird’ is their friend. So, too, are the warriors he commands.”

At these words, borne to them distinctly by the wind, the Canadian pressed the arm of Pepé; both understood the mixed dialect of the Indian.

“What shall we reply?” said he.

“Nothing,” answered Pepé.

The breeze which murmured through the reeds was the only answer the Indian could hear.

He went on —

“The eagle may hide his track in the air from the eye of an Apache; the salmon in the stream leaves no trace behind him; but a white man who crosses the desert is neither a salmon nor an eagle.”

“Nor a gosling,” murmured Pepé; “and a gosling only betrays himself by trying to sing.”

The Indian listened again, but hearing no sound, continued, without showing any signs of being discouraged, “The white warriors of the north are but three against twenty, and the red warriors engage their word to be friends and allies to them.”

“Wagh!” said Bois-Rose, “for what perfidy has he need of us?”

“Let him go on, and we shall hear; he has not yet finished, or I am much mistaken!”

“When the white warriors know the intentions of the Blackbird, they will leave their hiding-place,” continued he, “but they shall hear them. The white men of the north are the enemies of those of the south – their language, their religion is different. The Apaches hold in their toils a whole camp of southern warriors.”

“So much the worse for the gold-seekers,” said Bois-Rose.