The Lost Mountain: A Tale of Sonora

“Ten miles or more, when we came away from the place where we saw them. They can’t be much nearer yet, as we’ve not been over ten minutes on the way.”

The quick time made by the hunters in return is attested by their breathing; both with nostrils agape and breasts heaving up and down as runners at the close of a hard-contested race.

“’Tis well they’re at such a distance,” rejoins Don Estevan. “And lucky your having sighted them before they got nearer.”

“Ah! señor, they’ll soon be near; for I know they’ve sighted us – at least the smoke of our camp, and are already making for it. Light horsemen as they don’t need long to traverse ten miles – on a plain like this.”

“That’s true,” assents the ci-devant soldier, with an air of troubled impatience. “What do you advise our doing, Don Pedro?”

“Well, for one thing, your worship, we mustn’t remain here. We must clear out of this camp as soon as possible. In an hour – ay, less – it may be too late.”

“Your words want explaining, Don Pedro. I don’t comprehend them. Clear out of the camp! But whither are we to go?”

“Arriba!” answers the guide, pointing to the gorge, “up yonder.”

“But we can’t take the animals there. And to carry up our goods there wouldn’t be time.”

“I know it, your worship. And glad we may be to get ourselves safe up.”

“Then we’re to abandon all? Is that what you advise?”

“It is. I’m sorry I can give no better advice. There’s no alternative if we wish to live.”

“To lose everything,” puts in the junior partner, “goods, animals, machinery! That would be a terrible calamity. Surely, Señor Vicente, we can defend the camp; our people are all well armed.”

“Impossible, Don Roberto; impossible were they ever so well armed. From what I could make out of the Indian party it numbers hundreds to our tens, sufficient of them to surround us on every side. And even if we could keep them off during daylight, at night they’d crawl close enough to set the camp on fire. Wagons, tilts, every stick and stitch of them are dry as tinder; the very pack-saddles would be ablaze with the first spark that fell on them.”

“But how know we that these Indians are hostile? After all, it may be some friendly band; perhaps Opatas?”

“No!” exclaims the gambusino impatiently. “I saw enough to know they’re not Opatas, nor mansos of any kind; enough to be sure they’re bravos, and almost sure, Apaches.”

“Apaches!” echo several voices in the surrounding, in tones proclaiming the dread with which this name inspires the heart of every Sonoreno. Every man present feels a creeping sensation in the skin of his head, as though the scalping-knife were being brandished around it.

“They’re coming from the direction where Apaches would come,” pursues Vicente. “Besides, they have no baggage; not a woman or child to be seen with them. All men, mounted and armed.”

“Indeed, if it be so,” rejoins Don Estevan, with brow now darkly shadowed, “we can expect no friendship from them.”

“No mercy either!” adds the gold-seeker. “Nor have we a right to expect it, after the treatment they’ve had at the hands of Captain Gil Perez and his men.”

All know to what Vicente alludes: a massacre of Apache Indians by a party of Mexican soldiers, after being lured and lulled into false security by professions of peace – cold-blooded and cruel, as any recorded in the annals of frontier warfare.

“I’ve said it. I’m good as sure they’re Apaches,” repeats the gambusino, more impressively. “And it would be madness, sheer insanity, to await them here. We must up to the mesa.”

“But will we be safe there?”

“As in a citadel. No fortress ever contrived, or made by hand of man, is strong as the Cerro Perdido. Twenty men could hold it against as many hundreds – ay, thousands. Carramba! We may thank the Virgin for providing us with such a secure retreat; so handy, and just in the nick of time.”

“Then let us to it,” assents Don Estevan, after a brief consultation with his partner, who no longer opposes the step, though by it they may lose their all. “We’ll follow your advice, Señor Vicente; and you have our authority to order everything as it seems best to you.”

“I’ve only one order to give, your worships; that’s arriba! Up, all and everybody!”

Chapter Eight.

Tender Leave-Takings

The excitement in the camp, already at full height, now changes to a quick, confused hurrying to and fro, accompanied by cries of many kinds. Here and there is heard the terrified scream of a woman, who, babe in arms, fancies the spear of a savage pointed at her breast, to impale herself and offspring.

There is a rush for the gorge, up which a stream of human forms is soon seen swarming as ants up their hill. And, with a gallantry which distinguishes the miner as the mariner, the women and children are permitted foremost place in the upward retreat, assisted by husbands.

Without serious accident all succeed in reaching the summit, where the women are left, the men who went with them hurrying back below. It is hard to part with valuable property and cherished household gods – still harder to see these appropriated by a hated enemy – and an effort is to be made for saving what can be saved. At first they only thought of their lives; but half a dozen men, who had sprung to their horses at the earliest moment of alarm, and galloped out beyond the mountain’s flank to get better view, signal back that the Indians are not yet in sight. So there is still a chance to take up a portion of the camp equipage, with such goods as are likely to be most needed in the event of their having to sustain a siege.

“The ammunition and provender first!” shouts Vicente, back again at camp, with full authority of direction. “Take up everything that’s food for man and loading for gun. After that whatever we’ll have time for.”

Knowing their women now safe, the men work with spirit; and soon a different sort of stream is seen ascending the gorge: a string of burden-bearers, continuous from plain to summit; hastily returning down again, relieved of their loads, to take up others. Never were bees so busy. Some remain below, getting the goods out of the wagons, and making packages of them, convenient for the difficult transport. The bales and boxes – lading of the pack-mules – are broken open, and their more valuable effects picked out and carried off; so that in a short space of time not much remains save the mining tools and machinery, with the heavier articles of house furniture.

Could the Rattlesnake have known of this quick precautionary sacking of the camp by its owners, he and his would have approached it in greater haste. But they are seen coming on now. The mounted videttes have at length signalled them in sight, they themselves galloping in at the same time, and dropping down from their horses.

There is a last gathering up of bundles, which includes the two smaller tents – the marquee left standing. Then the final debandade; all turning face towards the gorge, and toiling up it.

No, not all as yet; more than one lingers below. For the horses must needs be left behind; impossible to take them up a steep where only goat, sheep, or clawed creature might go. And more than one has a master who parts with it reluctantly. Regretfully, too, at thought of its changing owner, and to such owner as will soon enter upon possession. Even some of the teamsters and muleteers have an affection for their mules, the head arriero regarding the whole atajo as his children, and the “bell-mare” almost as a mother. Many a long mile and league has he listened to her guiding bell; its cheerful tinkle proclaiming the route clear along narrow dizzy ledge, or through deep defile. And now he will hear its music no more.

But the ties must be severed, the parting take place. Which it does, amidst phrases and ejaculations of leave-taking, tender as though the left ones were human beings instead of dumb brutes. “Caballo – caballito querido!” “Mula-mulita mia!” “Pobre-pobrecita! Dios te guarda!” And mingled with these are exclamations of a less gentle kind – anathemas hurled at the redskins coming on to take possession of their pets.

At this last Pedro Vicente is among the loudest. As yet he has had only half-payment for his late discovered mine, the remaining moiety dependent on the working it. And now the crash – all the mining apparatus to be destroyed – perhaps the purchasing firm made bankrupt, if even life be left them. Thinking of all this, and what he has already suffered at the hands of “Los Indios” no wonder at his cursing them. He, however, is not one of those taking affectionate and sentimental farewell of their animals. His horse is a late purchase, and though of fine appearance, has proved aught but a bargain. For there are “copers” in Arispe as elsewhere, and the gambusino has been their victim. Hence he parts with the disappointing steed neither regretfully nor reluctantly. But not with the saddle and bridle; these, of elaborate adornment having cost him far more than the horse. So shouldering them, he too re-ascends, last of all save one.

That one is Henry Tresillian; and very different is the parting between him and the animal of his belonging. The English youth almost sheds tears as he stands by his horse’s head, patting his neck and stroking his muzzle, the last time he may ever lay hand on either. Nay, surely, too surely, the last. And the noble creature seems to know it too, responding to the caress by a low mournful whimpering.

“Ah! my beautiful Crusader! to think I must leave you behind! And to be ridden by a redskin – a cruel savage who will take no care of you. Oh! it is hard – hard!”

Crusader appears to comprehend what is said, for his answer is something like a moan. It may be that he interprets the melancholy expression on his master’s face – that master who has been so kind to him.

“A last farewell, brave fellow! Be it a kiss,” says the youth, bringing his lips in contact with those of the horse. Then pulling off the headstall, with its attached trail-rope, and letting them drop to the ground, he again speaks the sad word “farewell,” and, turning back on his beloved steed, walks hurriedly and determinedly away, as though fearing resolution might fail him.

Soon he commences climbing up the gorge; all the others who have gone before now nearly out of it. But ere he has ascended ten steps, he hears that behind which causes him to stop and look back. Not in alarm: he knows it to be the neigh of his own horse, accompanied by the stroke of his hoofs in quick repetition – Crusader coming on in a gallop for the gorge. In another instant he is by its bottom, on hind legs, rearing up against the rocky steep, as if determined to scale it.

In vain: after an effort he drops back on all fours. But to rear up and try again and again, all the while giving utterance to wild, agonised neighs – very screams.

To Henry Tresillian the sight is saddening, the sound torture, stirring his heart to its deepest depths. To escape the seeing – though he cannot so soon the hearing – he once more turns his back upon the horse, and hastens on upward. But when halfway to the head, he cannot resist taking another downward look. Which shows him Crusader yet by the bottom of the gorge, but now standing still on all fours, as if resigned to the inevitable. Not silent, however; instead, at short intervals, giving utterance to that neigh of melancholy cadence, alike proclaiming discomfiture and despair.

Chapter Nine.

“It’s the Rattlesnake.”

On again reaching the summit Henry Tresillian finds his father there with Don Estevan and most of the men. These last, under the direction of the ci-devant soldier, are collecting large stones, and laying them all round the head of the gorge.

One might fancy them building a breastwork, but nothing of that kind is their intention, none such being needed. As Vicente had said, it is a fortress of nature’s construction, stronger than any ever built by the hand of man, and would defy breaching by all the artillery in the world. Ammunition is what the stones are being collected for, to be rolled down the slope in case the enemy should attempt scaling it. Most of them have to be brought up out of the gorge itself, as but few lie loose on the summit. A work that, with so many and willing hands, takes up but short time, and soon a ridge appears in horseshoe shape around the spot where the path leads out upon the level.

Others of the men have gone on to the glade by the spring, where the women and children are now assembled, the effects brought up from below lying scattered about them. Some, still in affright, are moving excitedly to and fro; others, with greater courage and calmness, have taken seats on the boxes and bundles.