Chapter XVI: A New Land of Canaan 125 (4)

A squaw and a boy were found hiding in the tall grass. Murat shot the squaw and captured the boy. Bott bought the young Indian, intending to bring him up in civilization. The boy was standing by his side when, an hour later a pistol shot rang out from a group of men some yards away and the young Indian fell dead. Bott was angered, and drawing his own revolver, offered one hundred dollars to anyone who would point out the man who fired the shot. No one would tell.

Murat with a companion was trying to capture some of the Indians’ horses far out on the plain, when one of Black Kettle’s fleeing Indians rose from behind a hillock and shot him dead. White Antelope was killed, while a large number of Indians under Black Kettle escaped by scattering like quail over the plain and hiding in the grass.

While the battle was raging the families of many of the soldiers from Colorado City had gathered in the Anway Fort at that place, and a telepathic wave of horror spread over all. Many were praying and weeping, and all seemed to feel that a dreadful thing was being enacted in which their loved ones were taking part.

When the news of the battle reached the fort and the death of young Murat was announced, Marie Tinville fell in a swoon, after which her mind was a blank. From that time on her decline was rapid and in a few months she was laid in the lonely grave upon the mesa.

After that stories were told of strange things. A white light was seen about the grave, which vanished on close approach. Once old Ben Jordan an antelope hunter, came to town at night, his long hair fairly on end, saying that a white light had risen in front of him near the grave, out of which protruded a naked arm. The incredulous asked him what he had been drinking, but he stuck to the story as long as he lived.

George Birdsall, a young man of Colorado City, had heard the story and thought it all a joke. He recently went out one night to investigate. He saw no white light, but felt a peculiar rush of cold air and a touch upon the cheek as soft as if some one had gently kissed him.

XIX.

UNDER THE BLACK FLAG.

As the sun went down below the rolling glassy waters of the gulf of Mexico, I sat on the hatchway steps of the little steamer Dauntless, fully realizing for the first time that perhaps before morning I would be swinging to the yard-arm of a Spanish man-of-war.

I was sick, anyway, and the abominable mixture of whiskey and garlic which Mark Witherspoon had given me as a preventive against yellow fever, had made the contemplation worse.

The Dauntless was loaded with arms and munitions of war for the Cuban Insurgents and if the Spaniards caught us we would doubtless share the fate of the crew of the Virginius at Santiago de Cuba in 1873.

I had credentials as a newspaper correspondent, but Mark Witherspoon and I had duly enlisted at Tampa, Florida, in the cause of Cuban liberty, and we were assigned to the third division of Garcia’s army under command of General Ruloff.

Our little vessel hugged the Florida Keys for more than a week. Meantime we were reinforced by small parties of twos and threes, who came in open boats by night. The stores of rifles, ammunition and dynamite came by small sailing craft. We now numbered thirty-seven men. Eight of us were Americans, two were Germans and the others were Cubans from Tampa and Key West.

On the night we were ready to start the distinguishing lights of a revenue cutter were seen, so we lay close in a little cove and banked the fires in our furnace until four o’clock the next afternoon, when we slipped out and put for the high seas, headed straight for the coast of Cuba. When night fairly set in, there came small squalls and a drizzling rain. We had no signal lights out and every sound was muffled, even the funnel was so protected that not a spark could escape. All night long everybody was most keenly alert, and it was towards daylight that the irregular mountain lines of Cuba could be discerned, standing in shadowy relief against a darkened sky. On entering a little landlocked harbor we signaled with flash lanterns and were soon answered from the shore. Nearly a hundred insurgents met us, and the work of unloading quickly began. During the morning we were reinforced by nearly a hundred more Cubans who brought ponies and pack mules. As soon as we were unloaded our vessel hoisted the Danish flag and with all possible speed put out for the high seas. Her hull was well down on the horizon when we took up our march inland. Our route lay over tortuous mountain trails over which our ponies climbed with the agility of goats. The trail was often dangerous in the extreme, for the slip of a pony’s hoof would have sent both horse and rider hundreds of feet below. We had taken trails unknown to the Spanish soldiery.

When about fifty miles in the interior, we reached a plateau and here found encamped some eight hundred men under General Ruloff. From the very first I had but little confidence in him. He was a Polish Jew, well educated in military tactics, but unfitted to conduct a guerrilla warfare with men like us who were virtually fighting under the black flag.

Subsequent events proved this, for at the fight of Santo Esperitu we left our improvised hospital unguarded, and Captain Sandoval cut to our rear and captured it and after destroying much of our valuable stores, put every sick man to death.

Our rendezvous lay in the province of Puerto Principe and our line of action westward. After the fight at Santo Esperitu we never massed in action, but divided into companies of about one hundred, free to run or fight as our commander ordered.

Our detachment captured Captain Sandoval and a party of his men, and in view of his inhuman treatment of our prisoners, he was promptly shot. Sandoval went to his death as all other cowardly butchers do, trembling like a leaf in the wind.

We were ordered by Ruloff to burn all azucaderos (sugar mills) and to blow up with dynamite all railroad culverts and bridges and to destroy all telegraph lines. Our division frequently made rapid raids, always gaining ground westward. The division to which we were attached raided the town of San Lazaro which was defended by a small body of Spaniards. We routed them and captured some two hundred Mauser rifles and a large quantity of ammunition and other military stores. Our commander then ordered the execution of the alcalde (mayor) for having betrayed a number of insurgent sympathizers, causing them to be shot, and their families to be driven through the streets, beaten with sticks.

Early in November we were encamped near Nuevitas where we had lain inactive for several days. One afternoon scouts had reported an advancing column and we had chosen for our ambuscade the ruins of a stone building, now overgrown with vines and nearly hidden from view by a cactus thicket.

There was a hushed stillness in the dark forest that lay beyond the long yellow road, and in the cane fields that stretched away for leagues to our right. To the left the San de Cubitas mountains, with their covering of dense tropical vegetation, rose dark and silent. A lookout had climbed a tall cebra tree and was watching with a field glass. He suddenly gave the signal. Then the men were told in whispers each to select a man and to fire at a given order. The Cuban sun blazed hotly down that day. The air was close and stifling in our position behind the cactus thicket and our hearts beat quick and fast in those moments of waiting. There was the low rumble of horses hoofs, a cloud of yellow dust arose from down the road, and soon the Spanish column was almost abreast the 150 rifles that pointed from behind the stone wall. I peered over the sights of my Winchester and drew a bead on the breast of a young officer. He was chatting gaily with a companion and as he turned his face revealed a handsome countenance. It was a boyish face with the dawn of manhood just settling upon the brow. Thoughts crowded each other in my mind just then: Perhaps the young man was a conscript, not here by his own choice to imperil his young life, and I, whom he had never wronged, an unsuspected foe, safely hid in the cactus thicket behind the stone wall, about to send his soul into eternity. I lowered my aim from his breast to his horse just behind the shoulder. The order came to fire. The trigger that would have pulled like a ton weight a second before pulled easily now. And so all through those dreadful volleys that we poured into the struggling ranks. For firing into a mass of men is a different thing from that of firing upon one man singly. When the smoke of battle cleared away more than forty of the routed Spanish column lay dead or wounded in the road. I went to the place where the young trooper’s horse had fallen and there lay the young officer pinioned underneath with a broken leg. I felt that I wanted to help him. I knew from the look on his manly face that in private life he would have been my friend, but to show a kindly feeling at that time would have made me a suspect among my comrades in arms. Their machetes flashed in the sunlight and their strokes falling swift and fast reddened the soil of Puerto Principe. Mark and I stood silent, helpless spectators of the horrors of war and revenge, wreaked by men, who in the remembrance of wrongs and outrage, were lost to any feeling of common humanity. There was only one act of kindness which I dared perform. In the pocket of his blood-stained blouse I found a letter. It was from his mother in Seville, and bore a mother’s love and sister’s prayer for his safe return. When I afterwards landed at Galveston, I sent it to his home, with an account of how he died upon the battlefield.

The blazing sun was yet high when we were in our saddles and moving away. I saw a vulture circling above the battlefield, one, two, then a dozen, then a score. These black-winged scavengers had scented death, and there let contemplation end. Night comes suddenly in the tropics, when the sun dips beyond the sea, but here and there in the valley were lights, lantern like at first, spreading soon like a long prairie fire. They were in the cane fields which our men were firing, and as the flames swept on, the bursting stalks sounded like a battle with light revolvers. It lit the night, and its glare and gloom added mystery to the dark forest beyond the road. Morning came and we were safely encamped amid the hills. The birds sang merrily and the sun dried the dew upon the tall, rank grass, and when it came roll call, two names were stricken off. They had reported the day before to the Great Commander of the great beyond.

XX.

IN CUBAN JUNGLES.

Spies brought news of an encampment of Spanish infantry a day’s march ahead. All was hustle in the Cuban insurgent camp. Twenty-eight Texans who had recently joined our command were allowed the privilege of leading our column to the attack. That day we followed circuitous mountain trails and encamped at night in the heart of a dense forest through whose trailing vines we made our way along the bridle paths. By 4 o’clock in the morning we were again in the saddle. There was no blare of trumpet or beat of drums to announce our coming as our column of horsemen stole from out the silent forest and wound along the road like a great creeping serpent to strike death.

The Spanish camp was beyond a small stream through which we were to charge. Halting a mile beyond their picket lines, saddle girths were tightened, weapons were looked to, and we formed in a column of fours. Americans to the front, and ready for the charge. Ten stalwart Cubans were selected to form the skirmish line two hundred yards in advance and engage the enemy when they reached the banks of the stream. The column was then to charge at a gallop and use the revolver and machete.

The first rays of the sun were gilding the mountain crests and awakening the flamingoes around the lagoons when a Spanish sentry’s rifle told the moment of action had come.

On pressed our column at double quick, while the increased firing ahead warned us that the Spanish camp was aroused. There was the heavy rattle of Mauser rifles, followed by the sharper report of Winchesters as our advance guard reached the stream and drew aside to let our column pass.

The little river flowed from the mountains and plunged over rock and cliff in wild tumult. Below the ford which we were crossing there were falls and as the Spaniards fired a volley that struck our column midway in the stream, they emptied many saddles, while wounded men were carried down to watery graves.

The Spaniards threw a double cordon of infantry at bayonet charge against our cavalry, but the Texans’ revolvers opened a gap and the column rode through the demoralized camp, doing its fearful work. On the column plunged, fire leaping from the deadly revolvers on either side. When beyond the Spanish camp, the bugle sounded wheel, and back we rode among the panic stricken soldiers, dealing death until they broke in confusion, and gained the cover of the forest. We halted long enough to gather up our wounded and burn the supply train. An hour later and we were in full retreat to our rendezvous in the San de Cubitas mountains. One evening Mark and I started for the vicinity of an azucadero, where we knew there was a patch of sweet potatoes. The night was dark, damp and chilly, and the road lay through a clearing of tall palms whose white trunks stood like ghostly sentinels. The silence was unbroken save by the sound of horses’ hoofs, the croaking of frogs and the distant baying of dogs about some negro casa. We did not suppose there was a Spaniard within fifty miles of us, and as we rode our ponies silently along a horseman suddenly appeared in front of us, and in clear Castilian tones shouted: “Quien vive!” “Cuba Libre!” cried Mark, drawing his machete and spurring his horse forward. At the same instant I discharged my revolver full in the sentinel’s face. We wheeled our horses and rode quickly into the clearing, knowing better than to retreat by the road we came. It was well we did not, for soon a body of Spanish cavalry came tearing down the road, firing a volley ahead at random. We rode on through the clearing, being now cut off from our command. At length we came to a creek whose banks were steep and fringed on either side by trees, from whose branches hung a network of tangled vines and creepers. The water flowed sluggishly, as most streams in Cuba do. We determined to cross the creek at once, knowing that with the first streak of dawn we would be tracked, for we had left an easy trail in the soft soil. We used our machetes with great difficulty to cut a path through the vines, and when we reached the water’s edge swam our ponies across and cut our way through on the opposite bank where we lay down to await developments of the morning. Both of us must have fallen asleep, for we were startled by a loud grito alto from the other side of the creek. Peering through the bushes we saw a Spanish trooper gesticulating to a party of cavalry in the rear. In another second there was the simultaneous report of our two Winchesters and the trooper rolled from his horse. We hurriedly mounted our ponies amid the fusillade of bullets from the approaching squad of cavalry, and spurring our horses toward a cane field, we were soon hidden. A little later we abandoned our horses and started them off in another direction with a lashing, thinking thereby to gain time and elude our pursuers. Then we started for the azucadero. It was our first intention to fire it, thinking its flames would attract the attention of our command and bring us relief. But as we came out of the cane field we saw a body of troopers crossing a bridge which spanned the creek. We did not think they saw us, and in our haste to find a hiding place we ran around the building to a well which supplied the boilers. Leaping on a platform we found a lot of empty sugar hogsheads standing on end near a lot of filled ones. We quickly rolled an empty beside them and turned the open end down, getting under it. The troopers had seen us and tracked us straight to the well. They supposed we had descended by means of the pump pipe and hidden our bodies in the water, for they began hurling stones in the water and with a mixture of Spanish oaths called us “Perro Americano” (dog American). Satisfied with their work of exterminating us in the well, they rode away.

Meanwhile we were couched in close quarters, with our revolvers tightly clenched, determined to sell out as dearly as possible. When they had gone, Mark whispered, “I am badly shot,” indicating the spot by placing his hand upon his abdomen. The morning wore away and our situation was becoming unbearable. We were cramped and almost suffocated. Mark had swooned away twice in the agony of pain. Fortunately we had filled our canteens from the brackish waters of the creek, which alleviated our sufferings some. Yet it was past noon before we ventured out. I helped Mark inside the azucadero, where he laid down upon a pile of cane refuse, while I examined his wound. One look was enough. The contents of the abdomen were oozing out through the wound, and I knew that was a fatal sign. I carried a pocket case containing a few medicines for an emergency, among which was some morphine. I gave him an eighth grain tablet which relieved him some, but at times his pain grew so great that he begged me to shoot him.

We could hear distant firing during the afternoon, but the sounds were growing fainter and we knew our command was retreating. When night came on I gave Mark another tablet of morphine and lay down for some rest. The dreadful chill that always follows a gunshot wound had set in, but I had no blankets or other coverings with which to lessen his sufferings. Thoroughly exhausted myself, I soon fell asleep, and when I awoke late in the night, I was alone with the dead. For me to bury him was impossible, and I could not think of leaving him there a prey to the vultures. So I did what I should have wanted him to do for me had our places been reversed. Sorrowfully I left him alone in the now burning azucadero and while the flames of his funeral pyre were lighting the night, I started for the sea.

That day I fell in with a party of insurgents who were on their way to the coast to meet another filibustering vessel. As malaria and the effects of climate were telling heavily upon me, they kindly gave me aid in boarding the craft, by which I afterwards landed at the docks at New Orleans, feeling that I had done my share in the cause of Cuban liberty.

XXI.

EMULOUS OF WASHINGTON.

“I don’t know that I can tell you fellows about the first dollar I ever earned,” said W. P. Epperson, the pioneer editor of the Colorado City--------, “but I do know the first and last lie I ever told.”

“You ought to remember, seeing that it has not been over twenty minutes,” said George Geiger.

“Twenty minutes be smashed!” yelled Epperson, reaching for his gun, “it’s been twenty years this summer. My first lie was a trivial one about fishing, and the last happened in this way.”

“Twenty years, did you say?” interrupted the hired man with an incredulous look.

“That’s what I mean,” and the veteran editor took another chew of Battle Ax, while a halo of white settled down about his head.

“In the autumn of 1885,” he continued, “I stepped off a Union Pacific train at Silver Creek, Nebraska, and after a good supper I determined to drive across the country to Osceola, a distance of thirty miles. The driver of the livery rig was about the most handsomely attired imitation of a cow boy I had ever seen. He wore a new suit of corduroy with a broad sombrero and high-heeled boots with ornamented red tops, also a bright blue shirt and a rattlesnake skin necktie. I had him sized up for a green country boy from Indiana or Illinois who had seen but little of frontier life, and he confirmed my suspicions a little later as we were crossing the Platte River bridge by saying, ‘I suppose if you knew what my business had been you would hesitate to ride with me alone on the plains at night.’

“It was getting dark and we were crossing a wide stretch of the then desolate plain that lay between the Platte River and Osceola. I was enjoying a cigar and felt at peace with all the world, when a devilish thought struck me, and I asked, ‘What has been your business?’

“‘Well, sir,’ he replied, ‘I have been a cow boy.’

“‘The deuce you have,’ said I, ‘Shake, old man, you are a fellow after my own heart, and since you have been so kind to tell me your business, I will let you know who I am. I, sir, am Doc Middleton.’

“The fellow almost fell from his seat in surprise. Doc Middleton was the notorious outlaw whose depredations had become so terrorizing to the settlers of Nebraska that the State had offered a reward of $5,000 for his capture, dead or alive. I enjoyed the joke I was playing all the more when I saw the effect of my speech.

“‘Just now,’ I continued, ‘I am trying to get away from a sheriff’s posse; that is why I am making the cut across the country. They may overtake us, and if they do, there will be some heavy shooting.’

“‘With this I drew a big Colt revolver from my overcoat pocket and I said I had two more like it in my valise. I also told him if they overtook us he must get down by the dashboard and drive for dear life, that he might get shot in the back, but that would be cow boy’s luck.

By this time he was nervous and began looking backwards as he whipped the ponies up at a lively gait. I did not pretend to notice it and so kept up my lying.

“‘The first man I ever killed,’ I told him, ‘was a one-eyed man in Utah, who called me a liar, and I threw his body over a cliff, and my conscience hurt me for full half an hour afterwards. After that I soon got so I loved to blow a man’s head off just to see his brains fly.’

“It had grown quite dark, and having nothing better to do, I told him all the bloody stories I could think of and claimed them as my own experience until I became tired of the foolishness and lapsed into silence. We had made about half our journey and were passing a farm house set in a dense grove of trees. There were lights in the house and the young man broke the silence by asking, ‘Please, dear Mister Doc Middleton, may I go in and get a drink of water? I think I have got a fever in my throat.’

“‘Certainly, my boy, certainly,’ I replied taking the lines. He slid off the rig and ran to the house, while I sat there like a fool holding the horses. About twenty minutes passed and he did not return. Then I noticed the lights in the house had been extinguished. I called loudly for the young man to return, and when it flashed over my mind that to him I was the outlaw Doc Middleton, and he might warn the farmer of my presence, who might even then be waiting to get a shot at me, I yelled again for him in fear, louder than before, but there was no response. The more I thought of my predicament, the more nervous I became, until the cold sweat stood out like beads on my face.

“I could stand it no longer, and seizing the whip, I cut the horses a lash and crouched down by the dashboard just as I had been instructing the young man to do. In the sudden dash, the horses broke one of the buggy springs, and I wandered on the plains until morning, for I had missed the Osceola road. It cost me $2 to have the spring mended and $5 to send a man back to Silver Creek with the rig, to say nothing of being scared within an inch of my life.”

XXII.

ON THE ROUND UP.

The round-up of today differs in no essential particular from that of former years, excepting in the number of cattle rounded up and the number of men and horses required in its working.

In 1900 I spent some months on a ranch in northern Colorado, where there are still large bunches of cattle.

For some days prior to the start the foreman had been busy preparing the wagon, rounding up saddle horses, hiring men and making final arrangements for the start.

When the day arrived everything was in a state of activity and as evening approached the corral was filled with horses. Each “waddie” was tolled off his string of mounts. Ten to each man, and after the summer on rich buffalo grass every horse was in a state that boded no good for the unaccustomed rider.

That night we ate our suppers at the chuck wagon at the round-up camp, after which the boys sat around a chip fire, telling stories and smoking.

The cowboy story differs from any I have ever heard, both in extravagance of statement and manner of telling. They relate to anything and everything that has ever come under his acute observation.

“I always had an especial desire to make governors my associates,” said “Beaut” Bowers, “so with a view to a pleasant acquaintance I once called upon Governor Waite, presenting the compliments of Governor Rentfrow of Oklahoma and several other governors, none of whom had sent any compliments, but then they are so cheap I thought I could give him a few without their missing them.

“I had heard that he wanted to ride to his bridle bits in blood and I wanted to get into the swim, although I would rather it was beer.

“It was the governor’s day to be out of sorts, and he did not seem inclined to talk. I wanted to talk and resolved to break the ice of his reserve in some manner. So when he asked how the people of Oklahoma stood the panic, I told him we had not felt it in the least. He seemed surprised at this and asked, “Why not!” I replied we were all too poor to own anything and had got beyond expecting it. “Well, poor people have to live; how do they manage for some money?” I told him when silver was demonetized we took to catching Keeley graduates and scraping the chloride of gold off them with a case-knife and had done fairly well.

“The old man stared at me and asked me if I had wheels in my head too. Everybody had been saying the old governor had wheels in his head until I believe he was afraid to pick his ears lest a cog clip the end of his finger off.

“I had recently been on Zack Mulhall’s ranch in Oklahoma, where the Reverend Buchanan used to come and talk Populism to the boys until I got tired of it one night and stole his false teeth where he put them to soak in a tin cup. There was a lot of socialism too, in his talk that didn’t go down, for on that ranch the first fellow up of a morning got the best socks, and that made me fall out with the idea of community of interests. But to humor the governor I spoke of the widespreading revolutionary sentiment in Texas and Oklahoma and hinted that they had their eyes turned eagerly on his movements, as it was their hope he might devise some way to lead the country out of the silver difficulty. He then showed me a letter from President Diaz, of Mexico. It suggested another pan-American congress in the interests of silver. “It’s no use, though,” he said, “the last assembly of the kind amounted to nothing. Eastern influences would soon retard any movement of the sort.’

“‘If we are to continually be the back dooryard of the east,’ I replied, ‘the sooner we secede from it the better.’

“Here was a long pause, the old man looking at me intently to see if the wheels in my head were working, and I tried at the same time to discover if the machinery in his was all right.

“Seeing the point of vantage I continued: ‘Divide the country from the Mississippi River, establish a new republic with our own capital, make Galveston our New York, with a national railroad to that point; coin our gold and silver, make banks a public trust, with any betrayal of it punishable as high treason. If we are going into revolution we must have something like this for our object, otherwise we will only terminate in anarchy. As governor of Colorado call for a delegation of representative citizens from other states to meet here in convention and start the ball rolling.’

“I delivered this sentiment in round, strong terms, while the governor listened, apparently pleased.

“You will see all you want to of revolution before two years,’ he quietly said, ‘it is coming sure as fate and were I your age I would win fame and fortune by--’

“At this moment an unfortunate affair happened. An Indian had given me a white bulldog. That dog had more sense than half the people and I loved him like a brother. One day the dog got too close to the heels of a heifer and she kicked one eye out. He felt so bad over it that I wrote to an eye doctor to send me a glass eye for my dog. He wrote back that he did not deal in dogs’ eyes, but sent me a bright blue human eye. One of the boys and I managed to fix it in and the dog was very proud of it, only it fit so tight he could not wink. He would lay for hours asleep with the glass eye staring with an expression of strangled innocence confronting the murderer. Where I went that dog went also, and all through the conversation with Governor Waite my dog lay on the floor asleep, but that glass eye kept staring at the governor’s dog until he took it for an insult and came over to our part of the room for a scrap.

“In the melee of separating the dogs the governor jabbed his thumb in that glass eye and nearly cut it off. That made him so mad he would not talk any more and I may have to wander on through eternity guessing what he would have said. My dog felt so humiliated that he went home by the back alleys.”

Other stories followed, relating to horses and daring deeds of their riders. It seemed like we had only slept a few moments when we were awakened by the call of the boss, “roll out,” “roll out.” In a short time every man of the twenty-five was on his feet, rolling up his bed and throwing it in a pile ready to be loaded on the wagon. All gladly answered to the call, “Chuck’s ready!”

Each man took a plate and tin cup, knife, fork and spoon, and went to the Dutch ovens, where everything was cooked and helped himself. The breakfast consisted of bacon, potatoes, warm bread and black coffee. Seated on the ground Turk fashion, with plate on knees and cup by side, we ate our hearty meal.

After breakfast the bed wagon was loaded with its freight. The chuck wagon which was driven by the cook and drawn by six horses, pulled out for the next camp, followed by the wrangler with the bunch of unused saddle horses. Orders were given to the riders, the place of the next camp appointed. The range was divided into circles, beginning at the old camp and ending at the new. Riding the outside is the hardest of all. The boys took turns at this as each must use his best horse, start first and get in last. It is his business to round up all the cattle on the limits of the range and throw them toward the center, where they will be taken up by the next man and so on until the whole is bunched together and driven to camp. Here they were held in a bunch until the foreman with his chosen riding men and trained cut horses went into the bunch and cut out the beef cattle and calves that had escaped branding and ear marking.

The beef cattle were then cut into a bunch by themselves and held by some of the men. After the beeves were out the calves were branded. The calves were roped from horseback, generally by both hind feet, then another rope was thrown over the head and the calf stretched out. Thus held by two horses the hot branding iron was applied. This required only a moment and “doggy” was on his feet making for the main bunch. So the work proceeded until the whole bunch had been worked.

The beef cattle were driven along with the wagons and night herded until five train loads had been gathered.

The unused saddle horses were herded and kept with the camp. They were brought to the wagons each morning by the wrangler. For a corral to catch the horses in, two long ropes were stretched out in the form of a triangle, using the wagon as one side, into which the bunch was driven. Each man then roped his horse for the day. A different horse is used each day, so that one horse is used only once in about eight or ten days, according to the number of horses a man has on his string.

I rode the outside one day with “Beaut” Bowers. We chose our stoutest horses, cinched on our hulls and rode in a steady lope from 5 o’clock in the morning until 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

When a bunch of cattle was found we started them in toward the center on a full run. We took our slickers from behind our saddles and waved the cattle into a run, which carried them within the next rider’s circle.

The cowboys are master hands at yelling, and cattle run at sight of a man on horseback much faster when he begins to yell.

Two or more men went on watch at sundown to keep the cattle from straying. Later in the evening the cattle become quiet and bed down. If the night is still and nothing happens to disturb them, they will remain quiet all night. The stampede is one of the worst things that can happen, even now in these days of wire fences.

If the cattle are only a little scared they may be easily quieted, though sometimes they break away and the men on guard have to ride at break-neck speed through the night, over ground that is dangerous even in the day time. More than one fellow has met with a broken limb or ribs from such a mad ride.

When the cattle break away in this manner the men ride alongside of the bunch and gradually work up the leaders and sometimes even throw their horses over against them in an attempt to get them to “milling”--that is, get them to running in a circle. Once this is accomplished, the rest is more easy. The bunch is kept milling until exhausted, when they gradually slow down, and at last, after perhaps hours of hard riding, quiet down. Through the rest of the night they need close watching; they are nervous and may break away again. When the cattle become restless at night the boys sing and whistle and walk slowly around and around the bunch. The sound of the human voice seems to have a soothing effect on them.

When we had gathered five train loads of beef they were driven to the railroad station, where car after car was loaded.

XXIII.

THE EGYPT OF AMERICA.

Once I made a horseback ride from Trinidad, Colorado, to El Paso, following the old trail over the Glorietta mountains to Pueblo de Taos and thence by easy stages to El Paso, Texas, my object being to prospect for placer mines.

It is a wild, weird scene, when after crossing the Glorietta range, one finds himself in this storied valley of the Rio Grande, New Mexico, that mysterious land of sunshine, of eternal silence and (may I say) eternal sadness. Sunlight paints the landscapes in rarest tints of blues and greys, heightened by vermillion and bright ochre colorings on cliff and crag, whose silence of ages is broken only by the rumble of the train, to relapse again into its wonted quietude. The land has been asleep for over three hundred years, while the world’s progress has been going on about her. Once she was aroused when the cattle men came from over the range and stocked her valleys, but the cattle did not do well. Then she laid down for another nap. These valleys are those of sadness like unto fabled regions of the hereafter, wherein ungodly spirits are destined to roam forever in isolation from kindred beings. Sad-eyed Mexicans lean against the sunny side of their adobe huts--they are always leaning against something, as though their weak anatomies would not stand alone. They are poor, very poor, but proud. Let a stranger go to their casas and their hospitality is never wanting. A frugal meal of corn, beans and chile is divided with as free a hand as a minister’s benediction. Sad-eyed sheep graze upon the scant vegetation of hill and valley, while the mournful, philosophic donkey does the work of the land,--and perhaps the thinking, too. When the shadows of night fall and the mountain range stands in dark relief against the sky the eye can trace the outlines of grotesque faces formed by irregular peaks and curves. Many of them have traditions old as the Sphinx, for the semi-civilization of the Aztecs that once inhabited this land dates hundreds of years before Cabeza de Vaca explored these valleys of the Pecos and Rio Grande. The sacred fires of the Aztecs have died out in the ashes of the past, yet there are those living who still look for the coming of Montezuma. It seems that every race of people in their decline look for the coming of a redeemer. This belief is kept alive by the Pueblo Indians of these valleys, who bow to the sun from their housetops as he shines from over the mountain range at early morn. Like the men of Mars Hill, they believe in “the unknown God,” whose name is too holy to be spoken. They hold sacred all animals living in or near water, which in this dry climate is the greatest blessing.

At Taos they have a tradition that at the flood a few faithful Pueblos gathered upon a mountain top and waited long and in vain for the waters to subside. At last a youth of royal blood and a beautiful virgin decorated with brilliant feathers, were let down from the cliff as an offering to the angry Deity. The waters soon fell, and the youth and maiden were transformed into statues of stone. With all the silence and sadness of this region, contentment seems to reign supreme, and if some genius with the pen of Washington Irving will study the simple ways of these Mexican people and write of their traditions he will do mankind a service and make himself famous.

Swiftly flows the Rio Grande along its shallow banks, from whence here and there runs an irrigating ditch which waters a patch of corn or vineyard, near the adobe houses which are scattered thickly along the banks of the river, from the Sangre de Christo mountains to the Mexican sea. Here for over three hundred years a semi-Spanish civilization has existed in a sweet contentment to which the Anglo-Saxon race was born a stranger. Here is the Egypt of America, teeming with the traditions of a simple people, content almost with breath alone.

The old mission of Las Cruces was among the first built by the Jesuits in this valley. Behind its altar were two crude paintings of Santo Domingo and Santa Rita, and between them the statuettes of the Virgin and St. Joseph. Beneath the whole was a painting, the scene of which the artist had located somewhere on the borderland between heaven and hell. Gilded saints were flying off in one direction while great horned toads and scorpions were pulling dark browed Mexicans and Indians into a sea of flames. At this mission was held the first Auto de Fa in New Mexico. An Apache chief had been made a prisoner and was set to work herding sheep. One day he lost one and the holy father said: “Son of the infidel, what did you do with that sheep?”

“I lost it,” replied the Apache, “but you may take it out of my pay.”

“Pay! what pay, you sacrilegious toad?”

“Why, out of my daily lashes.”

“Holy saints protect us!” exclaimed the padre. “Theft, disbelief and the church itself defied! We will have Judaism here next. Away with him to the faggot fires.”

Then, as the flames crept around the Apache chained to a stone post, he repented and the father baptised him and agreed to meet him up yonder, but did not offer to put out the fire. As about two hundred and fifty years have passed since then, they have perhaps met and adjusted their differences by this time.

Cruel as these old religious zealots may have been at times, they did a world of good, for they semi-civilized the natives.

Beside the yellow waters of the Rio Grande and near the Sierra Blanco range, lies El Paso. Its streets were busy with traffic, and tall buildings rose majestically on either side. But the wind sweeps through the mountain pass and the dust storms darken the sky for days at a time. Like all other desert regions the chief boast of its inhabitants is climate and “this exceptionally bad weather only known heretofore to the oldest settler” grows irksome when one has heard it five hundred times in like regions. Around and about El Paso for three hundred miles north, south, east, and west, is desert, and to those who have never seen a desert country it is surprising how all conditions of life are changed. These conditions are harder than in humid countries. In our northern land between Canada and the Gulf, that which sustains life grows in abundance and few people there are who know what it is to be hungry. But here in El Paso there are many of the poorer classes who actually suffer for something to eat.

Within thirty minutes the entire scene had changed. I had crossed the river and was in El Paso del Norte, on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. Narrow lane-like streets, white adobe buildings with heavily grated windows make the stranger feel that he has intruded on a convention of county jails. In half an hour I had gone backward three centuries. Silent, dark-browed figures walked the streets with Spanish cloak or serape wound majestically around them, donkeys laden with wood, peddlers with hogskins filled with pulque, strangely attired Mexicans, all formed a weird street scene not soon to be forgotten.

It was on the plaza here that General Bonito Juarez camped his little force of 150 men while he went to Washington to appeal to this government to enforce the Monroe doctrine in the midst of our own rebellion. When the American ultimatum went forth to France, Napoleon III withdrew his French troops. Then Juarez marched on to the City of Mexico gathering strength as he went. The unfortunate Maximilian fell into his hands and was executed on the “Cerra de las Campus” (The Hill of the Bells), near Queretaro on the 19th of June, 1867. General Bonito Juarez was a full blooded Aztec whom Fate seems to have ordained to bring about the political regeneration of his country.

It was a gala day in El Paso del Norte. A company of Rurales from the interior was to contest in a shooting match with the Carbine Rifles and bets were running high. Both sides did some good shooting at 500 yards and the Carbine Rifles won. Bets were paid freely and everybody was in a good humor.

I had formed the acquaintance of Captain Esperanza Provincio and at his invitation I fired a few shots, hitting the bull’s eye each time with one of the Mexican carbines.

This excited everybody’s attention and soon some Americans offered to bet that I could beat any man they had in their company shooting at 500 yards. The bets were taken and I was pitted against six crack shots belonging to the Carbine Rifles. I won in every instance and received a neat sum for my skill from my American friends who had won the Mexicans’ money. Captain Provincio, not to be outdone in generosity, caused a handsome silver medal to be made which he afterwards presented to me with the compliments of his company.

The Military Band from Chihuahua discoursed sweet music in the plaza that night to a large crowd of citizens from both towns.

The Mexican plaza is the national chimney corner, where at evening a band plays wild, weird strains of martial music, and the young gather about the old to hear tales of daring and valor. It is the plaza where the traditions are kept alive and where the young are taught that the very acme of glory in life is the battlefield.

The soft effects of moonlight, the plaza with its green trees, fountains, and sauntering of senors and senoritas in the presence of the silvertoned bells of an old cathedral and the weird strains of martial music, form the pleasant remembrances of El Paso del Norte, since named Juarez.

In company with a Mexican miner named Martenez I rode westward along the Mexican border for two days, and thence toward the northwest to Gila River, when one morning we saw to the southward a column of smoke ascending. We knew it to be Indian signals and so rode our bronchos into a clump of bushes on the river banks in order to be out of sight.

On scanning the plain with my field glass I saw a column of dust rising far to the north like a pillar of smoke and rightly guessed it to be caused by a body of horsemen. From the speed they were making, I judged they were either pursuers or being pursued. In either event, we felt fairly safe, as our bronchos were in good condition, were splendid animals, and as we had used them well of late, we believed we could outdistance them if they proved to be hostile Indians. Nearer the cloud of dust approached and the closer I looked with my field glass until I discovered they were Apaches making all haste to reach the mountains. They crossed the Gila River, which was at flood tide, five hundred yards from where we were concealed and disappeared in the direction from whence we saw the smoke signals. We had made up our minds to remain in our hiding places until night, when I saw another dust cloud in the same direction as the first, and in a little while I made out that the dust was raised by a party of scouts and rode out to meet them. They were led by Captain Jack Crawford and were in pursuit of the murderous band of Apaches who had been killing ranchmen in the upper country.

The scouts continued on the pursuit, while we rode away in the direction of Silver City.

It was that band of marauding Apaches which we saw crossing the Gila River that furnished the cause for the Geronimo war, which broke out soon afterwards. It was not until March, in 1886, that General Crook captured Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apaches, who escaped from him while they were being taken to Ft. Bowie. The chief and band were recaptured by General Nelson A. Miles in Mexico some months afterwards and sent to Fort Pickens, Florida. Geronimo and fourteen of his band were afterwards taken to Ft. Sill, Indian Territory. Here the cunning old Chief spent most of his time playing monte with the soldiers.

XXIV.

IN THE DOME OF THE SKY.

There are three ways of reaching the summit of Pike’s Peak--walking, riding a burro, or seated comfortably in one of the coaches of the Cog Road.

It was three o’clock in the afternoon when the car was pulled out of the yards at the foot of the Peak. The strongly-built little engine puffed like a living thing, obedient to the task of drawing its heavy load. The wheels moved rapidly, and we ascended the steepest mountain railroad in the world. It wound about the mountain sides in little curves, climbing, always climbing higher and higher, until we shuddered at the dizzy heights as we looked down into the great yawning chasms thousands of feet below.

The air grew cooler in the deep mountain defiles densely wooded with fir, pine, cedar and quaking asp. A great fire once swept up these gorges and burned away the fir and pine in patches; in their place came the quaking asp, growing here and there in thickets.

Along the slopes and in the dells, wild flowers grew with the luxuriant profusion of a semi-tropical clime. There were columbines and tiger lilies growing at an altitude of ten thousand feet.

Nature has done some queer things in the mighty rocks which stand sentinel guard along the route.

One great boulder is named the Hooded Monk, because of its resemblance to the human head in a monk’s cowl. There is a Gog and Magog. The Sphynx, the Lone Fisherman, and many other images of man, bird and beast, wrought by nature’s hand in stone.

We glided by one of the loveliest glens in all the mountains; it was called Shady Springs. Here the oriole, the raven and the big blue jay of the mountains have builded their nests and take their morning baths in waters clear as crystal from a spring that gushed from fern and moss covered banks.

Farther on to the right a stream plunges in wild, mad swirl of clear waters and dashing from rock to rock in foamy white, forms Echo Falls. An elephant’s head in bass relief was here to be seen wrought in stone.

We rounded Cameron’s Cone and Sheep Mountain and soon began the ascent of the “Big Hill,” which has a rise of 1,300 feet to the mile.

Nearing timber line, the road ahead appears to be almost at an angle of 45 degrees.

Higher and higher; the great chasm below grew almost a mile deeper. On one side there were masses of square rock which looked like they were broken by human hands. Here, far above timber line, a variety of wild flowers blossomed, while among the rocks lived some of the strangest little animals, the whistling marmot, a fur animal about the size of an overgrown cat, and the peka, which has the legs of a rabbit and the head of a mountain rat; there were also minks, weasels, porcupines and mountain rats.