CHAPTER XV.

THE PATHFINDER'S HONOUR.

Here might the author stop, and, in sooth, he was going to write

the words "The End," glad that the episode of the pearl fisher had,

at least, the happy _finis_ so desired by the novel reader; but my

editor,[1] who was smoking a cigar at my elbow, in my sanctum, and who

had been interested enough in what I was dashing off to follow the

lines over my shoulder, checked my hand abruptly.

"Here, here!" he cried, as "The End" was on the point of flowing from

my pen. "Do you mean to tell us that you know nothing more of Benito

Vázquez, his bride and his friends?"

"But I do," I answered with a sigh, for a sad memory had been revived

by the unexpected inquiry. "But may I not leave the Pearl fisher rich

on his _hacienda_ in Sonora?"

"No," said my editor. "Why should you stop here? As long as you do know

something more about him, the tale is not told. Our readers, who have

become enwrapt in your hero--I may almost say your two heroes--will be

charmed, I warrant, to learn all they can further."

"Now, do you really think," I inquired, hesitatingly, "that this

continuation will not bore?"

"Far from that, since it will complete the opening. I must acknowledge

that your finish struck me as pulling up short. To conclude with, 'And

so they were wed, and all lived happy ever after,' is to be met with in

every novel and romance."

"Have your own way," I answered, "since you wish more, my dear friend,

I shall go on and give you the completion required, which, this time,

you may make up your mind to it will not be rounded off at the altar.

Only I would like everyone to know that you, and you alone, insisted

upon having it so."

"Very well," he said, laughing; "scribble away! I am sure we shall be

the gainers!"

And now, dear readers, having protected myself as regards you all, I

continue the story with the hope that the conclusion will interest you

as much as, I understand, the foregoing has pleased you.

Mr. Gladsden went to England to imitate his friend and comrade by

sacrificing to Hymen.

He married, and had two sons. They were still young when he lost

their beloved mother, and ere long, in accordance with that very

contra-French custom of keeping the children in leading strings which

pushes the British boy into life beyond the home, they dwelt remote

from him at school. He was, therefore, a lonely man. Politics had no

attraction to one still active, fox hunting was tame after his American

experience, and yachting was baby play to a genuine mariner.

Gladsden had already shown his remembrance of Mexico by investing

heavily in its Western Railway, and hence he was confidently

approached by the promoters of that link which should make it fully

transcontinental, and by the later projectors, who sought to establish

the line between Guaymas and that running down through the wild lands

to Santa Fe, El Paso, Topeka, and thus binding the cactus country to

that of wheat, corn, and cattle.

From joining the board of the latter companies to volunteering to go

out and investigate the causes of a prodigious slowness in building the

line was an affair of short duration. Mr. Gladsden's offer was gladly

accepted, and he started with alacrity, which proved how deep had been

his longing to break away from social trammels.

This time he proceeded overland from New York, and finally surveyed the

route of the Great Southern Pacific Railway as far as El Paso. There

a chance speech overheard in the Continental House, which enclosed

a reference to the rich land proprietor, don Benito de Bustamente,

changed his purpose to proceed still westwardly. He engaged a guide and

horses, and was, at the beginning of May, traversing the Sierra de las

Animas, or Mountains of All Souls.

On the twenty-fifth of that month, going on four of the afternoon, a

time clearly indicated by the disproportionately long shadows of the

trees on the sandy soil of the _savannah_, and the coppery red colour

of the sun, which appeared like a fiery disc at the level of the

lowermost branches, we see Gladsden and his guide mounted on native

horses. The superior wore for old acquaintance sake the costume of

Mexican rancheros, and his attendant the picturesque and typical garb

of the hunter of the West. They were both armed to the teeth, as a

matter of course, for, in this quarter, all honest men are exposed to

the three heads of the Southwestern Cerberus: that of the "rustlers,"

or white desperadoes; of the _bandoleros_, or Mexican thieves; and of

the wild Indians, none of them uniting with either of the others, but

true Ishmaels.

It was remarkable that the prairie guide, however, had acceded to the

progress of improvement in firearms, in lieu of the long and heavy

rifle so celebrated along the backbone of the continent in the hands of

the trapper and hunter, this man carried, like his employer, a finely

finished Winchester breech-loading and repeating rifle, much stronger

and larger than the general pattern.

The pair had just emerged from an immense forest of cedar, which had

never yet known the woodman's threat, though doomed ere long to feed a

locomotive engine's furnace, and were glad to cry halt at the skirts of

the covert. Then they trotted down to a pretty stream, which was one of

the sources of the Yaqui River, and bending so far to the westward as

to make an inexperienced explorer fancy it had something to do rather

with the San Miguel.

Indeed, the woodsman examined the muddy waters with serious heed for

a long time, and executed some mental calculations in that wonderful

untaught trigonometry of the frontiersman. Then, stopping his _broncho_

by a scarcely perceptible pressure of his knees, he bent gracefully

towards his employer, and said, as he smiled good-humouredly:

"Hyar you hev it, Mr. Gladsden; this ar the safe ford, though the

melting snow has set the sink pits filling, of which I war speaking

this noonday."

"Quite certain, eh, Oliver?" remarked the English gentleman.

"I wish I was as sartin sure I shell die with my har on," was the

other's laughing answer, showing magnificent teeth for a man of fifty,

which hard biscuit and harder deer meat, with plenty of "chaw" in

it, seemed nowise to have impaired. "Anybody but me mout go askew,

but I have known all these _tracks_ (he meant 'tracts,' for it was a

trackless wild, in plain truth), now an' agen, off an' on, for over

fifteen year."

"Pray overlook my offensive persistency, Oliver; but I cannot help

observing that I do not see any of the sites by which, according to my

informants at The Pass, I was to learn the exact position of a crossing

line in a treacherous stream. And I have been a sailor, too, and

accustomed to go any course, if I have reasonable bearings laid down

and visible."

"Oh, I never mind your being cornered, sir," went on the other, still

merry; "they forgot to tell you the distances in mapping out the pints.

You cannot see the Chinapa Peak even from here. But it's all one, Mr.

Gladsden; here is the point of the Yaqui. Yonder, I can see the smoke

of a _pueblo_--the village they call Fronteras, as they do half a dozen

such places within a crow's fly along the borderland. That reddish

haze is over the Río Bravo, whence we came. Now, to reach the road to

Arispe, you cross and you keep dead ahead, and you must strike it."

"Well, I must say, Oliver, that since I have had the pleasure of a

journey at your side, all your information has been as credible as

gospel. It is a long while since I was in the wilderness; but I did

have a taste of it once, and I am confident that on more than one

occasion already you have diverged from the apparently true course to

save me from something unpleasant. I conjecture my equipment, on which

I had no reason to spare money, excited the cupidity of some of the

loafers at El Paso, and that we were followed."

"Right you are! And I threw them out clean twice. And a couple of times

more, thar hev been injin 'signs' hot as cayenne. That's jest why I

say you had best git over the water now, rather than wait any longer,

though there will be less fear o' your hoss being carried off his

hoofs."

"Fifteen years ago, my friend," said Gladsden, who had not failed to

remark mentally, how little the speaker had dwelt on the cares he had

already exercised to preserve his charge from the "hostiles," white and

red, "I should have been so reckless as to say--since I should like our

having a parting meal together--let us sit here and eat away! But I

have no right to expose your life to peril, even if I had not two boys

at home for whom mine is still desirable. So, if you do not object, let

me show you that I have learnt prudence from your continual exercise of

it, and that our repast shall take place on the farther side of this

shallow, frothing, dirty-hued river."

"Nothing hinders me," answered the hunter. "Have things your own way.

Let us hie over before sundown."

He looked to the mustang's already terribly tight girths, shortening

the stirrup straps and caught up some of the trappings which dangled in

the Mexican style.

"Thar we 'do' the river," he said, pointing, "follow me step by step.

I ought to go before, but your saddleback is high, and you must triple

your blanket across your shoulders and neck, in case of a shot. If we

are fired on from the rear do not turn but fall flat on the horse's

neck. If we are fired on from your side, return the shot at anything

moving in the froth. If from my side, I'll deal with that. Leave your

hoss free to step in the steps of mine, for the crossing line is very

narrer, the bottom one mass of holes and quicksands, and the current

rushes like lightning where it does have free play; there is, moreover,

a gulf below with rapids that grind granite like chalk. The least

imprudence will send us, hoss and cavalyers, rolling along like Canady

thistle balls in a breeze. You hev your caution--no fooling, mark!"

All the hunter guide's mirthfulness had vanished, and the stern tone

made Mr. Gladsden start. We know he was incontestably brave, and that

he had gone through some such perils as now confronted him; but the

advance of civilisation in the southwest had given him an impression

that his former adventures were things of an irrecoverable past.

However, there was no time to meditate, for his guide had pushed his

horse into the water; and the other immediately followed it. They, too,

seemed imbued with consciousness of the situation being perilous, for,

though thirsty, they did not attempt to moisten their muzzles, albeit

the bridles, as Oliver directed, were slackened and the cruel Mexican

bits ceased their tyranny.

The passage was performed without accident, and soon the pair were on

the further bank in about the only break in a ragged, steep ledge.

"Hyar we kin stake out," said the guide, "and await moonrise for our

'forking off.' Meanwhile, that feast, if you still air set on it, sir."

They dismounted, the hunter went and drew water for the horses in an

india rubber saddle bag, whilst the Englishman lifted off a huge double

sack from the back of his saddle, which is called the _alforjas_, and

took out a deer ham and a plover already cooked, a piece of Dutch

cheese so hard as almost to turn the knife, some green fruit, bananas,

guavas, and chirimoyas which they had picked on the way to eat as a

kind of salad, and lastly, some army biscuit.

By the time the guide had completed his duties, the spread was laid.

A very sober man, as most of these borderers are except when they

'break out' and indulge in a week's heavy and uninterrupted drinking,

much as seamen of 'temperance ships' do after a rough voyage, Oliver

merely added as much brandy, of which they had a couple of flasks full,

as would settle the mud in the water freshly drawn. They both drew

knives as sharp as their appetites, and fell on the victuals without

losing breath in a further word in addition to a brief but feeling

grace which the Englishman uttered, and to which the American, whom

the innovation reminded of the same religious practice, vague from its

early occurrence in his life, said a hearty "Amen."

We take the moment, when this agreeable occupation rewards them both

for a long, fatiguing ride, to trace their portraits.

Gladsden had become a trifle portlier, and had lost his sunburns. He

was less quick to move, but more irresistible in action than ever. In

brief, the hussar was now a heavy cavalrist, whom even these few weeks

in the Southwest had improved in mind, wind, and limb. His sight was

dimmer, but he had no need of glasses to shoot well and straight.

His companion was a man apparently in the prime of life, but he must

have been twenty years older than the three decades which seemed, to

the casual observer, to sit so lightly on his broad shoulders. He was

rather tall than medium, and the absence of superfluous flesh, and the

unusual length of his limbs would make him look like a giant among the

small statured Mexicans and squat horse Indians, mostly bowlegged. His

neck was short and muscular, and, thus, his head had a small aspect,

like Hercules; the features were cold if not stern, and his cast of

countenance was devoid of muscular play, except when one of his merry

moods was on him. Vigour and rigour distinguished him on active duty.

Under a broad forehead, his somewhat deep set eyes, crowned with

bushy brows, were of a changeable nature, for, while almost blue when

he was calm, anger caused them to become dull brown, and they could

dart flashes like those of felines, they were very movable and were

continually examining things around, save when he was addressing

anyone, whereupon they were straight, frank, and steadfast. His long

brown hair, saturated with bear's grease--for your frontiersman has a

sneaking respect for the toilet--and hence almost black, streamed long

and freely out from beneath a homemade hat of mountain sheep wool and

covered his shoulders.

His two names denoted the extent of his ranging ground, for he was

generally known among his own race as "Oregon Ol.," and by the Indians

of the Mexican border as "the Ocelot," that being the wild cat of the

Mexicans (Ocelolt, in Aztec), a trifle less than the jaguar, but,

muscularly speaking, very powerful and no joke for ferocious courage.

In the same way as this well-known guide possessed several names, he

could boast various reputations. The United States Army officers wrote

him down as kindly, never downhearted in sun or snow, skilful, honest

to a button's worth, disinterested, knowing woodcraft thoroughly,

always ready, aye, even to help a friend out of pocket, canteen, or

with his wits, bold to temerity when boldness was the best card,

"reliable," and sticking to his man, friend or foe, to the last gasp.

For the redskins, Oliver was quite other game: he inspired

superstitious terror blended with admiration; no one ever succeeded in

contests of cunning with him; implacable towards anyone who sought to

injure or even annoy him, he would pursue the molester or molesters,

one or many, to their final hiding place, cutting off stragglers,

reducing the band like a man devouring a bunch of grapes, one by one,

and knifing the last at his lone campfire. "That will teach them,"

he would say, when reproached by new coming dragoon officers, at the

forts, who thought it unseemly for a white man to decorate his leggings

with human hair like the reds. He meant that his punishment was to

save, by its recital filling the Indians with dread, many another white

man on the debatable ground, brother hunter, comrade trapper, emigrant,

settler, pioneer, railway prospector.

We say "brother" hunter and "comrade" trapper, for Oregon Oliver only

_shot_ animals; to him, any other means of obtaining fur and feather

would have been ignoble.

Up to some five years back he had been in the habit of transmitting

money, acquired by the sale of peltries, by piloting wealthy foreigners

over the hunting grounds in fashion, and by schooling army officers

in frontier warfare, to some relation in the Eastern States, who had

succeeded his parents as the embodiment of the ideal of home; but death

having removed this claim, as he generously conceived it to be, upon

his purse, he had no need to toil as formerly he did, and he led an

easy life, following for the most part his own sweet free will, over

the ten thousand miles which separate Southern America from the Polar

Seas.

These two men, as opposite in nature and station as well could be, had

made acquaintance in the most natural manner.

Mr. Gladsden wanted a guide into Sonora, and the colonel at Fort

Fillmore, with whom he had been quail shooting, had recommended "the

champion guide."

Once on the road to Arispe, studded with hamlets, all of them, perhaps,

increased in importance since Gladsden's previous stay in Sonora, a

conductor was superfluous. At least he was under that impression.

Hunters never dally with a meal; a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes

at the most suffice, then, if there be more time to spare, there is a

chat amid tobacco smoke. Thus acted our two adventurers.

The rest of the provender was restored to the alforjas, and Oliver

filled a sweet corncob pipe, whilst Mr. Gladsden selected an excellent

regalia in a prettily carved Guayaquil wood box. As soon as they were

both under a cloud, they mused for a while in silence.

When the English gentleman broke this stillness, it was in the

heartiest tone of good fellowship. It was to pay a compliment again

upon the experienced guide and genial companion.

"All right," said the man from Oregon, "you are doing me justice: I hev

done my level best. As long as all turns out well, and you have no dirt

to cast on me, thar's no bone splinters in my meat."

"Oliver, you _are_ a thorough white man," went on Mr. Gladsden,

uttering the _acme_ of western flattery, "all but the liver, and I'd

eat that of the rogue I ever caught defaming you or your class!"

It was a savage way of putting it, which was not unfitting the scene.

"At home with a shoal of old servants about me, I would not lie down

with the confidence that I feel in the desert beside you."

"You are painting it on mighty thick," was the caustic answer,

"but you do not know enough of me to see that I am not any

meet-every-next-minute kind of critter. Young in years, I was then

aged by tussle and bustle. So, drop this flattery right thar which I

shed, like a wild duck the spray of a waterfall. I hev carried out my

engagement to a T, and that's all said and done."

"Stop a bit! I shall send you out some special present from England

yet, over and above the mere pay. You have a rough mind, mate," said

Mr. Gladsden, laughing.

"Not a jot, no! I am a plain man. It is all very well for you city

folks when somebody has done you a good turn to talk of shining

rewards, with the _idee_ that you thereby put him in a lariat to folly

you for the futur', but, how shu'd you! You are about wrong every time!

You foun' this coon pooty nigh sweeped out of existence, for when a

hunter has lost mules, fixin's, _and_ rifle, all through them durn'd

red thieves--Soo or Pawnee--he is an or'nary cuss on'y fit for the

Injin boys to switch. Then you begun operations by forcing on me this

harnsum shooting iron, which has made me take back all my ripping out

agen new fangled machinery in firearms. It's a 'stonisher!"--and he

patted the wondrous weapon affectionately. "Think o' that, a marvel in

_herself_, and an outfit in keeping to boot, and all gift-free! It's

lordly, that's what it is, though I don't pass out well in knowledge of

your lords an' sich. But I am off on a false trail. As I was sayin',

the man who swallers promises and who likes praise is a hireling help

and never a friend or _compadre_."

"But I take it, we do part friends as we have journeyed, eh?" asked Mr.

Gladsden, offering his hand with unhesitating trustfulness.

"You bet!" replied Oliver, grasping the hand so hastily that one could

see that he would not have given any pain by delay for the world. "You

were recommended to me by a gentleman whom I hold as of prime vally.

I hev seen the Colonel, when we were floundering in the snows of the

Sierrar, give up his rags and his last drink of coffee to a poor

mixed blood teamster! Why, I'd die for that man, and that man's dog

e'enamost! I am ready to die for you, as his friend. And that's why it

rode rough on me to have you want to break loose at the bank of this

river, and plunge alone into the yaller bellies' district. You mout as

well ask me to lead a blind man safe over forty rod of rough ground to

the brink of a precipice, and then let go his hand, a-saying: 'Now, let

her slide, old dark-y!"

"At all events, you have fully done your task. But why do you

again hint of danger? I give you my word that I have pricked up

my ears--which is more than our horses have done--and yet not the

slightest--"

"Go on talking, and louder," whispered Oliver, significantly.

The Englishman hardly understood, but he obeyed the sudden mysterious

injunction, whilst his interrupter continued with a vast relish to

puff at his pipe, of which the smoke ascended thickly, and at regular

periods. Gladsden listened, and stealthily gazed around, but to no

avail. He then glanced at the American, who preserved the same ease

of demeanour, and smoked as for a wager, his back to the stream, from

which a sound of the turbulent ripple arose; the tobacco glowed in the

pipe head, and dully illumined his brooding countenance. It struck

the observer, however, that Oliver's left hand was scarcely sensibly

lowering upon his rifle, which, of course, was near at his side.

Suddenly, with an action as rapid as thought, that weapon was picked

up and levelled at the shoulder upon a bush, very thick with foliage,

about a hundred and fifty paces afar, and instantly fired. There rose a

little smoke from the touchhole plate, but no shot resounded.

Instantly a dark-complexioned man in hunter's attire bounded out of the

shrub with a whoop of triumph, and pointed his gun at the couple in

camp. But before the Englishman could do anything, his safe conductor,

whose features assumed an expression of scornfulness, pulled the

trigger of the breechloader a second time, and the unfailing bullet

dashed into the brain of the stranger even as he was about to shoot.

All this passed in less time than it takes to write it.

Up went the man's hands, so that his gun fell just a little before he

measured his length on the ground, and curled himself up; no cry, no

second spasm; he was slain straightway.

"Thought hisself a smart Aleck, I reckon," remarked the hunter, with

continual contempt. "You'll crawl, sneak, and squirm no more."

"If your rifle had snapped again, you or I would have been keeled

over," remarked the Englishman.

"Great Scott!"[2] ejaculated the other, surprised, and laughing

heartily, though not aloud. "You ain't a-going to say you were took in,

too? Well, I never! It must a'been a 'tarnal choice dodge."

"What do you mean?"

"No great witchcraft. Look here! This man here's a half-breed--Apache

and Mexican, I judge. Well, he's been dogging us ever so long, mayhap

from The Pass. Anyhow, I thought he got over the water by the False

Ford, by the devil's luck, and, anyhow again, I see him lodge himself

right plum' centre in that bush. Cou'dn't _sight_ him thar no more nor

a fat dog in an Injin village. But I was fixed in the fact that thar he

lay, aiming at me or you. So, to fetch him out slick, I resarved some

'bacca smoke in my mouth, and when I clicked my nail on the breech, I

just let the smoke blow off's if it come out of the gun, d'ye see? Lor,

how the idiot was sucked in, I reckon! He riz up a-whooping his triumph

over the old Oregonian, a-thinking me without a load in! So I had a

right fa'r shot."

He went up to his victim and turned out his pockets, and transferred

his arms to his girdle.

"He's half Apache and half greaser, as I opined," he pronounced on

coming back. "So it would puzzle a Supreme Court lawyer to tell whether

he is scouting on account o' copper colour or yaller belly. Jest bit

the horses, sir. In either case we must file ahead, an' not let his

gang catch on to us. Thar's Tiger Cat and his Apaches on the war path,

I heerd, and Oneleg Pedrillo, the champion this-side rustler, never

smokes the pipe of peace. I am saying nothing, make your notch, of the

loafers who may have followed us, full of the prospect of a rich haul,

for I rally b'lieve thar's an impression at The Pass that you are an

English Prince of the blood r'yal examining the United States to see

how far South you want to annex it to Canada, though you ain't out with

a four-mule team."

Mr. Gladsden did not laugh at the rhodomontade, while preparing the

steeds.

The sight of the corpse, so lately a vigorous man springing out of

cover to take his life, had in one little instant made him comprehend

on what dangerous ground he groped his, perhaps, henceforth hourly

threatened way.

[1] Of the Paris weekly newspaper in which this romance had delighted

the insatiable reader.

[2] Gen. Winfield Scott, a hero of the War of 1812, and that with

Mexico, is an idol in the American Walhalla. His name becomes an

invocation only partially playfully used by the frontier army officers,

their men, and the hunters.