CHAPTER XXII.

THE PACT OF BLOOD.

Behind the fugitives, the rattle of dropping shots had gone on for an

hour so that Oregon Oliver's prophecy of the possible duration of such

skirmishing bid fair to be verified.

The Indians mode of warfare is to force a retrograde movement by the

gradual concentration of fire, and at the moment a retreat is begun,

whatever the cause--strategetic or from pure weakness or cowardice--a

charge is made by the best warriors in a body, whooping and brandishing

their weapons.

Knowing something of how resistless was such a rush, our old

acquaintance Don Aníbal, _alias_ The Slayer of Seven, was in no

humour for awaiting one. Already, from the glimpse he had of the

young Mexican girl borne away among the stampeded horses, his desire

for retaliation on don Benito had inspired him with a novel idea; he

hoped, against all precedent, to unite the Apaches with him in the same

purpose.

It was, indeed, our old acquaintance, the reader will see, perfectly

unscrupulous by what means he obtained his ends.

The miracle to which he owed the preservation of his rascally life had

been a lesson only for the time being.

When, plunging off the islet into the Gulf in order to elude the

infuriated husband of doña Dolores, the pirate was swimming for an

offing, he became the aim of more than one shark. Twice he escaped

being swallowed more or less in the maw of the most swift, for each

time he had swerved on one side as it blindly turned back downward for

the terrible bite. But, when so near the shore as to hope for full

immunity from this living danger at least, one of the tintoreras,

fearless of the shoaling water, flew forward like a flash of lightning,

and, amid an eddy of the churning water, poor Matasiete was seized

by the leg, and suffered the anguish of its being torn from half the

thigh. His scream was stifled as he was dragged down, and when he

arose, he was cast upon the strand. With the strength of infernal pain

and the madness of despair he not only dragged himself up under cover

of the mangroves, but twisted his cravat as a tourniquet around the

severed limb. Then he fainted away.

It was not until the morning that the pearl fishers were attracted to

him by his piteous groans. They had been so generously paid by Mr.

Gladsden after his securing the treasure that they took great care of

the dismembered Mexican, believing him one of the brigantine crew,

in which belief he took heed not to disturb them in his rare lucid

moments. They rewarded themselves by stripping him and cutting off his

silver buttons, and after a few weeks, changing their fishing ground,

left him in their best hut. Fever had gone, but he was as weak as a

child, and for some months seemed able only to crawl about. Thus he had

ample time for repentance even of so long a career of guilt.

He was penitent in his helplessness, and had such a man as Father

Serafino encountered him then, he might never have recurred to

his former life. But no one came near the crippled hermit but sea

otter hunters, and pearl and whale fishers, and they were rough,

unsympathetic souls, who only landed to buy, or take by force, the

vegetables which he raised.

In this way, chained to the spot by his loss of limb, with the

perpetual presence of the reef where that treasure had been drawn up,

to embitter his thoughts and his dreams, Matasiete nursed projects

of vengeance, not merely against the Englishman and don Benito, but

against all human kind.

At last, nearly four years in this almost solitary existence having

passed, and his little hoard of earnings by the supply of green meat to

the whalers swelling out so that he feared he would be robbed, he took

advantage of the offer of an officer of a British man-of-war, surveying

the Gulf, to transport him to Guaymas.

People and things had changed there; the prospect of the railways

connecting the port with the United States and Mexico City had

galvanised it into a life he had never known before. Most of his

associates had disappeared; but he found Don Stefano Garcia humbly

"clerking it" in a merchant's, and very reticent about a fortnight

in the chain gang, which punishment he had undergone for some little

playfulness in his banking business.

Wary, tenacious, exacting, the returned salteador fastened himself

upon the clerk and blackmailed him almost daily, spending the extorted

money in the sailors' drinking dens. At last, seeing that his Old Man

of the Sea was doomed to be his destruction, Garcia made an effort,

gave the robber a large sum of money once for all, and started him for

the northern interior. The former rover of the Sierras had expressed a

desire to resume the old life of freedom, tempered with depredation and

debauchery.

Soon, indeed, to the nucleus of a few chosen scoundrels with whom

he had beguiled the intervals between revels and card play in the

Guaymas groggeries, with stories of the merry life on the prairies, the

captain added the floating scum of Upper Sonora. But this time he did

not hesitate to venture into New Mexico and run off cattle from the

American settlers. Thus he acquired a wider fame than before, and on

both sides of the border the One-legged Rustler had a price set on his

head.

About a year before, he had an accession to his band in the person

of no less than the ex-banker, don Stefano Garcia. That estimable

gentleman, from forgery to forgery, had contrived to bring the

credulous foreign firm that employed him to bankruptcy, and, well

supplied with funds, thus shamefully acquired, was encountered by his

old associate gambling it away in the Green Ranch. They were scandalous

rogues, born to travel in harness, and Garcia at once stepped into the

lieutenancy of the formidable band. Too corpulent to be agile, except

in the dance, in which he excelled like most Mexicans, he preferred to

win by astuteness, and was no more daring when his neck was concerned

than El Manco himself.

It was he who earnestly approved his superior's idea of stopping the

desultory fighting and becoming friends with the Apaches. For one knew

as well as the other that they were wolves whose hide would cost dear,

and then be worthless.

The Apaches, as we have elsewhere remarked, are about the most

ferocious and barbarous nation in the great Southwest. Neither Sioux

nor Pawnees attain their perfection in cruelty, and they are matchless

as the Comanches in horse stealing.

They are tyrants of the wilderness, in short, who see no life worth

living without murder, pillage, torture, and conflagrations. They make

no nice distinctions in attacking any beings, white, red, or mixed

blood, merely out of an implacable hatred for those born beyond their

pale. It is said that when other supply of foemen fall short, they will

quarrel among themselves and cross knives in the council lodge itself

for the sheer relish of bloodshedding.

Such were the demons to whom the Mexican Ishmael wanted to propose a

temporary alliance to attack and carry by storm the hacienda of don

Benito de Bustamente.

All at once, therefore, Captain Pedrillo bid one of his men sound a

bugle in imitation of the notes of the cry used by the Apaches for

"cease firing!" and, immediately, one of his lieutenants, risking

his life, sprang from behind a tree towards the red man, waving a

blanket in a peculiar manner which kept it flat but undulating in the

air, whilst he shouted "_Paz_--peace!" As a rule, such overtures are

disregarded by Indians in combat, but the incertitude about their

beloved chief made them accept it. Their missiles were no longer heard

whistling, and, in a few minutes spent in consultation, one of the

subchiefs leaped into the clear ground, and waved a white buffalo robe.

With bravado, in order to indicate that fear had nothing to do with

this offering and assent to the truce, both parties showed themselves.

On the one side, more than a hundred red men appeared, bristling with

spears and arrows held on the bow, or displaying guns and hatchets.

On the other, upon an earthwork hastily thrown up with knives, the

ruffians presented themselves, to the number of sixty at least

enveloped in their zarapés, coiled up to protect vital parts of the

body, their heads shaded with _sombreros_, or capped with skins of

animals, still showing their teeth and claws; their guns and their

machetes gleamed brightly. Both seemed tough morsels, and though

the Indians uttered no comments on the parade, their glances among

themselves expressed the same sentiment of admiration which the

Mexicans muttered.

The _alférez_ and the Apache chief slowly advanced, step for step, so

as to meet midway between the lines; as they came on nearer and nearer,

they threw down weapon after weapon so as, at last, when they stood

within arm's length, to be totally disarmed, in all appearance. No

doubt both had a concealed knife, for treachery is always suspected in

prairie warfare.

When they actually met, and the Mexican spokesman had repeated his

mission to propose peace, on the grounds that there was no quarrel

between the noble Apaches and the bandits, who were in no way connected

with those infernal North American heretics who had intruded within the

Rancho Verde, the Indian made a sign to his friends. Instantly, in a

majestic manner, several chiefs came forward towards him, a movement

imitated by Pedrillo and his subleaders, and soon the two groups were

facing one another.

Profoundly distrustful, though no weapons were visible, both parties

fully aware of the rascality of either, the Apaches nevertheless

recognised that the pair of fugitives who had slain their chief

after beating the Rustlers in the barroom, and were speeding away

on re-stolen horses, were no friends of the Mexicans. The proposal,

therefore, that the two forces should unite in their mutual hate for

the strangers, by whose deeds both suffered, was congenial. Always

repulsed when they attacked the fortified houses of the rich farmers,

the Indians hoped for better results if they were aided by men

accustomed to fight on foot and to manage a siege.

Consequently, not ten minutes of explanation had passed before the half

dozen principals were seated in a circle in the centre of the clearing

before the smoking ruins of Tío Camote's luckless hostelry, with the

calumet circulating for a council.

One little detail had been promptly debated and settled; apart from the

bloodshed due to Mr. Gladsden and his hunter guide, five of the Apaches

had been slain by Mexican bullets, while only three of the bandits had

lost their lives in the skirmish. Now, inasmuch as the code "a life

for a life," rules the savage practice, the Rustlers owed two lives to

the Apaches, who could not, with a debt of blood unpaid, enter into

alliance with the debtors.

With a sharklike grin, the worthy Captain Pedrillo removed this

difficulty.

"There are four of my men, Chief Iron Shirt," said he, leaning towards

the successor of Tiger Cat, "rank weeds, unruly, who have secreted

unfair shares of plunder, and who contemplate desertion to go to Ures,

and, perhaps, betray me and their valiant comrades to the police. I

will arrange, on our march, to send them away as a detached scouting

party, and your young men may take and wear their scalps at their

girdles. Four scalps for two lives! Applaud my generosity!"

"It is a bargain," said the Apaches, grimly enjoying the joke.

Iron Shirt was a notorious villain, having twice at least mingled with

the Cheyennes and passed himself off for one of them in order to obtain

from the United States agent arms and ammunition which he meant, even

as he received them with protestations of lip service, to essay upon

the very official who gave them. Hence he was the man particularly to

appreciate double-dealing and applaud it when he was not the dupe. He

derived his singular but veritable appellation--for he is like other

characters in our narrative, a figure in border annals--not from his

ever wearing a shirt of mail, but from his good fortune in escaping

body wounds. He attributed it to his "medicine," but the white hunters

thought him very dexterous in the use of the small shield which Indian

cavalry carry, and which, while not defying a rifle ball, will fend off

an arrow and stop a revolver bullet.

The pipe of council went twice around the ring, till Pedrillo spoke

again from his elevated perch on the horse, the others squatting in the

Indian fashion.

"My Apache brothers are great warriors," he said, "so I am wishful to

prove my esteem for them by having them join me, or taking me and my

band in conjunction with them," changing the form of offer on seeing

the Indian wince in wounded pride, "to make complete the successful

_coup_ which they have already struck at the hacienda of the Treasure

Hill. This time, my red brothers will return to their villages, not

merely with a few horses and one paleface girl, but with a long train

of mules packed with booty and fifty women to sew their clothes, fetch

water and cook their meals. The scalps are of no value to us, and they

will be the Apaches' prize! As for the plunder of the rich farm, we

divide it fairly between us. What does the chief say?"

Each of the Apaches answered in order of rank "it is good! The chief

says we will fall on the hacienda in concert, and the plunder will be

equally shared among the warriors."

The settlement of details was made whilst this favourable decision

upon the preliminaries was carried to the subordinates, interestedly

awaiting. General satisfaction was manifested, but the wary bandits and

red men took care not to mingle or fraternize, save with arms at hand,

even where several recognised acquaintances and hailed them cordially.

There was no doubt, as happens with more important treaty makers in

Europe, each contracting party reserved in secret the right to keep

none of the pledges given and to seize the spoil the moment he felt

strong enough to defy the consequences of such treachery.

Meanwhile, Pedrillo called for a keg of spirits saved from the wreck of

the ranch, and all drank to cement the negotiation.

Tío Camote had emerged from his retreat, and his two bartenders, more

frightened than hurt when the roof collapsed with them, saw the unburnt

stores of his tavern shared between the allies, as a commencement

of their active brotherhood, without too much resentment. Forced to

enlist actively among the banditti lest the rear guard of the Apaches

immolated him on the smouldering ruins, where their greatest chief was

inextricably buried to appease his manes, Uncle Sweet Potato still

wondered that he lived and breathed with his head thatched as nature

provided. As for his assistants, they were highwaymen when out of a

situation, and they entered the ranks again under Pedrillo's colours

without demur.

Just before sunset, the troops, united in sentiment though divided, as

independently pursuing their respective purposes in a parallel course

solely by accident, took up the ride towards Monte Tesoro. As they had

no doubt that the fugitives would be lodged, for Doña Perla's sake, in

her father's house, they had no reason to try to overtake them.

The first interruption to the rapid progress of the two troops, and at

the same time the first intimation they had of the revolt of the peons,

was their riding into the midst of the column shattered by the sham

lancers of Oregon Oliver. The severed portions of this column, like one

of those fabulous serpents which had the power of healing its wounds,

and joining its segments, had rallied into one mass. The leaders were

hesitating on the course to take when the Mexicans appeared, and they

feared a renewal of the disaster. Fortunately, before the panic was

revived, the Apaches delighted them, for they saw friends in men of

their colour if not of their race. An understanding was soon arrived

at. Needless to say, Pedrillo and Garcia congratulated themselves on

having such allies, and the prospect of overcoming not merely the farm

of don Benito, but of many another, made their faces radiant with

smiles.

Thus reinforced, the squadrons resumed the advance, followed closely by

the peons, who derived much enheartenment from such warlike adherents,

and, passing the detachment from Monte Tesoro still ensconced in the

pine and cedar woods, the throng poured into the valley with loud

clamour echoed by the assembled rebels. This joyous uproar did not

tend to reassure the beleaguered Mexicans, though its cause was not

perceptible.