“By Jove! I didn’t think of that,” returns he thus cautioned, turning pale at thought of how he might have endangered the lives of those dear to him; then ascending more slowly, and with the care enjoined upon him.
In due time they arrive at the head of the gorge, there stopping to take breath. Only for an instant, when they proceed on, now no longer in a climb, the path thence leading over ground level as the plain itself; but still by the rivulet’s edge, through a tangle of trees and bushes.
At some two hundred yards from the head of the gorge they come into an opening, the Mexican as he enters it exclaiming:
“El ojo de agua!”
Chapter Five.
Los Guajalotes
The phrase, “ojo de agua” (the water’s eye), is simply the Mexican name for a spring; which Henry Tresillian needs not to be told, being already acquainted with the pretty poetical appellation. And he now sees the thing itself but a few paces ahead, gurgling up in a little circular basin, and sending off the stream which supplies the lake below.
In an instant they are upon its edge, to find it clear as crystal, the gambusino saying, as he unslings his drinking-cup of cow’s horn,
“I can’t resist taking a swill of it, notwithstanding the gallons I had swallowed overnight. After such a long spell of short-water rations, one feels as though he could never again get enough.” Then filling the horn, and almost instantly emptying it, he concludes with the exclamation “Delicioso!”
His companion drinks also, but from a cup of solid silver; vessels of this metal, even of gold, being aught but rare among the master-miners of Sonora.
They are about to continue on, when lo! a flock of large birds by the edge of the open. On the ground these are – having just come out from among the bushes – moving leisurely along, with beaks now and then lowered to the earth; in short, feeding as turkeys in a pasture field. And turkeys they are, the Mexican saying in a whisper:
“Los guajalotes!”
So like are they to the domestic bird – only better shaped and every way more beautiful – that Henry Tresillian has no difficulty in identifying them as its wild progenitors. One of superior size, an old cock, is at their head, striding to and fro in all the pride of his glittering plumage, which, under the beams of the new-risen sun, shows hues vivid and varied as those of the rainbow. A very sultan he seems, followed by a train of sultanas and their attendants; for there are young birds in the flock, fledglings, that differ in appearance from the old ones.
Suddenly the grand satrap erects his head, and with neck craned out, utters a note of alarm. Too late. “Bang – bang!” from the double-barrel – the sharper crack of the rifle sounding simultaneously – and the old cock, with three of his satellites, lies prostrate upon the earth, the rest taking flight with terrified screeches, and a clatter of wings loud as the “whirr” of a threshing machine.
“Not a bad beginning,” quietly observes the gambusino, as they stand over the fallen game. “Is it, señorito?”
“Anything but that,” answers the young Englishman, delighted at having secured such a good bottom for their bag. “But what are we to do with them? We can’t carry them along.”
“Certainly not,” rejoins the Mexican. “Nor need. Let them lie where they are till we come back. But no,” he adds, correcting himself. “That will never do. There are wolves up here, no doubt – certainly coyotes, if no other kind – and on return we might find only feathers. So we must string them up out of reach.”
The stringing up is a matter which occupies only a few minutes’ time; done by one leg thrust through the opened sinew of the other to form a loop; then the birds hoisted aloft, and hung upon the up-curving arms of a tall pitahaya.
“And now, on!” says the gambusino, after re-loading guns. “Let us hope we may come across something in the four-legged line, big enough to give everybody a bit of fresh meat for dinner. Likely we’ll have to tramp a good way before sighting any; the report of our guns will have frighted both birds and beasts, and sent all to the farthest side of the mesa. But no matter for that. I want to go there direct, and at once, for a reason, muchacho, I’ve not yet made known to you.”
While speaking, an anxious expression has shown itself on the gambusino’s face, which, taken in connection with his last words, leads Henry Tresillian to suspect something in, or on, his mind, beside the desire to kill game. Moreover, before leaving the camp he had noticed that the Mexican seemed to act in a manner more excited than was his wont – as if in a great hurry to get away. That, no doubt, for the reason he now hints at; though what it is the young Englishman cannot even give a guess.
“May I know it now?” he asks, with some eagerness, noting the grave look.
“Certainly you may, and shall,” frankly responds the Mexican. “I would have told you sooner, and the others as well, but for not being sure about it. I didn’t like to cause an alarm in the camp without good reason. And I hope still there’s none. After all it may not have been smoke.”
“Smoke! What?”
“What I saw, or thought I saw, yesterday evening, just after we arrived by the lake’s edge.”
“Where?”
“To the north-east – a long way off.”
“But if it was a smoke, what would that signify?”
“In this part of the world, much. It might mean danger; ay, death.”
“You astonish – mystify me, Señor Vicente. How could it mean that?”
“There’s no mystery in it, muchacho. Where smoke is seen there should be fire; and a fire on these llanos is likely to be one with Indians around it. Now do you understand the danger I’m thinking of?”
“I do. But I thought there were no Indians in this part of the country, except the Opatas; and they are Christianised, dwelling in towns.”
“True, all that. But the Opata towns are far from here, and in an entirely different direction – the very opposite. If smoke it was, the fire that made it wasn’t one kindled by Opatas, but men who only resemble them in the colour of their skin – Indians, too.”
“What Indians do you suspect?”
“Los Apaches.”
“Danger indeed, if they be in the neighbourhood.” The young Englishman has been long enough in Sonora to have acquaintance with the character of these cruel savages. “But I hope they’re not,” he adds, trustfully, still with some apprehension, as his thoughts turn to those below.
“That hope I heartily echo,” rejoins the Mexican, “for if they be about, we’ve got to look out for the skin of our heads. But come, muchacho mio! Don’t let us be down in the mouth till we’re sure there is a danger. As I’ve said, I’m not even sure of having seen smoke at all. It might have been a dust-whirl, just as I noticed the thing, the estampeda commenced; and after it the rush for water, which of course took off my attention. When that was over, and I again turned my eyes north-eastward, it was too dark to distinguish smoke or anything else. I then looked for a light all along the sky-line, and also several times during the night – luckily to see none. For all I can’t help having fears. A man who’s once been prisoner to the Apaches never travels through a district where they are like to be encountered without some apprehension. Mine ought to be of the keenest. I’ve not only been their prisoner, but