The Treasure of Pearls: A Romance of Adventures in California

They merely overturned the solid table on its side, one end against a cask, the other against the sidewall, their backs to the rear of the den of thieves. Kneeling behind this barricade they were sure not to be surrounded, had enough elbow play, and could await the issue complacently enough. The banditti had barked their shins against the table, and recoiled on being faced by the two men, shielded from the knee to the chin, with flashing eyes between four revolver muzzles. They consulted in an undertone for a few instants.

"They see the tables are turned indeed!" observed Mr. Gladsden.

Meanwhile the cause of this disturbance, the tall varlet, had scrambled to his feet, clinging to the doorpost; he was bruised all along his body by the shock, and he came in among his fellows limping, foaming with pain and rage, and aching for revenge.

"You are pretty mates o' mine to shrink!" he sneered, "Afeard of a couple of Yankees!"

"Who's afeard?" retorted the precious crew, pushing one another.

"It looks so," went on he, with a grin of pain. "You are ten to two, and you plot and plan together when I, at least, pitched into them alone. If this be not fear it is an extreme prudence, which is its sister. Are you not bound to avenge La Gallina's death?"

"Yes, we are bound to avenge a comrade's death; but just count the shots in those pepperboxes. It is not the question of our getting killed, but of smashing those, our enemies. We're in a lump here, in the open, and they are covered. I conjecture our order of battle is very defective."

"Right he is," chorused the fellows of this orator.

"You are a flock of prairie hens! Haven't you firearms as well?"

"You won't see that they have those cursed repeating rifles also at their backs! Besides, these Yanks have longer heads than us. Ah, if the Captain were here! He knows all the tricks of the norteamericanos, and can match their cards at any game."

"That's very true; but El Manco (the Maimed) is not at hand. He is not due yet. We must do our own work – so, have at them with what heart ye may!"

"Oh, we're choking with our hearts, Valentacho; but we don't care to be shot down like buffalo."

"Well, if it comes to that – if I must show you the lead again, here! Lo! I lead; only, let's have you stick to me."

"Like wax! Lead on."

"It's understood?"

"Plain as the Creed!"

"Then forward! And death to the gabachos – curse them!" yelled the tall rogue, waving his rapier as high as the ceiling would permit.

They all rushed forward with exceeding fury.

"Take heed!" muttered Oliver; "Two shots apiece, and fire low!"

Four shots of the revolvers stretched two Mexicans on the floor never to rise again; another brace that had been "winged," removed themselves out of the room altogether, probably to find the nearest surgeon. But the fillip had been given to flagging spirits; the rogues were excited by the pistols' flash and smoke. Their rage redoubled, and they fell upon the edge of the oaken rampart and tried to chop down the two whites within.

It was a horrible medley with the firearms spitting fire in all directions, as hands were jostled and the eager ruffians interfered with one another's movements.

Acting on Oliver's advice, the two besieged men wasted no more powder. Their rampart was the higher by three or four dead bodies hanging, bent in the middle, over the edge, and, standing up now, they met the contestants' machetes with their scarcely less long hunting knives.

The robbers fairly howled with impotent rage, having never met such a provoking resistance. Valentacho was the most persistent of any. He clung to the table with one hand, trying to pull it over on its top, snarling like a wild animal, and showering blows of the cutlass on the foe too active to receive one of them save on their own blades.

"See here!" cried Oliver, "You that's so n'isy! Wasn't that first lesson good enough? Don't you know I'm keeping school here? Yes, Oregon Ol. is the schoolmaster right down hyar in Sonora, and it looks like I'll have to send you home on one e-tarnal holiday!"

The bandit ceased to yell, and, leaning forward, managed to clutch the frazada (blanket) of the speaker, which he had rolled round his left arm, more Hispanico, and drew him towards him, in order that he might, shortening his sword, stab him through and through.

"You are a liar, dog!" said he, fiercely, through his gritting teeth; "'Tis you who are about to die!"

With an upward sweep of his right hand, in which he had reversed his revolver and seized it by the barrel, Oliver dashed the coming rapier aside, and, with a downward blow of the pistol thus converted into a hammer, he visited the Mexican's skull so violently with a concussion to the brain that the outlaw let go the grasp on the blanket and of his sword, and fell back among his comrades without even a groan. No ox could have been felled more swiftly.

The defeated and horrified rabble melted away in disorder. They had had their dose. They would have been only too glad to leave the scene of combat, but for shame's sake, and the dread of their captain not finding them at this tryst.

Oliver kicked away the cask which had prevented a flank attack, stepped clear from the corpses and his defences, and quietly going up to the bar, behind which the keepers had tranquilly watched as much of the action as the smoke permitted, he said:

"Another bottle! As for you gentecilla, clear away your dead, and sit you down and clear up your glasses, too. If any man goes out without finishing his liquor to my health, I'll not leave a mouth on him if a rifle be any utility in my claws."

The cowed mob obeyed the double order grudgingly but faithfully. The smoke was wafted out and up the hole in the roof, which was the chimney, and a little order reigned in the barroom. But still the landlord did not believe it healthy to make his appearance, though his place was surely here. The two visitors took their seats at another table, almost in the midst of the prairie depredators, but no one interrupted their conversation this time, and the other customers, without conferring with one another, soon glided out of the Rancho Verde, and finally all had disappeared.

"We've a clean ship, Oliver," said Mr. Gladsden; "our merry associates have vacated this hall of rosy light."

"We kin histe in our nightcaps, then," replied the guide. "With such a gap made in One-leg's band, always provided it is his cuadrilla, we need not fear they will come in the night to serenade us. By the way, that endless fellow has left his guitar. Shall I play something skippy?"

"You can play what you please," returned the Englishman. "Only I vote for a dance tune. It is my belief that we shall not want for dancers."

Indeed, there was a clatter of horses' hoofs, without.

"Correct you air, Injin!" said Oliver, lending his ear interestedly. "Put fresh cartridges in! There seems an agreement by all hands that we shall not be let sleep in peace this night!"

CHAPTER XVII.

THE PUREST OF PEARLS

By the noise of the cavalcade it could be calculated to be numerous.

Uncle Sweet Potato, who had so completely kept to himself whilst the scuffle had lasted, now appeared suddenly at the ranch door, with the alacrity of a man close to whose rear a red-hot branding iron was being approached. At the same time, the riders stopped their horses there.

Tío Camote had closed the thick door smartly, and held a colloquy through a small wicket in its centre, in a language which was not known to Mr. Gladsden. On the other hand, Oliver had started as the dialogue progressed, and bending towards his companion, said in his ear:

"Indians! Hostile Indians, Apaches! —Mimbres Apaches!" he concluded, as the speech revealed more and more particularities. "All men – they are 'bad' – I can smell they are charcoal'd – blackened for war! I tell 'er what, mighty slim chance but in strategem agen sich a powerful squad to whop. That's the voice of an old acquaintance – big chief – ah, he's head chief now! We hev swapped hosses, an' we've exchanged shots, but never draw'd blood, an' we may be considered neutrals on Spanish territory, but all the same, be on your guard. That fool is too much afeard on 'em not to let 'em in. Our hosses are not worth a red cent's purchase apiece, wuss luck! Those 'Paches are as fond of hoss flesh as a Spanish gal of peanut candy. Still, if in a wuss squeeze than afore, you reckon on me pulling you out clean."

"I am puzzled again. Is the Indian a friend or foe?"

"Both or neither. But, lor', in the wildest parts, I have gone to sleep with my heels to the same fire as my deadliest enemy, and woke up – well, I still live. It's 'cordin' to sarkimstances; and this here is a pertickler sarkimstance – crammed with liveliness to the lid, like a tin o' them Italian sprats."

"Serious! Worse than before."

"Jess so. But don't show any surprise; keep your tongue out of the tongue fire, and don't gainsay me in any way."

"I'm your puppet again."

"You'll not repent it."

"I am convinced of that."

"Hush, right thar! He's going to let them in. And they're big fool Injin enough to git off their hosses, wharon they'm as easy of movement as an eagle, and come down to common ground, whar they waddle like geese. These hoss Ingins are no beauties, seen so, hobbling up to a bar in a doggery, but they air fond o'white man's pison, and no two ways about that."

Indeed, Camote, who probably was not insured and preferred running the risk of being butchered in his house to being certainly baked when it should be fired over his head for his resistance to the command to open, bowed in the chiefs of the new customers' party, and their bodyguard.

These six or eight red men silently placed themselves on the floor by one of the tables in a squatting position near the door, pulled out every man a tomahawk pipe which they filled with morrichee, or sacred tobacco, which proved that they were members of an upper class, past masters in the council lodges, lit up and set to smoking, without any observations, though the pools of blood, and the shattered and bullet perforated furniture, revealed that there had recently been a disturbance there. They even betrayed no token of having perceived the two other persons at their table, and the men behind the bar, who were exchanging dubious, uneasy glances, whilst they felt gooseflesh under their scalp.

But the American knew that a secret, quick glance had "counted" them, for he whispered:

"We're reckoned up, and they don't stomach our looks. Tell 'ee, sir, they don't like close shooting and tough chawing."

After a few moments, one of the Indians smote the table with his hatchet pipe. Tío Camote ran over to the spot, with the most obsequious of hotelkeepers' smiles on his lips.

"Heap big drink!"

"Mezcal!" uttered the savages.

"Sí, sí, sí, Señor Camicho" (for cacique, Aztec for chieftain), was the celeritous answer, as the ranchero hastened to set half a dozen bottles of spirit and some horn cups on the bench, to be nearer their reach than the table, before them.

They filled up and drank with a gusto that proved they had overcome the counsels of their wise men not to let the firewater be their tempter. They resumed smoking and the puffs crossed one another in the dreariest silence. Yet this silence was more appalling than the riot of the late brawlers in the Green Ranch.

These Apache chiefs were attired much like their leader and resembled him in build, being picked warriors, or rather, more probably, chiefs who had attained rank for fighting and marauding alone. They were large men for Apaches, and but for their legs being bowed by life on horseback from boyhood up, would have overtopped six feet. They were well built too, and their features not ignoble, though rapacity moulded the prominent traits, as well as could be ascertained beneath the streaks of grey, blue, yellow and red plastered on in accordance with laws or convention, in what space was left by a prodigious smearing with the war colour in preeminence, black. As there were no signs of mourning, they had so far been perfectly successful in their incursion into Sonora, and had not lost a man. Their large dark eyes, deep and gloomy, sparkled now and anon with cunning.

Taking one as an example, he wore his hair gathered up so as to form a kind of pad on the top of his head, a very good idea for defence; some pendent plaits were not his own hair and had buffalo hair twined in them, too; to each was hung at the end some little charm, pebble fangs, precious stone in the rough, gold or silver nugget, and so on. A long line of eagle and vulture feathers, varied in hue, possibly dyed, stood up on his head and out from him right down his back, whence the line flowed free quite to his neck. Through the actual topknot, a long eagle feather, in special signification of commandership, was stuck slantingly. This one in particular whom we are depicting, had mounted a pair of buffalo horns adorned with ribbons and human hair, very fair or bleached, not unlike the headgear of the ancient Britons. Being out on the warpath, he had laid aside collar of claws, porcupine quills and teeth, and bracelets, so that the war jacket of deerskin, beautifully dressed, gathered in at the waist by a simple thong, looked plain indeed. His buckskin breeches were ornamented with embroidery, and his stockings of American make were decorated similarly by the patient squaws. His moccasins were bright with beadwork and quite clear of entanglement, though it seemed otherwise, from the artfully arranged knee knot of dangling feathers and animal tails.

For weapons they had the tomahawk pipe of bronze, and scalping knife, one or two bows and arrows, the lustre of the black strings showing human hair was twisted in them as a trophy; the guns were not very good, being cast-off army pieces, for which they had powder horns and bullet bags, quite old fashioned. Their spears were left without; they had rawhide whips hanging by a loop to the wrist, and ornamented usefully with a war whistle for the issue of commands, more clearly sounded and distantly heard than by voice, a system known among the Southern Indians from time out of mind though only of recent years adopted by European armies.

Strange and picturesque to the Englishman, though their odour of smoke and rancid grease and horses would have been less unendurable in the open air, Gladsden owned that they were manly fellows enough who inspired reasonable respect and almost consideration.

Unfortunately for appearances, whatever their nation may have been in ancient days, now these Apaches are about the most plundering, murderous, ferocious rovers of the Southwest, especially hating all the whites. Liars and thieves, they are a scourge who must be crushed out by the civilisation to which they will not truly bow the knee.

Whilst these unpleasant guests smoked and drank, our friends pretended to doze. Camote would have liked to have shut up shop; but he was not the man, with only two assistants, to undertake to clear out the horde before he retired to his virtuous pillow. The mere prospective of a wrangle with these ugly customers made his hair imprudently rise like a cockatoo's crest. He sat up on his counter, with dangling legs that swung in concord with his agitation, with folded arms to look undaunted, but not losing sight of the reds. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, and gulped large draughts of pulque by way of consolation and to nourish his patience.

Meanwhile the night advanced; the stars were paling away in the celestial depths, and the moon "downing." It was nearly three in the morning, and yet the humbler Indians and the numerous horses without hardly betrayed their proximity by a sound. For upwards of three hours the Apaches had gone on smoking and imbibing without their hard heads giving way or any tongue being loosened.

All of a sudden the chief, who wore the odd diadem of horns, shook the ashes out of his pipe on his left thumbnail, and spoke in a loud enough voice, though he still stared into vacancy. At the words, the American ranger started slightly, opened his eyes fully, and in a measure made a nod of courtesy.

"My brother the Ocelot," said the chief, "seems to be pretty much worn out to sleep so soundly. Were his eyes not sealed with sleep, he must have taken notice that a friend has come into the lodge of the 'Spanish Dog,' and has seated himself not far from the Hunter of the North, along with several braves of his grand nation."

"Resting the sight ain't sleeping, not by a long heap! No, Tiger Cat, the Ocelot never owns on to being wore out, I opine. If the Ocelot wa'n't staring at the chiefs, 'tis jest 'cause he has seen 'em, most on 'em, afore now, ginerally when thar was smoke in the air, blood drops as plenty as rain up North, and ha'r in rich plenty – you could stuff a buffalo hide plump out. The Ocelot knows his place in this part of the kentry – he don't shove his claws into no chief's mush and milk. He sort o' keeps low till a question aimed at him, hits him fa'r and squar'; that's the kind of ginuine Ocelot, this Ocelot air."

"Wagh! The hunter speaks well," remarked the Apache, wagging his head with apparent satisfaction, "there's no split in his tongue. Bueno– good!"

"No, sir! 'Tis a straight, whole, single tongue."

"The Wacondah has opened a slit in his bosom for the smoke of his heart to steal forth pure. His sayings fall sweet and soft on the ear of the Mimbres Apaches, for they are the words of a friend. Let the Ocelot talk on. It is so long since the Mimbres heard the music of his voice that the papoose that was at the back of the squaw now stands alone, so high," – making an imaginary line in the air with a wave of the pipe hatchet, – "and plays at shooting with bow and arrow at the dogs. But his whole heart has not sprung forward to shake hands with his brother. His face is carved out of white flint. Is there no smile? Is he not glad to see the best warriors on the Apache roving ground? Is he not surprised to see them here?"

"Considering, chief," returned Oregon O., nudging with his knee that of the Englishman under the table, quite imperceptibly, "considering the Ocelot knew the Apaches were 'warm' round here, and that a call was down in the programme of the dance, the Ocelot has no grounds for opening his eyes any wider."

"U-wagh!" ejaculated the chief, evincing some astonishment himself, "The Apache chiefs were expected by the great pale hunter?"

"They jess was," answered the other laconcially.

"Arrrh!" sighed the Indian with pretended awe and an insinuating smile. "The hunter has met the Book medicine men (preachers, missionaries) in the land of the beaver and white bear – he has been initiated into their lodge – he has a heap big medicine, he knows everything."

"The chief is making merry, he is no longer straight with his friend. Whether I carry good or bad medicine, it don't help me much in this nick, as my brother ought to know."

"The Tiger Cat has been 'playing – ,' with the Spaniards!" said the Apache, with an emphasis on the English word he used, which caused the hotelkeeper to shrink, "And a cloud has settled on his mind. He cannot make out what the white hunter is driving at. He looks. He see Nada– nothing."

"If one of them stirs a finger towards me, shoot into the mass," whispered Oliver, rising leisurely, to his comrade.

He left the table, and strode up to the Indians, among whom he stopped, his back to the edge of the table they disdained, leaning on his rifle, of which the beauty and value (for a breechloader is a miracle to their eyes) made their nervous tongues lick their thin upper lip and thick lower one like a snake when the game is presented.

"See here, chief," said he, "the Ocelot has hearing as fine as they make 'em, and the faintest sounds tell their story in his ear. Did I not know you and your cavalyada were down to'rds the Smoking Mountain, and have I not heard the amble of those mules out thar, a-toting a litter between them? In that litter is a white woman. I'm atter her, for her family's sake – what's the price of the captive?"

The Indians exchanged a look of amazement, but they were not disconcerted. Indeed, Tiger Cat answered without wincing:

"Who can make (dead) meat of the white hunter? Beside the Ocelot, the Tiger Cat is a prairie cricket."

"Speak out plain, then, chief. If you have the woman along with you, guarded by your soldiers (the young warriors) so carefully, it is to claim much price. What's the figure?"

"The Ocelot has all the wit of the palefaces, all the cunning of the red men. The Tiger Cat does not debate. He has a captive of worth – ay, 'the purest of pearl' is worth her weight in dressed buffalo robes. But the prize is his. Why should the Ocelot hunger for the prey of the Tiger Cat?"

"You'll jess let me back out about now, chief," said Oregon Oliver, negligently. "If we cannot trade, we'll take the back paths apart from one another, and no bad blood."

He half turned as if to go away, but not without a glance of sympathy in bitterness at the certainly strange palanquin, draped with Navajo waterproof blankets, suspended elastically between two mules, now visible to him without.

But the wily redskin was evidently perplexed. The guides who have intimate relations with the United States army always are looked upon peculiarly by the Indians who have been thrashed by the blue cape coats. He detained the hunter by gently plucking at his blanket.

"The Ocelot bounds away too quickly," he observed, as if offended. "Has anger flamed up between us brothers?"

"Ne'er a flame," replied the other, who was far from seeking a quarrel just then and there, with such overpowering odds in his disfavour, "but when we can't trade, let's sleep on it; we'll see it sure 'nuff, how the dicker promises."

"The white hunter has a stranger friend with him," remarked the Apache, with the abrupt change of conversation which is natural to men of no great conversational powers, and perhaps to let his interlocutor see that the previous subject was exhausted; "he is no hunter; I daresay he is a chief of many gold buttons."

He alluded to the quantity of eagle buttons which adorn the uniform of the United States officers, who, of course, dress up as if for parade, in "talks" with the savages.

"You are out thar', chief; he is no friend of mine, no military ossifer; only some traveller coming over the mountains to get into Greaser land."

"And you are his guide?"

"Who says so?"

"The Tiger Cat's eyes are sharp; he sees what goes on over the prairie and plains. Did not the hunter's ten-shoot gun (he could express only so many units by twice throwing up his extended hand) speak, and some mixed blooded dog bite the river bank?"

"It is so! I struck a coup (French Canadian hunter word for a stroke of war, a blow). It's nothing to crow over; it's nothing to cache. When a mosquito stings, you slap, don't you? Same when a mestizo buzzes close; you can have his topknot as much as you like. But why," added he, repeating the other's phrase, "why does the Tiger Cat hanker after the Ocelot's dead?"

"The Tiger Cat kills his own game. What he says, he says to let the paleface hunter see that he has eyes upon the land and the river. Now," he concluded, releasing the flap of the blanket, "my brother can go, and sleep, if he be ready to drop."

Oliver went back to his seat, carelessly enough to all appearances.

"What's that about a woman," inquired Mr. Gladsden, eagerly in a low voice.

"A guess of mine that hit to the centre spot. Those red devils have something in a hoss-barrow of which they are taking pertickler care, and they wouldn't show her up here, so I guessed it war a captive. Now, the captive they spare and tender 'so fash' (fashion), you bet yer life, she's something first quality and all the hair on. Besides, you hear him call her 'La Perla Purísima,' and that's the name you don't hear every Spanish gal wear. Though, I will say this for them, that where I durn a Mexican man half a hundred times for bad gifts, I bless a Mexican female critter once at least. The one's a tough knot, not wuth the burning, and won't make saddletree, picket peg, or good arrow-wood, but the gals, most offen, is good stuff, and I'm a-telling you."