Was he, after all, so particularly glad to be off by himself once more?
He hated a mob of people on principle, but was he so particularly glad to get away from her? Well, come to think of it, in a manner he was, and yet, again, he wasn't. Looking at it in one way, he wouldn't care much to be planted down there again in that crowded room with those cousins and aunts all round her, but suppose, now, that he had her once again with him up here in the sierra, alone together the two of them. He thought of how they had watched over one another, turn about, in the camp, and how she had mocked at his simple cookery, and the fun they had really had with one another. What a good time it had been; and yet when he was having it, so it seemed to him now, he had not been aware of the fact. Perhaps he had been too anxious about her then to realise it, but it was God's truth all the same, and they had had a good time. What was more, he knew it now and no mistake, and he wondered how it had come about that it was so good. By George! but he did wish he had her along right here and now, she riding on the horse, with him running alongside just as he had done that afternoon. She was good to talk to, and no mistake, and when he pointed things out to her and told her about them, everything seemed to have an unwonted zest which was lacking now in her absence, although he was riding over the very same ground he had traversed with her only a few hours ago. Every turn in the trail recalled to his mind something he had said to her or she had said to him. And how they had laughed, to be sure! He sighed at the recollection without having the least idea that he sighed, but he did not shake off the idea of how good it would be to have her with him. Strange to say he began to discover that he did not seem to quite care for his own company as he used to do. Unconsciously he lost himself in a reverie, until his horse stumbled over a stone, and he jerked the rein and struck him indignantly with the spur.
And all the time Felipe, with the revolver in his belt, was tracking him like a sleuth-hound.
Stephens reached the camp where they had passed the night in the little park, and the recollection of it all came back vividly; he remembered how startled he had been when she woke him, and he had sprung up with his rifle cocked, ready to shoot; he remembered his surprise and pleasure at seeing how neat and trim she had made herself while he slept, in spite of all the rough and discomposing experiences her involuntary journey had involved. "Grit! Yes, by George! she had lots of it, sure; and endurance too. She was just about as brave as they make 'em."
Through the little park he passed, and out of it again on the other side. Now he must begin to think about his destination; somewhere along here he meant to turn off to the left in order to cut in upon the head of that little canon where he had killed the deer. That would save quite a lot of travelling. There was a good moon, and there was no need to retrace the whole trail back to the exact spot where he had fired the shot. "If I only had Faro along now," he said, "he could take me to the place where I killed the deer, blindfold, if I wanted him to." But Faro was far away at Don Nepomuceno's; he was a little footsore after the long journey he had made, so his master left him behind under the care of Manuelita. After a time Stephens noticed a favourable place for turning off among the pines, at what he judged would be about the right distance to strike the canon. He wheeled his horse sharp to the left, and pushed steadily on over the carpet of pine-needles in the new direction.
And Felipe, following ever like a sleuth-hound, here overran the track just as did Backus half an hour later. But, unlike Backus, the acuter Indian boy had not overrun it many minutes before his quick instincts told him what he had done; he at once retraced his steps, and quickly succeeded in finding the place where Stephens had wheeled so sharp. He followed this new direction through the pines for a little way, but the horse-tracks on the dry pine-needles were practically invisible at night, and he soon became conscious that he had lost them, and that it was doubtful whether he could succeed in recovering them again.
Nevertheless, with the tireless determination of his race, he persevered, more like a hound than ever as he quested now to right and now to left and now making a bold cast forward, in the hope that by a lucky chance he might stumble upon them. He passed thus through the belt of pine timber and out into the open park country beyond it. But casting about for a lost trail at night is a slow business, and the moon was already low in the west when his eye ranging around caught the light of a fire against a distant cliff. "That must be he," cried the boy, grasping the pistol with his left hand; "I'll get him now."
Stephens had a good eye for country; he had judged his distance correctly, and he hit the head of the little canon he was searching for with singular accuracy. The country that he had here got into was beautifully open and park-like, only with some rough, rocky ridges intersecting it here and there, and he searched around freely and easily, keeping the moon on his left hand. Through the mountain glades he wandered, in the bright, mysterious light which seems so clear and yet which shows nothing as it really is.
"Rather a fool trick of mine, this night-work," said he, as his eyes hunted in vain for any sign of what he had come to seek. "I reckon likely I'll have to camp till morning, and then, maybe, if his bones are lying anywhere round here, I'll manage to find them." He drew rein irresolutely on the margin of a park-like expanse of undulating meadow larger than any he had seen yet.
"Hullo! what's that under the Lone Pine in the middle of the meadow?" A magnificent solitary pine-tree stood there in the moonlight, towering aloft, and at its foot a dark, square object appeared.
"Why, it looks like a house in this light," he said; "but it can't hardly be one neither." He turned his horse's head towards it and rode nearer. "It's a house, by George! A house up here! No, I'm blessed if it is. It is only a rock, but it's mighty like one all the same. Hullo!
here's a queer thing lying close to the foot of it; looks like an old carcass of some sort or other. By George! but it's a dead horse." He reined up and the animal he bestrode snorted at the strange object. It was the dried shell of a horse, so to speak; the wolves and the eagle-hawks had taken the flesh and the inside portions, but the skeleton had remained intact, and so, too, had the hide. In that pure, dry air the skin, instead of decaying, had become hard and stiff, and clung to the ribs and bony framework still. He could see now that his mistake in taking the rock for a house was a very pardonable one in that deceptive light, for it was much the size of an ordinary adobe cottage, and it rose square and abrupt from the level, grassy ground. He threw his head back, and his eyes sought the top of the noble pine whose towering head seemed to strike against the stars.
"Well, that's the finest tree I ever saw outside of California," said the prospector.
He undid the lariat and dismounted, spade in hand.
"Dead horses aint exactly common objects hereabouts," said he. "If this one owned such a thing as a boss when he was alive, perhaps his boss might be lying hereabouts, too."
It was a shrewd guess, and as he stepped round the corner of the rock it was instantly verified. The body of the man lay there, stiff and dried like that of his beast. The clothing seemed to have partly protected the trunk and limbs from the birds of prey, but the white skull shone bare and ghastly. The long boots proclaimed him an American.
"Here's my man, sure enough," said Stephens, as he leaned on the spade and looked down at the remains. "Think of him getting rubbed out like this all alone up here in the mountains. No one's ever been near him since, I guess. I wonder who he was?"
He went back to the dead horse and looked over it once more. There were iron shoes on the forehoofs. "That's another proof, if one were wanted, of his owner being an American," he said. "Perhaps I could find his brand." He struck a match and held it close to the animal's quarter, but the skin there had been rent and frayed by the wild things that had devoured the meat, and he could not distinguish it.
"Saddle's gone, I see," he added, "and bridle and saddle blanket, and hobbles, if he had them round his neck, and every mortal thing. It's a wonder they left the horseshoes. These accursed Navajos haven't any scruple about stripping a dead horse. It's only a dead man that they're so scared about touching."
He went back to the corpse and looked at it a second time. "Gun's gone,"
he said, "but that's of course. And they didn't need to touch him when he was dead to get it, for, according to the way Mahletonkwa told it, they got his gun from him when he was alive. Pistol's gone, too, I see.
Likely they got that off him living, before they shot him with his own gun. They couldn't take the clothes off him till he was dead, and so they preferred to leave them on him. Wish I knew who he was." He cast his eyes around. "Here's where he stood 'em off," he went on, looking at a tiny, stone-built enclosure, barely big enough to hold three people at once, that nestled against one side of the high rock, where it overhung.
"That's the place he chose, sure. That's one of those cubby-holes those old cliff-dwellers used to put up under the rocks all about the country; I guess they used them to shelter in when they were out on guard. It wasn't a bad notion of this poor chap to get in there, but those infernal Navajos got away with him all the same--cunning devils that they are! Well, I might as well dig his grave right here."
He passed his horse's lariat round the enormous bole of the great Lone Pine and made him fast. Then choosing a place between the mighty roots, that anchored it like cables to the ground, he set to work with a will, and soon had the narrow last resting-place sunk in the soft black earth.
He threw down the spade, and went to lift the light burden of the remains. "Perhaps I'd better look in his pockets first and see if there's anything to identify him by," he said. The weather-worn clothes, threadbare from summer rains and winter snows, lay light over the hollow breast, as he felt in the pocket and drew out a small book. He opened it; it was weather-stained, but not rotten. The moonlight was so bright he could almost have read the writing by it, but he struck a match to make sure. A name was inscribed on the first page. "Holly K. Fearmaker, 1869." There was no address. "Never heard of him before. I wonder where he was from?" He tried the other pockets; there was nothing save some bits of string. "If he owned a purse I reckon some Navajo scoundrel has got it now," said Stephens. "There's nothing, I don't believe, that Mahletonkwa would stick at for cash."
He lifted the remains tenderly, and placed them in the grave, gathering up all that he could find; then he shovelled the rich black mould of the mountain meadow on them, and heaped a little mound, and replaced the grassy sods on top. He leaned on the spade and looked down at his handiwork.
"What was it I seem to remember it saying, in the book that young Englishman had along in the San Juan district last summer, and loaned me to copy a piece out of? There was a verse that I liked, about the body of a man being like a tent. Yes, I've got it now--
"'T is but a tent where takes his one day's rest A Sultan to the realm of Death addrest; The Sultan rises, and the dark Ferrash Strikes--and prepares it for another guest.'
This grass will send its roots down to where you lie, pard; and it'll grow stronger as your bones grow rotten; and then the blacktail deer and the elk will graze over your head and fatten on the grass; and then, maybe I myself, or maybe some other lone prospector just like you or me, will happen along and shoot the elk or the deer, and the wheel comes full circle. Well, so long, old man, and sleep sound."
He went to the tree and unfastened the lariat from the hole. Then he stooped to pick up the spade which lay beside the new-made mound. As he did so his eye was caught by a little fragment of rock that lay by it, which had been thrown out in sinking the grave. Mechanically he picked it up, and its weight at once revealed to his practised experience that it was a mineral of some kind. He slipped it into his pocket and led his horse over to the big rock. "It does look rather like an outcrop," he said, as he carelessly knocked off a few small specimens with the angle of the spade. He had done this so many hundred times before, that he pocketed them almost without interest, as a matter of habit, and set off in the direction of the trail. Before very long he came to a stop.
The meadow was bounded by a low cliff, which, farther down, became the wall of the canon where he had killed the deer. It was not more than about twenty or thirty feet high, but it was perpendicular, in places even overhanging, and blocked his way absolutely. He turned to the right along it in order to find where he might cross it. The cliff faced south and west, and the bright light of the moon made every detail distinct.
Before he had gone far the opening of another little cubby-hole showed dark on a ledge of the moonlit cliff, which was overhung by the projecting brow above. Then there came half a dozen of them close together. Then the ledge broadened and ran inwards in a softer stratum of the cliff face, so that a whole row of little houses were built along it. The ledge was ten or twelve feet up the cliff face, so that the houses could only have been approached by ladders, while the overhanging cliff brow afforded them absolute protection from above.
"By George!" he said, "this must be the old pueblo I've heard of as being up here in the mountain; they say the Aztecs used to live here before the days of Montezuma."
The ledge ceased presently, and here there were rooms absolutely carved out of the living rock itself. Nor were these aloft in air like the former ones; it seemed as if the people who had evolved the idea of building their houses like swallows' nests under the eaves, for security, had gained confidence and come boldly down to the level of the ground. He looked into one, and struck a match; it was just a little square room with a doorway, all cut out of solid rock. The floor was bare rock too. "Lots of cheap labour going when they made houses like that," he said. "There must have been a whole heap of folks living here once."
Farther on there were the remains of stone houses built on the ground, close to, or against, the cliff face. "Thick as bees they must have been," he said; "I'd no sort of idea there had been such a vast number of them. It must have been a regular swarmery of Indians."
He went on half a mile or more, and the buildings were continuous either on the ground or upon the ledge, which ran right along. They were almost all square or oblong in plan, but here and there at intervals appeared one that was round and of a sort of beehive form. These were old estufas. "I've a good mind to camp here," he said, "and see what this place looks like by daylight. I never had the least notion there was so much of it. Some of those scientific chaps at the Smithsonian ought to be told about this. I bet it's the oldest thing in the United States."
He stopped before one of the ancient cave-dwellings. It was not one of those excavated entirely out of the rock, for here there was a natural cave on the ground level. Across the front of this a wall had been built, enclosing the space behind it as a dwelling-room, but the wall had been partly broken down by time. In the angle where the wall joined the rock there was a fireplace. Close by, an external house had been built as a sort of lean-to against the rock face, with a roof supported by beams that had now fallen in.
"I guess I'll just move in and take possession," he said as he looked at the cave-dwelling, and, suiting the action to the word, he stripped the saddle from his horse and put it inside, and then led him out in the meadow to picket him.
He returned to where he had left his saddle; he could see by the moonlight the fallen roof-beams of the outside house lying confusedly here and there. The roof had been of clay, but this had all washed down and now was indistinguishable from the floor, while the layers of brushwood that had supported it had crumbled into dust. But the primeval rafters of enduring pitch-pine were still mostly sound.
Entering the cave-dwelling, where he had put his saddle, his eye was caught by the old fireplace; it was still blackened with the flame of the fire that had so long ago been quenched, and still there lay visible on the hearth, cold and black, the dead embers that had once been live and glowing coals of fire.
"I wonder how many centuries it is since those were live coals?" he said. "I've heard say the old, old Aztecs used to live up north here in these deserted mountain pueblos and cliff-dwellings before ever they went south and built the City of Mexico. And they'd been living down there, so I've heard, for ages and ages before Cortes came along and slaughtered Montezuma. Why, it might be a thousand years since this place was inhabited."
He looked at the dead embers with a fascinated gaze. To him, who considered a mining camp of two years' duration quite old, who was himself one of the restless spirits who were busy making history, the history of the New West, the prehistoric hearth came with a strange appeal.
"I'll rekindle it," he said; "I will so; I'd like to warm my hands at a fire that's a thousand years old maybe. Those old rafters out there will do well to burn." He stepped round to the ruined house. "I wonder if there's any snakes hiding among those fallen stones?" He struck a match once more, and looked round in likely corners and crevices, but no sign of any reptile appeared; he dragged out a couple of rafters and carried them in and placed their ends in the fireplace; he broke with a heavy stone another one that had partly rotted, and got some splinters out of the sounder part and soon had a fire going. He watched the dead embers catch and glow red from the blaze.
"Who'd have thought in all those hundreds of years," he said, "as they lay dead, that they'd ever jump to life again in one moment like this."
His words pointed to the glowing coals, but he was thinking of the poor shell of a body that an hour before he had committed to the ground. Who could believe that it might ever live again? and yet--some folks said so.
The fate of that lonely man had moved him deeply, more deeply by far than he was conscious of, for it was the type of what his own was like to be, to fall unfriended and alone in some remote ravine of a nameless range. He thought of the pocket-book he had rescued, and drew it out.
The fire blazed brightly now, and he could read by it easily. The notes were casual jottings--entries of cash expended--notes of an arrangement with another man to meet and mine together--the brand of a horse purchased, and the price set down, eighty-five dollars--Winchester cartridges, two and a half dollars.
"That's clear enough evidence that he had a Winchester," commented Stephens; "all right, then; practically that settles it. He's the man, sure, those cursed Navajos joked about killing with his own gun. Hullo!
what's this? Mahletonkwa's name, as I'm alive!" He rapidly ran his eye over a page of close writing. "Why, he's got it all down that Mahletonkwa brought him up here to show him a silver mine, and then treacherously left him, and that then he was attacked by Indians; he doesn't say what Indians, poor beggar; but you bet I know who they were. Here's his last entry. 'I've stood them off now for six hours, and if they don't get me before night, maybe I'll make the riffle and get away.' It was after he'd written that that they wounded him and he surrendered to them, and they had their little game with him, the sons of guns! But that's their way; cruelty and cunning are bred in their bones. They've been doing things like that for a good deal more than a thousand years, I guess, and they've kind of got into the habit of it.
But I'd like to pay them out all the same. It's that Mahletonkwa's band are the guilty ones, and I dare swear to it. Well, we'll see. I've given them no amnesty for this. We'll see."
He sat there, quite still, in a fierce and moody silence. He was so still that a rattlesnake in the stones behind him pushed his flat, venomous head out of a crevice, and looked at him for quite a long time, and then drew it in again and retired. "Leave me alone and I'll leave you alone," was the snake's motto. He had no wrongs to avenge.
Unconscious of this silent observer of his reverie, the American allowed himself to indulge for a while in wild, fanciful dreams of revenge for the murder of his fellow-countryman; then he pulled himself up short.
"I'm not really called upon to punish them," he said, "and I won't think about it. It only makes me angry, and I hate to be angry and do nothing." He raised himself up, moved the ends of the burning rafters farther into the fireplace, and the flames blazed up freshly.
"Kit Carson used to be mighty careful about looking into the camp-fire at night," he said. "He always used to sit well away from the blaze, with his eyes towards the darkness, so that if anything happened he could see with them at once, without having to wait till they had got accustomed to it. But then there was always war going on, and always danger, when he used to be around in this part of the country. I've never felt shy about sitting by a camp-fire up in this sierra, and there aint no reason that I know of why I should."