The Trail of The Badger: A Story of the Colorado Border Thirty Years Ago. Hamp Sidford Frederick
If they are only three or four we can handle them all right, but if there is a big pack of them we shall have to take to a tree. Give me your rifle to carry – my breathing machinery is better used to it than yours – and we'll make a run for it."
It was only a short half-mile we had to run – quite enough for me, though – and under the first tree we came to, Dick stopped.
"This will do," said he, handing back my rifle. "We'll wait here now and watch. Hark! They're getting pretty close. Hallo! Hallo! Why, look there, Frank!"
That Dick should thus exclaim was not to be wondered at, for out from the trees, scarce a hundred paces from us, there came, not the wolves, but a man! And such an odd-looking man, riding on such an odd-looking steed!
"What is he riding on, Dick?" I asked. "A mule?"
"No; a burro – a jack – a donkey; a big one, too; and it need be, for he is a tremendous fellow. Did you ever see such a chest?"
"Is he an Indian?"
"No; a Mexican. An Indian wouldn't deign to ride a burro. I understand it all now. The wolves are not hunting us at all: they are after the donkey. And the man is aware of it, too: see how he keeps looking behind. What is that thing he is carrying in his left hand? A bow?"
"Yes; a bow. And a quiver of arrows over his shoulder."
"So he has! He doesn't seem to be in much of a hurry, does he? Evidently he is not much afraid of the wolves. Why, he's stopping to wait for them! He's a plucky fellow. Why, Frank, just look! Did you ever see such a queer-looking specimen?"
This exclamation was drawn from my companion involuntarily when the Mexican, checking his donkey, sprang to the ground. He certainly was a queer-looking specimen. If he had looked like a giant on donkey-back, he looked like a dwarf on foot; for, though his head was big and his body huge, his legs were so short that he appeared to be scarce five feet high; while his muscular arms were of such length that he could touch his knees without stooping.
To add to his strange appearance, the man was clad in a long, sleeveless coat made of deer-skin, with the hairy side out.
We had hardly had time to take in all these peculiarities when Dick once more exclaimed:
"Ah! Here they come! One, two, three – only five of them after all."
As he spoke, the wolves came loping out from among the trees; but the moment they struck our cross-trail the suspicious, wary creatures all stopped with one accord, puzzled by coming upon a scent they had not expected.
This was the Mexican's opportunity. Raising his long left arm, he drew an arrow to its head and let fly.
I thought he had missed, for I saw the arrow strike the ground and knock up a little puff of dust. But I was mistaken. One of the wolves gave a yelp, ran back a few steps, fell down, got up again and ran another few steps, fell again, and this time lay motionless. The arrow had gone right through him!
Almost at the same instant Dick raised his rifle and fired. The shot was electrical. One of the wolves fell, when the remaining three instantly turned tail and ran.
But not only did the wolves run: the Mexican, casting one glance in our direction, sprang upon his donkey and away he went, at a pace that was surprising considering the respective sizes of man and beast.
It was in vain that Dick ran out from under our tree and shouted after him something in Spanish. I could distinguish the word, amigos, two or three times repeated, but the man took no notice. Perhaps he did not believe in friendships so suddenly declared. At any rate, he neither looked back nor slackened his pace, and in a minute or less he and his faithful steed vanished into the timber on the south side of the clearing.
The whole incident had not occupied five minutes; but for the presence of the two dead wolves one would have been tempted to believe it had never happened at all – solitude and silence reigned once more.
"Well, wasn't that a queer thing!" cried Dick.
"It certainly was," I replied. "I wonder who the man is. Anyhow, he's not coming back, so let's go and pick up his arrow."
CHAPTER IV
Racing the Storm
Walking over to where the two wolves lay, we soon found the arrow, its head buried out of sight in the hard ground, showing with what force it had come from the bow. It was carefully made of a bit of some hard wood, scraped down to the proper diameter, and fitted with three feathers – eagle feathers, Dick said – one-third as long as the shaft, very neatly bound on with some kind of fine sinew.
"Looks like a Ute arrow," remarked my companion, as he stooped to pick it up; "yet the man was a Mexican, I am sure. I suppose he must have got it from the Indians."
"Do the Utes use copper arrow-heads?" I asked.
"No, they don't. They use iron or steel nowadays. Why do you ask?"
"Because this arrow-head is copper," I replied.
"Why, so it is!" cried Dick, rubbing the soil from the point on his trouser-leg. "That's very odd. I never saw one before. I feel pretty sure the Indians never use copper: it is too soft. This bit seems to take an edge pretty well, though. See, the point doesn't seem to have been damaged by sticking into the ground; and it has been filed pretty sharp, too; or, what is more likely, rubbed sharp on a stone. It has evidently been made by hand from a piece of native copper."
"I wonder why the man should choose to use copper," said I. "Though when you come to think of it, Dick," I added, "I don't see why it shouldn't make a pretty good arrow-head. It is soft metal, of course, but it is only soft by comparison with other metals. This wedge of copper weighs two or three ounces, and it is quite hard enough to go through the hide of an animal at twenty or thirty yards' distance when 'fired' with the force that this one was."
"That's true. And I expect the explanation is simple enough why the man uses copper. It is probably from necessity and not from choice. Like nearly all Mexicans of the peon class, he probably never has a cent of money in his possession. Consequently, as he can't buy a gun, he uses a bow; and for the same reason, being unable to procure iron for arrow-heads, he uses copper. I expect he comes from the settlement at the foot of the valley, for copper is a very common metal down there."
"Why should it be more common there than elsewhere?" I asked.
"Well, that's the question – and a very interesting question, too. The professor and I were down in that neighborhood about a year ago, and on going into the village we were a good deal surprised to find that every household seemed to possess a bowl or a pot or a cup or a dipper or all four, perhaps, hammered out of native copper – all of them having the appearance of great age. There were dozens of them altogether."
"How do they get them?" I asked.
"That's the question again – and the Mexicans themselves don't seem to know. They say, if you ask them, that they've always had them. And the professor did ask them. He went into one house after another and questioned the people, especially the old people, as to where the copper came from; but none of them could give him any information. I wondered why he should be so persevering in the matter – though when there is anything he desires to learn, no trouble is too much for him – but after we had left the place he explained it all to me, and then I ceased to wonder."
"What was his explanation, then?"
"He told me that when he was in Santa Fé about fifteen years before, he made the acquaintance of a Spanish gentleman of the remarkable name of Blake – "
"Blake!" I interrupted. "That's a queer name for a Spaniard."
"Yes," replied Dick. "The professor says he was a descendant of one of those Irishmen who fled to the continent in the time of William III, of England, most of them going into the service of the king of France and others to other countries – Austria and Spain in particular."
"Well, go ahead. Excuse me for interrupting."
"Well, this gentleman was engaged in hunting through the old Spanish records kept there in Santa Fé, looking up something about the title to a land-grant, I believe, and he told the professor that in the course of his