BLACK CAT.
In order to understand the ensuing incidents, we are compelled to return to the maidens whom we left at the moment when they escaped from Red Cedar's camp, escorted by the Canadian hunters.
The fugitives stopped a few moments before sunrise on a little tongue of sand forming a species of promontory a few yards in length on the waters of Gila, which were rather deep at this point, whence the river or prairie could be surveyed.
All was calm and tranquil in the desert. The impetuous Gila rolled along its yellowish stream between two banks clothed with wood and thick chaparral. Amid the dark green branches thousands of birds were striking up a concert, with which was mingled at intervals the lowing of the buffaloes.
The first care of the hunters was to kindle a fire and prepare the morning meal, while their hobbled horses nibbled the young tree shoots.
"Why breakfast already, Harry?" Ellen asked, "When we have been travelling hardly four hours."
"We do not know what await us in an hour, Miss Ellen," the hunter answered; "hence we must profit by the moment of respite Providence grants us to restore our strength."
The maiden let her head droop. The meal was soon ready, and when it was over they remounted and the flight commenced.
All at once, a shrill and peculiar whistle was heard in the tall grass, and some forty Indians, as if emerging from the ground, surrounded the party. At the first moment, Ellen fancied that these men were the Coras warriors Eagle-wing was to bring up; but the illusion lasted a very short while, and a glance sufficed for them to recognise Apaches.
Doña Clara, at first alarmed by this unexpected attack, almost immediately regained her coolness, and saw that any resistance was impossible.
"You would sacrifice yourselves in vain for me," she said to the Canadians; "leave me temporarily in the hands of these Indians, whom I fear less than Red Cedar's gambusinos. Fly, Ellen—fly, my friends."
"No!" the American girl exclaimed, passionately; "I will die with you, my friend."
"The two women will follow us, as well as the paleface hunters," one of the Indians commanded.
"For what purpose?" Doña Clara asked, softly.
At a sign from the chief, two men seized the young Mexican lady, and tied her to her horse, though not employing any violence.
With a movement swifter than thought, Harry lifted Ellen from her saddle, threw her across his horse's neck, and trying a desperate effort, threw himself, followed by Dick, into the thick of the redskins. Employing their rifles like clubs, they began felling the Apaches. There was, for a moment, a terrible contest, but at length Harry succeeded, after desperate efforts, in forcing his way, and set off at full speed, bearing with him Red Cedar's daughter, who had fainted from terror.
Less lucky than he, Dick, after felling two or three Indians, was hurled from his horse, and nailed to the ground by a lance. The young man, in falling, cast a despairing glance at her whom he had been unable to save, and for whom he died. An Indian leaped on his body, raised his scalp, and brandished it, all blood dripping, with cries of ferocious laughter, before the eyes of Doña Clara, who was half dead with terror and pain. The redskins then started at a gallop, carrying off their prey with them.
The Indians are not in the habit now-a-days of ill-treating their prisoners as they used to do, especially if they are women. Hence Doña Clara's abductors had not made her endure any unkind treatment.
These Indians formed part of an Apache war party, about one hundred strong, and commanded by a renowned chief, called Black Cat. All these warriors were well armed, and mounted on handsome and good horses.
Immediately after capturing the maiden, they started at a gallop across the prairie for nearly six hours, in the hope of outstripping any party that might start in pursuit, and toward nightfall they halted on the banks of the Gila. At this spot the river flowed majestically between two escarped banks, bordered by lofty rocks carved in the strangest fashion. The ground was still covered by a grass at least three feet high, and a few clumps of trees scattered over the plain agreeably diversified the landscape, which was enlivened by flocks of buffaloes, elks, and bighorns, which could be seen feeding in the distance.
The Indians raised their tents on a hill, from the top of which a very extensive view could be enjoyed. They lit several fires, and prepared to pass the night in waiting for the other warriors to join them. Doña Clara was placed by herself in a tent of buffalo skins, in which a fire was lighted, as at this advanced season the nights are cold in the Far West.
Accustomed to desert life, and familiarised with Indian customs, Doña Clara would have patiently supported her position, had it not been for the thought of the misfortunes which had so long crushed her, and of her father's fate of which she was ignorant.
Seated on buffalo skins by the fire, she had just finished eating a few mouthfuls of roast elk, washed down with smilax water, and was reflecting deeply on the strange and terrible events which had marked this day, when the curtain of the tent was raised, and Black Cat appeared.
The chief was a man of lofty stature. He was upwards of sixty years of age, but his hair was still black. He enjoyed in his tribe a reputation for courage and wisdom, which he justified in every respect. A cloud of sorrow veiled his naturally soft and placid features. He walked slowly in, and took a seat by the side of Doña Clara, whom he regarded for some moments with interest.
"My daughter is afflicted," he said, "she is thinking of her father, her heart is with her family; but my daughter will take courage, and not be cast down. Natosh (God) will come to her, and dry her tears."
The young Mexican shook her head sadly, but made no reply; the chief continued—
"I also suffer: a cloud is very heavy on my mind. The paleface warriors of her nation wage an obstinate war with us, but I know the way to make them assume the feet of antelopes, to fly far from our hunting grounds. Tomorrow, on reaching the village of my tribe, I will have recourse to a great medicine. My daughter will console herself; no harm will happen to her among us; I will be her father."
"Chief," Doña Clara answered, "lead me back to Santa Fe, and I promise you my father will give you as many rifles, powder, bullets, and looking glasses as you like to ask of him."
"That is not possible; my daughter is too precious a hostage for me to think of surrendering her. My daughter must forget the whites, whom she will never see again, and prepare to become the wife of a chief."
"I!" the maiden exclaimed in terror, "Become the wife of an Indian? Never!—make me undergo all the tortures you please to inflict on me, instead of condemning me to such a punishment."
"My daughter will reflect," Black Cat answered, "of what does the White Lily of the Valley complain? We are only doing to her what has been done to us frequently—that is the law of the prairies."
Black Cat rose, giving Doña Clara a mingled glance of tenderness and pity, and slowly left the tent.
After his departure the poor girl fell into a state of utter prostration; the horror of her position appeared before her in all its truth.
The night passed then for her, weeping and sobbing, alone, amid the laughter and songs of the Apaches, who were celebrating the arrival of the warriors of their detachment.
The next morning, at daybreak, the warriors started again, several men watching the movements of the prisoner; but Black Cat kept aloof from her.
The Indians marched along the Gila, through a yellowish prairie. Gloomy lines of chaparral, intersected by trees, whose red or grayish-brown colour contrasted with the yellow frondage of the poplars, bordered the road; on the horizon rose grand hills of a whitish grey, covered with patches of coloured grass and dark green cedar.
The band undulated like an immense serpent in this grand desert, proceeding towards the village, whose approaches could already be detected by the mephitic miasmas, exhaling from scaffoldings, seen in the distance, on which the Indians keep their dead, and let them decompose, and dry in the sun, instead of burying them.
At about two o'clock the warriors entered the village, amid the shouts of inhabitants, and the sound of the chichikouis, mingled with the furious barking of the dogs.
This village, built on the top of a hill, formed a tolerably regular circle. It was a considerable number of earth huts, built without order or symmetry. Wooden palisades, twelve feet high, served it as ramparts, and at equal distances four bastions of earth supplied with loopholes, and covered inside and outside with intertwined willow branches, completed the system of defence. In the centre of the village was a vacant space, of about forty feet in diameter, in the centre of which was the "ark of the first man," a species of small round cylinder, formed of wide planks, four feet high, round which creepers twined. To the west of the spot we have just described was the medicine lodge, where the festivals and religious rites of the Apaches were celebrated. A mannikin made of animal skins, with a wooden head, painted black, and wearing a fur cap, decorated with plumes, was fixed on a tall pole, to represent the spirit or genius of evil. Other quaint figures of the same nature were dispersed in various squares of the village, and were offerings made to the lord of life.
Between the huts was a great number of several storied scaffoldings, on which the maize, wheat, and vegetables of the tribe were drying.
Black Cat ordered Doña Clara to be conducted to a calli he had inhabited for a long time, and whose position, in the centre of the village, offered sufficient guarantee for the security of the prisoner. He then went to prepare himself for the great magical conjuration, by which he hoped to destroy the palefaces, his enemies.
When Doña Clara found herself alone, she fell despondingly on a pile of leaves, and burst into tears. The cabin serving her as a prison was like all the rest in the village; it was round, and slightly arched at the top; the entrance was protected by a species of porch, closed with a dried skin, stretched on the cross sticks. In the centre of the roof was an orifice, intended to let the smoke out, and covered with a sort of rounded cap made of sticks and branches. The interior of the hut was large, clean, and even rather light.
The mode of building these abodes is extremely simple. They consist of eleven to fifteen stakes, four or five feet in length, between which shorter ones are placed very closely together. Upon the higher poles rest long beams, inclining to the centre, and which, placed very close to each other, support the roof. Externally, they are covered with a sort of trellis work, made of branches, fastened together with bark; straw is laid over them, and earth on the top of that again.
The maiden, although she was so wearied, did not feel the slightest inclination to repose on the bed prepared for her. It was formed of a long parchment box, with a square entrance; the interior was lined with several bears' skins, on which she could have stretched herself comfortably, but she preferred crouching in the centre of the hut, near the hole in which the fire, lit to protect her from the cold, was on the point of expiring.
Toward midnight, at the moment when, despite her firm resolution to keep awake, she was beginning to doze, Doña Clara heard a slight sound at the entrance of her hut. She ran hastily, and by the dying flashes of the fire, perceived an Indian warrior.
It was Eagle-wing. The maiden suppressed with difficulty a cry of joy at the sudden appearance of the Coras Chief. The latter laid a finger on his lip; then, after looking scrutinisingly around, he walked up to the maiden, and said in a voice soft as a sigh:
"Why did not the Lily follow the road laid down Eagle-wing? Instead of being at this hour the prisoner of the Apache dogs, the pale virgin would be by her father's side."
At this remark a heart-rending sob burst from Doña Clara's bosom, and she hid her face in her hands.
"The Apaches are cruel, they sell women. Does my sister know the fate that threatens her?"
"Too well, alas!"
"What will my sister the Lily do?" the Indian asked.
"What I will do?" the Mexican girl answered, her eye suddenly gleaming with a dark flash; "A daughter of my race will never be the slave of an Apache; if my father will give me his knife, he will see whether I fear death."
"It is well," the sachem continued; "my sister is brave; great courage and cunning will be needed to succeed in what I am about to attempt."
"What does my brother mean?" the maiden asked, with a lively movement of hope.
"My sister will listen; the moments are precious; has the Lily confidence in me?"
Doña Clara looked the Indian in the face; she regarded his honest countenance for a moment, then, seizing the warrior's hand and pressing it in hers, said warmly:
"Yes, yes, I have confidence in you, Eagle-wing; speak, what do you ask of me?"
"To save you, I, an Indian, am about to betray the men of my race," the sachem proceeded sadly; "I do not say this to heighten the value of my deed, sister; I will restore you to your father. Tomorrow Black Cat will undergo, in the presence of the whole tribe, the great medicines of the sweating cabin, in order that Bloodson may fall into his hands with all the warriors he commands."
"I know it."
"My sister will be present at the ceremony. She must pay attention to my slightest signs, but, above all, must be careful that none of the Apache warriors notice the glances she exchanges with me, or we shall both be lost. Till tomorrow."
Then, bowing with a respect blended with tenderness, Eagle-wing left the calli. Doña Clara fell on her knees, clasped her trembling hands, and addressed a fervent prayer to Heaven. Without, the barking of the dogs could be heard, mingled with the howls of the coyotes, and the measured steps of the Apache warriors watching the hut.
Moukapec was one of the sentinels.