V
In the morning, before continuing the journey, I set out to secure a few photographs.
“Ask permission before you snap a native,” the mining man warned me. “Some of them are superstitious—have an idea that they’ll die within a year if you take their picture. They killed the last photographer that tried it.”
So I took special pains to ask permission. Invariably they said, “No!” Some appeared to regard the camera as a new species of machine-gun. Even those who knew what it was were reticent about posing. The more picturesque the native, and the more I wished his picture, the more resolutely he said, “NO!”
Strolling some distance from town, I finally discovered an aged squaw who looked as though she might die within a year even though her photograph were not taken. But her “NO!” was not merely in capital letters but in type larger than the largest in a Hearst newspaper. Still, I could not resist that picture. She was standing in the center of the shallow river, filling deer-skin water-sacks and loading them upon the back of a moth-eaten little burro. But since the sun shone directly in my lens, I had to pass her. And the moment I unslung my camera, she started to walk upstream directly into the light. The faster I walked, the faster she walked. I broke into a trot, and she broke into a trot, dragging the burro after her, and splashing water over the two of us. I felt a trifle undignified, but I had determined to have that picture, and I increased my pace to a run. Thereupon she gathered her skirts about her waist and sprinted like an intercollegiate champion.
From the village behind us came a series of war-whoops. I looked back to see the entire population joining in the chase. Suddenly I realized that my behavior was undignified. Some fifty angry natives were rushing toward me, waving in the air an assortment of weapons that might have delighted a collector of antiques, but which at the moment gave me no cause whatsoever for rejoicing. I stopped and faced them, trying vainly to explain my conduct in my inadequate Spanish, while they shook their fists, and waved knives in the air, and jabbered furiously.
Eustace came to my rescue. Two years and eight sweethearts upon the border had given him a fluent command of the language.
“They’ve misjudged your intentions,” he chuckled, after he had calmed the mob. “I’ve explained it all. This old geezer with the four whiskers on his chin is her man, and he says he’ll let you take her picture for two pesos. I suppose he’s tired of her, and doesn’t care whether she croaks or not.”
But the squaw evidently valued her life at more than two pesos. For she gathered up her skirts once more, and fled away down the river, dragging the burro behind her.