It was plain that the trappers were really kind at heart, and were anxious to give the young hunter a “lift.” They were rough in their manner and speech but the diamond is frequently forbidding in its appearance until it is polished, and the wonderful gem displayed.
While this trapper was conversing with the stranger, his companion had stealthily made his way down the bank some distance, where he had clambered up on the plain, and made a reconnoissance to assure himself that the “coast was clear.” Discovering nothing suspicious, he had turned back again and speedily rejoined the other two.
The fire having completely gone out they were left in entire darkness sitting together on the bank of the Gila.
One of the trappers was short, muscular, with a compact frame, resembling in physique the renowned Kit Carson. His name was George Harling, and he hailed from Missouri, and was a hunter and trapper of a dozen years experience. He was generally mild, quick and genial tempered, but when in the Comanche fight, or when on the trail of some of the daring marauders of the northern tribes, he was a perfect terror, fearless, dashing and heedless of all danger.
The second hunter who hitherto had maintained the principal part of the conversation with Wainwright was a tall, lank, bony individual, restless in manner and sometimes impulsive in speech, was called Ward Lancaster, and seemed to have tramped in every part of the country west of the Mississippi; for you could not mention a tribe of Indians, or a peculiar locality, but what he had been there, and had something interesting to tell about it.
He was about fifty years of age, with not a gray hair in his head, and with as gleaming an eye as he possessed thirty years before, when he first placed his foot on the western bank of the Father of Waters, and slinging his rifle over his shoulder, plunged into the vast wilderness, an eager sharer in the adventures and dangers that awaited him.
Ward was a pleasant, even tempered individual, who, when led into the ambush, and fighting desperately the dusky demons who were swarming around him, did so as cooly and cautiously as he galloped over the billowy prairie. He was one of those individuals who seemed born to act as guide and director for parties traversing those regions, where it seems to a man of ordinary ability, fully a lifetime would be required to gain a comparatively slight knowledge. His instinct was never known to be at fault. When in the midst of the immense arid plains, which stretched away on every hand, until like the ocean it joined the sky; in the centre of these vast tracts, with man and beast famishing for water, and when no one else could see the clue, by which to escape from the dreadful situation, Ward displayed a knowledge or intuition, which to say the least, was extraordinary. Looking up to the brassy sky, and then away to the distant horizon, and then at the parched ground, he would fall into a deep reverie, which would last for a few moments, at the end of which he would start off at a rapid gallop toward some invisible point, and the end of that ride was——water.
When questioned as to the manner by which he acquired this remarkable skill, the trapper never gave a satisfactory answer. He sometimes said it must be that he scented the water; but, as it is well known that this element has no smell, taste or color, although the presence of vegetation, which it causes, and which is nearly always a sign of it, frequently gives out a strong odor, which guides the thirsty animal from a long distance, yet it cannot be supposed for an instant that the hunter acquired his wonderful knowledge in this manner. No human olfactories have ever been known to hold a hundredth part of the delicacy necessary for such an exploit. Ward always smiled rather significantly when he gave such an answer.
It might be that he was really ignorant of the means by which he possessed such a superiority over his fellow creatures in this respect, and which made them only too glad to follow him to any point he indicated, without fear of consequences; or it may be that he had acquired some subtle secret of the “hidden springs” of nature—some knowledge of her means of working—so hidden from human knowledge that they can be reached by no process of reasoning, and are only discovered (which is rarely the case,) by accident.
Such a knowledge, or “gift,” as it is properly termed, is frequently found among the North American Indians—a people whose inability to grasp the simplest truths of art or science, is too well known to need reference here. Some withered old Medicine man, or wrinkled old woman, with her crooning and sorcery, is frequently the depository of a secret in medicines,—of the subtle working in certain forms of disease, of some apparently harmless plant, which when made known to the prying eyes of his pale faced brother, has made his fame and reputation and has given him a name for learning and skill, that has made him the enemy of the whole profession.