[IN THE SIERRA MADRE WITH THE PUNCHERS]
On a chill, black morning the cabins of Los Ojos gave up their inmates at an early hour. The ponies, mules, and burros were herded up, and stood shivering in an angle, while about them walked the men, carefully coiling their hair lariats, and watching for an opportunity to jerk them over the heads of the selected ones. The patron’s black pet walked up to him, but the mounts of my companion and self sneaked about with an evident desire not to participate in the present service. Old Cokomorachie and Jim were finally led forth, protesting after the manner of their kind. I carefully adjusted my Whitman’s officer-tree over a wealth of saddle blanketing, and slung my Winchester 45-70 and my field-glasses to it. The punchers, both white and brown, and two or three women, regarded my new-fangled saddle with amused glances; indeed, Mr. Bell’s Mexican wife laughed at it outright, and Tom Bailey called it “a damn rim-fire.” Another humorist thought that “it would give the chickens the pip if they got onto it”; all of which I took good-humoredly, since this was not the first time “your Uncle Samuel” had been away from home; and after some days, when a lot of men were carefully leading sore-backed horses over the mountains, I had cause to remark further on the subject. A Mexican cow-saddle is a double-barrelled affair; it will eat a hole into a horse’s spine and a pair of leather breeches at the same time. If one could ask “Old Jim” about that saddle of mine, I think he would give it an autograph recommend, for he finished the trip with the hide of his back all there.
MY COMRADE
Leaving the “burro men” to haul and pull at their patient beasts as they bound on their loads, our outfit “pulled out” on what promised to be plenty of travelling. We were to do the rounds of the ranch, explore the mountains, penetrate to the old Apache strongholds, shoot game, find cliff-dwellers’ villages, and I expect the dark minds of the punchers hoped for a sight at the ever-burning fire which should discover the lost mine of Tiopa. We were also promised a fight with the “Kid” if we “cut his trail”; and if he “cut ours,” we may never live to regret it. Some tame Indians, just in from a hunt in the Rio Chico, had seen three fires, but they had “rolled their tails”[4] for Bavicora so promptly that they had not ascertained whether they were Apache or not. The same men we were in the company of had run the “Kid’s” band in to the States only two months before, but on our trip that very elusive and very “bad Injun” was not encountered. Much as I should like to see him, I have no regrets, since it is extremely likely that he would have seen me first.
[4] Cowboy for travelling rapidly.
ON THE MOUNTAINS