Instead of the short carbine which a Mexican habitually carries, he sported a long, elegant rifle—a very witch to charm a hunter’s eye. Then he had a brace of silver-mounted revolvers, each firing five times without reloading. Like the rifle, they were costly, and fatally precise and true, models of expensive and beautiful workmanship.
But in his belt was that which, however captivating to the eye they might be, cast them into the shade. It was a long dagger, double-edged, sharp as a razor, with a basket handle of rare workmanship. This last was gold (the handle)—pure, yellow gold, chased and milled into all manner of quaint and droll devices. It hung jauntily in its ornamented sheath at his belt, and his hand was forever caressing its beautiful handle.
Why should this man, forty years of age, rough, plainly dressed, riding with the stealthy air of one who is at war—with a ragged saddle and plain, even homely steed, have such elegant and costly weapons? They cost a large sum, evidently, and should be the property of a prince.
While he is caressing his dagger, as the weapons and their history are the subjects of this narrative, let us go back a year for a brief space.
The name of the Mexican was Pedro Felipe, the old and tried servant of a wealthy and kind master, also a Mexican. A year ago his master, Señor Martinez, had occasion to cross a vast, sterile wilderness, lying a hundred or more miles north of the Gila river. While on that plain, in a remote part of it, called the Land of Silence (a ghostly, spectral plain, considered haunted), his only daughter, a beautiful young girl, was abducted by a robber chief, and carried away to a rendezvous—a hollow hill in the plain. Here she was rescued by Pedro, disguised as a black savage.
The hillock had an aperture in it, and Pedro, on hearing a noise, looked out and saw the lieutenant of the band, a fierce man called the “Trailer,” approaching. Knowing he must take his life or be discovered by the whole band, he shot him dead, from off his horse.
From the Trailer’s body he took the weapons we have described, and then left the body to be devoured by wolves and birds of prey. He was certain that in the hillock a large treasure was secreted, but fearing to be discovered by the band, whom he expected to arrive every hour, he left without searching for it. But the band, he soon after learned, disbanded without returning to the hillock, and left for Mexico.
Pedro had but one glaring fault—the love of gold. He was now on his way to the hill in the Land of Silence, to search for the treasure, and he felt confident of finding it. Why not? The captain and the Trailer were dead—he had seen them both fall; the party had at the same time disorganized; and he was certain they had never returned to seek for it.
The Trailer had been the last robber on the spot, and he himself had killed him; so he was certain of finding the treasure untouched.
Pedro Felipe’s absorbing love of gold had brought him on this hot day to the northern bank of the Gila, on his way to the Land of Silence in search of it.