Of a sudden we were surrounded by a party of sixty Arrapahoes; of course, resistance or flight was useless. Our captors, however, treated us with honour, contenting themselves with watching us closely and preventing our escape. They knew who we were, and, though my horse, saddle, and rifle were in themselves a booty for any chief, nothing was taken from us. I addressed the chief, whom I knew:
“What have I done to the Morning Star of the Arrapahoes, that I should be taken and watched like a sheep of the Watchinangoes?”
The chief smiled and put his hand upon my shoulders. “The Arrapahoes,” said he, “love the young Owato Wanisha and his pale-faced brothers, for they are great warriors, and can beat their enemies with beautiful blue fires from the heavens. The Arrapahoes know all; they area wise people. They will take Owato Wanisha to their own tribe, that he may show his skill to them, and make them warriors. He shall be fed with the fittest and sweetest dogs. He will become a great warrior among the Arrapahoes. So wish our prophets. I obey the will of the prophets and of the nation.”
“But,” answered I, “my Manitou will not hear me if I am a slave. The Pale-face Manitou has ears only for free warriors. He will not lend me his fires unless space and time be my own.”
The chief interrupted me:— “Owato Wanisha is not a slave, nor can he be one. He is with his good friends, who will watch over him, light his fire, spread their finest blankets in his tent, and fill it with the best game of the prairie. His friends love the young chief, but he must not escape from them, else the evil spirit would make the young Arrapahoes drunk as a beastly Crow, and excite them in their folly to kill the Pale-faces.”
As nothing could be attempted for the present, we submitted to our fate, and were conducted by a long and dreary journey to the eastern shores of the Rio Colorado of the West, until at last we arrived at one of the numerous and beautiful villages of the Arrapahoes. There we passed the winter in a kind of honourable captivity. An attempt to escape would have been the signal of our death, or, at least, of a harsh captivity. We were surrounded by vast sandy deserts, inhabited by the Clubs (Piuses), a cruel race of people, some of them cannibals. Indeed, I may as well here observe that most of the tribes inhabiting the Colorado are men-eaters, even including the Arrapahoes, on certain occasions. Once we fell in with a deserted camp of Club-men, and there we found the remains of about twenty bodies, the bones of which had been picked with apparently as much relish as the wings of a pheasant would have been by a European epicure. This winter passed gloomily enough, and no wonder. Except a few beautiful groves, found here and there, like the oases in the sands of the Sahara, the whole country is horribly broken and barren. Forty miles above the Gulf of California, the Colorado ceases to be navigable, and presents from its sources, for seven hundred miles, nothing but an uninterrupted series of noisy and tremendous cataracts, bordered on each side by a chain of perpendicular rocks, five or six hundred feet high, while the country all around seems to have been shaken to its very centre by violent volcanic eruptions.
Winter at length passed away, and with the first weeks of spring were renovated our hopes of escape. The Arrapahoes, relenting in their vigilance, went so far as to offer us to accompany them in an expedition eastward. To this, of course, we agreed, and entered very willingly upon the beautiful prairies of North Sonora. Fortune favoured us; one day, the Arrapahoes having followed a trail of Apaches and Mexicans, with an intent to surprise and destroy them, fell themselves into a snare, in which they were routed, and many perished.
We made no scruples of deserting our late masters, and, spurring our gallant steeds, we soon found that our unconscious liberators were a party of officers bound from Monterey or Santa Fé, escorted by two-and-twenty Apaches and some twelve or fifteen families of Ciboleros. I knew the officers, and was very glad to have intelligence from California. Isabella was as bright as ever, but not quite so light-hearted. Padre Marini, the missionary, had embarked for Peru, and the whole city of Monterey was still laughing, dancing, singing, and love-making, just as I had left them.
The officers easily persuaded me to accompany them to Santa Fé, from whence I could readily return to Monterey with the next caravan.
A word concerning the Ciboleros may not be uninteresting. Every year, large parties of Mexicans, some with mules, others with ox-carts, drive out into these prairies to procure for their families a season’s supply of buffalo beef. They hunt chiefly on horseback, with bow and arrow, or lance, and sometimes the fusil, whereby they soon load their carts and mules. They find no difficulty in curing their meat even in mid-summer, by slicing it thin, and spreading or suspending it in the sun; or, if in haste, it is slightly barbecued. During the curing operation, they often follow the Indian practice of beating the slices of meat with their feet, which they say contributes to its preservation.