The Indian Chief: The Story of a Revolution

by Gustave Aimard

Before them, behind them, and around them extended the desert, gloomy, naked, and desolate. As far as their eye could reach they perceived on all sides sand—-sand everywhere and always. Then they believed themselves lost; despair took possession of them; and they fell back on the ground, resolved to await death, which would doubtless soon arrive to put an end to their misery. They remained thus side by side, with drooping heads and lacklustre eyes, in that state of complete apathy which seizes on the strongest men after great catastrophes, suspends in them the inward feeling of self, and interrupts their thoughts.

How long did they remain in this condition? They were unable to tell. They no longer lived, they no longer felt—they vegetated. They were suddenly aroused from this extraordinary listlessness by the appearance of a band of Apache Indians, who galloped round them, uttering ferocious yells, and brandishing their long lances with an air of defiance and menace. The Indians seized them, as they were incapable of offering the slightest resistance, and led them to one of their villages, where they kept them in a state of the most disgraceful and humiliating slavery.

But the energy of the two adventurers, for an instant crushed, soon gained the mastery again over their hearts. With extreme patience, skill, and dissimulation they made the preparations for their flight. We will not enter into any details as to the manner in which they succeeded in escaping from the watchfulness of their guardians, and managed at length to reach the colony by a roundabout road, crushed with fatigue, and half dead with hunger, but arrive at once at the most important point in their narrative.

These men declared to the colonists that the village to which the Apaches led them was built within gunshot of a placer of incalculable value—that this placer was extremely easy to work, as the gold was on the surface. As a proof of their veracity they showed several nuggets of the finest gold, which they had managed to secure, and pledged themselves to lead to this placer, which was not more than ten days' journey from the colony, any of the adventurers who would consent to take them as guides, assuring them that they would be amply rewarded for their toil and fatigue by the rich harvest they would obtain.

This recital greatly interested the colonists. Charles de Laville, in particular, lent a lively attention to it. He made the men repeat their story several times, and they did not once vary from their original statement. The captain had at length found the means he had been vainly searching so long. Now he was certain not only that his comrades would not abandon him, but that they would obey him blindly in all that he thought proper to order them. The same day he informed the colonists that he was preparing an expedition to go in search of the placer, dislodge the Indians, and work it for the profit of all the paction.

The news was received with transports of joy, and de Laville immediately began carrying out his plan. Although the number of colonists had greatly diminished (for frequent desertions had taken place), still Guetzalli counted nearly two hundred colonists. It was of the utmost importance to the gold-seekers to keep up the colony, as the only place whence they could obtain provisions when at the mine; for, as we have said, Guetzalli, as the advanced post of civilisation, had been founded on the extreme limit of the desert. This position, chosen originally in order to oppose the Indians more effectually, and stop their periodical incursions upon the Mexican territory, became precious in the present instance, through the facility it afforded the adventurers for supplying themselves with all they needed without having recourse to strangers; and this enabled them also to keep the discovery of the placer secret, at any rate long enough, owing to the distance of the pueblos from the frontier, to render it impossible for the Mexican Government to interpose and demand the lion's share, according to its usual custom.

The captain did not wish to strip the colony thoroughly, for he must leave it in a respectable position, and safe from a sudden attack on the part of the Apaches and Comanches, those implacable foes of the white men, ever on the watch, and ready to profit by their slightest oversight. De Laville therefore decided that the expedition should be composed of eighty well-mounted and well-armed men, and that the others should remain behind to protect the colony. Still, to avoid any dissension or jealousy among his comrades, the captain declared that lots should decide who were to go in search of the placer.

This expedient, which rendered everybody equal, was warmly approved, and they proceeded to draw lots. The process was extremely simple: the name of each adventurer was written on a roll of paper and thrown into a vessel, whence a boy drew them one by one. Of course the eighty names that came out first would be the members of the expedition. Thus, as the arrangement was most simple, and at the same time perfectly fair, no one had a right to complain.

All was done as was agreed. Chance, as so frequently happens, favoured the captain by selecting the most energetic and enterprising men. Then all eagerly prepared for the departure; that is to say, they collected provisions of every description, got together mules, and made the tools required for working the mine. Still, in spite of all the activity displayed by the captain, nearly a month elapsed ere all was in readiness.

The frightful catastrophe to which the Count de Lhorailles had fallen a victim in the great Del Norte desert, which the adventurers would have to cross in going to the placer, was a serious warning to de Laville to act with the utmost prudence, and leave nothing to chance. Hence, without listening in the slightest degree to the impatient insinuations of his comrades, who urged him to press on the departure of the expedition, he watched with the most scrupulous attention the construction of the carts intended to convey the provisions, and allowed no detail, however trifling, to escape his careful eye; for he knew that the loss of an hour in the desert, produced by the breaking of a screw, a tire, or a trace, might cause the death of the men placed under his orders.