The Red Track: A Story of Social Life in Mexico

by Gustave Aimard

In the stories of the wood rangers and trappers, the Sierra of the Wind River is justly renowned for its frightful gorges, and the wild country in its vicinity frequently serves as a refuge to the pirates of the prairie, and has been, many a time and oft, the scene of obstinate struggles between the white men and the Indians.

Toward the end of June, 1854, a well-mounted traveller, carefully wrapped up in the thick folds of a zarapé, raised to his eyes, was following one of the most precipitous slopes of the Sierra of the Wind River, at no great distance from the source of the Green River, that great western Colorado which pours its waters into the Gulf of California.

It was about seven in the evening: the traveller rode along, shivering from the effects of an icy wind which whistled mournfully through the canyons. All around had assumed a saddening aspect in the vacillating moonbeams. He rode on without hearing the footfall of his horse, as it fell on the winding sheet of snow that covered the landscape; at times the capricious windings of the track he was following compelled him to pass through thickets, whose branches, bent by the weight of snow, stood out before him like gigantic skeletons, and struck each other after he had passed with a sullen snap.

The traveller continued his journey, looking anxiously on both sides of him. His horse, fatigued by a long ride, hobbled at every step, and in spite of the repeated encouragement of its rider seemed determined to stop short, when, after suddenly turning an angle in the track, it suddenly entered a large clearing, where the close-growing grass formed a circle about forty yards in diameter, and the verdure formed a cheery contrast with the whiteness that surrounded it.

"Heaven be praised!" the traveller exclaimed in excellent French, and giving a start of pleasure; "Here is a spot at last where I can camp for tonight night, without any excessive inconvenience. I almost despaired of finding one."

While thus congratulating himself, the traveller had stopped his horse and dismounted. His first attention was paid to his horse, from which he removed saddle and bridle, and which he covered with his zarapé, appearing to attach no importance to the cold, which was, however, extremely severe in these elevated regions. So soon as it was free, the animal, in spite of its fatigue, began browsing heartily on the grass, and thus reassured about his companion, the traveller began thinking about making the best arrangements possible for the night.

Tall, thin, active, with a lofty and capacious forehead, an intelligent blue eye, sparkling with boldness, the stranger appeared to have been long accustomed to desert life, and to find nothing extraordinary or peculiarly disagreeable in the somewhat precarious position in which he found himself at this moment.

He was a man who had reached about middle life, on whose brow grief rather than the fatigue of the adventurous life of the desert had formed deep wrinkles, and sown numerous silver threads in his thick light hair; his dress was a medium between that of the white trappers and the Mexican gambusinos; but it was easy to recognize, in spite of his complexion, bronzed by the seasons, that he was a stranger to the ground he trod, and that Europe had witnessed his birth.

After giving a final glance of satisfaction at his horse, which at intervals interrupted its repast to raise its delicate and intelligent head to him with an expression of pleasure, he carried his weapons and horse trappings to the foot of a rather lofty rock, which offered him but a poor protection against the gusts of the night breeze, and then began collecting dry wood to light a watch fire.

It was no easy task to find dry firewood at a spot almost denuded of trees, and whose soil, covered with snow, except in the clearing, allowed nothing to be distinguished; but the traveller was patient, he would not be beaten, and within an hour he had collected sufficient wood to feed through the night two such fires as he proposed kindling. The branches soon crackled, and a bright flame rose joyously in a long spiral to the sky.