Only a few months after their arrival in Apacheria the Frenchman and Curumilla were hunting the buffalo on the banks of the Rio Gila. It was a splendid day in the month of July. The two hunters, fatigued by a long march under the beams of the parching sun, that fell vertically on their heads, had sheltered themselves under a clump of cedar wood trees, and, carelessly stretched out on the ground, were smoking while waiting till the great heat had passed, and the evening breeze rose to enable them to continue their hunt. A quarter of elk was roasting for their dinner.
"Eh, penni," Valentine said, addressing his comrade, and rising on his elbow, "the dinner seems to be ready; so suppose we feed? The sun is rapidly sinking behind the virgin forest, and we shall soon have to start again."
"Eat," Curumilla answered, sharply.
The meat was laid on a leaf between the two hunters, who began eating with good appetite, and indulging in cakes of hautle. These cakes, which are very good, are certainly curious. They are made of the pounded eggs of a species of water bug, collected by a sort of harvest in the Mexican lakes. They are found on the leaves of the toule (bulrush), and the farina is prepared in various ways. It is an Aztec preparation par excellence, for so long back as 1625 they were sold on the marketplace of the Mexican capital. They form the chief food of the Indians, who consider them as great a dainty as the Chinese do their swallow nests, with which this article of food has a certain resemblance in taste. Valentine had taken a third bite at his hautle cake when he stopped, with his arm raised and his head bent forward, as if an unusual sound had suddenly smitten his ear. Curumilla imitated his friend, and both listened with that deep attention that only results from a lengthened desert life; for on the prairie every sound is suspicious—every meeting is feared, especially with man.
Some time elapsed ere the noise which startled the hunters was repeated. For a moment they fancied themselves deceived, and Valentine took another bite, when he was again checked. This time he had distinctly heard a sound resembling a stifled sigh, but so weak and hollow that it needed the Trail-hunter's practised ear to catch it. Curumilla himself had perceived nothing. He looked at his friend in amazement, not knowing to what he should attribute his state of agitation. Valentine rose hurriedly, seized his rifle, and rushed in the direction of the river, his friend following him in all haste.
It was from the river, in fact, that the sigh heard by Valentine had come, and fortunately it was but a few paces distant. So soon as the hunters had leaped over the intervening bushes they found themselves on the bank, and a fearful sight presented itself to their startled eyes. A long plank was descending the river, turning on its axis, and borne by the current, which ran rather strongly at this point. On this plank was fastened a woman, who held a child in her clasped arms. Each time the plank revolved the unhappy woman plunged with her child into the stream, and at ten yards at the most from it an enormous cayman was swimming vigorously to snap at its two victims.
Valentine raised his rifle. Curumilla at the same moment glided into the water, holding his knife blade between his teeth, and swam toward the plank. Valentine remained for a few seconds motionless, as if changed into a block of marble. All at once he pulled the trigger, and the discharge was re-echoed by the distant mountains. The cayman leaped out of the water, and plunged down again; but it reappeared a moment later, belly upwards. It was dead. Valentine's bullet had passed through its eye.
In the meanwhile Curumilla, had reached the plank with a few strokes, without loss of time he turned it in the opposite direction from what it was following; and while holding it so that it could not revolve, he pushed it onto the sand. In two strokes he cut the bonds that held the hapless woman, seized her in his arms, and ran off with her to the bivouac fire.
The poor woman gave no signs of life, and the two hunters eagerly sought to restore her. She was an Indian, apparently not more than eighteen, and very beautiful. Valentine found great difficulty in loosening her arms and removing the baby; for the frail creature about a year old, by an incomprehensible miracle, had been preserved—thanks, doubtless to its mother's devotion. It smiled pleasantly at the hunter when he laid it on a bed of dry leaves.
Curumilla opened the woman's mouth slightly with his knife blade, placed in it the mouth of his gourd, and made her swallow a few drops of mezcal. A long time elapsed ere she gave the slightest move that indicated an approaching return to life. The hunters, however, would not be foiled by the ill-success of their attentions, but redoubled their efforts. At length a deep sigh burst painfully from the sufferer's oppressed chest, and she opened her eyes, murmuring in a voice weak as a breath!