When the horses they rode were cured of their panic by kindly "horse-talk" of which the hunter was profuse, and when the rattle of the stampeded troop had died away utterly, the commonly dense stillness of the wilderness fell upon all around.
"Those niggers will go on yelling and pelting one another till their powder gives out," remarked Oliver. "There'll be scarcely half a dozen strokes to count, but, however, blood has been spilt, and so while they are scrimmaging we can canter on."
Thus reassured, doña Perla smiled again. In a few words she acquainted the hunter with such landmarks around her father's estate as to enable him to direct their course as straight as the mottes or "islands" of woodland in the prairie permitted. But if the Mexican lady and the Englishman argued well of the profound solitude, the Oregonian did not lay aside his watchfulness. Leading the van, three horse lengths, his rifle across the saddlebow, bent forward so that the animal's head shielded his bosom, and his eyes peered over the ears, he retained all that wariness demanded in Northern Mexico, where the axiom reigns: Homo homine lupus, not to be translated as it was done by an excellent trapper friend of the author's, a squawman who had wedded an Indian woman and so became an ally of the tribe:—"Don't feed loups (wolves) with hominy," but, "Man is a devouring wolf to his brother."
[CHAPTER XIX.]
THE OLD, OLD FRIENDS.
Between seven and eight o'clock in the evening the two guardsmen of La Perla Purísima were still riding with her in a somewhat melancholy mood. They had even feared her indications were wrong, particularly as they had met none of their native woodcutters, employed by the Mission of San Fernando, or of the hacienda of the young lady's father, at the magnificent remuneration of half a dozen dollars per month, the insignificant rations in supplement being not worth considering. As a consequence the loan of an ounce, which vast amount they never dream of repaying, constitutes them serfs for life. Whatever the causes, not one of these slaves appeared in the land, where a carrion crow or two, that evidence of a settled county, now and then was visible, having perceived even so far away the battlefield contested by border ruffians and the Indian raiders.
"Queer," remarked Oliver, shaking his head, and redoubling his precautions, whilst relaxing the pace for the same reasons, though they stood in need of food and rest at the earliest moment.
Their horses, too, which the Indians had ridden with that recklessness to their manner born, were suffering from thirst and enforced fast.
It came on dark, too, "a nigger of a night," grumbled the hunter, and not a star in the sky. Thick clouds, charged with electricity, coursed overhead like antelopes in fright, urged by a gale that increased continually, and the rumble of far-off thunder warned them that a storm was imminent and shelter needful.