The Sierra de Pájaros, a broken side piece of the Sierra Madre, may be said to divide on its double water shed the feeders of the Yaqui River and the San Pedro, which courses north and west to supply the Gila. It has the most picturesque and striking aspect of any mountains in those regions, of old forests and cloud-capped peaks. Under the majestic bluffs, the ruins of ancient Spanish settlements crumble away, and the mysterious Pimas Indians prowl.
Nothing so rests the sight and rejoices the heart of wayworn adventurers, saddened and wearied by the sandy and salty plains, as these verdant heights. Almost ignored, and perhaps not mapped down in ordinary atlases, this Sierra preserves to this very day its primeval wildness; only very few "traces," formed more often by wild beasts than woodsmen, vaguely and widely apart appears in the brush. Very hard to penetrate, and then to move about in with certainty, none but Indians and hunters care to have anything to do with its mazes.
Nevertheless, not far from the Cascade of the Cave, a solitary hunter was tranquilly making a meal. It was don Jorge. In Europe, things are different, for we are astonished at a soldier making a good meal before the battle, and a condemned criminal regaling on the eve of execution. Nevertheless, the care of the body is logical and conforms to natural laws. If joy or grief is allowed to cut the appetite short, the physique weakens, and the mind being counteracted upon, again deters the body, and illness, if not death, is the consequence of this deplorable folly. I prefer the hunter's habit.
Don Jorge finished his ration, and proceeded to smoke cigarettes, in a lounging attitude, which recreation he certainly deserved if only to remark the tired state of three excellent horses, which were picketed near him, and which, alternately shifted on and off from whilst in gallop (a fact not remarkable among Mexicans), had borne him almost without check to this remote spot.
No investigation of the desert which his eyrie commanded, had answered his expectations, and he was soon after his third cigarette deep in a slumber pierna suelta, or with legs at ease, as his countrymen say.
There was not a breath in the air; the heat was overpowering, so that the birds were sleeping with heads under the wing, and the wild beasts could almost be heard panting and lolling out their tongues in their lairs.
Only one continuous sound disturbed the profound calm, and that was the noise of those infinitely little beings which never, anywhere, cease to accomplish their mysterious missions.
Two hours thus passed, with don Jorge slumbering, his face hidden by his handkerchief and sombrero to keep off the sun and the gnats, of which myriads played catch-who-can with the sand flies.
All of a sudden the horses, which had stopped grazing and had been motionless with lowered heads, as if also taking a nap, shuddered all over, and abruptly tossed their manes and pointed their ears. With their fineness of hearing they were aware of some suspicious sounds. One of them, whose lariat allowed the approach, stalked up to his master and uttered a soft and plaintive whinny, as if demanding help. However soundly a ranger sleeps, he must be able to wake up immediately and with all his senses clear, and the son of don Benito did so at once. The next moment, turning over on his breast, too wary to rise on his feet, he had his rifle in hand, ready for action.
Listening and staring was of no avail. There was nothing far or near to justify the animals in their still evident fears.