Sandoval, as we have said, was the Chief of the men who had so suddenly fallen on the bivouac of the adventurers. These men were pirates of the prairies. In a previous work, we have described what they are; but as it is probable that many of our readers do not know the book to which we allude, we will explain, in as few words as possible, what sort of persons these gentry are. In the United States, and most of the countries of the new world, men are encountered who, not being restrained by any species of moral obligation or family consideration, yield themselves without restraint to all the violence of their evil passions. These men, led in the first instance into debauchery by indolence, and almost certain of impunity in countries where the police are powerless to protect honest people and enforce the laws, at length grow to commit the most atrocious crimes in open daylight, though this is common enough in those countries where the strongest make the laws.
This goes on until the reprobation becomes general, and public indignation at last growing stronger than the terror inspired by these villains, they are compelled to fly from town to town in order to escape the exemplary punishment of Lynch-law. Everywhere pursued like wild beasts, abandoned by all, even by their accomplices, they draw nearer and nearer to the Indian border, which they eventually cross, and are henceforth condemned to live and die in the desert. But there, too, everything is hostile to them—white trappers, wood rangers, Indian warriors, and wild beasts—they are compelled to endure a daily and hourly struggle to defend their life, which is incessantly assailed. But they have before them space, the hiding places on the mountains and in the virgin forests, and hence can sustain the combat to a certain point. Still, if they remained isolated they would infallibly succumb to cold, hunger, and wretchedness, even supposing they were not surprised, scalped, and massacred by their implacable enemies.
These outlaws from society, whom every man thinks he has a right to hunt down, frankly accept their position. They feel proud of the hatred and repulsion they inspire, and collect in numerous bands to requite the anathema cast upon them. Taking as their rule the pitiless law of the prairies, eye for eye and tooth for tooth, they become formidable through their numbers, and repay their enemies the injuries they receive from them. Woe to the trappers or Indians who venture to traverse the prairies alone, for the pirates massacre them pitilessly. The emigrant trains are also attacked and pillaged by them with refined and atrocious barbarity. Some of these men who have retained a little shame, put off the dress of white men to assume that of Redskins, so as to make those they pillage suppose they have been attacked by Indians; hence their most inveterate enemies are the Indians, for whom they try to pass. Still, it frequently happens that the pirates, ally themselves with Redskins belonging to one nation to make war on another.
All is good for them when their object is plunder; but what they prefer is raising scalps, for which the Government of the United States, that patriarchal government which protects the natives, according to some heartless optimists, are not ashamed to pay fifty dollars a-piece. Hence, the pirates are as skilful as the Indians themselves in raising hair; but with them all scalps are good; and when they cannot come across Indians, they have no scruple about scalping white men; the more so, because the United States does not look into matters very closely, and pays without bargaining or entering into details, provided that the hair be long and black.
Captain Sandoval's band of pirates was one of the most numerous and best organised in Upper Arkansas; his comrades, all thorough food for the gallows, formed the most magnificent collection of bandits that could be imagined. For a long period, Fray Antonio, if not forming part of the band, had taken part in its operations, and derived certain though illegal profit by supplying the captain with information about the passage of caravans, their strength, and the road they intended to follow. Although the worthy monk had given up this hazardous traffic, his conversion had not been of so old a date for the pirates to have completely forgotten the services he had rendered them; hence, when he was compelled to abandon White Scalper he thought at once of his old friends. This idea occurred to him the more naturally, because White Scalper, owing to the mode of life he had hitherto led in the desert, had in his character some points of resemblance with the pirates, who, like him, were pitiless, and recognised no other law than their caprice.
In the band of Freebooters the monk had organised since his reformation were some men more beaten than the others by the tempest of an adventurous life. These men Fray Antonio had seen at work, and set their full value upon them; but he kept them near him, through a species of intuition, in order to have them under his hand if some day fate desired that he should be compelled to have recourse to an heroic remedy to get out of a scrape, which was easy to foresee when a man entered on the life of a partisan. Among these chosen comrades was naturally Ruperto; hence it was to him he entrusted the choice of three sure men to escort the wounded man to the camp of Captain Sandoval, in Upper Arkansas. We have seen that the monk was not mistaken, and in what way Ruperto performed the commission confided to him.
It has frequently been said that honest men always recognise each other at the first glance; but the statement is far truer when applied to rogues. The White Scalper and the Pirate Chief had not walked side by side for ten minutes ere the best possible understanding was arrived at between them. The Captain admired as an amateur, and especially as a connoisseur, the athletic stature of his new companion. His rigid features, which seemed carved in granite, for they were so firm and marked, his black and sparkling eyes, and even his blunt and sharp mode of speech, attracted and aroused his sympathy. Several times he proposed to have him carried on the shoulders of two of his most powerful comrades across awkward spots; but the old man, although his ill-closed wounds caused him extreme suffering, and fatigue overpowered him, constantly declined these kind offers, merely replying that physical pain was nothing, and that the man who could not conquer it by the strength of his will, ought to be despised as an old woman.
There could be no reply to such a peremptory mode of reasoning, so Sandoval merely contented himself with nodding an assent, and they continued their march in silence. Night had fallen for some time, but it was a bright and starry night, which allowed them to march in safety, and have no fear of losing their way. After three hours of a very difficult journey, the travellers at length reached the crest of a high hill.
"We have arrived," Sandoval then said, as he stopped under the pretext of resting a moment, but in reality to give his companion, whom he saw to be winded, though he made no complaint, an opportunity to draw breath.
"What, arrived?" the Scalper said in surprise, looking round him, but not perceiving the slightest sign of an encampment.