The White Chief: A Legend of Northern Mexico

by Mayne Reid

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed he, as he lighted the cigar, “what a droll masquerade it has been! ’Pon my soul! I can scarce get the paint off; and my voice, after such yelling, won’t recover for a week! Ha! ha! Never was maiden wooed and won in such a romantic, roundabout way. Shepherds attacked—sheep driven off and scattered to the winds—cattle carried away and killed in regular battue—old woman knocked over, and rancho given to the flames—besides three days of marching and countermarching, travestying Indian, and whooping till one is hoarse; and all this trouble for a poor paisana—daughter of a reputed witch! Ha! ha! ha! It would read like a chapter in some Eastern romance—Aladdin, for instance—only that the maiden was not rescued by some process of magic or knight-errantry. Ha! ha ha!”

This speech of Roblado will disclose what is, perhaps, guessed at already—that the late incursion of “los barbaros” was neither more nor less than an affair got up by Vizcarra and himself to cover the abduction of the cibolero’s sister. The Indians who had harried the sheep and cattle—who had attacked the hacienda of Don Juan—who had fired the rancho and carried off Rosita—were Colonel Vizcarra, his officer Captain Roblado, his sergeant Gomez, and a soldier named José—another minion of his confidence and will.

There were but the four, as that number was deemed sufficient for the accomplishment of the atrocious deed; and rumour, backed by fear, gave them the strength of four hundred. Besides, the fewer in the secret the better. This was the prudence or cunning of Roblado.

Most cunningly, too, had they taken their measures. The game, from beginning to end, was played with design and execution worthy of a better cause. The shepherds were first attacked on the upper plain, to give certainty to the report that hostile Indians were near. The scouting-parties were sent out from the Presidio, and proclamations issued to the inhabitants to be on their guard—all for effect; and the further swoop upon the cattle was clear proof of the presence of “los barbaros” in the valley. In this foray the fiendish masquers took an opportunity of “killing two birds with one stone;” for, in addition to carrying out their general design, they gratified the mean revenge which they held against the young ranchero.

Their slaughtering his cattle in the ravine had a double object. First, the loss it would be to him gave them satisfaction; but their principal motive was that the animals might not stray back to the settlement. Had they done so, after having been captured by Indians, it would have looked suspicious. As it was, they hoped that, long before any one should discover the battue, the wolves and buzzard would do their work; and the bones would only supply food for conjecture. This was the more probable, as it was not likely, while the Indian alarm lasted, that any one would be bold enough to venture that way. There was no settlement or road, except Indian trails, leading in that direction.

Even when the final step was taken, and the victim carried off, she was not brought directly to the Presidio; for even she was to be hoodwinked. On the contrary, she was tied upon a mule, led by one of the ruffians, and permitted to see the way they were going, until they had reached the point where their trail turned back. She was then blinded by a leathern “tapado,” and in that state carried to the Presidio, and within its walls—utterly ignorant of the distance she had travelled, and the place where she was finally permitted to rest.

Every act in the diabolical drama was conceived with astuteness, and enacted with a precision which must do credit to the head of Captain Roblado, if not to his heart. He was the principal actor in the whole affair.

Vizcarra had, at first, some scruples about the affair—not on the score of conscience, but of impracticability and fear of detection. This would indeed have done him a serious injury. The discovery of such a villainous scheme would have spread like wildfire over the whole country. It would have been ruin to him.

Roblado’s eloquence, combined with his own vile desires, overruled the slight opposition of his superior; and, once entered on the affair, the latter found himself highly amused in carrying it out. The burlesque proclamations, the exaggerated stories of Indians, the terror of the citizens, their encomiums on his own energetic and valorous conduct—all these were a pleasant relief to the ennui of a barrack life and, during the several days’ visit of “los barbaros,” the Comandante and his captain were never without a theme for mirth and laughter.

So adroitly had they managed the whole matter that, upon the morning after the final coup of the robbers—the abduction of Rosita—there was not a soul in the settlement, themselves and their two aides excepted, that had the slightest suspicion but that real hostile Indians were the actors!