The White Chief: A Legend of Northern Mexico

by Mayne Reid

Chapter Fifty One.

Roblado entered the chapparal, the boy Esteban stepping a few paces in advance of his horse’s head. For half-a-mile or so he traversed a leading road that ran between the town and one of the passes. He then struck into a narrow path, but little used except by hunters or vaqueros in search of their cattle. This path conducted him, after a ride of two or three miles, to the base of the cliffs, and there was found the object of his journey—the dwelling-place of the hunters.

It was a mere hut—a few upright posts supporting a single roof, which slanted up, with a very slight inclination, against the face of the rock. The posts were trunks of a species of arborescent yucca that grew plentifully around the spot, and the roof-thatch was the stiff loaves of the same, piled thickly over each other. There was a sort of rude door, made of boards split from the larger trunks of the yucca, and hung with strong straps of parflèche, or thick buffalo leather. Also a hole that served for a window, with a shutter of the same material, and similarly suspended. The walls were a wattle of vines and slender poles bent around the uprights, and daubed carelessly with a lining of mud. The smooth vertical rock served for one side of the house—so that so much labour had been spared in the building—and the chimney, which was nothing better than a hole in the roof, conducted the smoke in such a manner that a sooty streak marked its course up the face of the cliff. The door entered at one end, close in by the rock, but the window was in the side or front. Through the latter the inmates of the hut could command a view of any one approaching by the regular path. This, however, was a rare occurrence, as the brace of rude hunters had but few acquaintances, and their dwelling was far removed from any frequented route. Indeed, the general track of travel that led along the bottom line of the bluffs did not approach within several hundred yards of this point, in consequence of the indentation or bay in which the hut was placed. Moreover, the thick chapparal screened it from observation on one side, while the cliffs shut it in upon the other.

Behind the house—that is, at the hinder end of it—was a small corral, its walls rudely constructed with fragments of rock. In this stood three lean and sore-backed mules, and a brace of mustangs no better off. There was a field adjoining the corral, or what had once been a field, but from neglect had run into a bed of grass and weeds. A portion of it, however, showed signs of cultivation—a patch here and there—on which stood some maize-plants, irregularly set and badly hoed, and between their stems the trailing tendrils of the melon and calabash. It was a true squatter’s plantation.

Around the door lay half-a-dozen wolfish-looking dogs; and under the shelter of the overhanging rock, two or three old pack-saddles rested upon the ground. Upon a horizontal pole two riding saddles were set astride—old, worn, and torn—and from the same pole hung a pair of bridles, and some strings of jerked meat and pods of chilé pepper.

Inside the house might have been seen a couple of Indian women, not over cleanly in their appearance, engaged in kneading coarse bread and stewing tasajo. A fire burnt against the rock, between two stones—earthen pots and gourd dishes lay littered over the floor.

The walls were garnished with bows, quivers, and skins of animals, and a pair of embankments of stones and mud, one at each corner of the room—there was but one room—served as bedstead and beds. A brace of long spears rested in one corner, alongside a rifle and a Spanish escopeta; and above hung a machete or sword-knife, with powder-horns, pouches, and other equipments necessary to a hunter of the Rocky Mountains. There were nets and other implements for fishing and taking small game, and these constituted the chief furniture of the hovel. All these things Roblado might have seen by entering the hut; but he did not enter, as the men he was in search of chanced to be outside—the mulatto lying stretched along the ground, and the zambo swinging in a hammock between two trees, according to the custom of his native country—the coast-lands of the tierra caliente.

The aspect of these men, that would have been displeasing to almost any one else, satisfied Roblado. They were just the men for his work. He had seen both before, but had never scrutinised them till now; and, as he glanced at their bold swarthy faces and brawny muscular frames, he thought to himself, “These are just the fellows to deal with the cibolero.” A formidable pair they looked. Each one of them, so far as appearance went, might with safety assail an antagonist like the cibolero—for either of them was bigger and bulkier than he.

The mulatto was the taller of the two. He was also superior in strength, courage, and sagacity. A more unamiable countenance it would have been difficult to meet in all that land, without appealing to that of the zambo. There you found its parallel.