"Well, that was certainly pretty good for such a youngster," said I. "By the way, sir," I continued, "there is one thing I should like to ask you, if you don't mind, about your life in the mountains, especially back in the 'sixties' and earlier, and that is, how you managed to escape being killed and scalped by the Indians."
My host laughed, and I could see by his face that he was thinking backward, as he slowly stirred his coffee round and round; for we were seated at our breakfast, Romero serving us.
"That was a serious question at first," he replied presently, "but I solved it very early in my wanderings; and now I—and Dick, too—may go among any of the tribes with impunity."
"Will you tell me about it, sir?" I asked, full of curiosity to know how he had worked such a seeming miracle.
The professor leaned back in his chair, stretched out his feet and folded his hands on the edge of the table.
"I will, with pleasure," he replied; "for it is rather a curious incident, I have always thought.
"Before I took up the profession of 'bug-hunting,' as the pursuit of entomology is irreverently termed by the people here, I had graduated as a physician—very fortunately for me, as it turned out, for my knowledge of medicine was the basis of my reputation among the Indians. I was down in Arizona at one time, when, on coming to a little Mexican village, I found the poor people suffering from an epidemic of smallpox. Several had died, and the survivors, scared out of their wits, had given themselves up for lost. After my arrival, however, there were no more deaths, I am glad to say, and by the end of about a month I had succeeded in putting all my patients on the highroad to recovery.
"There was a little adobe ranch-house about a quarter of a mile up-stream from the village, the owner of which had died before my arrival, and this building I had utilized as a pest-house. I was on my way out to it one morning, with my little case of medicines in my hand, when I heard behind me a great crying out among the villagers, and looking back I saw them all scuttling for shelter, at the same time shouting and screaming, according to their age and sex, 'Apache! Apache!'
"The next moment, right through the middle of the village, riding like a whirlwind, came ten horsemen, who, paying no attention to the frightened Mexicans, made straight for me. Doubtless they had been hiding in the creek-bed among the willows since daylight, awaiting their opportunity to dash out and capture me—for, as I found later, it was I whom they were after.