Nearly fifteen years ago, when the far West was much more wild and unsettled than it is now, a little party of seventeen men were travelling through the almost unknown Territory of Arizona. They were the remnant of a government exploring party that had originally numbered fifty members; but some had been killed by the Indians, and others had turned back at Santa Fe, dreading to face the unknown dangers of the approaching winter amid the mountains of Arizona.
In this party was one boy—a smooth-faced, brown-haired lad, barely sixteen years of age, who had left his home in New England fired with the ambition of seeing life on the plains, and who had joined the explorers in Kansas. Although effeminate-looking, he was a stout-hearted fellow, as merry as the day was long, and a universal favorite with the other members of the party. His appearance was in such contrast to that of the bearded men in whose company he was that it seemed to them almost girlish, and he had—partly on this account, and partly because one of the party declared that the boy looked enough like his sweetheart, Alice Mason, of St. Joe, to be her twin brother—been from the outset called "Alice," to which nickname he had at first made strong objections, but to which he now answered as readily as to his own, which was Charlie Adams.
The little party were now nearly two months out from Santa Fe, the month was November, and the weather in the mountains to which they had penetrated—the Sierra Madre—was growing very cold. At night, when the camp was quiet, great gaunt mountain wolves would come down into the valleys, and sneak about as close as they dared, in hopes of finding something to eat; or they would go off to a little distance, and, sitting on their haunches, point their long noses high in the air, and give vent to the most dismal and blood-chilling howls. These sounds would be taken up by the coyotes, which were always hanging about near camp, and which would join in with a chorus of quick barks, ending in a prolonged wail, and these sounds would be echoed and re-echoed from the hills and mountains until the night would be full of the most horrible yells and howlings imaginable.
One very cold evening camp was pitched beside a beautiful spring known as Agua Fria, or cold water, that bubbled up from the bottom of a narrow valley filled with great Norway pines, and hemmed in by tall mountains. Although there was no snow on the ground in the valley, it had already reached more than half way down the mountain-sides, and the wild animals that lived up them had been driven down, so that in the valleys wolves were more plentiful than usual, and they began to howl around the little camp almost before the tents were up. "Alice" had often wished, as he lay at night shivering under his thin blankets, and listening to the howlings of the wolves, that he had two or three of their thick warm skins to roll himself up in; but there had been too much work to do for the men to devote any time to wolf-hunting, and "Alice" had not been allowed to go out alone after them. This evening, however, the wolves were so much more noisy than usual that the attention of the men, who sat smoking their pipes about the roaring camp fire, was attracted to them, and "Alice" thought it a good time to put in his plea for some wolf-skins. His friend, old George Waite, a giant of a man, who acted as carpenter and blacksmith to the party, listened patiently to him, and told him that if he could get some arsenic from the doctor he thought they could manage to get hold of some wolf-skins before long. The doctor had in his chest a quantity of arsenic that he used for preserving the skins of rare birds and beasts, of which he was making a collection, and he willingly gave a small package of it to "Alice," though with many cautions as to its use.
Taking the heart and lungs and some other portions of a deer that had been killed that afternoon, old George rubbed over them the arsenic that "Alice" brought him, until half a dozen pieces of meat were thus prepared. Then he made a torch of a long sliver of pine, the end of which he split, and into the opening thrust a quantity of birch bark. This torch flared up with a brilliant blaze as he lighted it at one of the fires and handed it to "Alice." Old George then gathered up the pieces of prepared meat, and he and "Alice" scattered them along the banks of the stream about a quarter of a mile from camp. Having thus set their trap, they retraced their steps somewhat hurriedly, as their torch had burned itself out, and already stealthy footfalls could be heard on the dry leaves very unpleasantly near to them.
At the first break of day "Alice" had turned out, and waking old George, the two started off to gather up their wolves. They were surprised, on nearing the place where they had left the poisoned meat, to hear the sound of voices and see smoke curling above the bushes.
"Step lightly," said old George; "let's see if the wolves have gone into camp, and are cooking the meat we so kindly left them."
The two crept cautiously forward, until they could peer through the bushes into the open space where they had left the meat the night before; and "Alice" started and almost uttered an exclamation as he saw, not an encampment of wolves, but of Indians, within a hundred feet of where they were crouched. He and old George could hardly believe their eyes, for Indians rarely travel after night-fall, and there had certainly been none there the evening before.
"ALICE" SPRANG FROM HIS CONCEALMENT.