YSLETA
BY E. HOUGH.
I.
’PACHE and I were tired. There was not any question about that. Fifty miles since morning, without getting out of the saddle, either one of us—though ’Pache always tried to get out of the saddle every morning, and sometimes nearly did.
’Pache was my horse. At least he was before Bill Stitt’s gang stole him. Now, why did they ever steal ’Pache, I wonder? The ugliest horse on earth without doubt, the dirtiest clay-bank that ever was, and the most simple, ingenuous, unexpected, naïve bucker! But ’Pache had the black streak down his back which plainsmen prize; and for a long goer he was hard to beat. Farewell, ’Pache! God bless you, you miserable india-rubber demon, wherever you may be now!
’Pache and I were tired. No question of it. And hungry? ’Pache took a piece out of my leggings once in a while, to testify to that. And thirsty? Yes, pretty thirsty; but we knew it was forty miles between water-holes, so we loped on, heads down, joints loose; loppity-lop, loppity-lop, loppity, loppity, lop, lop, lop.
’Pache struck a trot at the foot of the long climb up the Sierra Capitan divide. In and out among the cañons, winding around where it was easy to get lost—for by only one combination of these cañons was it possible for a horseman to cross this divide—and going up all the time. ’Pache coughed; it sounded dull. I tried to whistle; it sounded as small as a cambric needle.
The black piñon hills hustled and huddled and crowded up together, frightened by the threatening fingers of the Capitans—a lonesome range, the Capitans—a lonesome, waterless range. Spirits and demons in these hills, said the natives. The biggest cinnamon bears on earth in them, said the hunters, and black-tail deer so old they wore spectacles; and elk, and maybe plesiosauri and mastodons, for aught I know.
Tradition said there was a lake of water up on top of the highest peak. Tradition said you could find pieces of smoky topaz up there as big as your fist. Tradition said there was a cave over in the middle of the range, painted blue inside, and walled up in front, and with the whole interior covered with strange characters. Tradition said that one Señor José Trujillo had found, not far from this cave, a large piece of stone covered with sign-writing no one could read—a second Rosetta stone. Tradition said that Señor Trujillo dwelt in a little placita hidden somewhere back in the Capitans.