Sid, the educated white boy, had become so interested in reconstructing the geological aspects of this formation that he almost forgot the irksome tightness of the thongs that still bound his arms and the almost certain death to which he was being led. He knew only too well from border history the ways of the wild Apache! But the Indian guard behind him had no other thought but his duty as jailer. While Sid’s wondering eyes were scanning that giant apron of lava that flowed down out of Red Mesa, the Apache suddenly spun him violently around. Sid had one whirling glimpse of a small black opening in the lava above, looking like a ragged mouth, and his curiosity about it had just begun to leap up overthrowing the greater marvel of the whole cataclysm of Red Mesa, when his head was forcibly held from turning and his bandanna was whipped deftly across his eyes. The sandy plain below disappeared from view, and in its place was now an impenetrable blackness.
Presently he felt the grip of two firm hands on his elbows. A vigorous push set his feet in motion to hold his balance. By the shortness of his step and the upward lift of it Sid knew they were climbing again. Often the Indian stooped down and took hold of his ankles to guide his footsteps to some secure place. Sid could tell by the opprobrious epithets in Apache with which the young fellow belabored him that he scorned Sid’s blind clumsiness and was angry and intolerant, but Sid made no sign that he understood the language. Once, though, he nearly gave himself away, when the buck shouted “Right!” sharply in Apache and Sid instinctively moved his foot over that way, searching for a crevice in the lava.
After a long and slow climb they stopped, and Sid felt the Indian’s fingers gripping him strongly around the back of the neck. It was useless to resist. His head was being forced silently down, and the boy submitted wonderingly. Then they went forward, bent over again, and twice he felt the top of his head striking bare and jagged rock above which cut painfully. Instantly he thought of that little black mouth in the lava apron that he had caught a mere glimpse of when the Indian was turning him around. They were in that cave now, whatever it was. It was hot and suffocating in here. Sid choked for breath and sneezed as faint sulphur fumes pringled in his nostrils. He had a sense of being urged slowly upward. Now and again the fingers on his neck would press him to earth and he would go forward on hands and knees, where the least attempt to raise his head would result in a painful scratch from the tunnel roof that was evidently above them.
In time a draught of pure air began coming down from somewhere above. Sid could see nothing, yet with the buoyancy of youth he was strangely happy and also consumed with curiosity. They would probably stake him out and build a slow fire on his stomach when he got up out of this tunnel, but while it lasted it was all as exciting as exploring it on his own would have been! More air and purer came to him now. The sulphur fumes disappeared. Something wooden like an upright log ladder struck him on his forehead and the Indian raised him up and called out loudly. Muffled voices answered him from somewhere up above. Then he felt his guard stoop and lift him by the legs while invisible hands above reached down and seized him under the armpits. He was hauled up the ladder and then he sensed being in some sort of a room—being guided across it.
The indescribable sweetish odor of Indian was strong in here. Sid had been so often in tepees and hogans as to be able to recognize that smell instantly. All the races of man have a distinctive smell of their own, and the aboriginal ones, Malay, black boy, yellow man and red Indian are all agreed that the white man has a smell, too.
“White man smell like sheep!” as a Piute chief had once truthfully put it! The odor of corn meal, burnt feathers, paints and greases told Sid, too, that he was in some sort of medicine lodge. It could not have been a kiva, for the dank smell of damp stone was wanting.
Then a sudden lightening of all the cracks around that bandanna told him that he was in bright sunlight once more. There was the perfume of growing squash and melon and pepper, the faint odor of green beans, the smell of grass—and of water! Red Mesa was really a valley then, inclosed by two giant walls and shut off from below by that ancient lava apron! And it was inhabited by a band of Apache!
That much Sid’s sense of reasoning had told him before the squeals of children and the cries of squaws and shouts of men came to his ears. People were all around him now, exclaiming in Apache, every word of which he understood. Then the deep voice of some one in authority came toward them and a guttural command to untie him was given. The bandanna was at once whisked from Sid’s eyes. He stood for a time blinking in the glare of the sun. High red walls rose up to right and left of him. A large tank of water, almost a pond, filled much of the basin between them, but there were strips of cultivated plants along its borders, too, and here and there he noted a grass Apache hut.
Sid fixed his eyes finally on a tall chief who confronted him. The man’s features were round, heavy and forceful, such as we are accustomed to associate with the faces of the captains of industry among our own people. His long, coarse hair fell around his ears, tied about the brows with home-woven red bayeta cloth. A single eagle’s feather sticking up from the back told Sid that this man was a rigid disciplinarian of the old school and a formalist in the customs of his tribe, for it signified only one coup, such as a far younger man than he would have made in the old days. He wore a white buckskin shirt, with the tails outside coming down nearly to his knees. Long white buckskin leggins that disappeared under the apron of his breech clout told Sid, further, that this chief was a primitive red man, or else had not seen white men for many years.
As Sid’s eyes still blinked, getting accustomed to the strong light, a coppery grin cracked the chief’s features.