“Jake, you take these boys across the river and fetch us a deer,” he roared, turning to go back to the Colonel to continue their plans for the trip to come.
A high-riding sun bathed the desert in floods of light and color as they rode out of the patio. The pink layer-cake mountains across the river rose high and near, now. Streaks of yellow and blue, in horizontal lines, crossed the uniform red of their bare and jagged conformation. From a bluff near Hinchman’s they could survey a wide bend of the river (which was little more than a wide, fordable brook) and here was green grass land, with cattle dotted over it. Back of it was the corresponding bluff of the opposite bank, fringed with mesquite, oaks, cottonwoods, juniper and pinyons.
“Over the river!” whooped Jake, settling back on his horse to let it slide down the clay bluff. A thundering clatter of hoofs came up behind them as the boys prepared to follow. It was Big John, racing along on the white horse.
“Ain’t goin’ to leave me out, Jake, when it comes to the Colonel’s cubs!” he snorted, easing his mount down the slope. “You don’t know these pesky boys, Red. When I hed em, up Montana way, the minute they was out of my sight the dern pinheads would start somethin’! Now you take Scotty, here—he’s another red-head like you, Jake,—an’ I’ll sort of ooze along with Sid. Thataway we’ll keep the both of them out of trouble,—savvy?”
“Shore!—We’ll pass a family of Apache Injuns, boys, on our way up to the notch in them buttes,” said Jake as the ponies splashed into the ford. “I’m not denyin’ Major Hinchman’s got the right idee about the Injuns, at that. He lets a few families of them stay on his ranch all the time, livin’ the way they is used ter, tendin’ a small herd of cow-critters in return for a beef steer now an’ then. Up yander is an ole San Carlos Apache chief, his squaw, an’ their two childer,—a young buck which same rides fer us, and a gal. ‘Snakes-in-his-leggins,’ we calls the ole Injun; but he’s a pow’rful dignified ole cuss at that.”
They rode up the opposite bluff and along its brink for perhaps a mile, the boys agog with curiosity to see Apache Indians in their native state, so to speak. The thick growth of saw grass, clumps of yucca, agave, and sage increased as they rode along, while nearly every glade held a sparse growth of green deciduous trees. And then, on a point of the bluff jutting out toward the river, they came upon the Apache home. It was a mere sun shelter of poles and juniper, but the squaw and her daughter were at work on a grass hut near by, made of tall looped poles forming a system of arches and tied with yucca fiber at all crossings. The girl was binding on a thatch of bear grass in bundles. By the time the rains came it would be fairly waterproof.
Under the juniper shelter was the simplest of furniture. A few red and black blankets hung up on the leafy walls to be out of the dirt; a red pottery jar slicked over with pinyon gum varnish held fresh water; there were woven baskets in geometrical black and white figures holding pinyon nuts; strings of red peppers and onions, and braided spikes of blue and red corn ears hung from the rafters. Dried meat and fish swung under the eaves, while the old buck himself sat in the shade, straightening cane arrows with a grooved stone which he had heated in his fire. He grunted with imperturbable dignity as they rode up.
“Nothing to do till to-morrow, eh, Sid?” grinned Scotty as they reined in.
“It looks ideal to me!” responded Sid, enthusiastically, the wild blood surging up in him sympathetically at the fine simplicity of the old Indian’s life. “He’s making those arrows because they are far cheaper than cartridges, and just as effective for him. I suppose they sell those baskets—look at that one like a tall vase; isn’t it a beauty?”
The old squaw looked up from her work and smiled at Sid’s eager, pointing finger. Back of her, down on the river flat, the young buck had just ridden up, bare-backed on a pied pony. He had nothing on him but a breech clout, buckskin beaded moccasins of brilliant blue and white, and a red bandanna about his forehead. He grinned silently at the boys as his pony stopped.