The Gold-Seekers: A Tale of California

IV. – THE BARRANCA DEL MAL PASO

The rest of the night passed, apparently at any rate, calmly and tranquilly, and nothing occurred to disturb the rest enjoyed by the guests at the mesón of San Juan. About four in the morning the doors of the travellers' cuartos began to open one after the other, and lights flashed in the patios. The shouts of the muleteers, and the bells of their animals, aroused the colonel and his daughter, warning them that it was time to prepare for their departure.

Don Sebastian, after the suspicions Don Cornelio had suggested to him, did not at all wish, as he had a young lady with him, to start before sunrise, especially as he had to traverse the gorge we have already described, and where it would be easy to form an ambuscade.

By the sunlight he had a better chance, for two reasons: in the first place, the servants who accompanied him were old soldiers, accustomed to war, and greatly attached to him; the second was, that the Mexican brigands are usually great cowards, and whenever they meet with any serious resistance from those they attack, they immediately give up the game.

These two reasons, and, before all, the fear of alarming his daughter, and uselessly exposing her to danger during the darkness, obliged the colonel to let all the other travellers at the mesón start before him; and, in fact, they soon quitted the hostelry, and dispersed in various directions.

The Señor Saccaplata, with pallid face, compressed eyebrows, and head bandaged up, was walking up and down the patio, with his arms behind his back, every now and then raising his eyes angrily to the colonel's window, and growling in a low voice, —

"Body and bones! Will not that trumpery colonel make up his mind to start soon, if he is so ready to give the bastinado to poor folk? But let him do what he will, he will not escape the fate that awaits him."

At this moment a young man appeared in the patio, strumming a guitar, and singing in a low voice, —

 
"No sabo donde mirar,
De todo teme y rezela,
Si al cielo teme su furia,
Porque hizo al cielo ofensa."³
 

These verses, taken from the romance of King Rodrigo, though probably sung without any malignant meaning, still referred so closely to the landlord's present position, that he turned furiously to the unlucky singer, and attacked him in a brutal voice.

"Deuce take your howling! Why do you come buzzing in this way in my ears, when you ought, on the contrary, to be preparing for your departure?"

"Why, it is our worthy huésped," Don Cornelio replied with that joyful accent peculiar to him. "What! You are not fond of music? You are wrong, my worthy friend, for what I am singing to you is really fine."

"That is possible," the other said in a rough voice; "but I should feel obliged by your giving me no more of it."

"Oh, oh! You are not in a good temper this morning. What's the matter with you, that you are so bandaged up? On my soul, you must be ill. Oh! I see what it is; you slept with your window open, and have caught a toothache."

The landlord turned green with impotent fury.

"Caballero," he shouted, "take care."

"Of what?" Don Cornelio said peacefully. "Toothache is not catching, as I am aware. Poor man! Pain causes him to wander. Take care of yourself, my good man; take care of yourself, I advise you."

And without further ceremony he turned his back on him, and began again the song which so annoyed the landlord at the point where he broke it off.

"Hum!" the latter growled, shaking his fist at the singer; "I hope that you will catch something in the row. Ah!" he added, "the sun is rising: perhaps that will induce him to come down."

In fact, the sun appeared at this moment in a bed of vapour, and after a twilight, whose duration was almost nothing, the day succeeded, as it were, immediately to night.

Don Cornelio, aided by the colonel's servants, fed the horses and saddled the mules – preparations which brought a smile to the landlord's lips which would have caused the colonel to feel uncomfortable had he seen it.

Suddenly a sound of horses was heard outside, and two men trotted into the patio, through the gateway left open after the departure of the arrieros and other travellers. At this unexpected arrival the landlord turned as if a viper had stung him.

"Confusion!" he muttered; "day has hardly broken ere these accursed fellows come across my path."

The two arrivals troubled themselves in no way about their host's ill-temper, but dismounted, and taking the bridles off their horses, led them to the noria to let them drink.

The travellers were dressed in the garb of the frontier men, and appeared to be from forty to forty-five years of age. Like all wayfarers in this blessed country, where every man must depend on himself alone, they were armed; but, in lieu of the lance or fusil usual in the interior, they had excellent Mexican rifles – a peculiarity which, in addition to their zarapés of Indian manufacture, and their fiery and half-wild mustangs, allowed them to be recognised as Sonorians, or at least men domiciled in that state.

The landlord, seeing that the newcomers did not appear to trouble themselves in the least about him, decided at length on walking toward them and addressing them.

"What do you want?" he said to them.

"Nothing just at present," the elder replied; "but so soon as our horses have finished drinking, you will give each of them a measure of maize and a truss of alfalfa."

"I am the mesonero, and not a peon. It is not my place to wait upon you," he said brutally.

The traveller who had spoken looked askance at the host.

"I don't care whether it is you or your criados who do it," he answered dryly, "provided that the order I have given is executed promptly, for I am in a hurry."

In the face of this rebuff, and especially the glance that accompanied it, the huésped judged it prudent to draw in his horns and assume a more conciliatory tone. For the last few hours poor Saccaplata had not been fortunate with his travellers. All those Heaven sent him had the air of young bulls escaped from the toril.

"Your excellencies are doubtless anxious to set out again?" he said in an insinuating voice.

The strangers made no answer.

"Not to be too curious," the landlord continued, not yet discouraged, "may I ask in what direction your honourable seigneuries intend to proceed?"

One of the travellers then raised his head, and, looking the indiscreet mesonero full in the face, said with a mocking air, —

"If you are asked, you will answer that you do not know. Come, my good fellow, have us attended to, and blow your own puchero, without troubling yourself about ours: you might find it too hot for you."

The host shrugged his shoulders and slipped away, the more nimbly because he noticed the colonel entering the patio at the moment, and felt no desire to come in contact with him.

The two strangers exchanged a smile, and, without further remark, watched the peon who was giving their horses the provender they had ordered.

Don Sebastian was ready to start: he had come to give a final glance to the horses before leading his daughter downstairs. Don Cornelio walked up to him so soon as he saw him, and after wishing him good day, drew him a little aside and whispered, —

"Look there, colonel," and he pointed to the two strangers; "those are sturdy fellows, if I am not mistaken."

"They are so," Don Sebastian made answer; "I did not notice them before."

"They have only just arrived. They would be famous recruits added to our party, if they would consent to travel with us. What do you think of it?"

"I think you are right; but will they consent?"

"Why not? If they are going the same road as ourselves they will derive the same benefit from our presence as we shall from theirs."

"That is true. Have you spoken to them?"

"No: as I told you, they arrived this moment. You ought to try to persuade them."

"I see no harm in attempting it, at least," the colonel answered.

Hereupon, leaving Don Cornelio, he advanced toward the strangers, and saluting them politely, said, —

"You have magnificent horses, caballeros. I see that they come from the prairies."

"Yes, they are real mustangs," one of the strangers replied, returning the bow.

"You are finishing your journey at a very early hour," the colonel continued. "With horses like yours a deal of ground could be covered."

"What makes you suppose, caballero, that our journey is ended?"

"Why, your arrival at this hostelry at so early an hour."

"Ah! You might be mistaken."

"Pardon my indiscretion, caballeros. Do you come from Guadalajara, or are you going there?"

"Caballero," the stranger replied dryly, who had hitherto spoken, "we the more readily pardon your indiscretion, because it appears that in this hostelry everybody passes his time in asking questions; still, you will permit me not to answer yours. My companion and myself are old travellers, and we know that on the roads of this country men too often repent gossiping about their business, but never of keeping it to themselves."

The colonel drew himself up with an air of pique.

"As you please, caballero," he replied coldly. "I cannot feel annoyed at your prudence; still, I would observe that you have given a wrong meaning to my remarks. I only wished to offer you my escort in crossing an ill-famed gorge, in which the band of the dangerous robber, El Buitre, is at this moment ensconced."

"I know the man by repute," the stranger said in a somewhat more affable tone. "My friend and myself will, I hope, be sufficient to keep him at arm's length; still, though I do not accept your offer, I thank you for the cordiality which urged you to make it."

The conversation broke off here. The two men bowed with all the marks of the most exquisite politeness, and turned their backs on each other. The colonel, annoyed at the way in which his advances had been met, gave the order for departure, and went to fetch his daughter. An instant later he reappeared with her; the band mounted, and, on a signal from Don Sebastian, set out. On passing before the strangers, who watched their departure, the colonel took off his hat, as did Don Cornelio. Doña Angela gave a graceful bow, accompanied by a charming smile. The strangers, in their turn, uncovered and bowed respectfully to the party.

"There, scoundrel," the colonel said as he threw an ounce to the landlord, who watched their departure with a cunning look, "there's a plaster for your wounds."

Saccaplata sharply picked up the ounce, thrust it into his pocket, and crossed himself as he muttered, —

"You will want a good many ounces to cure your wounds, you will. Bah!" he added, with a sinister laugh, "it is now El Buitre's affair; let them settle it together."

When Don Sebastian had left the hostelry he divided his party into three: two of his servants rode in front, gun on thigh; two others behind; while he and Don Cornelio, having Doña Angela between them, rode in the middle. All being thus arranged, and the order given to keep a careful outlook, the cavalcade started at a sharp trot.

In the meanwhile the two strangers, as we have said, remained at the mesón. They watched the little party for a long time, and then, as their horses had finished eating, they put on their bridles and tightened their girths.

"My faith, Don Louis!" the younger of the two at length said, "I can't help it; I must tell you what I have on my mind, or I shall choke."

"Speak, my friend," his comrade said with a sad smile. "I know as well as you do what is troubling your mind."

"Perhaps so; still that would surprise me."

"Listen, then, Belhumeur. You are asking yourself at this moment why I was so rude to that gentleman whom I do not know, and whom I saw for a moment for the first time in my life?"

"By my faith! You have guessed it: that was, in truth, my thought. I seek in vain the reason for such extraordinary conduct on your part, and I confess that I give it up as a bad job."

"Do not trouble yourself any further, my good fellow. I was involuntarily guided by a secret presentiment, by a species of incomprehensible instinct, which forced me to act as I did."

"That is strange."

"Yes, is it not so? You know the feeling of instinctive repulsion one experiences on touching a reptile?"

"Of course."

"Well, when that man advanced toward me, even before I saw him, I felt his presence, if I may say so; my heart beat violently; and when he addressed me I felt a sudden and incomprehensible pain."

Belhumeur regarded him for a moment with fixed attention.

"And you conclude from that?" he said.

"That this man will be my enemy at some appointed moment; that he will stand in my path, gloomy and implacable, and prove fatal to me."

"Come, my friend, that is not possible. You are leaving this country, never to return to it, since, in spite of all your researches, you have been unable to find the man on whose behalf you came. The man you saw this morning is a field officer in the Mexican army, and it is not very likely he will leave his country: everything opposes it. Where can you meet again?"

"I do not know, Belhumeur; I seek neither to guess nor to foresee the future. It is evident that, after leaving you at the Hacienda del Milagro, I shall proceed to Guaymas, where I shall embark, I know not yet for what country; and it is my settled purpose never to set foot in Mexico again. Still I repeat to you, although it may appear absurd, I am convinced that that man will be my enemy some day, and that one of us will kill the other."

"Come, come, I will not discuss that subject with you; it is better for us, I fancy, to start, for we have a long journey before us today."

"That is true, my friend. Let us start, and think no more of my forebodings. They will turn out as Heaven may direct."

"Amen!" Belhumeur said. "That is how I like to see you; thus you resemble my brave Raphael, my dear Loyal Heart, to whom I wish to make you known before leaving you."

"You will afford me the greatest pleasure."

They mounted their horses, paid the landlord, and in their turn quitted the mesón de San Juan, walking their horses in the direction of the barranca del mal paso, where the colonel had preceded them. They proceeded for some time in silence, side by side. At length the Canadian, who could not remain long without speaking, took the word.

"Do you not think, Don Louis, that, supposing the colonel spoke the truth, two men like ourselves would prove very useful to him?"

"What does that concern us?" Don Louis asked sharply.

"Us nothing; and assuredly, if only that soldier, to whom you have such an antipathy, were concerned, I should not trouble myself about him, but leave him to settle with the bandits as best he could."

"Well?"

"Don't you understand me?"

"No, on my honour."

"Did you not notice the charming girl that accompanies him?"

"Of course I did."

"Would it not be frightful – ?"

"Good heavens!" the Count de Prébois Crancé, whom the reader has doubtlessly recognised,⁴ quickly interrupted him, "that would be fearful. Poor child! Forward, Belhumeur, forward! We must save her."

"Ah!" the Canadian thought to himself, "I was sure I should find the soft place."

The two men bowed over their horses' necks, and started with the velocity of the tempest. They had scarce gone a mile when cries and shots reached their ears.

"Forward – confound it, forward!" the count shouted, urging his horse to increased speed.

"Forward!" Belhumeur repeated.

They rushed into the barranca at headlong speed, and fell like two demons into the midst of the bandits, whom they saluted with two shots; then clubbing their rifles, they employed them like maces, bounding into the medley with indescribable fury.

It was high time for this assistance to reach the colonel. Three of his servants were killed; Don Cornelio was lying wounded on the ground; while Don Sebastian, with his back against a block of granite, was desperately defending himself against five or six bandits who assailed him.

El Buitre had seized Doña Angela, and thrown her across his saddle-bow, in spite of her shrieks and resistance; but suddenly Don Louis dealt the bandit a crushing blow on the head, which hurled him to the ground, and delivered the girl. Belhumeur all this time did not remain inactive; he wounded and trampled under his horse's hoofs all those who dared to oppose his passage.

The salteadores, surprised by this sudden attack, which they were far from anticipating – frightened by the carnage the newcomers caused among their comrades, and not knowing how many foes they might have upon them, were seized with a panic fear, and fled in the utmost disorder, clambering up the rocks. El Garrucholo, at the peril of his life, picked up his captain, whom he would not abandon, and El Buitre once again escaped the garota. The salteadores lost in this skirmish more than two-thirds of their numbers.

When tranquillity was restored, and the bandits had completely disappeared, Don Sebastian warmly thanked the two adventurers for the timely aid they had rendered him. Don Louis received politely, but very coldly, the colonel's advances, confining himself to saying that if he had been so fortunate as to save his life, he found a reward in his own heart, and that was sufficient for him; but, in spite of the colonel's pressing, he refused to tell him who he was, alleging as his sole reason that he was about to leave Mexico for ever, and that he did not wish to lay on him a burden so heavy as gratitude. At this remark Doña Angela drew nearer to Don Louis, and said with a smile of gentle reproach, —

"It is quite natural that you who have saved our lives should forget the fact, or at least attach but slight importance to it; but my father and myself will remember it for ever."

And before Don Louis could prevent it, the lovely girl bounded like a fawn, threw her arms round his neck, and holding up her pure forehead, which was still rather pale, —

"Kiss me, my saviour!" she said, with tears in her eyes.

The count, affected, in spite of himself, by an action full of such simple frankness, respectfully kissed the maiden's brow, then turned away, that she might not read the sweet and yet painful impression so simple an action had produced on him.

Doña Angela, smiling and blushing, sought refuge in her father's arms, leaving in Don Louis' hand a small relic she usually wore round her neck.

"Keep it," she said to him, with that sweet Spanish superstition so full of grace; "it will bring you good fortune."

"Yes, I will keep it, señorita," the count replied, hiding it in his bosom, "as a reminiscence of a moment of happiness you unconsciously caused me this day, by proving to me that, in spite of misfortunes, my heart is not so dead as I fancied."

The preparations for departure were made. Don Sebastian, deprived of his servants, could not dream of continuing his journey. He decided on returning to Guadalajara, in order to obtain another escort sufficiently strong to protect his daughter from such a danger as that she had escaped by a miracle. He was, however, greatly embarrassed by Don Cornelio, whom he did not wish to abandon, and yet could not transport.

"I will take charge of this man, caballero," Don Louis then said to him. "Do not trouble yourself about him further. My friend and I are in no great haste. We will carry him to the mesón of San Juan, and not leave him till he is thoroughly cured."

Two hours later the two parties separated in front of Saccaplata's mesón, who saw them return with great terror; but the colonel thought it advisable, for Don Cornelio's sake, to appear ignorant of the part the landlord had played in the attack, to which himself and daughter had so nearly fallen victims.

Don Sebastian and Don Louis separated with a frigid bow, like men who are persuaded they will never meet again. But no one can foresee the future, and unconsciously chance was about to bring them hereafter face to face under strange circumstances, the realisation of which neither assuredly suspected at the moment.

End Of Prologue

CHAPTER I
THE NIGHT HALT

Before the discovery of the rich placers in the neighbourhood of San Francisco, California was completely wild and almost unknown. The port of San Francisco, the finest and largest in the world, destined to become very shortly the commercial entrepôt of the Pacific, was at that time only frequented by whalers, who, at the period when the whales retire to the shallow water, came to fish there, cut them up, and melt down their blubber.

A few Flat-head Indians wandered haphazard through the vast forests that covered the seaboard; and in this country, which trade has now seized on, and which is entering, with all sail set, into the movement of progress, wild beasts lorded it as masters.

An old officer of Charles X.'s Swiss Guard had founded a poor colony on the territory of San Francisco, and cut down trees, which he converted into planks by the aid of a few watermills.

Such was the condition in which this magnificent country languished, when suddenly the news of the discovery of rich placers in California burst on the world like a shell. Then the country, as if touched by the magic wand of some powerful enchanter, became all at once transformed. From all parts of the world adventurers flocked in, bearing with them that feverish activity and boundless audacity which ignore all difficulties, and surmount every obstacle.

At a spot where, a few days previously, gloomy and mysterious forests, old as the world, stretched out, a city was created, improvised, and within a few months counted its inhabitants by tens of thousands. The port, so long deserted, was crammed with vessels of every sort and every size, and the gold fever renewed the Saturnalia of the Spanish conquistadors of the Middle Ages.

For some time after, this country offered to the eye of the observer a sight the most hideous, the most grand, the most heart-rending, and most striking that can be imagined. All was mingled, confounded, and upturned. It was a confusion, a hurly-burly impossible to describe, where nothing existed any longer – where every tie was broken, every social idea annihilated; and in this terrible pell-mell, in this frightful race to the placers, rogues and gentlemen, soldiers and priests, diplomatists and physicians, jostled each other, all running, howling, wielding the dagger or the revolver, possessed by only one idea, instinct, or passion – that of gold. For gold these men would have sold everything – conscience, honour, probity, everything, even to themselves!

We will not enter into fuller details of this wondrous period, during which California emerged from her nothingness, to take her place, after ten years of desperate struggling, among the civilised peoples. Other pens, far more eloquent than ours, have undertaken the rude task of telling us the history of these striking incidents. We will confine ourselves to stating that, at the period of our story, gold had only just been discovered, and California was struggling against the first raging attack of delirium tremens.

It was about three years after the events we narrated in our prologue.

In the Sierra Nevada, upon the picturesque slopes that descend gradually to the sea, in the heart of an immense virgin forest a hundred leagues from San Francisco, between that city and Los Angeles, the heat had been stifling during the day. At sunset the sea breeze had risen, and slightly refreshed the atmosphere; but it sank again almost immediately, and the temperature had again become heavy and oppressive.

The motionless trees concealed beneath their dense foliage birds of every description, which only revealed their presence at intervals by shrill and discordant cries. Hideous alligators wallowing in the mud of the swamps, or holding on to the trunks of dead trees scattered here and there, were the only living beings that animated the landscape, which was rendered even more gloomy and mournful by the pale, uncertain, and tremulous flickering of the moonbeams that filtered with great difficulty through the rare openings in the verdurous forest dome, and sported capriciously and fantastically about the trees and branches, though unable to lessen the mysterious obscurity that reigned in the leafy covert.

A noise of horses' hoofs was heard on one of the innumerable tracks made by the wild beasts as they proceed in search of water, and two men debouched into a clearing formed by the fall of several trees that had died of old age, and whose mossy trunks were already in a state of decomposition.

These men were both dressed in the costume of hunters or wood rangers, and were armed with American rifles, long knives, and machetes. A reata, rolled up and fastened to the saddle-bow, allowed them to be recognised as partisans from the Mexican frontiers.

Both had passed middle life; but there the resemblance between them ended. At the first glance it was easy to guess that one belonged to the Northern European race; while his comrade, on the contrary, by the olive tint of his complexion, and his angular features, offered a perfect type of the Indian aborigines of Chili, so eloquently celebrated by Ercilla, and known in South America by the name of Araucanos – a powerful, intelligent, and energetic race, the only one of all the native tribes of the New World which has managed to retain its nationality, and caused its independence to be respected to the present day.

These two men were Valentine Guillois, better known as the "Trail-hunter," and Curumilla, his silent and devoted companion ever since the day that chance so many years previously had led Valentine into Araucania.⁵

Years, while accumulating on the heads of the two men, had produced but a slight change in their external appearance. They were still quite upright, and seemed equally vigorous. A few more wrinkles had formed on the Frenchman's pensive brow, and some silvery threads were added to his locks; his features, more angular than before, had assumed those firm and distinct lines, alone produced by reflection and long contests valiantly sustained; his eye was still equally frank, but the flash was more incisive; and his face wore that melancholy impression which deceptions of every description, and great grief, stamp indelibly on the countenance of powerful men, whom the fearful storms of life have bowed, though not broken.

The Indian was still morose and concentrated. Age, which had laid even a smaller hold on his organisation than on that of his comrade, had merely increased the worthy Araucanian's habitual taciturnity, and drawn over his gloomy face a thicker veil of that stoical fatalism peculiar to the aboriginal race of America.

The two men advanced slowly side by side, apparently plunged in deep thought. At times Valentine stopped, looked cautiously around him, and then resumed his march, shaking his head dubiously. Each time that the hunter reined in his horse Curumilla imitated him, though not evidencing by the slightest sign that he took any interest in his companion's operations.

The forest grew with each step denser, the paths became narrower, and all appeared to forebode that the horses would soon be unable to advance, impeded as they were by the creepers that were intertwined into a thick trellis-work in front of them.

The two horsemen at length reached the clearing to which we have already alluded, after intense difficulty. On arriving there, Valentine stopped, and heaving a sigh of relief, —

"By Jove!" he said, "Curumilla, my good friend, I was mad to believe you and follow you so far; it is evident that we are lost."

The Indian shook his head in denial.

"Hem! I am aware that you fellows have a marvellous talent for following a trail, and that you rarely lose your way, even in a place you have never visited before. Still the darkness is so intense here, that I can hardly distinguish objects only two paces ahead of me. Come, allow that we have lost ourselves. Hang it! That may happen to anybody. I propose that we stop here and await sunrise before we renew our search, the more so because, for nearly two hours, it has been impossible to discover the slightest trace proving to us that we are still on the right road."

Curumilla, without replying, dismounted, and explored the clearing on all sides; then, at the expiration of a few minutes, he returned to his friend's side, and gave him a sign to mount again. Valentine had carefully followed his movements.

"Well," he said, checking him, "are you not convinced yet?"

"One hour more," the Indian replied, liberating himself gently, and getting into his saddle.

"Hang, it all!" Valentine said, "I confess I am growing tired of playing at hide and seek in this inextricable forest, and if you do not give me a positive proof of what you assert, I will not stir from this spot."

Curumilla bent toward him, and, showing him a small object, said, —

"Look!"

"Eh?" Valentine remarked in surprise, after carefully examining the object his comrade handed him. "What the deuce is it? Why," he added almost immediately, "I ought to have recognised it at once: it is a cigar-case, and a handsome one too. There is a cigar still in it, if I am not mistaken."

He remained for an instant in thought.

"It is true," he went on, "that I have not seen these luxurious products of civilisation for a long time; indeed, since I gave them up to lead the life of a free hunter. Where did you find it, Curumilla?"

"There," he answered, stretching out his arm.

"Good! The owner of that case cannot be far from us, so let us push on."

He pocketed the case, and the two horsemen set out once more.

After crossing the clearing, the path on which they entered began gradually to widen, and soon they noticed, by the moonbeams that lighted them at intervals, that the path had been trodden by a large number of cloven-footed animals, which had cropped the leaves and broken down the branches on both sides. These traces were still quite fresh.

"Come," Valentine said gaily, "I was wrong just now, Curumilla. We were really on the right track, and I believe we shall soon catch up the persons we have so long been seeking."