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.

’Pache and I topped the divide. Did anybody say we were tired? Did any one believe that for a minute? That was a mistake. Why, when you throw off this chrysalis of pain and grief, when you drop your poor, sad mockery of a body, and pull up over the Range, you’re not going to be _tired_, are you? Are they tired on Pisgah? Are wings going to be tired like legs and arms and brains? No. Because--well, ’Pache knew that much.

A soft breeze from the south reached us upon the crest, and at its touch there hummed through ’Pache’s head the words of Goethe’s song in “Wilhelm Meister,”

“Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht;”

and the refrain,

“Kennst du das Land?”

And, verily, the Italy for which Mignon sighed might have been this that lay before us, stretching on and on in long lifts and falls of hills and valleys; in architecture of the ribs of eternity; in color the sum of Nature’s grand and simple touch. You can’t mix that! You can’t paint in royal purple, argent and aurum run together in one liquid, unburning fire! Take it up on a knife-blade, and perhaps it wouldn’t drop off. It wouldn’t run. But spread on by the brush of the Eternal hand, mellowed in the middle distance, softened in the background by the rays of the evening sun--there was color, above art, above description, above talk, above thought almost, fit to make ’Pache and me despair.

Off in the other direction, to the northwest, stretched the black foothills, and beyond them the brown and level plains, waterless, endless. That way--home lay that way, once. But if ’Pache and I should gallop night and day, we wouldn’t be as far as we see, and we wouldn’t have reached the nearest water-hole.

Tired? Why, we were on the crest of the divide, on the uplift of the earth, above the earth and its ailments. I could feel ’Pache’s wings under the saddle-flaps!

And ’Pache lifted up his head, whereon the mane was lightly blowing, and pitched his ears forward and neighed loud and cheerily. And some Valkyr steed behind a flat rock heard him and laughed at him, and so did another, and so did many others; and spirits came out and jeered at ’Pache, and small demons afar off mocked at him, and trumpet-calls for the assembly of the spirits of the mountains echoed and called back to us, fainter and fainter, passing on to the regions of the inner range.

They might have had the Holy Grail in there in those wild heights, those spirits of the Capitans. I do not know. There might be better than ’Pache and I to send for it!

Down the long reaches on the other side we rattled, in and out, loppity, loppity, loppity; down into cañons which grew darker as the sun went down. ’Pache didn’t mind it now. He knew where he was, and into his wise, yellow head came visions of a pint of hard, blue Mexican corn, and a whole _rio_ full of water. Happy ’Pache!

But what made the creature stick his ears forward so, and throw his head up, and look around at me out of the corner of his eye? Anything to make a fellow hitch his belt around a little? Ah! There it was. Piñon smoke! The faint, pungent odor came up the cañon quite unmistakably now, and ’Pache and I knew that someone had gone into camp down on the _rio_, more than a mile below. We had expected to camp there that night ourselves, though it wasn’t plain what we’d have to eat, outside that one pint of Mexican corn, unless Providence should favor a pin-hook, or send a cotton-tail our way. So ’Pache and I scrambled up out of the cañon, at a shallow place, and reconnoitered a bit.

Greasers--a man and a boy--a bull-team--empty--going home from the Fort.

’Pache turned up his nose in disgust. How he did hate Greasers!

We scrambled back into the cañon, and came down the trail on a run, in great style, to show the Greaser outfit that, though we had traveled far, there was still some life in us. ’Pache stopped short at the edge of the wagon, and fell to stealing corn, while his rider threw the bridle down and advanced to the campers, saying, “_Como l’va?_”

“_Como la va, Señor?_” said the elder Mexican; and soon he added, seeing that I did not ride on, “_Que queres?_”

“_Quero comar_,” said I, briefly and to the point--which is to say, “I want to eat.”

“_O, si, muy bien!_” said he, smiling gravely, and with a real dignity handing me the camp frying-pan, and then poking the embers up around the coffee-pot. They had just finished their supper.

What there was in that frying-pan I never knew. I only know there was less when I got through than when I began. I dared look at it only once, and then saw a greenish-looking semi-liquid which would have done to tell fortunes over. I suspect _chili verde_ and sheep; maybe cotton-tail, perhaps flour--_possibly_ onions.

After supper I led ’Pache down to drink. He would have died of thirst before he would have left off stealing corn. It was a matter of principle with him!

It was a beautiful place, this wild little mountain spot, and the big clumsy _carro_ and the broad-horned oxen hardly detracted from the picturesque, neither did the half-wild teamsters who lay stretched out on the ground. The stream, troutful and delicious, poured melodiously by, just big enough to hold one-pounders. The cañon walls swept widely out into a perfect amphitheatre, back of which rose the solemn Capitans, now of a wondrous, mournful purple in the dying sunlight. The evening chill was coming on. The big stars were showing. The _rio_ babbled vaguely, whispering of cold, black mountain depths beyond; grieving, maybe, that no man had ever been found good enough to attain the Holy Grail.

Alone, ’Pache and I would not have been lonesome. We would have lain down there with our one blanket and slept the sleep of the ingenuously wicked, as calmly as two babes. But now the two-legged gregariousness came out. The Greasers were yoking up their cattle. They were going to pull out. It would be lonesome. We would go too.

No, it didn’t matter where. The trip to the Fort might wait. _Mañana. Poco tiempo._ After a while. What was the difference?

I approached the elder Greaser, as with much liquid, beautiful Southern profanity he labored with his lead yoke. I did not offer him money in return for his supper, for I knew he would not take it under the circumstances. There are a few gentlemen in the mountains, though they are mostly getting killed off.

“_Yo vamos_,” said my Mexican, smiling and showing a good set of teeth.

“_Quantos milas a placita?_” (How many miles to the village?) I asked, boldly, guessing that he couldn’t be far from home, since he was starting out with a full team at that time of day.

“_Sies_,” said he, soberly and politely, as one who says, “Good-evening.” Indeed, he soon added, “_Adios!_”

But I made _mille gracias_ for my supper, and begged a thousand pardons, too. And could I not accompany him to the _placita_? Consider, it was late, it was far to the Fort; I had no _serape_. Moreover, I was most anxious to learn of one Señor José Trujillo, who had found a stone.

The Greaser brightened up, smiled, and said that though there was not Señor Trujillo, there were plenty of stones in the _placita_, which, _por Dios!_ I might buy. Stones through which one could barely see; as well as some of blue. _Oh, Si._ I might _vamos tambien_.

These half-savage hill people are not fond of having Americans come to their villages; but they cannot resist the fascination of exchanging smoky topaz and turquoise for silver _pesos_. I said nothing further, but set out with my new companions, not caring much how far we went, or where. One leaves his senses at the edge of the Capitans.

We pulled down along the _rio_ a half mile or so, half in half out of the water, slipping on the stones, swishing in the stream which whispered up to ’Pache and me not to go on, and clanking over stones which sent up dull, grating objurgations at us through the water. Then we left the stream and entered a black-mouthed cañon which tunneled sharp north, right into the Capitans.

The wonderful Southern moon swam stately up the blue sky and silvered the hills above us, and once in a while shed its light into the cañon. The bull-team plodded and coughed. The big _carro_ creaked and groaned. The Greaser swore musically.

The moon climbed higher; lit up the cañon, glorified the peaks beyond, softened and melted the rocks along the trail into white, trembling heaps of silver. I dismounted from ’Pache, and tied him at the end of the _carro_. As a matter of courtesy, I hung my belt and .45 over the pommel of the saddle; but, as a matter of fact, I kept a tidy .41 in its usual dwelling-place. In case of any foolishness, I thought the .41 would do. It is always well to be polite; but it is always well also to have a reserve fund when you are dealing with human nature, Greaser or white, in mountains or city.

“_O toros_, sons of infants of sin, name of the devil and twelve saints, bowels of St. Iago, can ye not _vamos_, then? It is late. _Vamos_, refuse of the earth, _vamos_!”

I inferred that my host was a domestic sort of Greaser. I heard him say that their being so late would cause the _madre_ to be in wonder. And the boy replied, “_Si; y Ysleta._” (“Yes, and Ysleta also.”)

Ysleta? What a pretty name! Then I laughed and winked at ’Pache. Ysleta would be thirty years old, and would weigh 230 pounds. Bah! You couldn’t fool ’Pache and me!

We groaned into the placita somewhere before midnight. ’Pache sat up all night and stole corn, but I rolled in under the wagon, dead tired, and was asleep in a minute.