Campmates Part 21

The sight was a powerful argument, worth more than all the words that could have been spoken.

The Indians sullenly returned to their fire and sat down, while our friends, casting many watchful glances over their shoulders as they went, made good their retreat in the direction of their own camp.

"What kind of Indians were they?" asked Glen, of the Mexican, when they had lost sight of their unpleasant acquaintances.

"Navajos," was the answer.

They were indeed a wretched band of the once wealthy and powerful tribe who claimed that whole country as a pasture-land for their countless flocks and herds. For many years they had been hunted and killed, their flocks driven off and their growing crops destroyed wherever found, until now the main body of the tribe was being slowly starved out of existence on a small reservation in Eastern New Mexico. It was so small that no more Indians could be crowded into it, and the miserable remnant, who still lurked in the fastnesses of their own country, despoiled of all means of procuring a livelihood, prowled about like so many hungry dogs, gleaning the offal from white men's camps, and hunted like wild beasts by all whom they were unfortunate enough to meet.

This band had probably followed Mr. Hobart's party for the sake of what might be picked up in their abandoned camps, and had evidently regarded the poisoned meat, discovered that very morning, as a perfect G.o.dsend.

"I reckon we'll have to manage somehow to get along without any wolves,"

said "Billy" Brackett.

"Yes," replied Glen, regretfully, "I suppose we shall."

Ten miles of line were run that day, through the solemn pine forest, and darkness overtook the party on the very summit of the great Continental Divide. They were crossing the Sierra Madre Mountains, through Zuni Pa.s.s. As Glen subtracted the last reading of his rod for the day from the last height of instrument, and found that it gave an elevation of 7925 feet, he uttered a shout. For weeks the elevations above sea-level had been steadily mounting upward. This one was a foot lower than the last.

"Hurrah!" he cried, "we are on the Pacific Slope."

It was hard to realize that water, on one side of where they stood, would find its way into the Rio Grande, and so on into the Atlantic, while that but a few feet away would flow through the Colorado into the Pacific. The country did not look any different, but it seemed so. They actually seemed to be breathing the air of the mighty sunset ocean, and this one day's run seemed to place the States, and everything eastern, farther behind them than all the rest of their journey. About the camp-fires that evening the conversation was wholly of California and the golden West, and they sprang to their work the next day with an added zeal.

Fifty miles west of this point they came to Zuni, one of the most picturesque and by far the most interesting of American towns. First, though, a few miles east of Zuni, they halted beside the magnificent pile of El Moro, or Inscription Rock, that lifted its frowning battlements, like those of some vast Moorish castle, four hundred feet above the plain. Its base is covered, on all sides, with Indian hieroglyphics, Spanish inscriptions, and English names. Curiously, and almost reverently, our explorers bent down the brushwood near its left-hand corner, and searched until they found the most ancient inscription of all:

"Don Joseph de Basconzeles 1526."

There is nothing more, and this is the sole existing record of Don Joseph's having lived and explored this country while Cortez was still occupying the city of Mexico. Where he came from, who he was, what companions he had, and whither he went will never be known; but through all the centuries that have pa.s.sed since he carved his name on El Moro's base, the great rock has faithfully preserved the record of his presence.

The next inscription was made nearly one hundred years later, and is a Spanish legend that is translated into, "Pa.s.sed by this place with despatches, April 16, 1606." There is no name signed, and who pa.s.sed by on that day can never be told. Then follows innumerable names of Spanish dons, captains, bishops, soldiers, and priests, with varying dates that come down as late as the beginning of the present century.

The first English inscription is, "O. R., March 19, 1836." Then came Whipple, in 1853, followed by many other American soldiers and gold-seekers. Now Glen Eddy and "Billy" Brackett added their names beneath those of the others of Mr. Hobart's party. Then they, too, pa.s.sed on, leaving a new page of history to be preserved by El Moro for the eyes of future generations.

For some hours before reaching Zuni they could see it crowning the hill that uplifts it conspicuously above the level of the surrounding plain.

It was the "Cibola" of the earliest Spanish explorers, the chief of the seven "golden cities" that they believed to exist in that region, and whose alleged riches led them to undertake the conquest of the country.

They called it "Cibola" until they reached it. Then they adopted the native name of Zuni (p.r.o.nounced _Zoon-ya_), by which it has been known ever since.

The town, or city, contained some twelve hundred inhabitants, and the hill on which it is built slopes gently up from the plain on one side, but falls away in a precipitous bluff to the narrow waters of the Zuni River on the other.

"Billy" Brackett had read up on this ancient city of Cibola, and had imparted so much of his information to Glen as to arouse a curiosity in the boy's mind regarding the place fully equal to his own. So, as soon as they reached camp, which was on the plain at the foot of the hill, they hurried off to "do" the town.

Chapter x.x.xVI.

ZUnI, THE HOME OF THE AZTECS.

As the leveller and his rodman ascended the slope on which Zuni is built, they saw that the town reached entirely across it, and seemingly presented a blank wall of irregular heights, containing only two or three low arched openings. A ladder, here and there, reached from the ground to a flat terrace on top of the wall; but evidently the means of entering the place were few, and could readily be made less. Outside of the wall were long ranges of corrals, fenced with poles, set close together, and fixed firmly in the ground. These poles, which were of all lengths, and the tops of ladders projecting everywhere above the roofs of the town, gave the place a peculiarly ragged and novel appearance.

Glen wondered at the height of the buildings, most of which were of five or six stories, and what the ladders were for.

Seeing no other way of gaining an entrance, they followed an Indian, who led a burro bearing an immense load of f.a.gots on his back, into one of the dark arched pa.s.sages through the wall. It was just wide enough to admit the laden donkey, and so low that, as they followed him, they were obliged to stoop to avoid striking their heads against its roof. It was so long that it evidently led beneath an entire block of houses.

Finally they emerged from its darkness into one of the most novel plazas, or squares, of the world. It was surrounded by buildings of several stories in height, but very few of them had any doors, while the tiny windows of the lower stories were placed high up, beyond a man's reach. On the flat roof of the lower house, or first story, a second house was built; but it was so much narrower than the first as to leave a broad walk on the roof in front of it. Above this second house rose a third, fourth, fifth, and often a sixth, each one narrower than the one beneath it, so that the whole looked like a gigantic flight of steps.

These houses were built either of adobe or of stone, plastered over with adobe mud; and nearly all those on the ground floor were entered, as Robinson Crusoe entered his castle, by climbing a ladder to the roof, and descending another that led down through a skylight. Thus, if an enemy should succeed in forcing his way through the narrow tunnel into the plaza, the people would merely retire to their house-tops, draw up their ladders, and he would find it as hard to get at them as ever.

The upper tiers of houses had doors opening on the roofs of those below them; but ladders were necessary to climb up from one terrace to another, so that they were everywhere the most prominent feature of the place.

There were but few of the inhabitants in the plaza, or in the narrow lanes leading from it to other open squares; but they swarmed on the flat house-tops, and gazed down on our friends as eagerly as the latter gazed up at them. Americans were curiosities to the people of Zuni in those days.

"h.e.l.lo!" exclaimed Glen, as they stood in the middle of the plaza, wondering which way they should go. "Here come some white fellows dressed up like Indians. I wonder who they can be?"

Sure enough, two young men, having white skins, blue eyes, and yellow hair, but wearing the leggings and striped blankets of Indians, entered the square as Glen spoke. He shouted to them, both in English and Mexican, but they only glanced at him in a startled manner, and then, hurriedly climbing the nearest ladder, they joined a group who were curiously inspecting Glen and his companion from a roof.

"Well! that is queer," said the former. "Who do you suppose those chaps are?"

"I shouldn't be a bit surprised if they were two of the white Indians I have read of," answered "Billy" Brackett; "and, if so, they are the greatest curiosities we'll see in this town."

"I never heard of them," said Glen. "Where did they come from?"

"That's more than I can tell, or anybody else. All we know is that the earliest Spaniards found a race of white people living among the Pueblo Indians, whom they describe as being exactly like these chaps grinning at us from that roof. In one respect they are a distinct race, as they have never been allowed to marry with the dark-skinned Indians; but in every other respect they are thorough Puebloes, and there is no tradition going back far enough to show that they were ever anything else. I believe that the race is nearly extinct, and that they are now so few in number as to be rarely seen."

In this "Billy" Brackett was correct; for at that time there were but three of those white Indians in Zuni, two men and a woman.

Before leaving this remarkable town of curious people, Glen discovered that they kept eagles for pets, and were also very fond of snakes, especially rattlesnakes, which they did not hesitate to handle freely and even to hold in their mouths. He saw the entire population turn out on the flat roofs of their houses at daybreak, and, facing the east, patiently await the coming of Montezuma, whom they firmly believed would appear some morning in the place of the sun. He heard of, but was not allowed to see, the perpetual fire, lighted by Montezuma, that has been kept burning for ages by a family of priests, set apart and supported by the people for that particular purpose. He saw women grinding corn into fine white meal between two stones, and baking it into delicious thin cakes on another. He saw them weaving blankets, of sheep's wool, so fine that they will hold water for a whole day, and so strong that they will last a long lifetime. He ate some of the white dried peaches and other fruits that these Indians raise in such abundance and prepare with such skill. And what pleased him more than anything else was that, in exchange for two flour-sacks and a small piece of bacon, one of the Indians made him a fine buckskin s.h.i.+rt, very much adorned with fringes, that he wore all the rest of the winter.

It certainly was a most interesting place, and the whole party would gladly have lingered there longer than the three days that could be spared to it. But it was now November, and they must be beyond the San Francisco Mountains before the pa.s.ses were blocked with heavy snows. So they bade good-bye to Zuni and New Mexico, and, taking their way past Jacob's Well, where a fine spring bubbles up at the bottom of a funnel-shaped pit, six hundred feet across at the top, and a hundred and fifty feet deep, they entered the little-known region of Northern Arizona.

For three months they toiled through that wild country, as lost to the view and knowledge of white civilization as though they were running their line through Central Africa. Then they emerged on the bank of the mighty Colorado, and, looking across its turbid flood, saw the barren wastes of the Great Colorado Desert; but they gave a shout of joy at the sight, for, with all its dreariness of aspect, that was California, and beyond it lay the Pacific, the goal of their hopes.

The last three months had been filled with toil, hards.h.i.+ps, and adventure. Although in that time they saw no white men, nor men of any kind beyond catching occasional glimpses of the stealthy Apaches, who hung on their trail for weeks, and with whom they exchanged more than one rifle-shot, they were never without evidences that this whole vast country had once been occupied by a mighty people. Hardly a day pa.s.sed that Glen did not hold his rod on the ruined foundation-wall of some huge structure of long ago, or stumble over heaps of broken pottery graceful in form and design, or gaze wonderingly at the stone houses of ancient cliff-dwellers perched on ledges now inaccessible, or walk in the dry beds of crumbling aqueducts, or select choice specimens from piles of warlike implements fas.h.i.+oned from s.h.i.+ning crystal or milk-white quartz, or, in some way, have his attention called to the fact that he was traversing a country in which had dwelt millions of his kind, who had long since pa.s.sed away and been forgotten. He had puzzled over miles of hieroglyphic inscriptions and rude pictures, drawn on the smooth black walls of rugged canons, and learned from them fragmentary tales of ancient battles or of encounters with savage beasts.

Then, too, he had known hunger and thirst and bitter cold. His Christmas dinner, eaten during a short pause from work on the line, had been a bit of spoiled bacon and a couple of wormy hard-tack, with which, in honor of the day, he had his full share of "Billy" Brackett's treasured cheese, brought out at last to grace this feast. Not only were their provisions nearly exhausted at that time, but it was the fifth day on which they had been unable to wash, for want of water. Two weeks before, a wagon had been sent to the mining-camp of Prescott, nearly a hundred miles away, and they had nearly given up all hopes of its safe return.

That night it came into camp, and that night, too, they found a number of rock cisterns full of water. In the darkness of that same evening, while hastening from the pool in which he had been bathing, to get his share of the Christmas supper, poor Glen had run plump into a gigantic cactus, and filled his body with its tiny, barbed thorns. Altogether it was a memorable Christmas, and one he will never forget.

On the last night of December they built a gigantic bonfire of whole trees, and welcomed in the new year by the light of its leaping flames.

They had pa.s.sed through vast tracts of wonderful fertility and beauty, unknown to white men, and through regions abounding in game that they had no time to hunt. From the summit of the Aztec Pa.s.s they had gazed, with dismay, over the boundless expanse of the Black Forest, and then had plunged into its dark depths. They had threaded their way through labyrinths of precipitous canons, the walls of which rose thousands of feet above their heads, and had known of others still more tremendous.

They had waded through the snows of the San Francisco Mountains, and revelled in the warmth and beauty of the superb Val de Chino, where snow and ice are unknown. They had dodged the cras.h.i.+ng boulders hurled down on them in Union Pa.s.s by the Hualapi Indians, posted on the inaccessible heights far above them. Here they had lost a wagon, crushed to splinters by one of these ma.s.ses of rock; but no lives had been sacrificed, and their number was still the same as when they left the Rio Grande. Now they were on the bank of the Colorado, with only one desert and one range of mountains yet to cross. These seemed so little, after all they had gone through; and yet that desert alone was two hundred and fifty miles wide. Two hundred and fifty miles of sand, sage-brush, and alkali; the most barren region of country within the limits of the United States. If they could have looked ahead and seen what the crossing of that desert meant, they would have entered upon the undertaking with heavy hearts and but faint hopes of accomplis.h.i.+ng it. How fortunate it is that we cannot look ahead and see the trials that await us. We would never dare face them if they should all appear to us at once; while, by meeting them singly, and attacking them one by one, they are overcome with comparative ease.

But neither Glen nor his companions were thinking of the trials ahead of them as they came in sight of the Colorado River. They were only thinking of those left behind, and what a glorious thing it was to have got thus far along in their tremendous journey. The transit-party had run their line to the river's bank and gone to camp a mile or so below, when the levellers came up, and Glen held his rod, for a final reading, at the water's edge.

He had just noted the figures in his book, and waved an "All right" to "Billy" Brackett, when he was startled by a rush of hoofs and a joyous shout. The next instant a horse was reined sharply up beside him, while its rider was wringing his hand and uttering almost incoherent words of extravagant joy at once more seeing him.