The Indian bowed his head and mourned the fallen greatness of his
tribe. Rising, he slowly drew his tattered blanket round his body, and
was preparing to leave the spot, when the shadow of a moving figure,
creeping past a gap in the ruined wall, through which the moonbeams
were playing, suddenly arrested his attention. Rigid as a statue, he
stood transfixed to the spot, thinking a former inhabitant of the city
was visiting, in a ghostly form, the scenes his body once knew so
well. The bow in his right hand shook with fear as he saw the shadow
approach, but was as tightly and steadily grasped when, on the figure
emerging from the shade of the wall, he distinguished the form of a
naked Apache, armed with bow and arrow, crawling stealthily through
the gloomy ruins.
Standing undiscovered within the shadow of the wall, the Taos raised
his bow, and drew an arrow to the head, until the other, who was
bending low to keep under cover of the wall, and thus approach the
sentinel, standing at a short distance, seeing suddenly the
well-defined shadow on the ground, rose upright on his legs, and,
knowing escape was impossible, threw his arms down his sides, and,
drawing himself erect, exclaimed, in a suppressed tone, "Wa-g-h!"
"Wagh!" exclaimed the Taos likewise, but quickly dropped his arrow
point, and eased the bow.
"What does my brother want," he asked, "that he lopes like a wolf
round the fires of the white hunters?"
"Is my brother's skin not red?" returned the Apache, "and yet he asks
a question that needs no answer. Why does the 'medicine wolf' follow
the buffalo and deer! For blood--and for blood the Indian follows the
treacherous white from camp to camp, to strike blow for blow, until
the deaths of those so basely killed are fully avenged."
"My brother speaks with a big heart, and his words are true; and
though the Taos and Pimo (Apache) black their faces towards each
other, (are at war,) here, on the graves of their common fathers,
there is peace between them. Let my brother go."
The Apache moved quickly away, and the Taos once more sought the
camp-fires of his white companions.
Following the course of the Gila to the eastward, they crossed a range
of the Sierra Madre, which is a continuation of the Rocky Mountains,
and struck the waters of the Rio del Norte, below the settlements of
New Mexico. On this stream they fared well; besides trapping a great
quantity of beaver, game of all kinds abounded, and the bluffs near
the well-timbered banks of the river were covered with rich gramma
grass, on which their half-starved animals speedily improved in
condition.
They remained for some weeks encamped on the right bank of the stream,
during which period they lost one of their number, who was shot with
an arrow whilst lying asleep within a few feet of the camp-fire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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