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TAPPAN’S BURRO
BOOKS BY ZANE GREY
Tappcm’s Burro
Tales of Lonely Trails
To the Last Man
Wanderer of the Wasteland
The Mysterious Rider
The Man of the Forest
Tales of Fishes
The Desert of Wheat
The U. P. Trail
Wildfire
The Border Legion
The Rainbow Trail
The Lone Star Ranger
The Light of Western Stars
Desert Gold
The Heritage of the Desert
Riders of the Purple Sage
The Young Forester
The Young Pitcher
The Young Lion-Hunter
Ken Ward in the Jungle
HARPER & BROTHERS
Established 1817
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2018 with funding from
Brigham Young University
https://archive.org/details/tappansburrootheOOgrey
SWAYING BACKWARD, HE FELL INTO THE UPBANKED WALL OF SNOW, AND WENT OUT OF SIGHT,
EXCEPT FOR HIS BOOTS, ONE OF WHICH STILL HELD THE CRUDE SNOWSHOE.
TAP PAN’S BURRO
AND OTHER STORIES
By
ZANE GREY
Author of
“Wanderer of the Wasteland,” “The Mysterious Rider,”
“The U. P. Trail,” “Wildfire,” Etc.
With Illustrations in Color
By Charles S. Chapman
and Frank Street
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Copyright, 1923
By ZANE GREY
Printed in the U. S. A.
First Edition
i-x
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Tappan’s Burro. 1
II. The Great Slave.81
III. Yaqui .113
IV. Tigre.171
V. The Rubber Hunter. 203
[V]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Swaying Backward, He Fell into the Upbanked Wall of
Snow, and Went Out of Sight, Except for His Boots,
One of Which Still Held the Crude Snowshoe . Frontispiece
PACING PAGE
This Was the Supreme Test for His Never Proven En¬
durance. And He Was All but Vanquished .... 22
On All the Four Winds Breathed Voices Whispering of
His Future.82
Out of the Gray Fog Burned Dusky Eyes Half Veiled By
Dusky Hair — “Emihiyah Comes,” She Said. “Siena
Waits,” He Replied.108
Alone on a Ridge of Rising Ground Yaqui Faced the Back
Trail and Watched with Falcon Eyes.114
Yaqui Knew that Never Again Would He See His Wife and
Baby — Never Hear From Them — Never Know What
Became of Them. 146
Twice She Started Forward, Only to Hang Back . . . 176
[ vii ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
TAPPAN’S BURRO
i
T APPAN gazed down upon the newly-born little burro
with something of pity and consternation. It was not
a vigorous offspring of the redoubtable Jennie, champion
of all the numberless burros he had driven in his desert¬
prospecting years. He could not leave it there to die.
Surely it was not strong enough to follow its mother. And
to kill i*t was beyond him.
“Poor little devil!” soliloquized Tappan. “Reckon
neither Jennie nor I wanted it to be born. ... I’ll have to
hold up in this camp a few days. You can never tell what
a burro will do. It might fool us an’ grow strong all of a
sudden.”
Whereupon Tappan left Jennie and her tiny, gray lop-
eared baby to themselves, and leisurely set about making
permanent camp. The water at this oasis was not much
[ 1 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
to his liking, but it was drinkable, and he felt he must put
up with it. For the rest the oasis was desirable enough as
a camping site. Desert wanderers like Tappan favored the
lonely water holes. This one was up under the bold brow
of the Chocolate Mountains, where rocky wall met the
desert sand, and a green patch of palo verdes and mesquites
proved the presence of water. It had a magnificent view
down a many-leagued slope of desert growths, across the
dark belt of green and the shining strip of red that marked
the Rio Colorado, and on to the upflung Arizona land,
range lifting to range until the saw-toothed peaks notched
the blue sky.
Locked in the iron fastnesses of these desert mountains
was gold. Tappan, if he had any calling, was a prospector.
But the lure of gold did not bind him to this wandering life
any more than the freedom of it. He had never made a
rich strike. About the best he could ever do was to dig
enough gold to grubstake himself for another prospecting
trip into some remote corner of the American Desert.
Tappan knew the arid Southwest from San Diego to the
Pecos River and from Picacho on the Colorado to the
Tonto Basin. Few prospectors had the strength and en¬
durance of Tappan. He was a giant in build, and at
thirty-five had never yet reached the limit of his physical
force.
m
TAPP AN’S BURRO
With hammer and pick and magnifying glass Tappan
scaled the bare ridges. He was not an expert in testing
minerals. He knew he might easily pass by a rich vein of
ore. But he did his best, sure at least that no prospector
could get more than he out of the pursuit of gold. Tappan
was more of a naturalist than a prospector, and more of a
dreamer than either. Many were the idle moments that
he sat staring down the vast reaches of the valleys, or
watching some creature of the wasteland, or marveling at
the vivid hues of desert flowers.
Tappan waited two weeks at this oasis for Jennie’s
baby burro to grow strong enough to walk. And the very
day that Tappan decided to break camp he found signs of
gold at the head of a wash above the oasis. Quite by
chance, as he was looking for his burros, he struck his pick
into a place no different from a thousand others there, and
hit into a pocket of gold. He cleaned out the pocket before
sunset, the richer for several thousand dollars.
“You brought me luck,” said Tappan, to the little gray
burro staggering round its mother. “Your name is Jenet.
You’re Tappan’s burro, an’ I reckon he’ll stick to you/
Jenet belied the promise of her birth. Like a weed in
fertile ground she grew. Winter and summer Tappan
patroled the sand beats from one trading post to another,
[ 3 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
and his burros traveled with him. Jenet had an especially
good training. Her mother had happened to be a remark¬
ably good burro before Tappan had bought her. And
Tappan had patience; he found leisure to do things, and
he had something of pride in Jenet. Whenever he happened
to drop into Ehrenberg or Yuma, or any freighting station,
some prospector always tried to buy Jenet. She grew as
large as a medium-sized mule, and a three-hundred-pound
pack was no load to discommode her.
Tappan, in common with most lonely wanderers of the
desert, talked to his burro. As the years passed this habit
grew, until Tappan would talk to Jenet just to hear the
sound of his voice. Perhaps that was all which kept him
human.
“ Jenet, you’re worthy of a happier life,” Tappan would
say, as he unpacked her after a long day’s march over the
barren land. “You’re a ship of the desert. Here we are,
with grub an’ water, a hundred miles from any camp. An’
what but you could have fetched me here? No horse! No
mule! No man! Nothin’ but a camel, an’ so I call you
ship of the desert. But for you an’ your kind, Jenet, there’d
be no prospectors, and few gold mines. Reckon the desert
would be still an unknown waste. . . . You’re a great beast
of burden, Jenet, an’ there’s no one to sing your praise.”
And of a golden sunrise, when Jenet was packed and
[ 4 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
ready to face the cool, sweet fragrance of the desert, Tappan
was wont to say:
“Go along with you, Jenet. The mornin’s fine. Look
at the mountains yonder callin’ us. It’s only a step down
there. All purple an’ violet! It’s the life for us, my burro,
an’ Tappan’s as rich as if all these sands were pearls.”
But sometimes, at sunset, when the way had been long
and hot and rough, Tappan would bend his shaggy head
over Jenet, and talk in different mood.
“Another day gone, Jenet, another journey ended — an’
Tappan is only older, wearier, sicker. There’s no reward
for your faithfulness. I’m only a desert rat, livin’ from
hole to hole. No home! No face to see. . . . Some sunset,
Jenet, we’ll reach the end of the trail. An’ Tappan’s bones
will bleach in the sands. An’ no one will know or care!”
When Jenet was two years old she would have taken
the blue ribbon in competition with all the burros of the
Southwest. She was unusually large and strong, perfectly
proportioned, sound in every particular, and practically
tireless. But these were not the only characteristics that
made prospectors envious of Tappan. Jenet had the com¬
mon virtues of all good burros magnified to an unbeliev¬
able degree. Moreover, she had sense and instinct that to
Tappan bordered on the supernatural.
[ 5 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
During these years Tappan’s trail crisscrossed the min¬
eral region of the Southwest. But, as always, the rich
strike held aloof. It was like the pot of gold buried at the
foot of the rainbow. Jenet knew the trails and the water
holes better than Tappan. She could follow a trail obliter¬
ated by drifting sand or cut out by running water. She
could scent at long distance a new spring on the desert or
a strange water hole. She never wandered far from camp
so that Tappan had to walk far in search of her. Wild
burros, the bane of most prospectors, held no charm for
Jenet. And she had never yet shown any especial liking
for a tame burro. This was the strangest feature of Jenet’s
complex character. Burros were noted for their habit of
pairing off, and forming friendships for one or more com¬
rades. These relations were permanent. But Jenet still
remained fancy free.
Tappan scarcely realized how he relied upon this big,
gray, serene beast of burden. Of course, when chance
threw him among men of his calling he would brag about
her. But he had never really appreciated Jenet. In his
way Tappan was a brooding, plodding fellow, not con¬
scious of sentiment. When he bragged about Jenet it was
her good qualities upon which he dilated. But what he
really liked best about her were the little things of every
day.
[6]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
During the earlier years of her training Jenet had been
a thief. She would pretend to be asleep for hours just to
get a chance to steal something out of camp. Tappan had
broken this habit in its incipiency. But he never quite
trusted her. Jenet was a burro.
Jenet ate anything offered her. She could fare for her¬
self or go without. Whatever Tappan had left from his
own meals was certain to be rich dessert for Jenet. Every
meal time she would stand near the camp fire, with one
great long ear drooping, and the other standing erect. Her
expression was one of meekness, of unending patience. She
would lick a tin can until it shone resplendent. On long,
hard, barren trails Jenet’s deportment did not vary from
that where the water holes and grassy patches were many.
She did not need to have grass or grain. Brittle-bush and
sage were good fare for her. She could eat greasewood, a
desert plant that protected itself with a sap as sticky as
varnish and far more dangerous to animals. She could eat
cacti. Tappan had seen her break off leaves of the prickly
pear cactus, and stamp upon them with her forefeet, mash¬
ing off the thorns, so that she could consume the succulent
pulp. She liked mesquite beans, and leaves of willow, and
all the trailing vines of the desert. And she could subsist
in an arid waste land where a man would have died in
short order.
[ 7 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
No ascent or descent was too hard or dangerous for
Jenet, provided it was possible of accomplishment. She
would refuse a trail that was impassable. She seemed to
have an uncanny instinct both for what she could do, and
what was beyond a burro. Tappan had never known her
to fail on something to which she stuck persistently. Swift
streams of water, always bugbears to burros, did not stop
Jenet. She hated quicksand, but could be trusted to navi¬
gate it, if that were possible. When she stepped gingerly,
with little inch steps, out upon thin crust of ice or salty
crust of desert sink hole, Tappan would know that it was
safe, or she would turn back. Thunder and lightning, in¬
tense heat or bitter cold, the sirocco sand storm of the
desert, the white dust of the alkali wastes — these were all
the same to Jenet.
One August, the hottest and driest of his desert experi¬
ence, Tappan found himself working a most promising claim
in the lower reaches of the Panamint Mountains on the
northern slope above Death Valley. It was a hard country
at the most favorable season; in August it was terrible.
The Panamints were infested by various small gangs of
desperadoes—outlaw claim jumpers where opportunity af¬
forded—and out-and-out robbers, even murderers where
they could not get the gold any other way.
[ 8 ]
TAPP AN’S BURRO
Tappan had been warned not to go into this region
alone. But he never heeded any warnings. And the idea
that he would ever strike a claim or dig enough gold to
make himself an attractive target for outlaws seemed pre¬
posterous and not worth considering. Tappan had become
a wanderer now from the unbreakable habit of it. Much
to his amaze he struck a rich ledge of free gold in a canyon
of the Panamints; and he worked from daylight until dark.
He forgot about the claim jumpers, until one day he saw
Jenet’s long ears go up in the manner habitual with her
when she saw strange men. Tappan watched the rest of
that day, but did not catch a glimpse of any living thing.
It was a desolate place, shut in, red-walled, hazy with heat,
and brooding with an eternal silence.
Not long after that Tappan discovered boot tracks of
several men adjacent to his camp and in an out-of-the-way
spot, which persuaded him that he was being watched.
Claim jumpers who were not going to jump his claim in
this torrid heat, but meant to let him dig the gold and then
kill him. Tappan was not the kind of man to be afraid.
He grew wrathful and stubborn. He had six small canvas
bags of gold and did not mean to lose them. Still, he was
worried.
“Now, what’s best to do?” he pondered. “I mustn’t
give it away that I’m wise. Reckon I’d better act natural.
[ 9 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
But I can’t stay here longer. My claim’s about worked
out. An’ these jumpers are smart enough to know it. . . .
I’ve got to make a break at night. What to do?”
Tappan did not want to cache the gold, for in that case,
of course, he would have to return for it. Still, he reluc¬
tantly admitted to himself that this was the best way to
save it. Probably these robbers were watching him day
and night. It would be most unwise to attempt escaping
by traveling up over the Panamints.
“Reckon my only chance is goin’ down into Death Val¬
ley,” soliloquized Tappan, grimly.
The alternative thus presented was not to his liking.
Crossing Death Valley at this season was always perilous,
and never attempted in the heat of day. And at this par¬
ticular time of intense torridity, when the day heat was un¬
endurable and the midnight furnace gales were blowing, it
was an enterprise from which even Tappan shrank. Added
to this were the facts that he was too far west of the nar¬
row part of the valley, and even if he did get across he
would find himself in the most forbidding and desolate re¬
gion of the Funeral Mountains.
Thus thinking and planning, Tappan went about his
mining and camp tasks, trying his best to act natural.
But he did not succeed. It was impossible, while expect¬
ing a shot at any moment, to act as if there was nothing
[ 10 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
on his mind. His camp lay at the bottom of a rocky slope.
A tiny spring of water made verdure of grass and mesquite,
welcome green in all that stark iron nakedness. His camp
site was out in the open, on the bench near the spring.
The gold claim that Tappan was working was not visible
from any vantage point either below or above. It lay
back at the head of a break in the rocky wall. It had two
virtues—one that the sun never got to it, and the other
that it was well hidden. Once there, Tappan knew he
could not be seen. This, however, did not diminish his
growing uneasiness. The solemn stillness was a menace.
The heat of the day appeared to be augmenting to a de¬
gree beyond his experience. Every few moments Tappan
would slip back through a narrow defile in the rocks and
peep from his covert down at the camp. On the last of
these occasions he saw Jenet out in the open. She stood
motionless. Her long ears were erect. In an instant Tap-
pan became strung with thrilling excitement. His keen
eyes searched every approach to his camp. And at last in
the gully below to the right he discovered two men crawl¬
ing along from rock to rock. Jenet had seen them enter
that gully and was now watching for them to appear.
Tappan’s excitement gave place to a grimmer emotion.
These stealthy visitors were going to hide in ambush, and
kill him as he returned to camp.
[ 11 ]
TAPFAN’S BURRO
“Jenet, reckon what I owe you is a whole lot,” mut¬
tered Tappan. “They’d have got me sure. . . . But now—”
Tappan left his tools, and crawled out of his covert
into the jumble of huge rocks toward the left of the slope.
He had a six-shooter. His rifle he had left in camp. Tap-
pan had seen only two men, but he knew there were more
than that, if not actually near at hand at the moment,
then surely not far away. And his chance was to worm his
way like an Indian down to camp. With the rifle in his
possession he would make short work of the present diffi¬
culty.
“Lucky Jenet’s right in camp!” said Tappan, to him¬
self. “It beats hell how she does things!”
Tappan was already deciding to pack and hurry away.
On the moment Death Valley did not daunt him. This
matter of crawling and gliding along was work unsuited to
his great stature. He was too big to hide behind a little
shrub or a rock. And he was not used to stepping lightly.
His hobnailed boots could not be placed noiselessly upon
the stones. Moreover, he could not progress without dis¬
placing little bits of weathered rock. He was sure that
keen ears not too far distant could have heard him. But
he kept on, making good progress around that slope to the
far side of the canyon. Fortunately, he headed the gully
up which his ambushers were stealing. On the other hand,
[ 1 * ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
this far side of the canyon afforded but little cover. The
sun had gone down back of the huge red mass of the moun¬
tain. It had left the rocks so hot Tappan could not touch
them with his bare hands.
He was about to stride out from his last covert and
make a run for it down the rest of the slope, when, survey¬
ing the whole amphitheater below him, he espied the two
men coming up out of the gully, headed toward his camp.
They looked in his direction. Surely they had heard or
seen him. But Tappan perceived at a glance that he was
the closer to the camp. Without another moment of hesi¬
tation, he plunged from his hiding place, down the weath¬
ered slope. His giant strides set the loose rocks sliding
and rattling. The men saw him. The foremost yelled to
the one behind him. Then they both broke into a run.
Tappan reached the level of the bench, and saw he could
beat either of them into the camp. Unless he were dis¬
abled! He felt the wind of a heavy bullet before he heard
it strike the rocks beyond. Then followed the boom of
a Colt. One of his enemies had halted to shoot. This
spurred Tappan to tremendous exertion. He flew over the
rough ground, scarcely hearing the rapid shots. He could
no longer see the man who was firing. But the first one
was in plain sight, running hard, not yet seeing he was out
of the race.
[ 13 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
When he became aware of that he halted, and dropping
on one knee, leveled his gun at the running Tappan. The
distance was scarcely sixty yards. His first shot did not
allow for Tappan’s speed. His second kicked up the gravel
in Tappan’s face. Then followed three more shots in rapid
succession. The man divined that Tappan had a rifle in
camp. Then he steadied himself, waiting for the moment
when Tappan had to slow down and halt. As Tappan
reached his camp and dove for his rifle, the robber took time
for his last aim, evidently hoping to get a stationary target.
But Tappan did not get up from behind his camp duffel.
It had been a habit of his to pile his boxes of supplies and
roll of bedding together, and cover them with a canvas.
He poked his rifle over the top of this and shot the robber.
Then, leaping up, he ran forward to get sight of the
second one. This man began to run along the edge of
the gully. Tappan fired rapidly at him. The third shot
knocked the fellow down. But he got up, and yelling, as
if for succor, he ran off. Tappan got another shot before
he disappeared.
“Ahuh!” grunted Tappan, grimly. His keen gaze came
back to survey the fallen robber, and then went out over
the bench, across the wide mouth of the canyon. Tappan
thought he had better utilize time to pack instead of pur¬
suing the fleeing man.
[ 14 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Reloading the rifle, he hurried out to find Jenet. She
was coming in to camp.
“Shore you’re a treasure, old girl!” ejaculated Tappan.
Never in his life had he packed Jenet, or any other
burro, so quickly. His last act was to drink all he could
hold, fill his two canteens, and make Jenet drink. Then,
rifle in hand, he drove the burro out of camp, round the
corner of the red wall, to the wide gateway that opened
down into Death Valley.
Tappan looked back more than he looked ahead. And
he had traveled down a mile or more before he began to
breathe more easily. He had escaped the claim jumpers.
Even if they did show up in pursuit now, they could never
catch him. Tappan believed he could travel faster and
farther than any men of that ilk. But they did not ap¬
pear. Perhaps the crippled one had not been able to reach
his comrades in time. More likely, however, the gang had
no taste for a chase in that torrid heat.
Tappan slowed his stride. He was almost as wet with
sweat as if he had fallen into the spring. The great beads
rolled down his face. And there seemed to be little streams
of fire trickling down his breast. But despite this, and his
labored panting for breath, not until he halted in the shade
of a rocky wall did he realize the heat.
It was terrific. Instantly then he knew he was safe
[15 I
TAPPAN’S BURRO
from pursuit. But he knew also that he faced a greater
peril than that of robbers. He could fight evil men, but he
could not fight this heat.
So he rested there, regaining his breath. Already thirst
was acute. Jenet stood near by, watching him. Tappan,
with his habit of humanizing the burro, imagined that Jenet
looked serious. A moment’s thought was enough for Tap-
pan to appreciate the gravity of his situation. He was
about to go down into the upper end of Death Valley—a
part of that country unfamiliar to him. He must cross it,
and also the Funeral Mountains, at a season when a pros¬
pector who knew the trails and water holes would have to
be forced to undertake it. Tappan had no choice.
His rifle was too hot to hold, so he stuck it in Jenet’s
pack; and, burdened only by a canteen of water, he set
out, driving the burro ahead. Once he looked back up
the wide-mouthed canyon. It appeared to smoke with red
heat veils. The silence was oppressive.
Presently he turned the last corner that obstructed sight
of Death Valley. Tappan had never been appalled by any
aspect of the desert, but it was certain that here he halted.
Back in his mountain-walled camp the sun had passed be¬
hind the high domes, but here it still held most of the val¬
ley in its blazing grip. Death Valley looked a ghastly,
glaring level of white, over which a strange dull leaden
[ 16 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
haze drooped like a blanket. Ghosts of mountain peaks
appeared to show dim and vague. There was no move¬
ment of anything. No wind! The valley was dead. Deso¬
lation reigned supreme. Tappan could not see far toward
either end of the valley. A few miles of white glare merged
at last into leaden pall. A strong odor, not unlike sulphur,
seemed to add weight to the air.
Tappan strode on, mindful that Jenet had decided opin¬
ions of her own. She did not want to go straight ahead or
to right or left, but back. That was the one direction im¬
possible for Tappan. And he had to resort to a rare meas¬
ure—that of beating her. But at last Jenet accepted the
inevitable and headed down into the stark and naked plain.
Soon Tappan reached the margin of the zone of shade cast
by the mountain and was now exposed to the sun. The
difference seemed tremendous. He had been hot, op¬
pressed, weighted. It was now as if he was burned through
his clothes, and walked on red-hot sands.
When Tappan ceased to sweat and his skin became dry,
he drank half a canteen of water, and slowed his stride.
Inured to desert hardship as he was, he could not long
stand this. Jenet did not exhibit any lessening of vigor. In
truth what she showed now was an increasing nervousness.
It was almost as if she scented an enemy. Tappan never be¬
fore had such faith in her. Jenet was equal to this task.
[ 17 1
TAPPAN’S BURRO
With that blazing sun on his back, Tappan felt he was
being pursued by a furnace. He was compelled to drink
the remaining half of his first canteen of water. Sunset
would save him. Two more hours of such insupportable
heat would lay him prostrate.
The ghastly glare of the valley took on a reddish tinge.
The heat was blinding Tappan. The time came when he
walked beside Jenet with a hand on her pack, for his eyes
could no longer endure the furnace glare. Even with them
closed he knew when the sun sank behind the Panamints.
That fire no longer followed him. And the red left his
eyelids.
With the sinking of the sun the world of Death Valley
changed. It smoked with heat veils. But the intolerable
constant burn was gone. The change was so immense that
it seemed to have brought coolness.
In the twilight—strange, ghostly, somber, silent as
death—Tappan followed Jenet off the sand, down upon
the silt and borax level, to the crusty salt. Before dark
Jenet halted at a sluggish belt of fluid—acid, it appeared
to Tappan. It was not deep. And the bottom felt stable.
But Jenet refused to cross. Tappan trusted her judgment
more than his own. Jenet headed to the left and followed
the course of the strange stream.
Night intervened. A night without stars or sky or
[ 18 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
sound, hot, breathless, charged with some intangible cur¬
rent! Tappan dreaded the midnight furnace winds of
Death Valley. He had never encountered them. He had
heard prospectors say that any man caught in Death Val¬
ley when these gales blew would never get out to tell the
tale. And Jenet seemed to have something on her mind.
She was no longer a leisurely, complacent burro. Tappan
imagined Jenet seemed stern. Most assuredly she knew
now which way she wanted to travel. It was not easy for
Tappan to keep up with her, and ten paces beyond him
she was out of sight.
At last Jenet headed the acid wash, and turned across
the valley into a field of broken salt crust, like the rough¬
ened ice of a river that had broken and jammed, then
frozen again. Impossible was it to make even a reasonable
headway. It was a zone, however, that eventually gave
way to Jenet’s instinct for direction. Tappan had long
ceased to try to keep his bearings. North, south, east, and
west were all the same to him. The night was a blank—•
the darkness a wall—the silence a terrible menace flung at
any living creature. Death Valley had endured them mil¬
lions of years before living creatures had existed. It was
no place for a man.
Tappan was now three hundred and more feet below
sea level, in the aftermath of a day that had registered one
[ 19 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
hundred and forty-five degrees of heat. He knew, when he
began to lose thought and balance—-when only the primi¬
tive instincts directed his bodily machine. And he strug¬
gled with all his will power to keep hold of his sense of
sight and feeling. He hoped to cross the lower level before
the midnight gales began to blow.
Tappan’s hope was vain. According to record, once in
a long season of intense heat, there came a night when the
furnace winds broke their schedule, and began early. The
misfortune of Tappan was that he had struck this night.
Suddenly it seemed that the air, sodden with heat, be¬
gan to move. It had weight. It moved soundlessly and
ponderously. But it gathered momentum. Tappan real¬
ized what was happening. The blanket of heat generated
by the day was yielding to outside pressure. Something
had created a movement of the hotter air that must find
its way upward, to give place for the cooler air that must
find its way down.
Tappan heard the first, low, distant moan of wind and
it struck terror to his heart. It did not have an earthly
sound. Was that a knell for him? Nothing was surer than
the fact that the desert must sooner or later claim him as a
victim. Grim and strong, he rebelled against the conviction.
That moan was a forerunner of others, growing louder
and longer until the weird sound became continuous. Then
[ 20 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
the movement of wind was accelerated and began to carry
a fine dust. Dark as the night was, it did not hide the
pale sheets of dust that moved along the level plain. Tap-
pan’s feet felt the slow rise in the floor of the valley. His
nose recognized the zone of borax and alkali and niter and
sulphur. He had reached the pit of the valley at the time
of the furnace winds.
The moan augmented to a roar, coming like a mighty
storm through a forest. It was hellish—like the woeful
tide of Acheron. It enveloped Tappan. And the gale bore
down in tremendous volume, like a furnace blast. Tappan
seemed to feel his body penetrated by a million needles of
fire. He seemed to dry up. The blackness of night had a
spectral, whitish cast; the gloom was a whirling medium;
the valley floor was lost in a sheeted, fiercely seeping stream
of silt. Deadly fumes swept by, not lingering long enough
to suffocate Tappan. He would gasp and choke—then the
poison gas was gone on the gale. But hardest to endure
was the heavy body of moving heat. Tappan grew blind,
so that he had to hold to Jenet, and stumble along. Every
gasping breath was a tortured effort. He could not bear a
scarf over his face. His lungs heaved like great leather
bellows. His heart pumped like an engine short of fuel.
This was the supreme test for his never proven endurance.
And he was all but vanquished.
[ 21 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Tappan’s senses of sight and smell and hearing failed
him. There was left only the sense of touch—a feeling of
rope and burro and ground—and an awful insulating pres¬
sure upon all his body. His feet marked a change from
salty plain to sandy ascent and then to rocky slope. The
pressure of wind gradually lessened: the difference in air
made life possible; the feeling of being dragged endlessly
by Jenet had ceased. Tappan went his limit and fell into
oblivion.
When he came to, he was suffering bodily tortures.
Sight was dim. But he saw walls of rocks, green growths
of mesquite, tamarack, and grass. Jenet was lying down,
with her pack flopped to one side. Tappan’s dead ears re¬
covered to a strange murmuring, babbling sound. Then he
realized his deliverance. Jenet had led him across Death
Valley, up into the mountain range, straight to a spring of
running water.
Tappan crawled to the edge of the water and drank
guardedly, a little at a time. He had to quell terrific crav¬
ing to drink his fill. Then he crawled to Jenet, and loosen¬
ing the ropes of her pack, freed her from its burden. Jenet
got up, apparently none the worse for her ordeal. She
gazed mildly at Tappan, as if to say: “Well, I got you
out of that hole.”
Tappan returned her gaze. Were they only man and
[ 22 ]
THIS WAS THE SUPREME TEST FOR HIS NEVER-PROVEN ENDURANCE, AND HE WAS ALL BUT VANQUISHED
TAPPAN’S BURRO
beast, alone in the desert? She seemed magnified to Tap-
pan, no longer a plodding, stupid burro.
“Jenet, you—saved—-my life,” Tappan tried to enunci¬
ate. “I’ll never—forget.”
Tappan was struck then to a realization of Jenet’s
service. He was unutterably grateful. Yet the time came
when he did forget.
[*S]
II
T APP AN had a weakness common to all prospectors:
Any tale of a lost gold mine would excite his interest;
and well-known legends of lost mines always obsessed him.
Peg-leg Smith’s lost gold mine had lured Tappan to no
less than half a dozen trips into the terrible shifting-sand
country of southern California. There was no water near
the region said to hide this mine of fabulous wealth. Many
prospectors had left their bones to bleach white in the sun,
finally to be buried by the ever blowing sands. Upon the
occasion of Tappan’s last escape from this desolate and for¬
bidding desert, he had promised Jenet never to undertake
it again. It seemed Tappan promised the faithful burro a
good many things. It had been a habit.
When Tappan had a particularly hard experience or
perilous adventure, he always took a dislike to the im¬
mediate country where it had befallen him. Jenet had
dragged him across Death Valley,through incredible heat and
the midnight furnace winds of that strange place; and he
had promised her he would never forget how she had saved
his life. Nor would he ever go back to Death Valley! He
[ 24 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
made his way over the Funeral Mountains, worked down
through Nevada, and crossed the Rio Colorado above
Needles, and entered Arizona. He traveled leisurely, but he
kept going, and headed southeast towards Globe. There
he cashed one of his six bags of gold, and indulged in the
luxury of a complete new outfit. Even Jenet appreciated
this fact, for the old outfit would scarcely hold together.
Tappan had the other five bags of gold in his pack; and
after hours of hesitation he decided he would not cash
them and entrust the money to a bank. He would take
care of them. For him the value of this gold amounted to
a small fortune. Many plans suggested themselves to Tap-
pan. But in the end he grew weary of them. What did he
want with a ranch, or cattle, or an outfitting store, or any
of the businesses he now had the means to buy? Towns
soon palled on Tappan. People did not long please him.
Selfish interest and greed seemed paramount everywhere.
Besides, if he acquired a place to take up his time, what
would become of Jenet? That question decided him. He
packed the burro and once more took to the trails.
A dim, lofty, purple range called alluringly to Tappan.
The Superstition Mountains! Somewhere in that purple
mass hid the famous treasure called the Lost Dutchman
gold mine. Tappan had heard the story often. A Dutch
prospector struck gold in the Superstitions. He kept the
[ 25 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
location secret. When he ran short of money, he would
disappear for a few weeks, and then return with bags of
gold. Wherever his strike, it assuredly was a rich one. No
one ever could trail him or get a word out of him. Time
passed. A few years made him old. During this time he
conceived a liking for a young man, and eventually con¬
fided to him that some day he would tell him the secret of
his gold mine. He had drawn a map of the landmarks ad¬
jacent to his mine. But he was careful not to put on paper
directions how to get there. It chanced that he suddenly
fell ill and saw his end was near. Then he summoned the
young man who had been so fortunate as to win his re¬
gard. Now this individual was a ne’er-do-well, and upon
this occasion he was half drunk. The dying Dutchman
produced his map, and gave it with verbal directions to
the young man. Then he died. When the recipient of this
fortune recovered from the effects of liquor, he could not
remember all the Dutchman had told him. He tortured
himself to remember names and places. But the mine was
up in the Superstition Mountains. He never remembered.
He never found the lost mine, though he spent his life and
died trying. Thus the story passed into the legend of the
Lost Dutchman.
Tappan now had his try at finding it. But for him the
shifting sands of the southern California desert or even the
[ 26 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
barren and desolate Death Valley were preferable to this
Superstition Range. It was a harder country than the
Pinacate of Sonora. Tappan hated cactus, and the Super¬
stitions were full of it. Everywhere stood up the huge
sahuaro, the giant cacti of the Arizona plateaus, tall like
branchless trees, fluted and columnar, beautiful and fasci¬
nating to gaze upon, but obnoxious to prospector and
burro.
One day from a north slope Tappan saw afar a wonder¬
ful country of black timber, above which zigzagged for
many miles a yellow, winding rampart of rock. This he
took to be the rim of the Mogollon Mesa, one of Arizona’s
freaks of nature. Something called Tappan. He was for¬
ever victim to yearnings for the unattainable. He was
tired of heat, glare, dust, bare rock, and thorny cactus.
The Lost Dutchman gold mine was a myth. Besides, he
did not need any more gold.
Next morning Tappan packed Jenet and worked down
off the north slopes of the Superstition Range. That night
about sunset he made camp on the bank of a clear brook,
with grass and wood in abundance—such a camp site as a
prospector dreamed of but seldom found.
Before dark Jenet’s long ears told of the advent of
strangers. A man and a woman rode down the trail into
Tappan’s camp. They had poor horses, and led a pack
[27 1
TAPPAN’S BURRO
animal that appeared too old and weak to bear up under
even the meager pack he carried.
“Howdy,” said the man.
Tappan rose from his task to his lofty height and re¬
turned the greeting. The man was middle-aged, swarthy,
and rugged, a mountaineer, with something about him that
Tappan instinctively distrusted. The woman was under
thirty, comely in a full-blown way, with rich brown skin
and glossy dark hair. She had wide-open black eyes that
bent a curious possession-taking gaze upon Tappan.
“Care if we camp with you?” she inquired, and she
smiled.
That smile changed Tappan’s habit and conviction of a
lifetime.
“No indeed. Reckon I’d like a little company,” he said.
Very probably Jenet did not understand Tappan’s words,
but she dropped one ear, and walked out of camp to the
green bank.
“Thanks, stranger,” replied the woman. “That grub
shore smells good.” She hesitated a moment, evidently
waiting to catch her companion’s eye, then she continued.
“My name’s Madge Beam. He’s my brother Jake. . . .
Who might you happen to be?”
“I’m Tappan, lone prospector, as you see,” replied
Tappan.
[* 8 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Tappan! What’s your front handle?” she queried,
curiously.
“Fact is, I don’t remember,” replied Tappan, as he
brushed a huge hand through his shaggy hair.
“Ahuh? Any name’s good enough.”
When she dismounted, Tappan saw that she had a tall,
lithe figure, garbed in rider’s overalls and boots. She un¬
saddled her horse with the dexterity of long practice. The
saddlebags she carried over to the spot the man Jake had
selected to throw the pack.
Tappan heard them talking in low tones. It struck him
as strange that he did not have his usual reaction to an in¬
vasion of his privacy and solitude. Tappan had thrilled
under those black eyes. And now a queer sensation of the
unusual rose in him. Bending over his camp-fire tasks he
pondered this and that, but mostly the sense of the near¬
ness of a woman. Like most desert men, Tappan knew
little of the other sex. A few that he might have been
drawn to went out of his wandering life as quickly as they
had entered it. This Madge Beam took possession of his
thoughts. An evidence of Tappan’s preoccupation was the
fact that he burned his first batch of biscuits. And Tap-
pan felt proud of his culinary ability. He was on his knees,
mixing more flour and water, when the woman spoke from
right behind him.
[ 29 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Tough luck you burned the first pan,” she said. “But
it’s a good turn for your burro. That shore is a burro.
Biggest I ever saw.”
She picked up the burned biscuits and tossed them over
to Jenet. Then she came back to Tappan’s side, rather
embarrassingly close.
“Tappan, I know how I’ll eat, so I ought to ask you
to let me help,” she said, with a laugh.
“No, I don’t need any,” replied Tappan. “You sit
down on my roll of beddin’ there. Must be tired, aren’t
you?”
“Not so very,” she returned. “That is, I’m not tired
of ridin’.” She spoke the second part of this reply in lower
tone.
Tappan looked up from his task. The woman had
washed her face, brushed her hair, and had put on a skirt
—a singularly attractive change. Tappan thought her
younger. She was the handsomest woman he had ever
seen. The look of her made him clumsy. What eyes she
had! They looked through him. Tappan returned to his
task, wondering if he was right in his surmise that she
wanted to be friendly.
“Jake an’ I drove a bunch of cattle to Maricopa,” she
volunteered. “We sold ’em, an’ Jake gambled away most
of the money. I couldn’t get what I wanted,”
[ 30 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Too bad! So you’re ranchers. Once thought I’d like
that. Fact is, down here at Globe a few weeks ago I came
near buy in’ some rancher out an’ try in’ the game.”
“You did?” Her query had a low, quick eagerness
that somehow thrilled Tappan. But he did not look up.
“I’m a wanderer. I’d never do on a ranch.”
“But if you had a woman?” Her laugh was subtle and
gay.
“A woman! For me? Oh, Lord, no!” ejaculated Tap-
pan, in confusion.
“Why not? Are you a woman hater?”
“I can’t say that,” replied Tappan, soberly. “It’s just
—I guess—no woman would have me.”
“Faint heart never won fair lady.”
Tappan had no reply for that. He surely was making a
mess of the second pan of biscuit dough. Manifestly the
woman saw this, for with a laugh she plumped down on her
knees in front of Tappan, and rolled her sleeves up over
shapely brown arms.
“Poor man! Shore you need a woman. Let me
show you,” she said, and put her hands right down up¬
on Tappan’s. The touch gave him a strange thrill. He
had to pull his hands away, and as he wiped them with
his scarf he looked at her. He seemed compelled to
look. She was close to him now, smiling in good nature,
[ 31 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
a little scornful of man’s encroachment upon the house¬
wifely duties of a woman. A subtle something emanated
from her—a more than kindness or gayety. Tappan grasped
that it was just the woman of her. And it was going to his
head.
“Very well, let’s see you show me,” he replied, as he
rose to his feet.
Just then the brother Jake strolled over, and he had a
rather amused and derisive eye for his sister.
“Wal, Tappan, she’s not overfond of work, but I reckon
she can cook,” he said.
Tappan felt greatly relieved at the approach of this
brother. And he fell into conversation with him, telling
something of his prospecting since leaving Globe, and lis¬
tening to the man’s cattle talk. By and by the woman
called, “Come an’ get it!” Then they sat down to eat,
and, as usual with hungry wayfarers, they did not talk
much until appetite was satisfied. Afterward, before the
camp fire, they began to talk again, Jake being the most
discursive. Tappan conceived the idea that the rancher
was rather curious about him, and perhaps wanted to sell
his ranch. The woman seemed more thoughtful, with her
wide black eyes on the fire.
“Tappan, what way you travelin’P” finally inquired
Beam.
[ 32 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“ Can’t say. I just worked down out of the Supersti¬
tions. Haven’t any place in mind. Where does this road
go?”
“To the Tonto Basin. Ever heard of it?”
“Yes, the name isn’t new. What’s in this Basin?”
The man grunted. “Tonto once was home for the
Apache. It’s now got a few sheep an’ cattlemen, lots of
rustlers. An’ say, if you like to hunt bear an’ deer, come
along with us.” '
“Thanks. I don’t know as I can,” returned Tappan,
irresolutely. He was not used to such possibilities as this
suggested.
Then the woman spoke up. “It’s a pretty country.
Wild an’ different. We live up under the rim rock. There’s
mineral in the canyons.”
Was it that about mineral which decided Tappan or the
look in her eyes?
Tappan’s world of thought and feeling underwent as
great a change as this Tonto Basin differed from the stark
desert so long his home. The trail to the log cabin of the
Beams climbed many a ridge and slope and foothill, all
covered with manzanita, mescal, cedar, and juniper, at last
to reach the canyons of the Rim, where lofty pines and
spruces lorded it over the under forest of maples and oaks.
[33 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Though the yellow Rim towered high over the site of the
cabin, the altitude was still great, close to seven thousand
feet above sea level.
Tappan had fallen in love with this wild wooded and
canyoned country. So had Jenet. It was rather funny the
way she hung around Tappan, mornings and evenings. She
ate luxuriant grass and oak leaves until her sides bulged.
There did not appear to be any flat places in this land¬
scape. Every bench was either up hill or down hill. The
Beams had no garden or farm or ranch that Tappan could
discover. They raised a few acres of sorghum and corn.
Their log cabin was of the most primitive kind, and out¬
fitted poorly. Madge Beam explained that this cabin was
their winter abode, and that up on the Rim they had a
good house and ranch. Tappan did not inquire closely into
anything. If he had interrogated himself, he would have
found out that the reason he did not inquire was because
he feared something might remove him from the vicinity
of Madge Beam. He had thought it strange the Beams
avoided wayfarers they had met on the trail, and had gone
round a little hamlet Tappan had espied from a hill. Madge
Beam, with woman’s intuition, had read his mind, and had
said: “ Jake doesn’t get along so well with some of the vil¬
lagers. An’ I’ve no hankerin’ for gun play.” That explana¬
tion was sufficient for Tappan. He had lived long enough
[ 34 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
in his wandering years to appreciate that people could have
reasons for being solitary.
This trip up into the Rim Rock country bade fair to be¬
come Tappan’s one and only adventure of the heart. It
was not alone the murmuring, clear brook of cold moun¬
tain water that enchanted him, nor the stately pines,' nor
the beautiful silver spruces, nor the wonder of the deep,
yellow-walled canyons, so choked with verdure, and haunted
by wild creatures. He dared not face his soul, and ask
why this dark-eyed woman sought him more and more.
Tappan lived in the moment.
He was aware that the few mountaineer neighbors who
rode that way rather avoided contact with him. Tappan
was not so dense that he did not perceive that the Beams
preferred to keep him from outsiders. This perhaps was
owing to their desire to sell Tappan the ranch and cattle.
Jake offered to let it go at what he called a low figure.
Tappan thought it just as well to go out into the forest
and hide his bags of gold. He did not trust Jake Beam,
and liked less the looks of the men who visited this wilder¬
ness ranch. Madge Beam might be related to a rustler,
and the associate of rustlers, but that did not necessarily
make her a bad woman. Tappan sensed that her attitude
was changing, and she seemed to require his respect. At
first, all she wanted was his admiration. Tappan’s long
[ 35 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
unused deference for women returned to him, and when he
saw that it was having some strange softening effect upon
Madge Beam, he redoubled his attentions. They rode and
climbed and hunted together. Tappan had pitched his
camp not far from the cabin, on a shaded bank of the sing¬
ing brook. Madge did not leave him much to himself. She
was always coming up to his camp, on one pretext or an¬
other. Often she would bring two horses, and make Tap-
pan ride with her. Some of these occasions, Tappan saw,
occurred while visitors came to the cabin. In three weeks
Madge Beam changed from the bold and careless woman
who had ridden down into his camp that sunset, to a seri¬
ous and appealing woman, growing more careful of her per¬
son and adornment, and manifestly bearing a burden on
her mind.
October came. In the morning white frost glistened on
the split-wood shingles of the cabin. The sun soon melted
it, and grew warm. The afternoons were still and smoky,
melancholy with the enchantment of Indian summer. Tap-
pan hunted wild turkey and deer with Madge, and revived
his boyish love of such pursuits. Madge appeared to be
a woman of the woods, and had no mean skill with the
rifle.
One day they were high on the Him, with the great
timbered basin at their feet. They had come up to hunt
[ 36 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
deer, but got no farther than the wonderful promontory
where before they had lingered.
“ Somethin’ will happen to me to-day,” Madge Beam
said, enigmatically.
Tappan never had been much of a talker. But he
could listen. The woman unburdened herself this day.
She wanted freedom, happiness, a home away from this
lonely country, and all the heritage of woman. She con¬
fessed it broodingly, passionately. And Tappan recognized
truth when he heard it. He was ready to do all in his
power for this woman and believed she knew it. But
words and acts of sentiment came hard to him.
“Are you goin’ to buy Jake’s ranch?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Is there any hurry?” returned Tappan.
“I reckon not. But I think I’ll settle that,” she said,
decisively.
“How so?”
“Well, Jake hasn’t got any ranch,” she answered. And
added hastily, “No clear title, I mean. He’s only home¬
steaded one hundred an’ sixty acres, an’ hasn’t proved up
on it yet. But don’t you say I told you.”
“Was Jake aimin’ to be crooked?”
“I reckon. . . . An’ I was willin’ at first. But not now.”
Tappan did not speak at once. He saw the woman was
in one of her brooding moods. Besides, he wanted to weigh
[ 37 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
her words. How significant they were! To-day more than
ever she had let down. Humility and simplicity seemed to
abide with her. And her brooding boded a storm. Tap-
pan’s heart swelled in his broad breast. Was life going to
dawn rosy and bright for the lonely prospector? He had
money to make a home for this woman. What lay in the
balance of the hour? Tappan waited, slowly realizing the
charged atmosphere.
Madge’s somber eyes gazed out over the great void.
But, full of thought and passion as they were, they did not
see the beauty of that scene. But Tappan saw it. And in
some strange sense the color and wildness and sublimity
seemed the expression of a new state of his heart. Under
him sheered down the ragged and cracked cliffs of the Rim,
yellow and gold and gray, full of caves and crevices, ledges
for eagles and niches for lions, a thousand feet down to the
upward edge of the long green slopes and canyons, and so
on down and down into the abyss of forested ravine and
ridge, rolling league on league away to the encompassing
barrier of purple mountain ranges.
The thickets in the canyons called Tappan’s eye back
to linger there. How different from the scenes that
used to be perpetually in his sight! What riot of color!
The tips of the green pines, the crests of the silver spruces,
waved about masses of vivid gold of aspen trees, and won-
[ 38 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
derful cerise and flaming red of maples, and crags of yellow
rock, covered with the bronze of frostbitten sumach. Here
was autumn and with it the colors of Tappan’s favorite
season. From below breathed up the low roar of plunging
brook; an eagle screeched his wild call; an elk bugled his
piercing blast. From the Rim wisps of pine needles blew
away on the breeze and fell into the void. A wild country,
colorful, beautiful, bountiful. Tappan imagined he could
quell his wandering spirit here, with this dark-eyed woman
by his side. Never before had Nature so called him. Here
was not the cruelty or flinty hardness of the desert. The
air was keen and sweet, cold in the shade, warm in the sun.
A fragrance of balsam and spruce, spiced with pine, made
his breathing a thing of difficulty and delight. How for so
many years had he endured vast open spaces without such
eye-soothing trees as these? Tappan’s back rested against
a huge pine that tipped the Rim, and had stood there,
stronger than the storms, for many a hundred years. The
rock of the promontory was covered with soft brown mats
of pine needles. A juniper tree, with its bright green foli¬
age and lilac-colored berries, grew near the pine, and helped
to form a secluded little nook, fragrant and somehow haunt¬
ing. The woman’s dark head was close to Tappan, as she
sat with her elbows on her knees, gazing down into the
basin. Tappan saw the strained tensity of her posture, the
[ 39 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
heaving of her full bosom. He wondered, while his own
emotions, so long darkened, roused to the suspense of that
hour.
Suddenly she flung herself into Tappan’s arms. The
act amazed him. It seemed to have both the passion of a
woman and the shame of a girl. Before she hid her face on
Tappan’s breast he saw how the rich brown had paled, and
then flamed.
“Tappan! . . . Take me away. . . . Take me away from
here—from that life down there,” she cried, in smothered
voice.
“Madge, you mean take you away—and marry you?”
he replied.
“Oh, yes—yes—marry me, if you love me. ... I don’t
see how you can—but you do, don’t you?— Say you do.”
“I reckon that’s what ails me, Madge,” he replied,
simply.
“Say so, then,” she burst out.
“All right, I do,” said Tappan, with heavy breath.
“Madge, words don’t come easy for me. . . . But I think
you’re wonderful, an’ I want you. I haven’t dared hope
for that, till now. I’m only a wanderer. But it’d be
heaven to have you—my wife—an’ make a home for you.”
“Oh—Oh!” she returned, wildly, and lifted herself to
cling round his neck, and to kiss him. “You give me
[ 40 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
joy. . . . Oh, Tappan, I love you. I never loved any man
before. I know now. . . . An’ I’m not wonderful—or good.
But I love you.”
The fire of her lips and the clasp of her arms worked
havoc in Tappan. No woman had ever loved him, let
alone embraced him. To awake suddenly to such rapture
as this made him strong and rough in his response. Then
all at once she seemed to collapse in his arms and to begin
to weep. He feared he had offended or hurt her, and was
clumsy in his contrition. Presently she replied:
“Pretty soon—I’ll make you—beat me. It’s your love
—your honesty—that’s shamed me. . . . Tappan, I was
party to a trick to—sell you a worthless ranch. ... I
agreed to—try to make you love me—to fool you—cheat
you. . . . But I’ve fallen in love with you.— An’ my God,
I care more for your love—your respect—than for my life.
I can’t go on with it. I’ve double-crossed Jake, an’ all of
them. . . . Now, am I worth lovin’? Am I worth havin’?”
“More than ever, dear,” he said.
“You will take me away?”
“Anywhere—any time, the sooner the better.”
She kissed him passionately, and then, disengaging her¬
self from his arms, she knelt and gazed earnestly at him.
“I’ve not told all. I will some day. But I swear now on
my soul—I’ll be what you think me.”
[ 41 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“ Madge, you needn’t say all that. If you love me—it’s
enough. More than I ever dreamed of.”
“You’re a man. Oh, why didn’t I meet you when I
was eighteen instead of now—twenty-eight, an’ all that be¬
tween. . . . But enough. A new life begins here for me.
We must plan.”
“You make the plans an’ I’ll act on them.”
For a moment she was tense and silent, head bowed,
hands shut tight. Then she spoke:
“To-night we’ll slip away. You make a light pack,
that’ll go on your saddle. I’ll do the same. We’ll hide the
horses out near where the trail crosses the brook. An’
we’ll run off—ride out of the country.”
Tappan in turn tried to think, but the whirl of his mind
made any reason difficult. This dark-eyed, full-bosomed
woman loved him, had surrendered herself, asked only his
protection. The thing seemed marvelous. Yet she knelt
there, those dark eyes on him, infinitely more appealing
than ever, haunting with some mystery of sadness and fear
he could not divine.
Suddenly Tappan remembered Jenet.
“I must take Jenet,” he said.
That startled her. “Jenet— Who’s she?”
“My burro.”
“Your burro. You can’t travel fast with that pack
[ 42 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
beast. We’ll be trailed, an’ we’ll have to go fast. . . . You
can’t take the burro.”
Then Tappan was startled. “What! Can’t take
Jenet?— Why, I—I couldn’t get along without her.”
“Nonsense. What’s a burro? We must ride fast—do
you hear?”
“Madge, I’m afraid I—I must take Jenet with me,” he
said, soberly.
“It’s impossible. I can’t go if you take her. I tell you
I’ve got to get away. If you want me you’ll have to leave
your precious Jenet behind.”
Tappan bowed his head to the inevitable. After all,
Jenet was only a beast of burden. She would run wild on
the ridges and soon forget him and have no need of him.
Something strained in Tappan’s breast. He did not see
clearly here. This woman was worth more than all else to
him.
“I’m stupid, dear,” he said. “You see I never before
ran off with a beautiful woman. ... Of course my burro
must be left behind.”
Elopement, if such it could be called, was easy for
them. Tappan did not understand why Madge wanted to
be so secret about it. Was she not free? But then, he
reflected, he did not know the circumstances she feared.
[ 43 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Besides, he did not care. Possession of the woman was
enough.
Tappan made his small pack, the weight of which was
considerable owing to his bags of gold. This he tied on his
saddle. It bothered him to leave most of his new outfit
scattered around his camp. What would Jenet think of
that? He looked for her, but for once she did not come in
at meal time. Tappan thought this was singular. He could
not remember when Jenet had been far from his camp at
sunset. Somehow Tappan was glad.
After he had his supper, he left his utensils and supplies
as they happened to be, and strode away under the trees to
the try sting-place where he was to meet Madge. To his
surprise she came before dark, and, unused as he was to
the complexity and emotional nature of a woman, he saw
that she was strangely agitated. Her face was pale. Al¬
most a fury burned in her black eyes. When she came up
to Tappan, and embraced him, almost fiercely, he felt that
he was about to learn more of the nature of womankind.
She thrilled him to his depths.
“Lead out the horses an’ don’t make any noise,” she
whispered.
Tappan complied, and soon he was mounted, riding be¬
hind her on the trail. It surprised him that she headed
down country, and traveled fast. Moreover, she kept to a
[ 44 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
trail that continually grew rougher. They came to a road,
which she crossed, and kept on through darkness and brush
so thick that Tappan could not see the least sign of a trail.
And at length anyone could have seen that Madge had lost
her bearings. She appeared to know the direction she
wanted, but traveling upon it was impossible, owing to the
increasingly cut-up and brushy ground. They had to turn
back, and seemed to be hours finding the road. Once Tap-
pan fancied he heard the thud of hoofs other than those
made by their own horses. Here Madge acted strangely,
and where she had been obsessed by desire to hurry she
now seemed to have grown weary. She turned her horse
south on the road. Tappan was thus enabled to ride beside
her. But they talked very little. He was satisfied with
the fact of being with her on the way out of the country.
Some time in the night they reached an old log shack by
the roadside. Here Tappan suggested they halt, and get
some sleep before dawn. The morrow would mean a long
hard day.
“Yes, to-morrow will be hard,” replied Madge, as she
faced Tappan in the gloom. He could see her big dark eyes
on him. Her tone was not one of a hopeful woman. Tap-
pan pondered over this. But he could not understand, be¬
cause he had no idea how a woman ought to act under such
circumstances. Madge Beam was a creature of moods.
[ 45 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Only the day before, on the ride down from the Rim, she
had told him with a laugh that she was likely to love him
madly one moment and scratch his eyes out the next.
How could he know what to make of her? Still, an uneasy
feeling began to stir in Tappan.
They dismounted, and unsaddled the horses. Tappan
took his pack and put it aside. Something frightened the
horses. They bolted down the road.
“Head them off,” cried the woman, hoarsely.
Even on the instant her voice sounded strained to Tap-
pan, as if she were choked. But, realizing the absolute
necessity of catching the horses, he set off down the road
on a run. And he soon succeeded in heading off the animal
he had ridden. The other one, however, was contrary and
cunning. When Tappan would endeavor to get ahead, it
would trot briskly on. Yet it did not go so fast but what
Tappan felt sure he would soon catch it. Thus walking
and running, he put some distance between him and the
cabin before he realized that he could not head off the
wary beast. Much perturbed in mind, Tappan hurried
back.
Upon reaching the cabin Tappan called to Madge. No
answer! He could not see her in the gloom nor the horse
he had driven back. Only silence brooded there. Tappan
called again. Still no answer! Perhaps Madge had sue-
[ 46 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Climbed to weariness and was asleep. A search of the
cabin and vicinity failed to yield any sign of her. But it
disclosed the fact that Tappan’s pack was gone.
Suddenly he sat down, quite overcome. He had been
duped. What a fierce pang tore his heart! But it was for
loss of the woman—not the gold. He was stunned, and
then sick with bitter misery. Only then did Tappan realize
the meaning of love and what it had done to him. The
night wore on, and he sat there in the dark and cold and
stillness until the gray dawn told him of the coming of
day.
The light showed his saddle where he had left it. Near
by lay one of Madge’s gloves. Tappan’s keen eye sighted
a bit of paper sticking out of the glove. He picked it up.
It was a leaf out of a little book he had seen her carry, and
upon it was written in lead pencil:
“I am Jake’s wife, not his sister. I double-crossed him an’
ran off with you an’ would have gone to hell for you. But Jake
an’ his gang suspected me. They were close on our trail. I
couldn’t shake them. So here I chased off the horses an’ sent
you after them. It was the only way I could save your life.”
Tappan tracked the thieves to Globe. There he learned
they had gone to Phoenix—three men and one woman.
[ 47 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Tappan had money on his person. He bought horse and
saddle, and, setting out for Phoenix, he let his passion to
kill grow with the miles and hours. At Phoenix he learned
Beam had cashed the gold—twelve thousand dollars. So
much of a fortune! Tappan’s fury grew. The gang sepa¬
rated here. Beam and his wife took stage for Tucson. Tap-
pan had no trouble in trailing their movements.
Gambling dives and inns and freighting posts and stage
drivers told the story of the Beams and their ill-gotten gold.
They went on to California, down into Tappan’s country,
to Yuma, and El Cajon, and San Diego. Here Tappan lost
track of the woman. He could not find that she had left
San Diego, nor any trace of her there. But Jake Beam had
killed a Mexican in a brawl and had fled across the line.
Tappan gave up for the time being the chase of Beam, and
bent his efforts to find the woman. He had no resentment
toward Madge. He only loved her. All that winter he
searched San Diego. He made of himself a peddler as a
ruse to visit houses. But he never found a trace of her.
In the spring he wandered back to Yuma, raking over the
old clues, and so on back to Tucson and Phoenix.
This year of dream and love and passion and despair
and hate made Tappan old. His great strength and endur¬
ance were not yet impaired, but something of his spirit had
died out of him.
[ 48 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
One day he remembered Jenet. “My burro!” he solilo¬
quized. “I had forgotten her. . . . Jenet!”
Then it seemed a thousand impulses merged in one
drove him to face the long road toward the Rim Rock coun¬
try. To remember Jenet was to grow doubtful. Of course
she would be gone. Stolen or dead or wandered off! But
then who could tell what Jenet might do? Tappan was
both called and driven. He was a poor wanderer again.
His outfit was a pack he carried on his shoulder. But
while he could walk he would keep on until he found that
last camp where he had deserted Jenet.
October was coloring the canyon slopes when he reached
the shadow of the great wall of yellow rock. The cabin
where the Beams had lived—or had claimed they lived—
was a fallen ruin, crushed by snow. Tappan saw other
signs of a severe winter and heavy snowfall. No horse or
cattle tracks showed in the trails.
To his amaze his camp was much as he had left it.
The stone fireplace, the iron pots, appeared to be in the
same places. The boxes that had held his supplies were
lying here and there. And his canvas tarpaulin, little the
worse for wear of the elements, lay on the ground under
the pine where he had slept. If any man had visited this
camp in a year he had left no sign of it.
Suddenly Tappan espied a hoof track in the dust. A
[ 49 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
small track—almost oval in shape—fresh! Tappan thrilled
through all his being.
“Jenet’s track, so help me God!” he murmured.
He found more of them, made that morning. And,
keen now as never before on her trail, he set out to find
her. The tracks led up the canyon. Tappan came out
into a little grassy clearing, and there stood Jenet, as he
had seen her thousands of times. She had both long ears
up high. She seemed to stare out of that meek, gray face.
And then one of the long ears flopped over and drooped.
Such perhaps was the expression of her recognition.
Tappan strode up to her.
“ Jenet—old girl—you hung round camp—waitin’ for
me, didn’t you?” he said, huskily, and his big hands fon¬
dled her long ears.
Yes, she had waited. She, too, had grown old. She
was gray. The winter of that year had been hard. What
had she lived on when the snow lay so deep? There were
lion scratches on her back, and scars on her legs. She had
fought for her life.
“Jenet, a man can never always tell about a burro,”
said Tappan. “I trained you to hang round camp an’ wait
till I came back. . . . ‘Tappan’s burro,’ the desert rats
used to say! An’ they’d laugh when I bragged how you’d
stick to me where most men would quit. But brag as I
[ 50 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
did, I never knew you, Jenet. An’ I left you—an’ forgot.
Jenet, it takes a human bein’—a man—a woman—to be
faithless. An’ it takes a dog or a horse or a burro to be
great. . . . Beasts? I wonder now. . . . Well, old pard,
we’re goin’ down the trail together, an’ from this day on
Tappan begins to pay his debt.”
[ 51 ]
i
III
T APPAN never again had the old wanderlust for the
stark and naked desert. Something had transformed
him. The green and fragrant forests, and brown-aisled,
pine-matted woodlands, the craggy promontories and the
great colored canyons, the cold granite water springs of
the Tonto seemed vastly preferable to the heat and dust
and glare and the emptiness of the waste lands. But there
was more. The ghost of his strange and only love kept
pace with his wandering steps, a spirit that hovered with
him as his shadow. Madge Beam, whatever she had been,
had showed to him the power of love to refine and ennoble.
Somehow he felt closer to her here in the cliff country
where his passion had been born. Somehow she seemed
nearer to him here than in all those places he had tracked her.
So from a prospector searching for gold Tappan became
a hunter, seeking only the means to keep soul and body
together. And all he cared for was his faithful burro Jenet,
and the loneliness and silence of the forest land.
He was to learn that the Tonto was a hard country in
many ways, and bitterly so in winter. Down in the brakes
[ 52 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
of the basin it was mild in winter, the snow did not lie long,
and ice seldom formed. But up on the Rim, where Tappan
always lingered as long as possible, the storm king of the
north held full sway. Fifteen feet of snow and zero weather
were the rule in dead of winter.
An old native once warned Tappan: “See hyar, friend,
I reckon you’d better not get caught up in the Rim Rock
country in one of our big storms. Fer if you do you’ll
never get out.”
It was a way of Tappan’s to follow his inclinations, re¬
gardless of advice. He had weathered the terrible midnight
storm of hot wind in Death Valley. What were snow and
cold to him? Late autumn on the Rim was the most per¬
fect and beautiful of seasons. He had seen the forest land
brown and darkly green one day, and the next burdened
with white snow. What a transfiguration! Then when the
sun loosened the white mantling on the pines, and they had
shed their burdens in drifting dust of white, and rainbowed
mists of melting snow, and avalanches sliding off the
branches, there would be left only the wonderful white
floor of the woodland. The great rugged brown tree trunks
appeared mightier and statelier in the contrast; and the
green of foliage, the russet of oak leaves, the gold of the
aspens, turned the forest into a world enchanting to the
desert-seared eyes of this wanderer.
[ 53 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
With Tappan the years sped by. His mind grew old
faster than his body. Every season saw him lonelier. He
had a feeling, a vague illusive foreshadowing that his bones,
instead of bleaching on the desert sands, would mingle with
the pine mats and the soft fragrant moss of the forest. The
idea was pleasant to Tappan.
One afternoon he was camped in Pine Canyon, a tim¬
ber-sloped gorge far back from the Rim. November was
well on. The fall had been singularly open and fair, with
not a single storm. A few natives happening across Tap-
pan had remarked casually that such autumns sometimes
were not to be trusted.
This late afternoon was one of Indian summer beauty
and warmth. The blue haze in the canyon was not all the
blue smoke from Tappan’s campfire. In a narrow park of
grass not far from camp Jenet grazed peacefully with
elk and deer. Wild turkeys lingered there, loth to seek
their winter quarters down in the basin. Gray squirrels
and red squirrels barked and frisked, and dropped the
pine and spruce cones, with thud and thump, on all the
slopes.
Before dark a stranger strode into Tappan’s camp, a
big man of middle age, whose magnificent physique im¬
pressed even Tappan. He was a rugged, bearded giant,
[ 54 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
wide-eyed and of pleasant face. He had no outfit, no horse,
not even a gun.
“Lucky for me I smelled your smoke,” he said. “Two
days for me without grub.”
“Howdy, stranger,” was Tappan’s greeting. “Are you
lost?”
“Yes an’ no. I could find my way out down over the
Rim, but it’s not healthy down there for me. So I’m hit-
tin’ north.”
“Where’s your horse an’ pack?”
“I reckon they’re with the gang thet took more of a
fancy to them than me.”
“Ahuh! You’re welcome here, stranger,” replied Tap-
pan. “I’m Tappan.”
“Ha! Heard of you. I’m Jess Blade, of anywhere.
An’ I’ll say, Tappan, I was an honest man till I hit the
Tonto.”
His laugh was frank, for all its note of grimness. Tap-
pan liked the man, and sensed one who would be a good
friend and bad foe.
“ Come an’ eat. My supplies are peterin’ out, but there’s
plenty of meat.”
Blade ate, indeed, as a man starved, and did not seem
to care if Tappan’s supplies were low. He did not talk.
After the meal he craved a pipe and tobacco. Then he
[ 55 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
smoked in silence, in a slow realizing content. The morrow
had no fears for him. The flickering ruddy light from the
camp fire shone on his strong face. Tappan saw in him the
drifter, the drinker, the brawler, a man with good in him,
but over whom evil passion or temper dominated. Pres¬
ently he smoked the pipe out, and with reluctant hand
knocked out the ashes and returned it to Tappan.
“I reckon I’ve some news thet’d interest you,” he said.
“You have?” queried Tappan.
“Yes, if you’re the Tappan who tried to run off with
Jake Beam’s wife.”
“Well, I’m that Tappan. But I’d like to say I didn’t
know she was married.”
“Shore, I know thet. So does everybody in the Tonto.
You were just meat for thet Beam gang. They had played
the trick before. But accordin’ to what I hear thet trick
was the last fer Madge Beam. She never came back to
this country. An’ Jake Beam, when he was drunk, owned
up thet she’d left him in California. Some hint at worse.
Fer Jake Beam came back a harder man. Even his gang
said thet.”
“Is he in the Tonto now?” queried Tappan, with a
thrill of fire along his veins.
“Yep, thar fer keeps,” replied Blade, grimly. “Some¬
body shot him.”
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Ahull!” exclaimed Tappan with a deep breath of re¬
lief. There came a sudden cooling of the heat of his blood.
After that there was a long silence. Tappan dreamed of
the woman who had loved him. Blade brooded over the
camp fire. The wind moaned fitfully in the lofty pines on
the slope. A wolf mourned as if in hunger. The stars ap¬
peared to obscure their radiance in haze.
“Reckon thet wind sounds like storm,” observed Blade,
presently.
“I’ve heard it for weeks now,” replied Tappan.
“Are you a woodsman?”
“No, I’m a desert man.”
“Wal, you take my hunch an’ hit the trail fer low
country.”
This was well meant, and probably sound advice, but it
alienated Tappan. He had really liked this hearty-voiced
stranger. Tappan thought moodily of his slowly ingrowing
mind, of the narrowness of his soul. He was past interest
in his fellow men. He lived with a dream. The only living
creature he loved was a lop-eared, lazy burro, growing old
in contentment. Nevertheless that night Tappan shared
one of his two blankets.
In the morning the gray dawn broke, and the sun rose
without its brightness of gold. There was a haze over the
blue sky. Thin, swift-moving clouds scudded up out of
[ 57 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
the southwest. The wind was chill, the forest shaggy and
dark, the birds and squirrels were silent.
“Wal, you’ll break camp to-day,” asserted Blade.
“Nope. I’ll stick it out yet a while,” returned Tappan.
“But, man, you might get snowed in, an’ up hyar thet’s
serious.”
“Ahuh! Well, it won’t bother me. An’ there’s nothin’
holdin’ you.”
“Tappan, it’s four days’ walk down out of this woods.
If a big snow set in, how’d I make it?”
“Then you’d better go out over the Rim,” suggested
Tappan.
“No. I’ll take my chance the other way. But are you
meanin’ you’d rather not have me with you? Fer you
can’t stay hyar.”
Tappan was in a quandary.
Some instinct bade him tell the man to go. Not empty-
handed, but to go. But this was selfish, and entirely un¬
like Tappan as he remembered himself of old. Finally he
spoke:
“You’re welcome to half my outfit—go or stay.”
“Thet’s mighty square of you, Tappan,” responded the
other, feelingly. “Have you a burro you’ll give me?”
“No, I’ve only one.”
“Ha! Then I’ll have to stick with you till you leave.”
[ 58 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
No more was said. They had breakfast in a strange
silence. The wind brooded its secret in the tree tops.
Tappan’s burro strolled into camp, and caught the stran¬
ger’s eye.
“Wal, thet’s shore a fine burro,” he observed. “Never
saw the like.”
Tappan performed his camp tasks. And then there was
nothing to do but sit around the fire. Blade evidently
waited for the increasing menace of storm to rouse Tappan
to decision. But the graying over of sky and the increase
of wind did not affect Tappan. What did he wait for?
The truth of his thoughts was that he did not like the way
Jenet remained in camp. She was waiting to be packed.
She knew they ought to go. Tappan yielded to a perverse
devil of stubbornness. The wind brought a cold mist,
then a flurry of wet snow. Tappan gathered firewood, a
large quantity. Blade saw this and gave voice to earnest
fears. But Tappan paid no heed. By nightfall sleet
and snow began to fall steadily. The men fashioned a rude
shack of spruce boughs, ate their supper, and went to bed
early.
It worried Tappan that Jenet stayed right in camp.
He lay awake a long time. The wind rose, and moaned
through the forest. The sleet failed, and a soft, steady
downfall of snow gradually set in. Tappan fell asleep.
[ 59 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
When he awoke it was to see a forest of white. The trees
were mantled with blankets of wet snow, the ground cov¬
ered two feet on a level. But the clouds appeared to be
gone, the sky was blue, the storm over. The sun came up
warm and bright.
“It’ll all go in a day,” said Tappan.
“If this was early October I’d agree with you,” replied
Blade. “But it’s only makin’ fer another storm. Can’t
you hear thet wind?”
Tappan only heard the whispers of his dreams. By now
the snow was melting off the pines, and rainbows shone
everywhere. Little patches of snow began to drop off the
south branches of the pines and spruces, and then larger
patches, until by mid-afternoon white streams and ava¬
lanches were falling everywhere. All of the snow, except
in shaded places on the north sides of trees, went that day,
and half of that on the ground. Next day it thinned out
more, until Jenet was finding the grass and moss again.
That afternoon the telltale thin clouds raced up out of the
southwest and the wind moaned its menace.
“Tappan, let’s pack an’ hit it out of hyar,” appealed
Blade, anxiously. “I know this country. Mebbe I’m
wrong, of course, but it feels like storm. Winter’s cornin’
shore.”
“Let her come,” replied Tappan, imperturbably.
[ 60 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Say, do you want to get snowed in?” demanded Blade,
out of patience.
“I might like a little spell of it, seein’ it’d be new to
me,” replied Tappan.
“But man, if you ever get snowed in hyar you can’t get
out.”
“That burro of mine could get me out.”
“You’re crazy. Thet burro couldn’t go a hundred feet.
What’s more, you’d have to kill her an’ eat her.”
Tappan bent a strange gaze upon his companion, but
made no reply. Blade began to pace up and down the
small bare patch of ground before the camp fire. Mani¬
festly, he was in a serious predicament. That day he
seemed subtly to change, as did Tappan. Both answered
to their peculiar instincts. Blade to that of self-preserva¬
tion, and Tappan, to something like indifference. Tappan
held fate in defiance. What more could happen to him?
Blade broke out again, in eloquent persuasion, giving
proof of their peril, and from that he passed to amaze and
then to strident anger. He cursed Tappan for a nature-
loving idiot.
“An’ I’ll tell you what,” he ended. “When mornin’
comes I’ll take some of your grub an’ hit it out of hyar,
storm or no storm.”
But long before dawn broke that resolution of Blade’s
[ 61 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
had become impracticable. Both men were awakened by a
roar of storm through the forest, no longer a moan, but a
marching roar, with now a crash and then a shriek of gale!
By the light of the smouldering camp fire Tappan saw a
whirling pall of snow, great flakes as large as feathers.
Morning disclosed the setting in of a fierce mountain storm,
with two feet of snow already on the ground, and the forest
lost in a blur of white.
“I was wrong,” called Tappan to his companion.
“What’s best to do now?”
“You damned fool!” yelled Blade. “We’ve got to keep
from freezin’ an’ starvin’ till the storm ends an’ a crust
comes on the snow.”
For three days and three nights the blizzard continued,
unabated in its fury. It took the men hours to keep a
space cleared for their camp site, which Jenet shared with
them. On the fourth day the storm ceased, the clouds
broke away, the sun came out. And the temperature
dropped to zero. Snow on the level just topped Tappan’s
lofty stature, and in drifts it was ten and fifteen feet deep.
Winter had set in without compromise. The forest became a
solemn, still, white world. But now Tappan had no time
to dream. Dry firewood was hard to find under the snow.
It was possible to cut down one of the dead trees on the
slope, but impossible to pack sufficient wood to the camp.
' [62]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
They had to burn green wood. Then the fashioning of
snowshoes took much time. Tappan had no knowledge of
such footgear. He could only help Blade. The men were
encouraged by the piercing cold forming a crust on the
snow. But just as they were about to pack and venture
forth, the weather moderated, the crust refused to hold
their weight, and another foot of snow fell.
“Why in hell didn’t you kill an elk?” demanded Blade,
sullenly. He had become darkly sinister. He knew the
peril and he loved life. “Now we’ll have to kill an’ eat
your precious Jenet. An’ mebbe she won’t furnish meat
enough to last till this snow weather stops an’ a good
freeze’ll make travelin’ possible.”
“Blade, you shut up about killin’ an’ eatin’ my burro
Jenet,” returned Tappan, in a voice that silenced the other.
Thus instinctively these men became enemies. Blade
thought only of himself. Tappan had forced upon him a
menace to the life of his burro. For himself Tappan had
not one thought.
Tappan’s supplies ran low. All the bacon and coffee were
gone. There was only a small haunch of venison, a bag
of beans, a sack of flour, and a small quantity of salt left.
“If a crust freezes on the snow an’ we can pack that
flour, we’ll get out alive,” said Blade. “But we can’t take
the burro.”
[ 63 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Another day of bright sunshine softened the snow on
the southern exposures, and a night of piercing cold froze a
crust that would bear a quick step of man.
“It’s our only chance—an’ damn slim at thet,” declared
Blade.
Tappan allowed Blade to choose the time and method,
and supplies for the start to get out of the forest. They
cooked all the beans and divided them in two sacks. Then
they baked about five pounds of biscuits for each of them.
Blade showed his cunning when he chose the small bag of
salt for himself and let Tappan take the tobacco. This
quantity of food and a blanket for each Blade declared to
be all they could pack. They argued over the guns, and in
the end Blade compromised on the rifle, agreeing to let
Tappan carry that on a possible chance of killing a deer or
elk. When this matter had been decided, Blade signifi¬
cantly began putting on his rude snowshoes, that had been
constructed from pieces of Tappan’s boxes and straps and
burlap sacks.
“ Reckon they won’t last long,” muttered Blade.
Meanwhile Tappan fed Jenet some biscuits and then
began to strap a tarpaulin on her back.
“What you doin’?” queried Blade, suddenly.
“Gettin’ Jenet ready,” replied Tappan.
“ Ready! For what ? ”
[ 64 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
/
“Why, to go with us.”
“Hell!” shouted Blade, and he threw up his hands in
helpless rage.
Tappan felt a depth stirred within him. He lost his late
taciturnity and silent aloofness fell away from him. Blade
seemed on the moment no longer an enemy. He loomed as
an aid to the saving of Jenet. Tappan burst into speech.
“I can’t go without her. It’d never enter my head.
Jenet’s mother was a good faithful burro. I saw Jenet
born way down there on the Rio Colorado. She wasn’t
strong. An’ I had to wait for her to be able to walk. An’
she grew up. Her mother died, an’ Jenet an’ me packed it
alone. She wasn’t no ordinary burro. She learned all I
taught her. She was different. But I treated her same as
any burro. An’ she grew with the years. Desert men said
there never was such a burro as Jenet. Called her Tap-
pan’s burro, an’ tried to borrow an’ buy an’ steal her. . . .
How many times in ten years Jenet has done me a good
turn I can’t remember. But she saved my life. She
dragged me out of Death Valley. . . . An’ then I forgot my
debt. I ran off with a woman an’ left Jenet to wait as she
had been trained to wait. . . . Well, I got back in time. . . .
An’ now I’ll not leave her here. It may be strange to you,
Blade, me carin’ this way. Jenet’s only a burro. But I
won’t leave her.”
[ 65 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Man, you talk like thet lazy lop-eared burro was a
woman,” declared Blade, in disgusted astonishment.
“I don’t know women, but I reckon Jenet’s more faith¬
ful than most of them.”
“Wal, of all the stark, starin’ fools I ever run into
you’re the worst.”
“Fool or not, I know what I’ll do,” retorted Tappan.
The softer mood left him swiftly.
“Haven’t you sense enough to see thet we can’t travel
with your burro?” queried Blade, patiently controlling his
temper. “She has little hoofs, sharp as knives. She’ll cut
through the crust. She’ll break through in places. An’
we’ll have to stop to haul her out—mebbe break through
ourselves. Thet would make us longer gettin’ out.”
“Long or short we’ll take her.”
Then Blade confronted Tappan as if suddenly unmask¬
ing his true meaning. His patient explanation meant noth¬
ing. Under no circumstances would he ever have consented
to an attempt to take Jenet out of that snow-bound wilder¬
ness. His eyes gleamed.
“We’ve a hard pull to get out alive. An’ hard-workin’
men in winter must have meat to eat.”
Tappan slowly straightened up to look at the speaker.
“What do you mean?”
For answer Blade jerked his hand backward and down-
[ 66 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
ward, and when it swung into sight again it held Tappan’s
worn and shining rifle. Then Blade, with deliberate force,
that showed the nature of the man, worked the lever and
threw a shell into the magazine. All the while his eyes
were fastened on Tappan. His face seemed that of another
man, evil, relentless, inevitable in his spirit to preserve his
own life at any cost.
“I mean to kill your burro,” he said, in voice that
suited his look and manner.
“No!” cried Tappan, shocked into an instant of appeal.
“Yes, I am, an’ I’ll bet, by God, before we get out of
hyar you’ll be glad to eat some of her meat!”
That roused the slow-gathering might of Tappan’s wrath.
“I’d starve to death before I’d—I’d kill that burro, let
alone eat her.”
“Starve an’ be damned!” shouted Blade, yielding to rage.
Jenet stood right behind Tappan, in her posture of con¬
tented repose, with one long ear hanging down over her
gray meek face.
“You’ll have to kill me first,” answered Tappan, sharply.
“I’m good fer anythin’—if you push me,” returned
Blade, stridently.
As he stepped aside, evidently so he could have unob¬
structed aim at Jenet, Tappan leaped forward and knocked
up the rifle as it was discharged. The bullet sped harm-
[ 67 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
lessly over Jenet. Tappan heard it thud into a tree. Blade
uttered a curse. And as he lowered the rifle in sudden
deadly intent, Tappan grasped the barrel with his left hand.
Then, clenching his right, he struck Blade a sodden blow in
the face. Only Blade’s hold on the rifle prevented him
from falling. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth.
He bellowed in hoarse fury,
‘Til kill you—fer thet!”
Tappan opened his clenched teeth: “No, Blade—you’re
not man enough.”
Then began a terrific struggle for possession of the rifle.
Tappan beat at Blade’s face with his sledge-hammer fist.
But the strength of the other made it imperative that he
use both hands to keep his hold on the rifle. Wrestling
and pulling and jerking, the men tore round the snowy
camp, scattering the camp fire, knocking down the brush
shelter. Blade had surrendered to a wild frenzy. He hissed
his maledictions. His was the brute lust to kill an enemy
that thwarted him. But Tappan was grim and terrible in
his restraint. His battle was to save Jenet. Nevertheless,
there mounted in him the hot physical sensations of the
savage. The contact of flesh, the smell and sight of Blade’s
blood, the violent action, the beastly mien of his foe ?
changed the fight to one for its own sake. To conquer this
foe, to rend him and beat him down, blow on blow!
[ 68 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Tappan felt instinctively that he was the stronger.
Suddenly he exerted all his muscular force into one tre¬
mendous wrench. The rifle broke, leaving the steel barrel
in his hands, the wooden stock in Blade’s. And it was the
quicker-witted Blade who used his weapon first to advan¬
tage. One swift blow knocked Tappan down. As he was
about to follow it up with another, Tappan kicked his op¬
ponent’s feet from under him. Blade sprawled in the snow,
but was up again as quickly as Tappan. They made at
each other, Tappan waiting to strike, and Blade raining
blows on Tappan. These were heavy blows aimed at his
head, but which he contrived to receive on his arms and
the rifle barrel he brandished. For a few moments Tappan
stood up under a beating that would have felled a lesser
man. His own blood blinded him. Then he swung his
heavy weapon. The blow broke Blade’s left arm. Like a
wild beast, he screamed in pain; and then, without guard,
rushed in, too furious for further caution. Tappan met the
terrible onslaught as before, and watching his chance, again
swung the rifle barrel. This time, so supreme was the
force, it battered down Blade’s arm and crushed his skull.
He died on his feet—ghastly and horrible change!—and
swaying backward, he fell into the upbanked wall of snow,
and went out of sight, except for his boots, one of which
still held the crude snowshoe.
[ 69 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Tappan stared, slowly realizing.
“Ahuh, stranger Blade!” he ejaculated, gazing at the
hole in the snow bank where his foe had disappeared. “ You
were goin’ to—kill an’ eat—Tappan’s burro!”
Then he sighted the bloody rifle barrel, and cast it from
him. He became conscious of injuries which needed atten¬
tion. But he could do little more than wash off the blood
and bind up his head. Both arms and hands were badly
bruised, and beginning to swell. But fortunately no bones
had been broken.
Tappan finished strapping the tarpaulin upon the burro;
and, taking up both his and Blade’s supply of food, he
called out, “Come on, Jenet.”
Which way to go! Indeed, there was no more choice
for him than there had been for Blade. Towards the Rim
the snowdrift would be deeper and impassable. Tappan
realized that the only possible chance for him was down
hill. So he led Jenet out of camp without looking back
once. What was it that had happened? He did not seem
to be the same Tappan that had dreamily tramped into
this woodland.
A deep furrow in the snow had been made by the men
packing firewood into camp. At the end of this furrow the
wall of snow stood higher than Tappan’s head. To get out
on top without breaking the crust presented a problem.
[ 70 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
He lifted Jenet up, and was relieved to see that the snow
held her. But he found a different task in his own case.
Returning to camp, he gathered up several of the long
branches of spruce that had been part of the shelter, and
carrying them out he laid them against the slant of snow
he had to surmount, and by their aid he got on top. The
crust held him.
Elated and with revived hope, he took up Jenet’s halter
and started off. Walking with his rude snowshoes was
awkward. He had to go slowly, and slide them along the
crust. But he progressed. Jenet’s little steps kept her
even with him. Now and then one of her sharp hoofs cut
through, but not to hinder her particularly. Right at the
start Tappan observed a singular something about Jenet.
Never until now had she been ^dependent upon him. She
knew it. Her intelligence apparently told her that if she
got out of this snow-bound wilderness it would be owing to
the strength and reason of her master.
Tappan kept to the north side of the canyon, where the
snow crust was strongest. What he must do was to work
up to the top of the canyon slope, and then keeping to the
ridge travel north along it, and so down out of the forest.
Travel was slow. He soon found he had to pick his
way. Jenet appeared to be absolutely unable to sense
either danger or safety. Her experience had been of the
[ 71 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
rock confines and the drifting sands of the desert. She
walked where Tappan led her. And it seemed to Tappan
that her trust in him, her reliance upon him, were
pathetic.
“Well, old girl,” said Tappan to her, “it’s a horse of
another color now—hey?”
At length he came to a wide part of the canyon, where
a bench of land led to a long gradual slope, thickly studded
with small pines. This appeared to be fortunate, and
turned out to be so, for when Jenet broke through the crust
Tappan had trees and branches to hold to while he hauled
her out. The labor of climbing that slope was such that
Tappan began to appreciate Blade’s absolute refusal to at¬
tempt getting Jenet out. Dusk was shadowing the white
aisles of the forest when Tappan ascended to a level. He
had not traveled far from camp, and the fact struck a chill
upon his heart.
To go on in the dark was foolhardy. So Tappan se¬
lected a thick spruce, under which there was a considerable
depression in the snow, and here made preparation to spend
the night. Unstrapping the tarpaulin, he spread it on the
snow. All the lower branches of this giant of the forest
were dead and dry. Tappan broke off many and soon had
a fire. Jenet nibbled at the moss on the trunk of the spruce
tree. Tappan’s meal consisted of beans, biscuits, and a
[W]
TAPP AN’S BURRO
ball of snow, that he held over the fire to soften. He saw
to it that Jenet fared as well as he. Night soon fell, strange
and weirdly white in the forest, and piercingly cold. Tap-
pan needed the fire. Gradually it melted the snow and
made a hole, down to the ground. Tappan rolled up in
the tarpaulin and soon fell asleep.
In three days Tappan traveled about fifteen miles,
gradually descending, until the snow crust began to fail to
hold Jenet. Then whatever had been his difficulties before,
they were now magnified a hundredfold. As soon as the
sun was up, somewhat softening the snow, Jenet began to
break through. And often when Tappan began hauling her
out he broke through himself. This exertion was killing
even to a man of Tappan’s physical prowess. The endur¬
ance to resist heat and flying dust and dragging sand
seemed another kind from that needed to toil on in this
snow. The endless snow-bound forest began to be hideous
to Tappan. Cold, lonely, dreary, white, mournful—the
kind of ghastly and ghostly winter land that had been the
terror of Tappan’s boyish dreams! He loved the sun—the
open. This forest had deceived him. It was a wall of ice.
As he toiled on, the state of his mind gradually and subtly
changed in all except*the fixed and absolute will to save
Jenet. In some places he carried her.
[ 73 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
The fourth night found him dangerously near the end of
his stock of food. He had been generous with Jenet. But
now, considering that he had to do more work than she, he
diminished her share. On the fifth day Jenet broke through
the snow crust so often that Tappan realized how utterly
impossible it was for her to get out of the woods by her
own efforts. Therefore Tappan hit upon the plan of mak¬
ing her lie on the tarpaulin, so that he could drag her. The
tarpaulin doubled once did not make a bad sled. All the
rest of that day Tappan hauled her. And so all the rest of
the next day he toiled on, hands behind him, clutching the
canvas, head and shoulders bent, plodding and methodical,
like a man who could not be defeated. That night he was
too weary to build a fire, and too worried to eat the last of
his food.
Next day Tappan was not unalive to the changing char¬
acter of the forest. He had worked down out of the zone
of the spruce trees; the pines had thinned out and de¬
creased in size; oak trees began to show prominently. All
these signs meant that he was getting down out of the
mountain heights. But the fact, hopeful as it was, had
drawbacks. The snow was still four feet deep on a level
and the crust held Tappan only about half the time.
Moreover, the lay of the land operated against; Tappan’s
progress. The long, slowly descending ridge had failed.
[ 74 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
There were no more canyons, but ravines and swales were
numerous. Tappan dragged on, stern, indomitable, bent
to his toil.
When the crust let him down, he hung his snowshoes
over Jenet’s back, and wallowed through, making a lane
for her to follow. Two days of such heart-breaking toil,
without food or fire, broke Tappan’s magnificent en¬
durance. But not his spirit! He hauled Jenet over the
snow, and through the snow, down the hills and up the
slopes, through the thickets, knowing that over the next
ridge, perhaps, was deliverance. Deer and elk tracks
began to be numerous. Cedar and juniper trees now
predominated. An occasional pine showed here and there.
He was getting out of the forest land. Only such mighty
and justifiable hope as that could have kept him on his
feet.
He fell often, and it grew harder to rise and go on. The
hour came when the crust failed altogether to hold Tappan
and he had to abandon hauling Jenet. It was necessary to
make a road for her. How weary, cold, horrible, the white
reaches! Yard by yard Tappan made his way. He no
longer sweat. He had no feeling in his feet or legs. Hun¬
ger ceased to gnaw at his vitals. His thirst he quenched
with snow—soft snow now, that did not have to be crunched
like ice. The pangs in his breast were terrible—cramps,
[ 75 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
constrictions, the piercing pains in his lungs, the dull ache
of his overtaxed heart.
Tappan came to an opening in the cedar forest from
which he could see afar. A long slope fronted him. It led
down and down to open country. His desert eyes, keen as
those of an eagle, made out fiat country, sparsely covered
with snow, and black dots that were cattle. The last slope!
The last pull! Three feet of snow, except in drifts; down
and down he plunged, making way for Jenet! All that day
he toiled and fell and rolled down this league-long slope,
wearing towards sunset to the end of his task, and likewise
to the end of his will.
Now he seemed up and now down. There was no sense
of cold or weariness. Only direction! Tappan still saw!
The last of his horror at the monotony of white faded from
his mind. Jenet was there, beginning to be able to travel
for herself. The solemn close of endless day found Tappan
arriving at the edge of the timbered country, where wind-
bared patches of ground showed long, bleached grass. Jenet
took to grazing.
As for Tappan, he fell with the tarpaulin, under a thick
cedar, and with strengthless hands plucked and plucked at
the canvas to spread it, so that he could cover himself. He
looked again for Jenet. She was there, somehow a fading
[ 76 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
image, strangely blurred. But she was grazing. Tappan
lay down, and stretched out, and slowly drew the tar¬
paulin over him.
A piercing cold night wind swept down from the snowy
heights. It wailed in the edge of the cedars and moaned
out towards the open country. Yet the night seemed silent.
The stars shone white in a deep blue sky—passionless, cold,
watchful eyes, looking down without pity or hope or cen¬
sure. They were the eyes of Nature. Winter had locked
the heights in its snowy grip. All night that winter wind
blew down, colder and colder. Then dawn broke, steely,
gray, with a flare in the east.
Jenet came back where she had left her master. Camp!
As she had returned thousands of dawns in the long years
of her service. She had grazed all night. Her sides that
had been flat were now full. Jenet had weathered another
vicissitude of her life. She stood for a while, in a doze,
with one long ear down over her meek face. Jenet was
waiting for Tappan.
But he did not stir from under the long roll of canvas.
Jenet waited. The winter sun rose, in cold yellow flare.
The snow glistened as with a crusting of diamonds. Some¬
where in the distance sounded a long-drawn, discordant
bray. Jenet’s ears shot up. She listened. She recognized
[ 77 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
the call of one of her kind. Instinct always prompted Jenet.
Sometimes she did bray. Lifting her gray head she sent
forth a clarion: “Hee-haw hee-haw-haw — hee-haw how-e-e-e!”
That stentorian call started the echoes. They pealed
down the slope and rolled out over the open country, clear
as a bugle blast, yet hideous in their discordance. But this
morning Tappan did not awaken.
[ 78 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
THE GREAT SLAVE
A VOICE on the wind whispered to Siena the prophecy
of his birth. “A chief is born to save the vanishing
tribe of Crows! A hunter to his starving people!” While
he listened, at his feet swept swift waters, the rushing, green-
white, thundering Athabasca, spirit-forsaken river; and it
rumbled his name and murmured his fate. “Siena! Siena!
His bride will rise from a wind kiss on the flowers in the
moonlight! A new land calls to the last of the Crowsl
Northward where the wild goose ends its flight Siena wil!
father a great people!”
So Siena, a hunter of the leafy trails, dreamed his
dreams; and at sixteen he was the hope of the remnant of
a once powerful tribe, a stripling chief, beautiful as a
bronzed autumn god, silent, proud, forever listening to
voices on the wind.
To Siena the lore of the woodland came as flight comes
to the strong-winged wild fowl. The secrets of the forests
were his, and of the rocks and rivers.
He knew how to find the nests of the plover, to call the
loon, to net the heron, and spear the fish. He understood
[ 81 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
the language of the whispering pines. Where the deer came
down to drink and the caribou browsed on moss and the
white rabbit nibbled in the grass and the bear dug in
the logs for grubs—all these he learned; and also when the
black flies drove the moose into the water and when the
honk of the geese meant the approach of the north wind.
He lived in the woods, with his bow, his net, and his
spear. The trees were his brothers. The loon laughed for
his happiness, the wolf mourned for his sadness. The bold
crag above the river, Old Stoneface, heard his step when he
climbed there in the twilight. He communed with the
stern god of his ancestors and watched the flashing North¬
ern Lights and listened.
From all four corners came his spirit guides with steps
of destiny on his trail. On all the four winds breathed
voices whispering of his future; loudest of all called the
Athabasca, god-forsaken river, murmuring of the bride born
of a wind kiss on the flowers in the moonlight.
It was autumn, with the flame of leaf fading, the haze
rolling out of the hollows, the lull yielding to moan of com¬
ing wind. All the signs of a severe winter were in the hulls
of the nuts, in the fur of the foxes, in the flight of water-
fowl. Siena was spearing fish for winter store. None so
keen of sight as Siena, so swift of arm; and as he was the
hope, so he alone was the provider for the starving tribe.
[ 82 ]
ON ALL THE FOUR WINDS BREATHED VOICES WHISPERING OF HIS FUTURE
THE GREAT SLAVE
Siena stood to his knees in a brook where it flowed over its
gravelly bed into the Athabasca. Poised high was his
wooden spear. It glinted downward swift as a shaft of
sunlight through the leaves. Then Siena lifted a quivering
whitefish and tossed it upon the bank where his mother Ema,
with other women of the tribe, sun-dried the fish upon a rock.
Again and again, many times, flashed the spear. The
young chief seldom missed his aim. Early frosts on the
uplands had driven the fish down to deeper water, and as
they came darting over the bright pebbles Siena called
them by name.
The oldest squaw could not remember such a run of
fish. Ema sang the praises of her son; the other women
ceased the hunger chant of the tribe.
Suddenly a hoarse shout pealed out over the waters.
Ema fell in a fright; her companions ran away; Siena
leaped upon the bank, clutching his spear. A boat in
which were men with white faces drifted down toward him.
“Hal-loa!” again sounded the hoarse cry.
Ema cowered in the grass. Siena saw a waving of white
hands; his knees knocked together and he felt himself
about to flee. But Siena of the Crows, the savior of a van¬
ishing tribe, must not fly from visible foes.
“ Palefaces,” he whispered, trembling, yet stood his
ground ready to fight for his mother. He remembered
[ 83 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
stories of an old Indian who had journeyed far to the south
and had crossed the trails of the dreaded white men. There
stirred in him vague memories of strange Indian runners
telling camp-fire tales of white hunters with weapons of
lightning and thunder.
“Naza! Naza!” Siena cast one fleeting glance to the
north and a prayer to his god of gods. He believed his
spirit would soon be wandering in the shades of the other
Indian world.
As the boat beached on the sand Siena saw men lying
with pale faces upward to the sky, and voices in an un¬
known tongue greeted him. The tone was friendly, and he
lowered his threatening spear. Then a man came up the
bank, his hungry eyes on the pile of fish, and he began to
speak haltingly in mingled Cree and Chippewayan language:
“Boy—we’re white friends—starving—let us buy fish—
trade for fish—we’re starving and we have many moons to
travel.”
“Siena’s tribe is poor,” replied the lad; “sometimes
they starve too. But Siena will divide his fish and wants
no trade.”
His mother, seeing the white men intended no evil,
came out of her fright and complained bitterly to Siena of
his liberality. She spoke of the menacing winter, of the
[ 84 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
frozen streams, the snow-bound forest, the long night of
hunger. Siena silenced her and waved the frightened braves
and squaws back to their wigwams.
“Siena is young,” he said simply; “but he is chief here.
If we starve—we starve.”
Whereupon he portioned out a half of the fish. The
white men built a fire and sat around it feasting like fam¬
ished wolves around a fallen stag. When they had ap¬
peased their hunger they packed the remaining fish in the
boat, whistling and singing the while. Then the leader
made offer to pay, which Siena refused, though the covet¬
ous light in his mother’s eyes hurt him sorely.
“Chief,” said the leader, “the white man understands;
now he offers presents as one chief to another.”
Thereupon he proffered bright beads and tinseled trin¬
kets, yards of calico and strips of cloth. Siena accepted
with a dignity in marked contrast to the way in which the
greedy Ema pounced upon the glittering heap. Next the
paleface presented a knife which, drawn from its scabbard,
showed a blade that mirrored its brightness in Siena’s eyes.
“Chief, your woman complains of a starving tribe,”
went on the white man. “Are there not many moose and
reindeer?”
“Yes. But seldom can Siena creep within range of his
arrow.”
[ 85 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“ A-ha! Siena will starve no more,” replied the man, and
from the boat he took a long iron tube with a wooden stock.
“What is that?” asked Siena.
“The wonderful shooting stick. Here, boy, watch! See
the bark on the camp fire. Watch!”
He raised the stick to his shoulder. Then followed a
streak of flame, a puff of smoke, a booming report; and
the bark of the camp fire flew into bits.
The children dodged into the wigwams with loud cries,
the women ran screaming, Ema dropped in the grass wail¬
ing that the end of the world had come, while Siena, unable
to move hand or foot, breathed another prayer to Naza of
the northland.
The white man laughed and, patting Siena’s arm, he
said: “No fear.” Then he drew Siena away from the bank,
and began to explain the meaning and use of the wonder¬
ful shooting stick. He reloaded it and fired again and yet
again, until Siena understood and was all aflame at the
possibilities of such a weapon.
Patiently the white man taught the Indian how to load
it, sight, and shoot, and how to clean it with ramrod and
buckskin. Next he placed at Siena’s feet a keg of powder,
a bag of lead bullets, and boxes full of caps. Then he bade
Siena farewell, entered the boat with his men and drifted
round a bend of the swift Athabasca.
[ 86 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
Siena stood alone upon the bank, the wonderful shoot¬
ing stick in his hands, and the wail of his frightened mother
in his ears. He comforted her, telling her the white men
were gone, that he was safe, and that the prophecy of his
birth had at last begun its fulfillment. He carried the pre¬
cious ammunition to a safe hiding place in a hollow log
near his wigwam and then he plunged into the forest.
Siena bent his course toward the runways of the moose.
He walked in a kind of dream, for he both feared and be¬
lieved. Soon the glimmer of water, splashes and widening
ripples, caused him to crawl stealthily through the ferns and
grasses to the border of a pond. The familiar hum of flies
told him of the location of his quarry. The moose had
taken to the water, driven by the swarms of black flies, and
were standing neck deep, lifting their muzzles to feed on
the drooping poplar branches. Their wide-spreading ant¬
lers, tipped back into the water, made the ripples.
Trembling as never before, Siena sank behind a log.
He was within fifty paces of the moose. How often in that
very spot had he strung a feathered arrow and shot it
vainly! But now he had the white man’s weapon, charged
with lightning and thunder. Just then the poplars parted
above the shore, disclosing a bull in the act of stepping
down. He tossed his antlered head at the cloud of hum¬
ming flies, then stopped, lifting his nose to scent the wind.
[ 87 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Nazal” whispered Siena in his swelling throat.
He rested the shooting stick on the log and tried to see
over the brown barrel. But his eyes were dim. Again he
whispered a prayer to Naza. His sight cleared, his shaking
arms stilled, and with his soul waiting, hoping, doubting,
he aimed and pulled the trigger.
Boom!
High the moose flung his ponderous head, to crash down
upon his knees, to roll in the water and churn a bloody
foam, and then lie still.
“Siena! Siena!”
Shrill the young chief’s exultant yell pealed over the
listening waters, piercing the still forest, to ring back in
echo from Old Stoneface. It was Siena’s triumphant call
to his forefathers, watching him from the silence.
The herd of moose plowed out of the pond and crashed
into the woods, where, long after they had disappeared,
their antlers could be heard cracking the saplings.
When Siena stood over the dead moose his doubts fled;
he was indeed godchosen. No longer chief of a starving
tribe! Reverently and with immutable promise he raised the
shooting stick to the north, toward Naza who had remem¬
bered him; and on the south, where dwelt the enemies of his
tribe, his dark glance brooded wild and proud and savage.
[ 88 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
Eight times the shooting stick boomed out in the still¬
ness and eight moose lay dead in the wet grasses. In the
twilight Siena wended his way home and placed eight
moose tongues before the whimpering squaws.
“Siena is no longer a boy,” he said. “Siena is a hunter.
Let his women go bring in the meat.”
Then to the rejoicing and feasting and dancing of his
tribe he turned a deaf ear, and in the night passed alone
under the shadow of Old Stoneface, where he walked with
the spirits of his ancestors and believed the voices on the
wind.
Before the ice locked the ponds Siena killed a hundred
moose and reindeer. Meat and fat and oil and robes
changed the world for the Crow tribe.
Fires burned brightly all the long winter; the braves
awoke from their stupor and chanted no more; the women
sang of the Siena who had come, and prayed for summer
wind and moonlight to bring his bride.
Spring went by, summer grew into blazing autumn, and
Siena’s fame and the wonder of the shooting stick spread
through the length and breadth of the land.
Another year passed, then another, and Siena was the
great chief of the rejuvenated Crows. He had grown into
a warrior’s stature, his face had the beauty of the god-
chosen, his eye the falcon flash of the Sienas of old. Long
[ 89 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
communion in the shadow of Old Stoneface had added wis¬
dom to his other gifts; and now to his worshiping tribe all
that was needed to complete the prophecy of his birth was
the coming of the alien bride.
It was another autumn, with the wind whipping the
tamaracks and moaning in the pines, and Siena stole along
a brown, fern-lined trail. The dry smell of fallen leaves
filled his nostrils; he tasted snow in the keen breezes. The
flowers were dead, and still no dark-eyed bride sat in his
wigwam. Siena sorrowed and strengthened his heart to
wait. He saw her flitting in the shadows around him, a
wraith with dusky eyes veiled by dusky wind-blown hair,
and ever she hovered near him, whispering from every dark
pine, from every waving tuft of grass.
To her whispers he replied: £4 Siena waits.”
He wondered of what alien tribe she would come. He
hoped not of the unfriendly Chippewayans or the far-dis¬
tant Blackfeet; surely not of the hostile Crees, life enemies
of his tribe, destroyers of its once puissant strength, jealous
now of its resurging power.
Other shadows flitted through the forest, spirits that
rose silently from the graves over which he trod, and warned
him of double steps on his trail, of unseen foes watching
[ 90 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
him from the dark coverts. His braves had repeated gos¬
sip, filterings from stray Indian wanderers, hinting of plots
against the risen Siena. To all these he gave no heed, for
was not he Siena, god-chosen, and had he not the wonder¬
ful shooting stick?
It was the season that he loved, when dim forest and
hazy fernland spoke most impellingly. The tamaracks
talked to him, the poplars bowed as he passed, and the
pines sang for him alone. The dying vines twined about
his feet and clung to him, and the brown ferns, curling sadly,
waved him a welcome that was a farewell. A bird twit¬
tered a plaintive note and a loon whistled a lonely call.
Across the wide gray hollows and meadows of white moss
moaned the north wind, bending all before it, blowing full
into Siena’s face with its bitter promise. The lichen-cov¬
ered rocks and the rugged-barked trees and the creatures
that moved among them—the whole world of earth and air
heard Siena’s step on the rustling leaves and a thousand
voices hummed in the autumn stillness.
So he passed through the shadowy forest and over the
gray muskeg flats to his hunting place. With his birch-
bark horn he blew the call of the moose. He alone of hunt¬
ing Indians had the perfect moose call. There, hidden
within a thicket, he waited, calling and listening till an
angry reply bellowed from the depths of a hollow, and a
[ 91 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
bull moose, snorting fight, came cracking the saplings in
his rush. When he sprang fierce and bristling into the glade,
Siena killed him. Then, laying his shooting stick over a
log, he drew his knife and approached the beast.
A snapping of twigs alarmed Siena and he whirled upon
the defensive, but too late to save himself. A band of In¬
dians pounced upon him and bore him to the ground. One
wrestling heave Siena made, then he was overpowered and
bound. Looking upward, he knew his captors, though he
had never seen them before; they were the lifelong foes of
his people, the fighting Crees.
A sturdy chief, bronze of face and sinister of eye, looked
grimly down upon his captive. “Baroma makes Siena a
slave.”
Siena and his tribe were dragged far southward to the
land of the Crees. The young chief was bound upon a
block in the center of the village where hundreds of Crees
spat upon him, beat him, and outraged him in every way
their cunning could devise. Siena’s gaze was on the north
and his face showed no sign that he felt the torments.
At last Baroma’s old advisers stopped the spectacle,
saying: 44 This is a man!”
Siena and his people became slaves of the Crees. In
Baroma’s lodge, hung upon caribou antlers, was the
[ 92 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
wonderful shooting stick with Siena’s powder horn and
bullet pouch, objects of intense curiosity and fear.
None knew the mystery of this lightning-flashing, thun¬
der-dealing thing; none dared touch it.
The heart of Siena was broken; not for his shattered
dreams or the end of his freedom, but for his people. His
fame had been their undoing. Slaves to the murderers of
his forefathers! His spirit darkened, his soul sickened; no
more did sweet voices sing to him on the wind, and his
mind dwelt apart from his body among shadows and dim
shapes.
Because of his strength he was worked like a dog at
hauling packs and carrying wood; because of his fame he
was set to cleaning fish and washing vessels with the squaws.
Seldom did he get to speak a word to his mother or any
of his people. Always he was driven.
One day, when he lagged almost fainting, a maiden
brought him water to drink. Siena looked up, and all
about him suddenly brightened, as when sunlight bursts
from cloud.
“Who is kind to Siena?” he asked, drinking.
“Baroma’s daughter,” replied the maiden.
“What is her name?”
Quickly the maiden bent her head, veiling dusky eyes
with dusky hair. “Emihiyah.”
[ 93 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“ Siena has wandered on lonely trails and listened to
voices not meant for other ears. He has heard the music
of Emihiyah on the winds. Let the daughter of Siena’s
great foe not fear to tell of her name.”
“Emihiyah means a wind kiss on the flowers in the
moonlight,” she whispered shyly and fled.
Love came to the last of the Sienas and it was like a
glory. Death shuddered no more in Siena’s soul. He saw
into the future, and out of his gloom he rose again, god-
chosen in his own sight, with such added beauty to his
stern face and power to his piercing eye and strength to
his lofty frame that the Crees quailed before him and mar¬
veled. Once more sweet voices came to him, and ever on
the soft winds were songs of the dewy moorlands to the
northward, songs of the pines and the laugh of the loon
and of the rushing, green-white, thundering Athabasca, god¬
forsaken river.
Siena’s people saw him strong and patient, and they
toiled on, unbroken, faithful. While he lived, the pride of
Baroma was vaunting. “Siena waits” were the simple
words he said to his mother, and she repeated them as wis¬
dom. But the flame of his eye was like the leaping North¬
ern Lights, and it kept alive the fire deep down in their
breasts.
[ 94 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
In the winter when the Crees lolled in their wigwams,
when less labor fell to Siena, he set traps in the snow trails
for silver fox and marten. No Cree had ever been such a
trapper as Siena. In the long months he captured many
furs, with which he wrought a robe the like of which had
not before been the delight of a maiden’s eye. He kept it
by him for seven nights, and always during this time his
ear was turned to the wind. The seventh night was the
night of the midwinter feast, and when the torches burned
bright in front of Baroma’s lodge Siena took the robe and,
passing slowly and stately till he stood before Emihiyah,
he laid it at her feet.
Emihiyah’s dusky face paled, her eyes that shone like
stars drooped behind her flying hair, and all her slender
body trembled.
“Slave!” cried Baroma, leaping erect. “Come closer
that Baroma may see what kind of a dog approaches
Emihiyah.”
Siena met Baroma’s gaze, but spoke no word. His gift
spoke for him. The hated slave had dared to ask in mar¬
riage the hand of the proud Baroma’s daughter. Siena
towered in the firelight with something in his presence that
for a moment awed beholders. Then the passionate and
untried braves broke the silence with a clamor of the wolf
pack.
[ 95 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Tillimanqua, wild son of Baroma, strung an arrow to
nis bow and shot it into Siena’s hip, where it stuck, with
feathered shaft quivering.
The spring of the panther was not swifter than Siena;
he tossed Tillimanqua into the air and, flinging him down,
trod on his neck and wrenched the bow away. Siena pealed
out the long-drawn war whoop of his tribe that had not
been heard for a hundred years, and the terrible cry stif¬
fened the Crees in their tracks.
Then he plucked the arrow from his hip and, fitting
it to the string, pointed the gory flint head at Tilliman-
qua’s eyes and began to bend the bow. He bent the tough
wood till the ends almost met, a feat of exceeding great
strength, and thus he stood with brawny arms knotted and
stretched.
A scream rent the suspense. Emihiyah fell upon her
knees. “Spare Emihiyah’s brother!”
Siena cast one glance at the kneeling maiden, then,
twanging the bow string, he shot the arrow toward the
sky.
“Baroma’s slave is Siena,” he said, with scorn like the
lash of a whip. “Let the Cree learn wisdom.”
Then Siena strode away, with a stream of dark blood
down his thigh, and went to his brush tepee, where he
closed his wound.
[ 96 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
In the still watches of the night, when the stars blinked
through the leaves and the dew fell, when Siena burned
and throbbed in pain, a shadow passed between his weary
eyes and the pale light. And a voice that was not one of
the spirit voices on the wind called softly over him, “Siena!
Emihiyah comes.”
The maiden bound the hot thigh with a soothing balm
and bathed his fevered brow.
Then her hands found his in tender touch, her dark face
bent low to his, her hair lay upon his cheek. “Emihiyah
keeps the robe,” she said.
“Siena loves Emihiyah,” he replied.
“Emihiyah loves Siena,” she whispered.
She kissed him and stole away.
On the morrow Siena’s wound was as if it had never
been; no eye saw his pain. Siena returned to his work and
his trapping. The winter melted into spring, spring flow¬
ered into summer, summer withered into autumn.
Once in the melancholy days Siena visited Baroma in
his wigwam. “Baroma’s hunters are slow. Siena sees a
famine in the land.”
“Let Baroma’s slave keep his place among the squaws,”
was the reply.
That autumn the north wind came a moon before the
Crees expected it; the reindeer took their annual march
[ 97 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
farther south; the moose herded warily in open groves;
the whitefish did not run, and the seven-year pest depleted
the rabbits.
When the first snow fell Baroma called a council and
then sent his hunting braves far and wide.
One by one they straggled back to camp, footsore and
hungry, and each with the same story. It was too late.
A few moose were in the forest, but they were wild and
kept far out of range of the hunter’s arrows, and there was
no other game.
A blizzard clapped down upon the camp, and sleet and
snow whitened the forest and filled the trails. Then winter
froze everything in icy clutch. The old year drew to a
close.
The Crees were on the brink of famine. All day and
all night they kept up their chanting and incantations and
beating of tom-toms to conjure the return of the reindeer.
But no reindeer appeared.
It was then that the stubborn Baroma yielded to his
advisers and consented to let Siena save them from starva¬
tion by means of his wonderful shooting stick. Accord¬
ingly Baroma sent word to Siena to appear at his wigwam.
Siena did not go, and said to the medicine men: “Tell
Baroma soon it will be for Siena to demand.”
[ 98 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
Then the Cree chieftain stormed and stamped in his
wigwam and swore away the life of his slave. Yet again
the wise medicine men prevailed. Siena and the wonder¬
ful shooting stick would be the salvation of the Crees.
Baroma, muttering deep in his throat like distant thunder,
gave sentence to starve Siena until he volunteered to go
forth to hunt, or let him be the first to die.
The last scraps of meat, except a little hoarded in
Baroma’s lodge, were devoured, and then began the boil¬
ing of bones and skins to make a soup to sustain life. The
cold days passed and a silent gloom pervaded the camp.
Sometimes a cry of a bereaved mother, mourning for a
starved child, wailed through the darkness. Siena’s people,
long used to starvation, did not suffer or grow weak so soon
as the Crees. They were of hardier frame, and they were
upheld by faith in their chief. When he would sicken it
would be time for them to despair. But Siena walked erect
as in the days of his freedom, nor did he stagger under the
loads of firewood, and there was a light on his face. The
Crees, knowing of Baroma’s order that Siena should be the
first to perish of starvation, gazed at the slave first in awe,
then in fear. The last of the Sienas was succored by the
spirits.
But god-chosen though Siena deemed himself, he knew
it was not by the spirits that he was fed in this time of
[ 99 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
famine. At night in the dead stillness, when even no mourn¬
ing of wolf came over the frozen wilderness, Siena lay in
his brush tepee close and warm under his blanket. The
wind was faint and low, yet still it brought the old familiar
voices. And it bore another sound—the soft fall of a moc¬
casin on the snow. A shadow passed between Siena’s eyes
and the pale light.
“Emihiyah comes,” whispered the shadow and knelt
over him.
She tendered a slice of meat which she had stolen
from Baroma’s scant hoard as he muttered and growled
in uneasy slumber. Every night since her father’s or¬
der to starve Siena, Emihiyah had made this perilous
errand.
And now her hand sought his and her dusky hair swept
his brow. “Emihiyah is faithful,” she breathed low.
“Siena only waits,” he replied.
She kissed him and stole away.
Cruel days fell upon the Crees before Baroma’s pride
was broken. Many children died and some of the mothers
were beyond help. Siena’s people kept their strength, and
he himself showed no effect of hunger. Long ago the Cree
women had deemed him superhuman, that the Great Spirit
fed him from the happy hunting grounds.
[ 100 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
At last Baroma went to Siena. “ Siena may save his
people and the Crees.”
Siena regarded him long, then replied: “Siena waits.”
“Let Baroma know. What does Siena wait for? While
he waits we die.”
Siena smiled his slow, inscrutable smile and turned
away.
Baroma sent for his daughter and ordered her to plead
for her life.
Emihiyah came, fragile as a swaying reed, more beau¬
tiful than a rose choked in a tangled thicket, and she stood
before Siena with doe eyes veiled. “Emihiyah begs Siena
to save her and the tribe of Crees.”
“Siena waits,” replied the slave.
Baroma roared in his fury and bade his braves lash the
slave. But the blows fell from feeble arms and Siena
laughed at his captors.
Then, like a wild lion unleashed from long thrall, he
turned upon them: “Starve! Cree dogs! Starve! When
the Crees all fall like leaves in autumn, then Siena and his
people will go back to the north.”
Baroma’s arrogance left him then, and on another day,
when Emihiyah lay weak and pallid in his wigwam and the
pangs of hunger gnawed at his own vitals, he again sought
Siena. “Let Siena tell for what he waits.”
[ 101 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Siena rose to his lofty height and the leaping flame of
the Northern Light gathered in his eyes. “Freedom!”
One word he spoke and it rolled away on the wind.
“Baroma yields,” replied the Cree, and hung his head.
“Send the squaws who can walk and the braves who
can crawl out upon Siena’s trail.”
Then Siena went to Baroma’s lodge and took up the
wonderful shooting stick and, loading it, he set out upon
snowshoes into the white forest. He knew where to find
the moose yards in the sheltered corners. He heard the
bulls pounding the hard-packed snow and cracking their
antlers on the trees. The wary beasts would not have al¬
lowed him to steal close, as a warrior armed with a bow
must have done, but Siena fired into the herd at long range.
And when they dashed off, sending the snow up like a
spray, a huge black bull lay dead. Siena followed them as
they floundered through the drifts, and whenever he came
within range he shot again. When five moose were killed he
turned upon his trail to find almost the whole Cree tribe had
followed him and were tearing the meat and crying out in
a kind of crazy joy. That night the fires burned before the
wigwams, the earthen pots steamed, and there was great re¬
joicing. Siena hunted the next day, and the next, and for
ten days he went into the white forest with his wonderful
shooting stick, and eighty moose fell to his unerring aim.
[ 102 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
The famine was broken and the Crees were saved.
When the mad dances ended and the feasts were over,
Siena appeared before Baroma’s lodge. “Siena will lead
his people northward.”
Baroma, starving, was a different chief from Baroma
well fed and in no pain. All his cunning had returned.
“Siena goes free. Baroma gave his word. But Siena’s
people remain slaves.”
“Siena demanded freedom for himself and people,” said
the younger chief.
“Baroma heard no word of Siena’s tribe. He would
not have granted freedom for them. Siena’s freedom was
enough.”
“The Cree twists the truth. He knows Siena would
not go without his people. Siena might have remembered
Baroma’s cunning. The Crees were ever liars.”
Baroma stalked before his fire with haughty presence.
About him in the circle of light sat his medicine men, his
braves and squaws. “The Cree is kind. He gave his
word. Siena is free. Let him take his wonderful shooting
stick and go back to the north.”
Siena laid the shooting stick at Baroma’s feet and like¬
wise the powder horn and bullet pouch. Then he folded
his arms, and his falcon eyes looked far beyond Baroma to
the land of the changing lights and the old home on the
[ 103 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
green-white, rushing Athabasca, god-forsaken river. “ Siena
stays.”
Baroma started in amaze and anger. “ Siena makes
Baroma’s word idle. Begone!”
“Siena stays!”
The look of Siena, the pealing reply, for a moment held
the chief mute. Slowly Baroma stretched wide his arms
and lifted them, while from his face flashed a sullen won¬
der. “Great Slave!” he thundered.
So was respect forced from the soul of the Cree, and the
name thus wrung from his jealous heart was one to live
forever in the lives and legends of Siena’s people.
Baroma sought the silence of his lodge, and his medi¬
cine men and braves dispersed, leaving Siena standing in
the circle, a magnificent statue facing the steely north.
From that day insult was never offered to Siena, nor
word spoken to him by the Crees, nor work given. He
was free to come and go where he willed, and he spent his
time in lessening the tasks of his people.
The trails of the forest were always open to him, as
were the streets of the Cree village. If a brave met him,
it was to step aside; if a squaw met him, it was to bow
her head; if a chief met him, it was to face him as warriors
faced warriors.
[ 104 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
One twilight Emihiyah crossed his path, and sud¬
denly she stood as once before, like a frail reed about to
break in the wind. But Siena passed on. The days went
by and each one brought less labor to Siena’s people, un¬
til that one came wherein there was no task save what
they set themselves. Siena’s tribe were slaves, yet not
slaves.
The winter wore by and the spring and the autumn,
and again Siena’s fame went abroad on the four winds.
The Chippewayans journeyed from afar to see the Great
Slave, and likewise the Blackfeet and the Yellow Knives.
Honor would have been added to fame; councils called;,
overtures made to the somber Baroma on behalf of the
Great Slave, but Siena passed to and fro among his people,
silent and cold to all others, true to the place which his
great foe had given him. Captive to a lesser chief, they
said; the Great Slave who would yet free his tribe and
gather to him a new and powerful nation.
Once in the late autumn Siena sat brooding in the twi¬
light by Ema’s tepee. That night all who came near him
were silent. Again Siena was listening to voices on the
wind, voices that had been still for long, which he had tried
to forget. It was the north wind, and it whipped the
spruces and moaned through the pines. In its cold breath
it bore a message to Siena, a hint of coming winter and a
[ 105 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
call from Naza, far north of the green-white, thundering
Athabasca, river without a spirit.
In the darkness when the camp slumbered Siena faced
the steely north. As he looked a golden shaft, arrow-
shaped and arrow-swift, shot to the zenith.
“Naza!” he whispered to the wind. “Siena watches.”
Then the gleaming, changing Northern Lights painted a
picture of gold and silver bars, of flushes pink as shell, of opal
fire and sunset red; and it was a picture of Siena’s life from
the moment the rushing Athabasca rumbled his name, to the
far distant time when he would say farewell to his great
nation and pass forever to the retreat of the winds. God-
chosen he was, and had power to read the story in the
sky.
Seven nights Siena watched in the darkness; and on
the seventh night, when the golden flare and silver shafts
faded in the north, he passed from tepee to tepee, awaken¬
ing his people. “When Siena’s people hear the sound of
the shooting stick let them cry greatly: ‘ Siena kills Baroma!
Siena kills Baroma!’ ”
With noiseless stride Siena went among the wigwams
and along the lanes until he reached Baroma’s lodge. En¬
tering in the dark he groped with his hands upward to a
moose’s antlers and found the shooting stick. Outside he
fired it into the air.
[ 106 ]
THE GREAT SLAVE
Like a lightning bolt the report ripped asunder the
silence, and the echoes clapped and reclapped from the
cliffs. Sharp on the dying echoes Siena bellowed his war
whoop, and it was the second time in a hundred years for
foes to hear that terrible, long-drawn cry.
Then followed the shrill yells of Siena’s people: “Siena
kills Baroma . . . Siena kills Baroma . . . Siena kills Ba¬
roma!”
The slumber of the Crees awoke to a babel of many
voices; it rose hoarsely on the night air, swelled hideously
into a deafening roar that shook the earth.
In this din of confusion and terror when the Crees were
lamenting the supposed death of Baroma and screaming in
each other’s ears, “The Great Slave takes his freedom!”
Siena ran to his people and, pointing to the north, drove
them before him.
Single file, like a long line of flitting specters, they
passed out of the fields into the forest. Siena kept close on
their trail, ever looking backward, and ready with the
shooting stick.
The roar of the stricken Crees softened in his ears and
at last died away.
Under the black canopy of whispering leaves, over the
gray, mist-shrouded muskeg flats, around the glimmering
reed-bordered ponds, Siena drove his people,
[ 107 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
All night Siena hurried them northward and with every
stride his heart beat higher. Only he was troubled by a
sound like the voice that came to him on the wind.
But the wind was now blowing in his face, and the
sound appeared to be at his back. It followed on his trail
as had the step of destiny. When he strained his ears he
could not hear it, yet when he had gone on swiftly, per¬
suaded it was only fancy, then the voice that was not a
voice came haunting him.
In the gray dawn Siena halted on the far side of a gray
flat and peered through the mists on his back trail. Some¬
thing moved out among the shadows, a gray shape that
crept slowly, uttering a mournful cry.
“Siena is trailed by a wolf,” muttered the chief.
Yet he waited, and saw that the wolf was an Indian.
He raised the fatal shooting stick.
As the Indian staggered forward, Siena recognized the
robe of silver fox and marten, his gift to Emihiyah. He
laughed in mockery. It was a Cree trick. Tillimanqua
had led the pursuit disguised in his sister’s robe. Baroma
would find his son dead on the Great Slave’s trail.
“Siena!” came the strange, low cry.
It was the cry that had haunted him like the voice on
the wind. He leaped as a bounding deer.
Out of the gray fog burned dusky eyes half-veiled by
[ 108 ]
OUT OF THE GRAY FOG BURNED DUSKY EYES HALF VEILED BY DUSKY HAIR—“eMIHIYAH COMES,” SHE SAID. “SIENA
WAITS/ - ’ HE REPLIED
THE GREAT SLAVE
dusky hair, and little hands that he knew wavered as flut¬
tering leaves. “Emihiyah comes,” she said.
“ Siena waits,” he replied.
Far to the northward he led his bride and his people,
far beyond the old home on the green-white, thundering
Athabasca, god-forsaken river; and there, on the lonely
shores of an inland sea, he fathered the Great Slave Tribe.
[ 109 ]
YAQUI
YAQUI
i
S UNSET—it was the hour of Yaqui’s watch. Chief of
a driven remnant of the once mighty tribe, he trusted
no sentinel so well as himself at the end of the day’s march.
While his braves unpacked the tired horses, and his women
prepared the evening meal, and his bronze-skinned chil¬
dren played in the sand, Yaqui watched the bold desert
horizon.
Long years of hatred had existed between the Yaquis of
upland Sonora and the Mexicans from the east. Like
eagles, the Indian tribe had lived for centuries in the moun¬
tain fastnesses of the Sierra Madre, free, happy, self-suffi¬
cient. But wandering prospectors had found gold in their
country and that had been the end of their peace. At first
the Yaquis, wanting only the wildness and loneliness of
their homes, moved farther and farther back from the ever-
encroaching advance of the gold diggers. At last, driven
from the mountains into the desert, they realized that gold
was the doom of their tribe and they began to fight for
their land. Bitter and bloody were the battles; and from
[ 113 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
father to son this wild, free, proud race bequeathed a terri¬
ble hatred.
Yaqui was one of the last great chiefs of his once great
tribe. All his life he remembered the words of his father
and his grandfather—that the Yaquis must find an un¬
known and impenetrable hiding place or perish from the
earth. When Mexican soldiers at the decree of their gov¬
ernment made war upon this tribe, killing those who re¬
sisted and making slaves of the captured, Yaqui with his
family and followers set out upon a last journey across the
Sonoran wilderness. Hateful and fearful of the east, whence
this blight of gold diggers and land robbers appeared to
come, he had fled toward the setting sun into a waste of
desert land unknown to his people—a desert of scorching
heat and burning sand and tearing cactus and treacherous
lava, where water and wood and grass seemed days apart.
Some of the youngest children had died on the way and all
except the strong braves were wearing out.
Alone, on a ridge of rising ground, Yaqui faced the
back trail and watched with falcon eyes. Miles distant
though that horizon was, those desert eyes could have
made out horses against the clear sky. He did not gaze
steadily, for the Indian method was to flash a look across
the spaces, from near to far, and to fix the eye momenta¬
rily, to strain the vision and magnify all objects, then to
[ ]
ALONE ON A RIDGE OF RISING GROUND YAQUI FACED THE BACK TRAIL AND WATCHED WITH
FALCON EYES
YAQUI
avert the gaze from that direction and presently flash it
back again.
Lonely, wild, and grand, the scene seemed one of life¬
lessness. Only the sun lived, still hot, as it burned red-
gold far away on the rugged rim of this desert world.
Nothing breathed in that vastness. To Yaqui’s ear the
silence was music. The red sun slipped down and the
desert changed. The golden floor of sand and rock shaded
cold to the horizon and above that the sky lost its rose,
turning to intense luminous blue. In the far distance the
peaks dimmed and vanished in purple. The fire of the
western heavens paled and died, and over all the rock-
ribbed, sand-encumbered plateau stole a wondrous gray
shade. Yaqui watched until that gray changed to black
and the horizon line was lost in night. Safe now from pur¬
suers were he and his people until the dawn.
Then, guided by a speck of camp-fire light, he returned
to his silent men and moaning women and a scant meal
that he divided. Hunger was naught to Yaqui, nor thirst.
Four days could he travel the desert without drink, an en¬
durance most of his hardy tribe were trained to. And as
for toil, the strength of his giant frame had never reached
its limit. But strong chief that he was, when he listened to
the moaning women and gazed at the silent, set faces of
the children under the starlight he sagged to the sands and,
[ H5 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
bowing his head, prayed to his gods. He prayed for little
—only life, freedom, loneliness, a hidden niche where his
people would hear no steps and fear no specters on their
trail. Then with unquenchable faith he stretched his great
length on the sands; and the night was as a moment.
In the gray of a dawn cold, pure, and silent, with the
radiant morning star shining like a silver moon, the long
file of Yaquis rode and tramped westward, on down the
rugged bare slopes of this unknown desert.
And out of the relentless east, land of enemies, rose the
glaring sun. Like magic the frost melted off the rocks and
the cool freshness of morning changed to a fiery breath.
The sun climbed, and the leagues were as long as the hours.
Down into a broad region of lava toiled the fugitives.
Travel over the jagged crusts and through the poison-
spiked cholla lamed the horses and made walking impera¬
tive. Yaqui drove his people before him, and some of the
weakest fell by the way.
Out of the hot lava and stinging cactus the Indians
toiled and entered a region of bare stone, cut by wind and
water into labyrinthine passages where, even if they had
left tracks on the hard rocks, few pursuers could have fol¬
lowed them. Yaqui told this to his people, told them he
saw sheep on the peaks above and smelled water, and thus
urged them on and on league after league toward distant
[ H6 ]
YAQUI
purple heights. Vast and hard as had been the desert be¬
hind them, this strange upflung desert before them seemed
vaster and grimmer. The trackless way led ever upward
by winding passages and gorges—a gloomy and weird re¬
gion of colored stone. And over all reigned the terrible
merciless sun.
Yaqui sacrificed horses to the thirst and hunger of his
people and abandoned the horror of toil under the sun to
a slower progress by night. Blanched and magnified under
the great stars, the iron-bound desert of riven rock, so un¬
real and weird, brought forth a chant from the lips of
Yaqui’s women. His braves, stoic like himself, endured
and plodded on, lightening burdens of the weaker and
eventually carrying the children. That night passed and a
day of stupor in the shade of sun-heated rock; another
night led the fugitives onward and upward through a maze
of shattered cliffs, black and wild. Day dawned once more,
showing Yaqui by the pitiless light that only his men could
endure much more of this dragging on.
He made camp there and encouraged his people by a
faith that had come to him during the night—a whisper
from the spirit of his forefathers—to endure, to live, to go
to a beautiful end his vision could not see. Then Yaqui
stalked alone off into the fastnesses of the rocks and prayed
to his gods for guidance. All about him were silence, deso-
[ 117 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
lation, a gray barren world of rock, a black barren world
of lava. Far as his falcon eye could see to the north and
east and south stretched the illimitable glaring desert,
rough, peaked, spiked, riven, ghastly with yellow slopes?
bleak with its bare belts, terrible with its fluted and up-
flung plateaus, stone faced by endless ramparts and fast
bound to the fading distance. From the west, up over the
dark and forlorn heights, Yaqui heard the whispers of his
dead forefathers.
Another dawn found Yaqui on the great heights with
the sunrise at his back and with another and more promis¬
ing world at his feet.
“Land of our forefathers!” he cried out sonorously to
his people, gazing mutely down into the promised land. A
vast gray-green valley yawned at their feet. Leagues of
grassy, rock-ribbed, and tree-dotted slopes led down to a
gleaming white stream, winding like a silver ribbon down
the valley, to lose itself far in the lower country, where the
colored desert merged into an immense and boundless void
of hazy blue—the sea.
“Great Water, where the sun sleeps,” said Yaqui with
long arm outstretched. “Yaqui’s father’s father saw it.”
Yaqui carried the boy and led the way down from the
heights. Mountain sheep and wild horses and deer and
quail that had never before seen man showed no fear of
[ H8 ]
YAQUI
this invasion of their wild home. And Yaqui’s people, foot¬
sore and starved, gazed round them and, in the seeming
safety of this desert-locked valley with its grass and water
and wood and abundant game, they took hope again and
saw their prayers answered and happiness once more pos¬
sible. New life flushed their veins. The long slopes, ever
greener as they descended, were welcome to aching eyes so
tired of the glaring expanses of the desert.
For an encampment Yaqui chose the head of the val¬
ley. Wide and gently sloping, with a rock-walled spring
that was the source of the stream, and large ironwood trees
and pines and paloverdes, this lonely hidden spot satisfied
the longing in Yaqui’s heart. Almost his joy was complete.
But never could he feel wholly secure again, even had he
wings of an eagle. For Yaqui’s keen eyes had seen gold in
the sands of the stream; and gold spelled the doom of the
Indian. Still Yaqui was grateful and content. Not soon
indeed would his people be tracked to this fastness, and
perhaps never. He cautioned his braves to save their scant
gun ammunition, sending them out with bows and arrows
to kill the tame deer and antelope. The weary squaws no
longer chanted the melancholy songs of their woe. The
long travel had ended. They unpacked their stores under
the wide-spreading pines, made fires to roast the meat that
would soon be brought, and attended to the ailments of
[ H9 ]
TAPPANS BURRO
the few children left to them. Soon the naked little ones,
starved and cut and worn as they were, took to the clear
cool water like goslings learning to swim.
Yaqui, carrying his rifle, stalked abroad to learn more
of this wonderful valley. Stretching at length along the
stream, he drank deeply, as an Indian who loved mountain
water. The glint of gold in the wet sand did not please
him as had the sweetness of the cold water. Grasping up
a handful of sand and pebbles, he rubbed and washed it in
his palm. Tiny grains of gold and little nuggets of gold!
Somewhere up at the head of this valley lay the mother
lode from which the gold had washed down.
Yaqui knew that here was treasure for which the white
men would spill blood and sell their souls. But to the In¬
dians—the Papagos, the Yumas, the man-eating Seris, and
especially to the.Yaquis—gold was no more than rock or
sand, except that they hated it for the curse of white hun¬
ters it lured to the desert. Yaqui had found many a rich
vein and ledge and placer of gold. He had hated them,
and now more than any other he hated this new discovery.
It would be a constant peril to his people. In times of
flood this mountain stream would carry grains of gold as
far as it flowed down on the desert. Yaqui saw in it a
menace. But there was hope in the fact that many treas¬
ures of the desert heights would never be seen by white
[ 120 ]
YAQUI
men. His father had told him that. This gray valley was
high, cradled in the rocky uplands, and it might be inac¬
cessible from below.
Yaqui set out to see. His stride was that of the strong¬
est and tallest of his tribe, and distance meant little to
him. Hunger gnawed at his vitals, but the long march
across the wastes and heights had not tired him. Yaqui
had never known exhaustion. Before the sun stood straight
overhead he had ascertained that this valley of promise
was shut off from the west and that the stream failed in
impassable desert. From north and east he had traveled,
and therefore felt a grim security. But to the south he
turned apprehensive eyes. Long he tramped and high he
climbed, at last to see that the valley, this land of his fore¬
fathers, could be gained from the south. Range and ridge
sloped gradually to a barren desolate land of sun and cacti,
far as his desert eyes could see. That must be the land of
the Seris, the man-eaters. But it was a waterless hell in
summer. No fear from the south till the winter rains fell!
Yaqui returned to his camp, reaching there at sunset.
There was joy in the dusky welcoming eyes of his young
wife as she placed fresh meat before him.
“Yaqui’s only son will live,” she said, and pointed to
the frail boy as he slept. The chief gazed somberly at the
little brown face of his son, the last of his race.
[ 1 * 1 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Days passed. With rest and food and water the gloomy
spirit of the Yaquis underwent a gradual change. The wild
valley was an Indian’s happy hunting ground, encompassed
by lofty heights known only to sheep and eagles. Like
wild animals, all savages, in the peace and loneliness of a
secluded region, soon forgot past trials and fears. Still,
the chief Yaqui did not forget, but as time passed and
nothing disturbed the serenity of this hiding place his vigi¬
lance slowly relaxed. The wind and the sun and the soli¬
tude and the presence of antelope and wild horses always
within sight of camp—these factors of primitive nature had<
a healing effect upon his sore heart. In the canyons he
found graves and bones of his progenitors.
Days passed into weeks. The scarlet blossoms flamed
at the long ends of the ocatilla; one morning the pale vordes,
which had been bare and shiny green, appeared to have
burst into full bloom, a yellow flowering that absorbed the
sunlight; cacti opened great buds of magenta; from the
canyon walls, on inaccessible ledges, hung the exquisite and
rare desert flowers, lluvia d’oro, shower of gold; and many
beautiful flowers lifted their faces out of the tall grasses.
This magic of spring did not last long. The flowers faded,
died, and blew away on the dry wind; the tall grasses
slowly yellowed and bleached. Summer came. The glar¬
ing sun blazed over the eastern ramparts, burned white
[ 122 ]
YAQUI
down over the still solemn valley, and sank like a huge ball
of fire into the distant hazy sea. With the torrid heat of
desert Sonora came a sense of absolute security to the chief
Yaqui. His new home was locked in the furnace of the
sun-blasted waste land. The clear spring of mountain water
sank lower and lower, yet it did not fail. The birds and
beasts that visited the valley attested to the nature of the
surrounding country. So the time came when Yaqui forgot
the strange feeling of distant steps upon his trail.
When autumn came all the valley was dry and gray and
withered, except the green line along the stream and the
perennial freshness of the cactus plants and the everlasting
green of the paloverdes. With the winter season came the
rains, and a wave of ever-brightening green flushed the vast
valley from its eastern height of slope to the far distant
mouth, where it opened into the barren breaks of the
desert.
Manifestly the god of the Yaquis had not forgotten
them. As the months passed child after child was born to
the women of the tribe. Yaqui’s dusky-eyed wife bore him
a healthy girl baby. As the chief balanced the tiny brown
form in his great hand he remembered speech of his own
father’s: “Son, let the Yaquis go back to the mountains
of the setting sun—to a land free from white men and gold
and fire water, to the desert valley where deer graze with
[ 123 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
horses. There let the Yaquis multiply into a great people
or perish from the earth.”
Yaqui watched his girl baby with a gleam of troubled
hope lighting in his face. His father had spoken prophecy.
There waved the green grass of the broad valley, dotted
with wild horses, antelope, and deer grazing among his
stock. Here in his hand lay another child—a woman child
—and he had believed his son to be the last of his race. It
was not too late. The god of the Indian was good. His
branch of the Yaquis would mother and father a great
people. But even as he fondled his babe the toe of his
moccasin stirred grains of gold in the sand.
Love of life lulled Yaqui back into his dreams. To live,
to have his people round him, to see his dusky-eyed wife at
her work, to watch the little naked children playing in the
grass, to look out over that rolling, endless green valley, so
wild, so lonely, so fertile—such a proof of god in the desert
—to feel the hot sun and the sweet wind and the cool night,
to linger on the heights watching, listening, feeling, to stalk
the keen-eyed mountain sheep, to eat fresh meat and drink
pure water, to rest through the solemn still noons and sleep
away the silent melancholy nights, to enjoy the games of
his forefathers—wild games of riding and running—to steal
off alone into the desert and endure heat, thirst, cold, dust,
starvation while he sought the Indian gods hidden in the
[ 1 ^ 4 ]
YAQUI
rocks, to be free of the white man whom he recognized as a
superior and a baser being—to live like the eagles—to live
—Yaqui asked no more.
Yaqui laid the baby back in the cradle of its mother’s
breast and stalked out as a chief to inspire his people.
In that high altitude the morning air was cold, ex¬
hilarating, sweet to breathe and wonderful to send the
blood racing. Some winter mornings there was just a
touch of frost on the leaves. The sunshine was welcome,
the day was short, the night was long. Yaqui’s people
reverted to their old order of happy primitive life before
the white man had come with greed for gold and lust to
kill.
The day dawned in which Yaqui took his son out and
put him upon a horse. As horsemen the Yaquis excelled
all other Indian tribes of the Southwest. Boys were given
lessons at an early age and taught to ride bareback. Thus
as youths they developed exceeding skill and strength.
Some of the braves had rounded up a band of wild
horses and had driven them into a rough rock-walled tri¬
angle, a natural trap, the opening of which they had closed
with a rude fence. On this morning the Yaquis all assem¬
bled to see the wild horses broken. Yaqui, as an inspira¬
tion to his little son and to the other boys of the tribe,
chose the vicious leader of the band as the horse he would
[ 125 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
first ride and break. High on the rocky wall perched the
black-eyed boys, eager and restless, excited and wondering,
some of them naked and all of them stretching out tousled
black heads with shining ragged hair flying in the wind.
The women and girls of the tribe occupied another posi¬
tion along the outcropping of gray wall, their colorful gar¬
ments lending contrast to the scene.
The inclosure was wide and long, containing both level
and uneven ground, some of which was grass and some
sand and rock. A few ironwood trees and one huge palo-
verde, under which Indians were lolling, afforded shade.
At the edge of the highest slope began a line of pine trees
that reached up to the bare gray heights.
Yaqui had his braves drive the vicious leader of the
wild horses out into the open. It was a stallion, of un¬
gainly shape and rusty color, no longer young. With ugly
head high, nostrils distended, mouth open and ears up,
showing the white of vicious, fiery eyes, it pranced in the
middle of the circle drawn by its captors.
Yaqui advanced with his long leather riata, and, once
clear of the ring of horsemen inclosing the stallion, he waved
them back. Then as the wild steed plunged to and fro,
seeking for an opening in that circle, Yaqui swung the long
noose. He missed twice. The third cast caught its mark,
the snarling nose of this savage horse. Yaqui hauled the
[ 126 ]
YAQUI
lasso taut. Then with snort of fright the stallion lunged
and reared, pawing the air. Yaqui, hauling hand over
hand, pulled him down and approached him at the same
time. Shuddering all over, breathing with hard snorts, the
stallion faced his captor one moment, as if ready to fight.
But fear predominated. He leaped away. At the end of
that leap, so powerful was the strain on him, he went down
in the sand. Up he sprang, wilder than ever, and dashed
forward, dragging the Indian, gaining yards of the lasso.
But the mounted Yaquis blocked his passage; he had to
swerve; and as he ran desperately in a circle once more
the giant chief hauled hand over hand on the rope. Sud¬
denly Yaqui bounded in and with a tremendous leap, like
the leap of a huge panther, he gained the back of the stal¬
lion and seemed to become fixed there. He dropped the
lasso, and with the first startled jump of the stallion the
noose loosened and slipped off. Except for Yaqui’s great,
long brown legs, with their strung bands of muscle set like
steel, the stallion was free.
The stallion bolted for the open. Only the rock wall
checked his headlong flight. Then he wheeled and ran
along the wall, bounding over rocks and ditches, stretching
out until, with magnificent stride, he was running at his
topmost speed. Along one wall and then the other he
dashed, round and round and across, until the moment
[ 1^7 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
came when panic succeeded to fury, and then his tremen¬
dous energies were directed to the displacement of his
rider. Wildly he pitched. With head down, legs stiff, feet
together, he plunged over the sand, plowing up the dust,
and bounding straight up. But he could not unseat his
inexorable rider. Yaqui’s legs banded his belly and were
as steel. Then the stallion, now lashed into white lather of
sweat and froth, lunged high to paw the air and scream
and plunge down to pitch again. His motions soon lost
their energy, though not their fury. Then he reached back
with eyes of fire and open mouth to bite. Yaqui’s huge
fist met him, first on the right, then, as he turned, on the
left. Last he plunged to his knees and with rumbling
heave of anger he fell on his side, meaning to roll over his
rider. But the Yaqui’s leg on that side flashed high while
his hands twisted hard in the long mane. When the foiled
horse rose again Yaqui rose with him, again fixed tight on
his back. Another dash and burst of running, wild and
blind this time and plainly losing speed, showed the weak¬
ening of the stallion. And the time arrived when, spent and
beaten, he fell in the sand.
“Let Yaqui’s son learn to ride like his father,” said the
chief to his gleeful, worshiping son.
Then the chief again stalked forth, drawn irresistibly by
something in the hour.
[ 128 ]
YAQUI
“Let Yaqui’s son watch and remember to tell his son’s
son,” he said.
He scattered his riders to block the few passages out of
the valley and he ordered his son and all the women of the
tribe and their children again to climb high on the rocks,
there to watch. The Indian gods said this day marked the
rejuvenation of their tribe. Let his son, who would be
chief some day, and his people, see the great runner of the
Yaquis.
Naked except for his moccasins, the giant chief broke
into a slow trot that was habitual with him when alone on
a trail; and he crossed the stream and the plots of sand,
and headed out into the grassy valley where deer grazed
with the horses. Yaqui selected the one that appeared
largest and strongest of the herd and to it he called in a
loud voice, meant as well for the spirit of his forefathers
and for his gods, watching and listening from the heights:
“Yaqui runs to kill!”
The sleek gray deer left off their grazing and stood at
gaze, with long ears erect. Then they bounded off. Yaqui
broke from his trot into a long, swinging lope and the length
of his stride was such that he seemed to fly over the ground.
Up the valley the deer scattered and Yaqui ran in the trail
of the one to which he had called. Half a mile off it halted
to look back. Then it grazed a little, but soon lifted its
[ 129 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
head to look again. Yaqui ran on at the same easy, dis¬
tance-devouring stride. Presently the deer dashed away
and kept on until it was a mere speck in Yaqui’s eyes. It
climbed a deer trail that led over the heights, to be turned
back there by one of Yaqui’s braves. Then it crossed the
wide valley to be turned back by insurmountable cliffs.
Yaqui kept it in sight and watched it trot and stop, run
and walk and stop again, all the way up the long grassy
slope toward the head of the valley.
Here among rocks and trees Yaqui lost sight of his
quarry, but he trailed it with scarcely a slackening of his
pace. At length, coming out upon a level open bench, he
saw the deer he had chosen to run to death. It was look¬
ing back.
Down the grassy middle of the vast valley, clear to the
mouth where the stream tumbled off into space, across the
wide level from slope to slope, back under the beetling
heights, Yaqui pursued the doomed deer.
Leagues and leagues of fleet running had availed the
deer nothing. It could not shake off the man. More and
more the distance between them lessened. Terror now
added to the gradual exhaustion of the four-footed creature,
designed by Nature to escape its foes. Yaqui, perfect in
all the primal attributes of man, was its superior. The
race was not to the swift but to the enduring.
[ 130 ]
YAQUI
Within sight of his people and his little son Yaqui over¬
took the staggering deer and broke its neck with his naked
hands. Then for an instant he stood erect over his fallen
quarry, a tall and gaunt giant, bathed in the weird after¬
glow of sunset; and he lifted a long arm to the heights, as
if calling upon his spirits there to gaze down upon the vic¬
tory of the red man.
[ 131 ]
II
TT WAS toward evening of another day, all the hours of
which had haunted Yaqui with a nameless oppression.
Like a deer that scented a faint strange taint on the pure
air Yaqui pointed his sensitive nose toward the east, whence
came the soft wind.
Suddenly his strong vision quivered to the movement of
distant objects on the southern slope. Halting, he fixed his
gaze. Long line of moving dots! Neither deer nor sheep
nor antelope traveled in that formation. The objects were
men. Yaqui’s magnified sight caught the glint of sunset
red on shining guns. Mexican soldiers! That nameless
haunting fear of the south, long lulled, now had its fulfill¬
ment.
Yaqui leaped with gigantic bounds down the slope. Like
an antelope he sprang over rocks and dips, and once on the
grassy downs he ran the swiftest race of his life. His pierc¬
ing yells warned his people in time to save them from being
surprised by the soldiers. The first shots of combat were
fired as he hurdled the several courses of the stream. Yaqui
saw the running and crawling forms of men in dusty blue
[ 132 ]
YAQUI
—saw them aim short carbines—saw spurts of flame and
puffs of smoke.
Yaqui’s last few bounds carried him into the stone¬
walled encampment, and the whistling bullets that missed
him told how the line of soldiers was spreading to surround
the place. Yaqui flung himself behind the wall and crawled
to where his braves knelt with guns and bows ready. Some
of them were shooting. The women and children were hud¬
dled somewhere out of sight. Steel-jacketed bullets cracked
on the rocks and whined away. Yaqui knew how poor was
the marksmanship of the Mexicans; nevertheless it seemed
to him they were shooting high. The position of the In¬
dians was open to fire from several angles.
During a lull in the firing a hoarse yell pealed out.
Yaqui knew Spanish. “ Surrender, Yaquis!” was the com¬
mand. The Yaquis answered by well-aimed bullets that
brought sharp cries from the soldiers. Soon the encamp¬
ment appeared entirely surrounded. Reports came from all
sides and bullets whistled high, spatting into the trees.
Then occurred another lull in the firing. Again a voice
pealed out: “Surrender, Yaquis, save your lives!”
The Indians recognized their doom. Each man had
only a few shells for his gun. Many had only bows and ar¬
rows. They would be shot like wolves in a trap. But no
Yaqui spoke a word.
[ 133 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Nevertheless, when darkness put an end to their shoot¬
ing there were only a few who had a shell left. The Mexi¬
cans grasped the situation and grew bold. They built fires
off under the trees. They crept down to the walls and
threw stones into the encampment and yelled derisively:
“Yaqui dogs!” They kept up a desultory shooting from
all sides as if to make known to the Indians that they were
surrounded and vigilantly watched.
At dawn the Mexicans began another heavy volleying,
firing into the encampment without aim but with deadly
intent. Then, yelling their racial hatred of the Yaquis,
they charged the camp. It was an unequal battle. Out¬
numbered and without ammunition the Yaquis fought a
desperate but losing fight. One by one they were set upon
by several, sometimes by half a dozen, Mexicans and killed
or beaten into insensibility.
Yaqui formed the center of several storms of conflict.
With clubbed rifle he was like a giant fighting down a
horde of little men.
.. “Kill the big devil!” cried a soldier.
From the thick of that melee sounded Spanish curses
and maledictions and dull thuds and groans as well. The
Yaqui was a match for all that could surround him. A
Mexican fired a pistol. Then the officer came running to
knock aside the weapon. He shouted to his men to cap-
[ 134 ]
YAQUI
ture the Yaqui chief. The Mexicans pressed closer, dodg¬
ing the sweeping rifle, and one of them plunged at the heels
of the Indian. Another did likewise and they tripped up
the giant, who was then piled upon by a number of curs¬
ing soldiers. Like a mad bull Yaqui heaved and tossed,
but to no avail. He was overpowered and bound with a
lasso, and tied upright to the paloverde under which he had
so often rested.
His capture ended the battle. And the Mexicans began
to run about, searching. Daylight had come. From under
a ledge of rock the Indian women and children were driven.
One lithe, quick boy eluded the soldiers. He slipped out
of their hands and ran. As he looked back over his shoul¬
der his dark face shone wildly. It was Yaqui’s son. Like a
deer he ran, not heeding the stern calls to halt. “Shoot!”
ordered the officer. Then the soldiers leveled rifles and
began to fire. Puffs of dust struck up behind, beside and
beyond that flying form. But none hit him. They shot at
him until he appeared to be out of range. And all eyes
watched him flee. Then a last bullet struck its flying mark.
The watchers heard a shrill cry of agony and saw the lad
fall.
All the Indians were tied hand and foot and herded
into a small space and guarded as if they had been wild
cattle.
[ 135 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
After several hours of resting and feasting and cele¬
brating what manifestly was regarded as a great victory,
the officer ordered the capture of horses and the burning
of effects not transportable. Soon the beautiful encamp¬
ment of the Yaquis was a scene of blackened and smoking
ruin. Then, driving the Yaquis in a herd before them, the
Mexicans, most of them now mounted on Indian horses,
faced the ascent of the slope by which they had entered the
valley.
Far down that ragged mountain slope the Mexicans
halted at the camp they had left when they made their at¬
tack on the Yaquis. Mules and burros, packsaddles and
camp duffel occupied a dusty bench upon which there grew
a scant vegetation. All round were black slopes of ragged
lava and patches of glistening white cholla.
The Yaquis received but little water and food, no blan¬
kets to sleep on, no rest from tight bonds, no bandaging of
their fly-tormented wounds. But they bore their ills as if
they had none.
Yaqui sat with his back to a stone and when unob¬
served by the guards he would whisper to those of his
people nearest to him. Impassively but with intent faces
they listened. His words had some strange, powerful, sus¬
taining effect. And all the time his inscrutable gaze swept
down off the lava heights to the hazy blue gulf of the sea.
[ 136 ]
YAQUI
Dawn disclosed the fact that two of the Yaquis were
badly wounded and could not be driven to make a start.
Perhaps they meant to force the death that awaited them
farther down the trail; perhaps they were absorbed in the
morbid gloom of pain and departing strength. At last the
officer, weary of his subordinate’s failure to stir these men,
dragged at them himself, kicked and beat them, cursing the
while. “Yaqui dogs! You go to the henequen fields!”
The older of these wounded Indians, a man of lofty
stature and mien, suddenly arose. Swiftly his brown arm
flashed. He grasped a billet of wood from a packsaddle
and struck the officer down. The blow lacked force. It
was evident that the Yaqui, for all his magnificent spirit,
could scarcely stand. Excitedly the soldiers yelled, and
some brandished weapons. The officer staggered to his
feet, livid and furious, snarling like a dog, and ordering his
men to hold back, he drew a pistol to kill the Yaqui. The
scorn, the contempt, the serenity of the Indian, instead of
rousing his respect, incurred a fury which demanded more
than death.
“You shall walk the cholla torture!” he shrieked, wav¬
ing his pistol in the air.
In northwest Mexico, for longer than the oldest inhabi¬
tant could remember, there had been a notorious rumor of
the cholla torture that the Yaquis meted out to their
[ 137 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Mexican captives. This cholla torture consisted of ripping
the skin off the soles of Mexicans’ feet and driving them
to walk upon the cactus beds until they died.
The two wounded Indians, with bleeding raw feet, were
dragged to the cholla torture. They walked the white, glis¬
tening, needle-spiked beds of cholla blind to the cruel jeers
and mute wonderment and vile maledictions of their heredi¬
tary foes. The giant Yaqui who had struck down the offi¬
cer stalked unaided across the beds of dry cholla. The
cones cracked like live bits of steel. They collected on the
Yaqui’s feet until he was lifting pads of cactus. He walked
erect, with a quivering of all the muscles of his naked
bronze body, and his dark face was set in a terrible hard¬
ness of scorn for his murderers.
Then when the mass of cactus cones adhering to the
Yaqui’s feet grew so heavy that he became anchored in his
tracks the Mexican officer, with a fury that was not all
hate, ordered his soldiers to dispatch these two Indians,
who were beyond the reach of a torture hideous and appal¬
ling to all Mexicans. Yaqui, the chief, looked on inscrut¬
ably, towering above the bowed heads of his women.
This execution sobered the soldiers. Not only extermi¬
nation did they mean to mete out to the Yaqui, but an ex¬
termination of horrible toil, by which the Mexicans were to
profit.
[ 138 ]
YAQUI
Montes, a Brazilian, lolled in the shady spot on the
dock. The hot sun of Yucatan was more than enough for
him. The still air reeked with a hot pungent odor of hene-
quen. Montes had learned to hate the smell. He was in
Yucatan on a mission for the Brazilian government and
also as an agent to study the sisal product—an advant¬
ageous business for him, to which he had devoted himself
with enthusiasm and energy.
But two unforeseen circumstances had disturbed him of
late and rendered less happy his devotion to his tasks. His
vanity had been piqued, his pride had been hurt, his heart
had been stormed by one of Merida’s coquettish beauties.
And the plight of the poor Yaqui Indians, slaves in the
henequen fields, had so roused his compassion that he had
neglected his work.
So, as Montes idled there in the shade, with his legs
dangling over the dock, a time came in his reflection when he
was confronted with a choice between the longing to go home
and a strange desire to stay. He gazed out into the gulf.
The gunboat Esperanza had come to anchor in the roads off
Progreso. She had a cargo of human freight—Yaqui In¬
dian prisoners from the wild plateaus of Northern Sonora—
more slaves to be broken in the terrible henequen fields. At
that moment of Montes’s indecision he espied Lieutenant
Perez coming down the dock at the head of a file of rurales .
[ 139 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Gazing at Perez intently, the Brazilian experienced a
slight cold shock of decision. He would prolong his stay in
Yucatan. Strange was the nameless something that haunted
him. Jealous curiosity, he called it, bitterly. Perez had
the favor of the proud mother of Senorita Dolores Men¬
doza, the coquettish beauty who had smiled upon Montes.
She cared no more for Perez than she cared for him or any
of the young bloods of Merida. But she would marry Perez.
Montes rose and stepped out of the shade. His com¬
mission in Yucatan put him on common ground with Perez,
but he had always felt looked down upon by this little
Yucatecan.
“ Buenos dias, senor,” replied Perez to his greeting.
64 More Yaquis.”
A barge was made fast to the end of the dock and the
Yaquis driven off and held there in a closely guarded group.
The time came when Perez halted the loading of hene-
quen long enough to allow the prisoners to march up the
dock between files of rurales. They passed under the shad¬
ows of the huge warehouses, out into a glaring square where
the bare sand radiated veils of heat.
At an order from Perez, soldiers began separating the
Yaqui women and children from the men. They were
formed in two lines. Then Perez went among them, point¬
ing out one, then another.
[ 140 ]
YAQUI
Montes suddenly grasped the significance of this scene
and it had strange effect upon him. Yaqui father and son
—husband and wife—mother and child did not yet realize
that here they were to be parted—that this separation was
forever. Then one young woman, tall, with striking dark
face, beautiful with the grace of some wild creature, in¬
stinctively divined the truth and she cried out hoarsely.
The silence, the stoicism of these Indians seemed broken.
This woman had a baby in her arms. Running across the
aisle of sand, she faced a huge Yaqui and cried aloud in
poignant broken speech. This giant was her husband and
the father of that dusky-eyed baby. He spoke, laid a hand
on her and stepped out. Perez, who had been at the other
end of the aisle, saw the movement and strode toward them.
“Back, Yaqui dogs!” he yelled stridently, and he flashed
his bright sword.
With tremendous stride the Yaqui reached Perez and
towered over him.
“ Capitan , let my wife and child go where Yaqui goes,”
demanded the Indian in deep voice of sonorous dignity.
His Spanish was well spoken. His bearing was that of a
chief. He asked what seemed his right, even of a ruthless
enemy.
But Perez saw nothing but affront to his authority. At
his order the rurales clubbed Yaqui back into his squad.
[ 141 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
They would have done the same for the stricken wife, had
she not backed away from their threatening advances. She
had time for a long agonized look into the terrible face of
her husband. Then she was driven away in one squad and
he was left in the other.
Montes thought he would forever carry in memory the
tragic face of that Yaqui’s wife. Indians had hearts and
souls the same as white people. It was a ridiculous and
extraordinary and base thing to be callous to the truth.
Montes had spent not a little time in the pampas among
the Gauchos and for that bold race he had admiration and
respect. Indeed, coming to think about it, the Gauchos
resembled these Yaquis. Montes took the trouble to go
among English and American acquaintances he had made
in Progreso, and learned more about this oppressed tribe.
The vast plateau of northwestern Mexico, a desert and
mountainous region rich in minerals, was the home of the
Yaquis. For more than one hundred and sixty years there
had been war between the Yaquis and the Mexicans. And
recently, following a bloody raid credited to the Yaquis,
the government that happened to be in power determined
to exterminate them. To that end it was hunting the In¬
dians down, killing those who resisted capture, and sending
the rest to the torture of the henequen fields.
[ 142 ]
YAQUI
But more interesting was the new information that
Montes gathered. The Yaquis were an extraordinary, able-
bodied, and intelligent people. Most of them spoke Span¬
ish. They had many aboriginal customs and beliefs, but
some were Roman Catholics. The braves made better
miners and laborers than white men. Moreover, they pos¬
sessed singular mechanical gifts and quickly learned to op¬
erate machines more efficiently than most whites. They
possessed wonderful physical development and a marvelous
endurance. At sixty years Yaquis had perfectly sound
white teeth and hair as black as night. These desert men
could travel seventy miles on foot in one day with only a
bag of pinole. Water they could do without for days. And
it was said that some of the Yaqui runners performed
feats of speed, strength, and endurance beyond credence-
Montes, remembering the seven-foot stature of that Yaqui
chief and the spread of shoulders and the wonder of his
spare lithe limbs, thought that he could believe much.
The act of Perez in deliberately parting the chief from
his loved ones was cruel and despicable; and it seemed to
establish in Montes’s mind an excuse for the disgust and
hate he had come to feel for the tyrannical little officer.
But, being frank with himself, Montes confessed that this
act had only fixed a hate he already had acquired.
The Brazilian convinced himself that he had intuitively
[ 143 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
grasped a portent apparently lost on Perez. One of those
silent, intent-faced Yaquis was going to kill this epauleted
scion of a rich Yucatecan house. Montes had read it in
these faces. He had lived among the blood-spilling Gauchos
and he knew the menace of silent fierce savages. And he
did not make any bones about the admission to himself that
he hoped some Yaqui would kill the peacocked Mexican.
Montes had Spanish in him, and something of the raw pas¬
sion of the Gauchos he admired; and it suited him to ab¬
sorb this morbid presentiment. The Yaqui chief fascinated
him, impelled him. Montes determined to learn where this
giant had been sent and to watch him, win his confidence,
if such a thing was possible. Quien sabef Montes felt
more reasons than one for his desire to get under the skin
of this big Yaqui.
[ 144 ]
Ill
I N THE interior of Yucatan there were vast barren areas
of land fit only for the production of henequen. Noth¬
ing but jungle and henequen would grow there. It was a
limestone country. The soil could not absorb water. It
soaked through. Here and there, miles apart, were cenotes ,
underground caverns full of water, and usually these marked
the location of a hacienda of one of the rich planters. The
climate was hot, humid, and for any people used to high
altitudes it spelled death.
The plantation of Don Sancho Perez, father of the
young lieutenant, consisted of fifty thousand acres. It ad¬
joined the hundred-thousand-acre tract of Donna Isabel
Mendoza. The old Don was ambitious to merge the plan¬
tations into one, so that he could dominate the fiber out¬
put of that region. To this end he had long sought to win
for his son the hand of Donna Isabel’s beautiful daughter.
The big Yaqui Indian who had been wantonly sepa¬
rated from his wife by young Perez was in the squad of
prisoners that had been picked out by the young officer to
work on his father’s plantation.
[ 145 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
They were manacled at night and herded like wild
beasts into a pen and watched by armed guards. They
were routed out at dawn and put to work in the fiber fields.
For food they had, each of them, a single lump of coarse
soggy bread—one lump once every day. When the weaker
among them began to lag, to slow down, to sicken, they
were whipped to their tasks. 1
Yaqui knew that never again would he see his wife and
baby—never hear from them—never know what became of
them. He was worked like a galley slave, all the harder
because of his great strength and endurance. He would be
driven until he broke down.
Yaqui’s work consisted of cutting henequen fiber leaves.
He had a curved machete and he walked down the endless
aisles between the lines of great century plants and from
each plant he cut the lower circle of leaves. Each plant
gave him a heavy load and he carried it to the nearest one
of the hand-car tracks that crossed the plantation. The
work of other Indians was to push hand cars along these
tracks and gather the loads.
It took Yaqui six days to cut along the length of one
aisle. And as far as he could see stretched a vast, hot,
1 Recently the Mexican government changed its policy toward peon labor
in Yucatan, and the Yaquis in Sonora. These Indians are now in the regular
Mexican army. [Author’s Note.]
[ 146 ]
YAOUI KNEW THAT NEVER AGAIN WOULD HE SEE HIS WTFE AND BABY—NEVER HEAR FROM
THEM-NEVER KNOW WHAT BECAME OF THEM
■J
YAQUI
green wilderness with its never-ending lines and lanes, its
labyrinthine maze of intersecting aisles, its hazy, copper-
hued horizons speared and spiked by the great bayonet-like
leaves. He had been born and raised on the rugged moun¬
tain plateaus far to the north, where the clear, street, cold
morning air stung and the midday sun was only warm to
his back, where there were grass and water and flowers and
trees, where the purple canyons yawned and the black
peaks searched the sky. Here he was chained in the thick,
hot, moist night, where the air was foul, and driven out in
the long day under a fiery sun, where the henequen reeked
and his breath clogged in his throat and his eyes were
burning balls and his bare feet w T ere like rotting hoofs.
The time came when Montes saw that the Yaqui looked
no more toward that northland which he would never see
again. He dreamed no more hopeless dreams. Somehow
he knew when his wife and baby were no more a part of
him on the earth. For something within him died and
there were strange, silent voices at his elbow. He listened
to them. And in the depths of his being there boiled a
maelstrom of blood. He worked on and waited.
At night in the close-crowded filthy pen, with the damp¬
ness of tropical dews stealing in, and all about him the
silent prostrate forms of his stricken people, he lay awake
and waited enduringly through the long hours till a fitful
[ 147 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
sleep came to him. By day in the henequen fields, with
the furnace blasts of wind swirling down the aisles, with
the moans of his beaten and failing comrades full in his
ears, he waited with a Yaqui’s patience.
He saw his people beaten and scourged and starved.
He saw them sicken and fail—wilt under the hot sun—die
in the henequen aisles—and be thrown like dogs into ditches
with quicklime. One by one they went and when they
were nearly all gone another squad took their places. The
Yaqui recognized Indians of other tribes of his race. But
they did not know him. He had greatly changed. Only
the shell of him was left. And that seemed unbreakable,
deathless. He did not tell these newcomers to the fields
what torture lay in store for them. He might have been
dumb. He only waited, adding day by day, in the horror
of the last throes of his old comrades, something more to
that hell in his blood. He watched them die and then the
beginning of the end for his new comrades. They were
doomed. They were to be driven till they dropped. And
others would be brought to fill their places, till at last there
were no Yaquis left. The sun was setting for his race.
The Yaqui and his fellow toilers had one day of rest—
the Sabbath. There was no freedom. And always there
were guards and soldiers. Sunday was the day of bull
fights in the great corral at the hacienda. And on these
[ 148 ]
YAQUI
occasions Yaqui was given extra work. Montes knew the
Indian looked forward to this day. The old Don’s son,
Lieutenant Perez, would come down from the city to at¬
tend the fight. Then surely Yaqui fed his dark soul with
more cunning, more patience, more promise.
It was the Yaqui’s work to help drag disemboweled and
dying horses from the bull ring and to return with sand
to cover up the gory spots in the arena. Often Montes saw
him look up at the crowded circle of seats and at the box
where the gray old Don and his people and friends watched
the spectacle. There were handsome women with white
lace over their heads and in whose dark and slumberous
eyes lurked something the Yaqui knew. It was something
that was in the race. Lieutenant Perez was there leaning
toward the proud senorita. The Indian watched her with
strange intensity. She appeared indifferent to the efforts
of the 'picadores and the banderilleros , those men in the
arena whose duty it was to infuriate the bull for the artist
with the sword—the matador. When he appeared the
beautiful senorita wakened to interest. But not until there
was blood on the bright blade did she show the fire and
passion of her nature. It was sight of blood that quick¬
ened her. It was death, then, that she wanted to see.
And last the Yaqui let his gaze rivet on the dark, arro¬
gant visage of young Perez. Did not the great chief then
[ 149 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
become superhuman, or was it only Montes’s morbid fancy?
When Yaqui turned away, did he not feel a promise of
fulfillment in the red haze of the afternoon sun, in the red
tinge of the stained sand, in the red and dripping tongue of
the tortured bull? Montes knew the Yaqui only needed to
live long enough and there would be something. And
death seemed aloof from this Indian. The ferocity of the
desert was in him and its incalculable force of life. In his
eyes had burned a seared memory of the violent thrust
with which Perez had driven his wife and baby forever from
his sight.
Montes’s changed attitude evidently found favor in the
proud senorita’s eyes. She had but trifled with an earnest
and humble suitor; to the advances of a man, bold, ar¬
dent, strange, with something unfathomable in his wooing,
she was not indifferent. The fact did not cool Montes’s
passion, but it changed him somehow. The Spanish in him
was the part that so ardently loved and hated; his mother
had been French, and from her he had inherited qualities
that kept him eternally in conflict with his instincts.
Montes had his living quarters in Merida, where all the
rich henequen planters had town houses. It was not a long
horseback ride out to the haciendas of the two families in
which Montes had become most interested. His habit of
late, after returning from a visit to the henequen fields,
[ 150 ]
YAQUI
had been to choose the early warm hours of the afternoon
to call upon Senorita Mendoza. There had been a time
when his calls had been formally received by the Donna
Isabel, but of late she had persisted in her siesta, leaving
Montes to Dolores. Montes had grasped the significance
of this—the future of Dolores had been settled and there
no longer was risk in leaving her alone. But Montes had
developed a theory that the future of any young woman
was an uncertainty.
The Mendoza town house stood in the outskirts of
fashionable Merida. The streets were white, the houses
were white, the native Mayan women wore white, and al¬
ways it seemed to Montes as he took the familiar walk
that the white sun blazed down on an immaculate city.
But there were dark records against the purity of Merida
and the Yaqui slave driving was one of them. The Men¬
doza mansion had been built with money coming from the
henequen fields. It stood high on a knoll, a stately white
structure looking down upon a formal garden, where white
pillars and statues gleamed among green palms and bowers
of red roses. At the entrance, on each side of the wide
flagstone walk, stood a huge henequen plant.
On this day the family was in town and Montes ex¬
pected that the senorita would see him coming. He de¬
rived pleasure from the assurance that, compared with
[ 151 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Perez, he was someone good to look at. Beside him the
officer was a swarthy undersized youth. But Montes failed
to see the white figure of the girl and suffered chagrin for
his vanity.
The day was warm. As he climbed the high, wide
stone steps his brow grew moist and an oppression weighed
upon him. Only in the very early morning here in Yuca¬
tan did he ever have any energy. The climate was enervat¬
ing. No wonder it was that servants and people slept
away the warmer hours. Crossing the broad stone court
and the spacious outside hall, Montes entered the dim,
dark, musty parlors and passed through to the patio.
Here all was colorful luxuriance of grass and flower and
palm, great still ferns and trailing vines. It was not cool,
but shady and moist. Only a soft spray of falling water and
a humming of bees disturbed the deep silence. The place
seemed drowned in sweet fragrance, rich and subtle, thicken¬
ing the air so that it was difficult to breathe. In a bower
roofed by roses lay Senorita Mendoza, asleep in a hammock.
Softly Montes made his way to her side and stood look¬
ing down at her. As a picture, as something feminine,
beautiful and young and soft and fresh and alluring, asleep
and therefore sincere, she seemed all that was desirable.
Dolores Mendoza was an unusual type for a Yucatecan of
Spanish descent. She was blond. Her hair was not golden,
[ 152 ]
YAQUI
yet nearly so; she had a broad, low, beautiful brow, with
level eyebrows, and the effect of her closed lids was fasci¬
nating with their promise; her nose was small, straight,
piquant, with delicate nostrils that showed they could
quiver and dilate; her mouth, the best feature of her
beauty, was as red as the roses that drooped over her, and
its short curved upper lip seemed full, sweet, sensuous. She
had the oval face of her class, but fair, not olive-skinned,
and her chin, though it did not detract from her charms,
was far from being strong. Perhaps her greatest attraction,
seen thus in the slumber of abandon, was her slender form,
round-limbed and graceful.
Montes gazed at her until he felt a bitterness of revolt
against the deceit of Nature. She gladdened all the senses
of man. But somehow she seemed false to the effect she
created. If he watched her long in this beautiful guise of
sleep he would deaden his intelligence. She was not for
him. So he pulled a red rose and pushed it against her
lips, playfully tapping them until she awoke. Her eyes un¬
closed. They were a surprise. They should have been
blue, but they were tawny. Sleepy, dreamy, wonderful cat
eyes they were, clear and soft, windows of the truth of her
nature. Montes suddenly felt safe again, sure of himself.
“Ah, Sefior Montes,” she said. “You found me asleep.
How long have you been here?”
[ 153 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“A long time, I think,” he replied, as he seated himself
on a bench near her hammock. “ Watching you asleep, I
forgot time. But alas! time flies—and you awoke.”
Dolores laughed. She had perfect white teeth that
looked made to bite and enjoy biting. Her smile added to
her charm.
“Sir, one would think you liked me best asleep.”
“I do. You are always beautiful, Dolores. But when
you are asleep you seem sincere. Now you are—Dolores
Mendoza.”
“Who is sincere? You are not,” she retorted. “I
don’t know you any more. You seem to try to make me
dissatisfied with myself.”
“So you ought to be.”
“Why? Because I cannot run away with you to
Brazil?”
“No. Because you look like an angel but are not one.
Because your beauty, your charm, your sweetness deceive
men. You seem the incarnation of love and joy.”
“Ah!” she cried, stretching out her round arms and
drawing a deep breath that swelled her white neck. “You
are jealous. But I am happy. I have what I want. I am
young and I enjoy. I love to be admired. I love to be
loved. I love jewels, gowns, all I have, pleasure, excite¬
ment, music, flowers. I love to eat. I love to be idle,
[ 154 ]
YAQUI
lazy, dreamy. I love to sleep. And you, horrid man,
awake me to make me think.”
“That is impossible, Dolores,” he replied. “You can¬
not think.”
“My mind works pretty well. But I’ll admit I’m a
little animal—a tawny-eyed cat. So, Montes, you must
stroke me the right way or I will scratch.”
“Well, I’d rather you scratched,” said Montes. “A
man likes a woman who loves him tenderly and passion¬
ately one moment and tears his hair out the next.”
“You know, of course, senor,” she replied mockingly.
“The little Alva girl, for instance. You admired her. Per¬
haps she—”
“She is adorable,” he returned complacently. “I go
to her for consolation.”
Dolores made a sharp passionate gesture, a contrast to
her usual languorous movements. Into the sleepy, tawny
eyes shot a dilating fire.
“Have you made love to her?” she demanded.
“Dolores, do you imagine any man could resist that
girl?” he rejoined.
“Have you?” she repeated with heaving breast.
Montes discarded his tantalizing lightness. “No, Do¬
lores, I have not. I have lived in a torment lately. My
love for you seems turning to hate.”
[ 155 ]
TAPPANS BURRO
“No!” she cried, extending her hands. She softened.
Her lips parted. If there were depths in her, Montes had
sounded them.
“Dolores, tell me the truth,” he said, taking her hands.
“You have never been true.”
“I am true to my family. They chose Perez for me to
marry—before I ever knew you. It is settled. I shall
marry him. But—”
“But! Dolores, you love me?”
She drooped her head. “Yes, senor—lately it has come
to that. Ah! Don’t—don’t! Montes, I beg of you! You
forget—I’m engaged to Perez.”
Montes released her. In her confession and resistance
there was proof of his injustice. She was no nobler than
her class. She was a butterfly in her fancies, a little cat
in her greedy joy of physical life. But in her agitation he
saw a deeper spirit.
“Dolores, if I had come first—before Perez—would you
have given yourself to me?” he asked.
“Ah, senor, with all my heart!” she replied softly.
“Dearest—I think I must ask you to forgive me for—
for something I can’t confess. And now tell me—this re¬
ception given to-morrow by your mother—is that to an¬
nounce your engagement to Perez?”
“Yes and I will be free then till fall—when—when—”
[ 156 ]
YAQUI
“When you will be married?”
She bowed assent and hesitatingly slid a white hand
toward him.
“Fall! It’s a long time. Dolores, I must go back to
Brazil.”
“Ah, senor, that will kill me! Stay!” she entreated.
“But it would be dangerous. Perez dislikes me. I
hate him. Something terrible might come of it.”
“That is his risk. I have consented to marry him. I
will do my duty before and after. But I see no reason why
I may not have a little happiness—of my own—until that
day comes. Life for me will not contain all I could wish.
I told you; now I am happy. But you were included.
Senor, if you love me you will remain.”
“Dolores, can you think we will not suffer more?” he
asked.
“I know we will afterward. But we shall not now.”
“Now is perilous to me. To realize you love me! I
did not think you capable of it. Listen! Something—
something might prevent your marriage—or happen after¬
ward. All—all is so uncertain.”
6 “Quien sabe?” she whispered; and to the tawny, sleepy
languor of her eyes there came a fancy, a dream, a mystic
hope.
“Dolores, if Perez were lost to you—one way or
[ 157 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
another—would you marry me?” he broke out huskily.
Not until then had he asked her hand in marriage.
“If such forlorn hope will make you stay—make you
happy—yes, Senor Montes,” was her answer.
There came a time when Yaqui was needed in the fac¬
tory where the henequen fiber was extracted from the leaves.
He had come to be a valuable machine—an instrument of
toil that did not run down or go wrong. One guard said to
another: “That big black peon takes a lot of killing!”
and then ceased to watch him closely. He might have es¬
caped. He might have crossed the miles and miles of hene¬
quen fields to the jungle, and under that dense cover had
made his way northward to the coast. Yaqui had many a
chance. But he never looked toward the north.
At first they put him to feeding henequen leaves into
the maw of a crushing machine. The juicy, sticky, odorous
substance of the big twenty-pound leaf was squeezed into
a pulp, out of which came the white glistening threads of
fiber. These fibers made sisal rope—rope second in qual¬
ity only to the manila.
By and by he was promoted. They put him in the
pressing room to work on the ponderous iron press which was
used to make the henequen bales. This machine was a high,
strange-looking object, oblong in shape, like a box, opening in
[ 158 ]
YAQUI
the middle from the top down. It had several distinct move¬
ments, all operated by levers. Long bundles of henequen
were carried in from the racks and laid in the press until it was
half full. Then a lever was pulled, the machine closed on the
fiber and opened again. This operation was repeated again
and again. Then it was necessary for the operator to step
from his platform upon the fiber in the machine and stamp
it down and jump upon it and press it closely all round.
When this had been done the last time the machine seemed
wide open and stuffed so full that it would never close. But
when the lever was pulled the ponderous steel jaws shut closer
and closer and locked. Then the sides fell away, to dis¬
close a great smooth bale of henequen ready for shipment.
The Yaqui learned to operate this press so skillfully
that the work was left to him. When his carriers went out
to the racks for more fiber he was left alone in the room.
Some strange relation sprang up between Yaqui and his
fiber press. For him it never failed to operate. He knew
to a strand just how much fiber made a perfect bale. And
he became so accurate that his bales were never weighed.
They came out glistening, white, perfect to the pound.
There was a strange affinity between this massive, steel-
jawed engine and something that lived in the Yaqui’s
heart, implacable and immutable, appalling in its strength
to wait, in its power to crush.
[ 159 ]
IV
PT^HERE seemed no failing of the endurance of this
primitive giant, but his great frame had wasted away
until it was a mere hulk. Owing to his value now to the
hacienda, Yaqui was given rations in lieu of the ball of
soggy bread; they were not, however, what the Indian
needed. Montes at last won Yaqui’s gratitude.
“Senor, if Yaqui wanted to eat it would be meat he
needed,” said the chief. Then Montes added meat to the
wine, bread, and fruit he secretly brought to the Indian.
When Montes began covert kindnesses to the poor
Yaqui slaves the chief showed gratitude and pathos: “ Senor
Montes is good—but the sun of the Yaquis is setting.”
Perez in his triumphant arrogance evidently derived
pleasure from being magnanimous to the man he instinc¬
tively knew was his rival.
One day at the hacienda when Montes rode up to meet
Donna Isabel and Dolores he found them accompanied by
Perez and his parents. Almost immediately the young offi¬
cer suggested gayly:
“Senor, pray carry Dolores off somewhere. My father
[ 160 ]
YAQUI
has something to plan with Donna Isabel. It must be a
secret from Dolores. Take her a walk—talk to her, senor
—keep her excited—make love to her!”
“I shall be happy to obey. Will you come, senorita?”
said Montes.
If they expected Dolores to pout, they were mistaken.
Her slow, sleepy glance left the face of her future husband
as she turned away silently to accompany Montes. They
walked along the palm-shaded road, out toward the huge,
open, sunny space that was the henequen domain.
“I hate Perez,” she burst out suddenly. “He meant to
taunt you. He thinks I am his slave—a creature without
mind or heart. Senor, make love to me!”
“You will be his slave—soon,” whispered Montes bit¬
terly.
“Never!” she exclaimed passionately.
They reached the end of the shady road. The mill was
silent. Montes saw the Indian standing motionless close
at hand, in the shade of the henequen racks.
“Dolores, did you mean what you just said?” asked
Montes eagerly.
“That I will never be Perez’s slave?”
“No; the other thing you said.”
“Yes, I did,” she replied. “Make love to me, senor.
It was his wish. I must learn to obey.”
[ 161 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
With sullen scorn she spoke, not looking at Montes,
scarcely realizing the actual purport of her speech. But
when Montes took her in his arms she started back with a
cry. He held her. And suddenly clasping her tightly he
bent his head to kiss the red lips she opened to protest.
6 ‘Let me go!” she begged wildly. “Oh—I did not—
mean — Montes, not so! Do not make me—”
“Kiss me!” whispered Montes hoarsely, “or I’ll never
let you go. It was his wish. Come, I dare you—I beg
you!”
One wild moment she responded to his kiss, and then
she thrust him away.
“Ah, by the saints!” she murmured with hands over
her face. “Now I will love you more—my heart will
break.”
“Dolores, I can’t let Perez have you,” declared Montes
miserably.
“Too late, my dear. I am to be his wife.”
“But you love me, Dolores?”
“Alas! too true. I do. Oh, I never knew how well!”
she cried.
“Let us run away,” he implored eagerly.
Mournfully she shook her head, and looking up suddenly
she espied the Yaqui. His great burning cavernous eyes,
like black fire, were fixed upon her.
[ 162 ]
YAQUI
“Oh, that terrible Yaqui,” she whispered. “It is he
who watches us at the bull fights — Let us go, Montes
— Oh, he saw us—he saw me— Come!”
Upon their return to the house the old Don greeted them
effusively. He seemed radiant with happiness. He had
united two of the first families of Yucatan, which unison
would make the greatest henequen plantation. The beau¬
tiful senorita had other admirers. But this marriage had
unusual advantages. The peculiar location and productive¬
ness of the plantations and the obstacles to greater and
quicker output that would be done away with, and the
fact that Lieutenant Perez through his military influence
could work the fields with peon labor—these facts had car¬
ried the balance in favor of the marriage. The old Don
manifestly regarded the arrangement as a victory for him
which he owed to the henequen, and he had decided to
make the wedding day one on which the rich product of
the plantation should play a most important part.
“But how to bring in the henequen!” he concluded in
perplexity. “I’ve racked my brain. Son, I leave it to you.”
Young Perez magnificently waved the question asida.
Possessing himself of his fiancee’s reluctant hand, he spoke
in a whisper audible to Montes. “We planned the wed¬
ding presents. That was the secret. But you shall not
see—not know—until we are married!”
[ 163 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Montes dropped his eyes and his brow knit thoughtfully.
Later, as a peon brought his horse, he called Perez aside.
“I’ve an idea,” he said confidentially. “Have Yaqui
select the most perfect henequen fiber to make the most
beautiful and perfect bale of henequen ever pressed. Have
Yaqui place the wedding presents inside the bale before the
final pressing. Then send it to Donna Isabel’s house after
the wedding and open it there.”
Young Perez clapped his hands in delight. What a capi¬
tal plan! He complimented Montes and thanked him and
asked him to keep secret the idea. Indeed, the young lieu¬
tenant waxed enthusiastic over the plan. It would be
unique; it would be fitting to the occasion. Perez would
have Yaqui pick over and select from the racks the most
perfect fibers, to be laid aside. Perez would go himself to
watch Yaqui at his work. He would have Yaqui practice
the operation of pressing, so at the momentous hour there
could be no hitch. And on the wedding day Perez would
carry the presents himself. No hands but his own would
be trusted with those jewels, especially the exquisite pearls
that were his own particular gift.
At last the day arrived for the wedding. It was to be
a holiday. Yaqui alone was not to lie idle. It was to fall
to him to press that bale of henequen and to haul it to the
bride’s home.
[ 164 ]
YAQUI
But Perez did not receive all his gifts when he wanted
them. Messengers arrived late and some were yet to come.
He went to the mill, however, and put Yaqui to work at
packing the henequen in the press and building it up. The
Indian was bidden to go so far with the bale, leaving a
great hole in the middle for the gifts and to have the rest
of the fiber all ready to pack and press. Perez would not
trust anyone else with his precious secret; he himself would
hurry down with the gifts, and secretly, for the manner of
presentation was to be a great surprise.
Blue was the sky, white gold the sun, and the breeze
waved the palms. But for Montes an invisible shadow
hovered over the stately Mendoza mansion where Dolores
was to be made a bride. The shadow existed in his mind
and took mystic shape—now a vast, copper-hazed, green-
spiked plain of henequen, and then the spectral gigantic
shape of a toiling man, gaunt, grim, and fire-eyed.
Montes hid his heavy heart behind smiling lips and the
speech of a courtier. He steeled himself against a nameless
and portending shock, waiting for it even when his mind
scorned the delusion. But the shock did not come at sight
of Senorita Dolores, magnificently gowned in white, beauti¬
ful, serene, imperious, with her proud, tawny eyes and proud,
red lips. Nor when those sleepy strange eyes met his. Nor
when the priest ended the ceremony that made her a wife.
[ 165 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
He noted when Lieutenant Perez laughingly fought his
way out of the crowd and disappeared. Then the unrest
of Montes became a haunting suspense.
By and by the guests were directed out to the shaded
west terrace, where in the center of the wide stoned space
lay a huge white glistening bale of henequen. Beside it
stood the giant Yaqui, dark, motionless, aloof. The guests
clustered round.
When Montes saw the Yaqui like a statue beside the
bale of henequen, he sustained the shock for which he had
been waiting. He slipped to the front of the circle of
guests.
“Ah!” exclaimed the old Don, eying the bale of hene¬
quen with great satisfaction. “This is the surprise our son
had in store for us. Here is the jewel case—here are the
wedding presents!”
The guests laughed and murmured their compliments.
“Where is Senor Perez?” demanded the Don as he
looked round.
“The boy is hiding,” replied Donna Isabel. “He wants
to watch his bride when she sees the gifts.”
“No—he would not be there,” declared the old Don in
perplexity. Something strange edged into his gladness of
the moment. Suddenly he wheeled to the Yaqui. But he
never spoke the question on his lips. Slowly he seemed to
[ 166 ]
YAQUI
be blasted by those great black-fired orbs, as piercing as if
they had been lightnings from hell.
“ Hurry, open the bale,” cried the bride, her sweet voice
trilling above the gay talk.
Yaqui appeared not to hear. Was he looking into the
soul of the father of Lieutenant Perez? All about him be¬
trayed almost a superhuman intensity.
“Open the bale,” ordered the bride.
Yaqui cut the wire. He did not look at her. The per¬
fectly folded and pressed strands of fiber shook and swelled
and moved apart as if in relief. And like a great white
jewel case of glistening silken threads the bale of henequen
opened.
It commanded a stilling of the gay murmur—a sudden
silence that had a subtle effect upon all. The beautiful
bride, leaning closer to look, seemed to lose the light of the
tawny proud eyes. Her mother froze into a creature of
stone. The old Don, in slow strange action, as if his mind
had feeble sway over body, bent his gray head away from
the gaunt and terrible Yaqui. Something showed blue down
under the center strands of the glistening fiber. With a
swift flash of his huge black hand, with exceeding violence,
Yaqui swept the strands aside. Then from his lips pealed
an awful cry. Instead of the jewels, there, crushed and
ghastly, lay the bridegroom Perez.
[ 167 ]
TIGRE
\
TIGRE
ES, I’ve a power over animals. Look at Tigre there!
A But the old women in Micas say IVe found one wild
thing I’ll never tame.”
“And that, senor?” asked Muella.
“My young and pretty wife.”
She tossed her small head, so that her black curls rip¬
pled in the sunlight, and the silver rings danced in her ears.
“Bernardo, I’m not a parrot to have my tongue slit, or
a monkey to be taught tricks, or a jungle cat to be trained.
I’m a woman, and—”
“Yes—and I am old,” he interrupted bitterly. “Look,
Muella—there on the Micas trail!”
“It’s only Augustine, your vaquero .”
“Watch him!” replied Bernardo.
Muella watched the lithe figure of a man striding swiftly
along the trail. He was not going to drive cattle up to the
corrals, for in that case he would have been riding a horse.
He was not going toward the huts of the other herders. He
faced the jungle into which ran the Micas trail.
Surely he could not be on his way to Micas! The af¬
ternoon was far advanced and the village many miles away.
[ 171 ]
TAPPAN S BURRO
No vaquero ever trusted himself to the dangers of the jun¬
gle at night. Even Augustine, the boldest and strongest of
Bernardo’s many herders, would scarcely venture so much.
Yet Augustine kept on down the trail, passed the thatched
bamboo fence, went through the grove of palms, and disap¬
peared in the green wall of jungle.
“He’s gone!” cried Bernardo. “Muella, I sent Augus¬
tine away.”
She saw a dull red in her husband’s cheeks, a dark and
sinister gleam in his eyes; and her surprise yielded to mis¬
giving.
“Why?” she asked.
“He loved you.”
“No! No! Bernardo, if that’s why you sent him away,
you’ve wronged him. Of all your vaqueros , Augustine alone
never smiled at me—he cared nothing for me.”
“I say he loved you,” returned Bernardo hoarsely.
“Bernardo, you are unjust!”
“Would you lie to me? I know he loves you. Girl,
confess that you love him. Tell it! I won’t bear this
doubt another day!”
Muella stood rigid in his grasp, her eyes blazing the
truth that her lips scorned to speak.
“I’ll make you tell!” he shouted, and ran to a cage of
twisted vines and bamboo poles.
[ m ]
TIGRE
As he fumbled with the fastening of a door, his brown
hands shook. A loud purr, almost a cough, came from the
cage; then an enormous jaguar stepped out into the sun¬
light.
“Now, girl, look at Tigre!”
Tigre was of huge build, graceful in every powerful line
of his yellow, black-spotted body, and beautiful. Still, he
was terrible of aspect. His massive head swung lazily; his
broad face had one set expression of brute ferocity.
The eyes of any jaguar are large, yellow, cold, pale,
cruel, but Tigre’s were frightful. Every instant they vi¬
brated, coalesced, focused, yet seemed always to hold a
luminous, far-seeing stare. It was as if Tigre was gazing
beyond the jungle horizon to palm-leaf lairs which he had
never seen, but which he knew by instinct. And then it
was as if a film descended to hide their tawny depths.
Tigre’s eyes changed—they were always changing, only
there was not in them the life of vision; for the jaguar was
blind.
Bernardo burst into rapid speech.
“The taunting old crones of Micas were right when
they said I could not tame the woman; but I’ve tamed
every wild creature of the Taumaulipas jungle. Look at
Tigre! Who beside Bernardo ever tamed a jaguar? Look!
Tigre is my dog. He loves me. He follows me, he guards
[ 173 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
me, he sleeps under my hammock. Tigre is blind, and he
is deaf, yet never have I trained any beast so well. What¬
ever I put Tigre to trail, he finds. He never loses. He
trails slowly, for he is blind and deaf, but he never stops,
never sleeps, till he kills!”
Bernardo clutched the fur of the great jaguar and
leaned panting against the thatch wall of the cage.
“I’ll soon know if you love Augustine!” he went on
passionately. “Look here at the path—the path that leads
out to the Micas trail. See! Augustine’s sandal-prints in
the dust! Now, girl, watch!”
He led Tigre to the path and forced the nose of the
beast down upon Augustine’s footmarks. Suddenly the
jaguar lost all his lax grace. His long tail lashed from side
to side. Then, with head low, he paced down the path*
He crossed the grassy plot, went through the fence, along
the trail into the jungle.
“He’s trailing Augustine!” cried Muella.
She felt Bernardo’s gaze burning into her face.
“Tigre will trail him—catch him—kill him!” her hus¬
band said.
Muella screamed.
“He’s innocent! I swear Augustine does not love me!
I swear I don’t love him! It’s a horrible mistake. He’ll
be trailed—ah, he’ll be torn by that blind brute!” Muella
[ 174 ]
TIGRE
leaped back from her husband. “Never! You jealous
monster! For I’ll run after Augustine—I’ll tell him—I’ll
save him! ”
She eluded Bernardo’s fierce onslaught, and, fleet as a
frightened deer, she sped down the path. She did not
heed his hoarse cries, nor his heavy footsteps.
Bernardo was lame. Muella had so little fear of his
catching her that she did not look back. She passed the
fence, sped through the grove, and entered the jungle.
[175 ]
II
T HE trail was hard-packed earth, and ahead it lost its
white line in the green walls. Muella ran swiftly,
dodging the leaning branches, bowing her head under the
streamers of moss, striking aside the slender palm leaves.
Gay-plumaged birds flitted before her, and a gorgeous but¬
terfly crossed her path. A parrot screeched over her head.
She strained her gaze for the trailing jaguar. Then she
saw him, a long black and yellow shape moving slowly
under the hanging vines and creepers.
When Muella caught up with Tigre, she slackened her
pace, and watched for a wide place in the trail where she
could pass without touching him.
“I must pass him,” she muttered. “He can’t hear me
—I can do it safely—I must!”
But still she did not take advantage of several wide
places.
Presently the trail opened into a little glade. Twice she
started forward, only to hang back. Then desperately she
went on, seeing nothing but the great spotted cat just in
front of her.
[ 176 ]
TWICE SHE STARTED FORWARD, ONLY TO HANG BACK
TIGRE
Sharp spear-point palm leaves stung her face, and their
rustling increased her terror. She flashed by Tigre so close
that she smelled him.
Muella uttered a broken cry and began to run, as if in¬
deed she were the wild creature Bernardo had called her.
She looked over her shoulder to see the sinuous yellow form
disappear round a bend of the trail. Then she gathered
courage. For a long time her flying feet pattered lightly
on the trail. She was young, supple, strong, and it took
much to tire her. She ran on and on, until her feet were
heavy, her breath was almost gone, and her side pierced by
a sharp pain. Then she fell to a walk, caught her breath,
and once more ran.
Fears began to beset her. Had Augustine left the trail?
How swiftly he had walked! It seemed as if she had run
several miles. But that was well, for, the larger the dis¬
tance the farther she would get ahead of the jaguar.
Shadows began to gather under the overhanging vines
and creepers. Only the tips of the giant ceibas showed a
glint of sunlight. The day was fast closing. Once more
she ran on and on; and then, as she turned a curve, a tall,
dark form stood out of the green, and blurred the trail.
“Augustine! Wait! Wait!” she cried.
The man swung round, and ran back. Muella, panting
for breath and with her hand pressed over her heart, met him.
[ 177 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Senora! What has happened?” he exclaimed.
“Wait! My breath’s gone!” she gasped. “Wait! But
keep on—we—we mustn’t stop!”
Muella took a fleeting upward glance at him. It was so
hurried that she could not be positive, but she thought she
had caught a strange, paling flush of his bronzed face and
a startled look of his dark eyes. Why should his meeting
her unexpectedly cause more than surprise or concern?
As she trotted along, she shot another quick glance up
at him. He seemed unmistakably agitated; and this dis¬
concerted her. She heard his amazed questions, but they
were mostly unintelligible.
She had thought of nothing save to catch up with him
and to blurt out that Tigre was on his trail, and why. The
words now halted on her lips. It was not easy to tell him.
What would he say—what would he do? A few moments
back, he had been only one of Bernardo’s herders—the best,
truly, and a man whom it was pleasing to look upon, but
he had been nothing to her. He alone of the vaqueros had
not smiled at her, and this piquing of her pride had gained
him notice which otherwise he might never have got.
As she pattered on, slowly regaining her breath, the
presence of the man seemed to grow more real. It was well
that she knew Augustine cared nothing for her, else she
could not have told him of Bernardo’s unjust suspicions.
[ 178 ]
TIGRE
The trail opened into a clearing, where there were sev¬
eral old palm-thatched huts, a broken-down corral, and a
water hole. The place had once been used by Bernardo’s
herders, but was now abandoned and partly overgrown.
At this point, Augustine, who for a time had silently stalked
beside Muella, abruptly halted her.
“ Senora, what is wrong? Where are you going?”
“Going!” She uttered a little laugh. “Why, I don’t know.
I followed—to warn you. Bernardo put Tigre on your trail! ”
“Tigre? Santa Maria /”
“Yes. I ran, and ran, and passed him. He must be
far back now. He’s slow at first, but he’s sure, and he’s
trailing you. Hurry on! You mustn’t stop here!”
“ Senor a! You ran—you risked so much to save me?
Oh, may our Blessed Lady reward you!”
“Man, I tell you, don’t stop. Go on! You have only
your machete. Why did you start into the jungle without
a gun?”
“Bernardo drove me off. I owned nothing at the ha¬
cienda except my blanket and machete.”
“He’s selfish—he was beside himself. Why, Augustine,
he was jealous. He—he told me he drove you away be¬
cause you—you cared for me. I’m ashamed to tell you.
But, Augustine, he’s growing old. You mustn’t mind—
only hurry to get safe from that terrible brute! ”
[ 179 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“I forgive him, senora. It’s his way to fall in a rage;
but he quickly repents. And you, senora —you must take
this old trail back to the hacienda. Go swiftly, for soon it
will be night.”
“I’m not going back,” said Muella slowly. “I won’t
live any longer with Bernardo. Take me to Micas—to my
sister’s home!”
With one long stride Augustine barred the trail and
stood over her.
“You must go back. It’s best you should know the
truth. Bernardo spoke truth when he told you I loved
you!”
“Augustine, you’re telling a lie—just to frighten me
back to him!”
“No. Bernardo asked me for the truth; so I told him.”
Muella’s eyes dilated and darkened with shadows of
amaze, wonder, and pain.
“Oh, why did you tell him? I didn’t know. Oh, I
swore by the Virgin that you had no thought of me. He’ll
believe that I lied.”
“ Senora , you are innocent, and Bernardo will learn it.
You know him—how hotheaded he is, how quickly he is
sorry. Go back. Take this old cattle road—here—and
hurry. The sun has set. You must run. Have no fear
for me!”
[ 180 ]
TIGRE
“Tin not going back to Bernardo.” She straightened
up, pale and composed, but as she stepped forward to pass
the vaguero in the trail she averted her eyes. “Take me to
Micas!”
With a passionate gesture Augustine stopped her.
“But, senora , consider. Darkness is upon us. Micas is
a long way. You’re only a girl. You can’t keep up. You’ve
forgotten that Tigre is on my trail.”
“I forget nothing,” she replied coldly. “I’ve begged
you to hurry.”
“Muella, go back at once. To-morrow—after a night
in the jungle—with me—you can’t go. It’ll be too late!”
“It’s too late now,” breathed the girl. “I can’t go
back—now! ”
“Go first, then,” he said, whipping out the long machete.
“I’ll wait here for Tigre.”
“ Senor , there are other tigres. There are panthers, too,
and wild boars. I may lose the trail. Will you let me go
alone?”
[ 181 ]
Ill
A UGUSTINE whispered the name of a saint, and turn¬
ing his dark face toward where the trail led out of
the clearing, he strode on without sheathing his machete.
Muella kept close to him, and entered the enclosing
walls of jungle verdure. She felt indeed that she was the
untamed thing Bernardo had called her, and now she was
hunted. Light as dropping leaves, her feet pattered in the
trail. Augustine loomed beside her, striding swiftly, and
now and then the naked blade he carried, striking against
a twig or branch, broke the silence with a faint ring.
The green walls became hovering shadows and turned
to gray. Muella had an irresistible desire to look back.
The darkening menace of the gloom before and on each
side was nothing to that known peril behind. She saw
nothing, however, but a dull, gray, wavering line fading
into the obscurity of the jungle. She strained her hearing.
Except for the soft swishing of her skirt on the brush, and
the occasional low ring of Augustine’s machete, there was
absolutely no sound.
[ 182 ]
TIGRE
She noted that her companion never turned his
head. Had he no fear? Quick flashes of memory recalled
stories of this herder’s daring. How tall and powerful he
was—how swiftly he strode—how dark and stern and
silent he seemed! He must know full well the nature of
Bernardo’s pet, the terrible blind brute that never failed on
a trail.
All at once the jungle grew into two ragged walls of
black separated by a narrow strip of paler shade. Night
had fallen; and with it came a blinking of stars through
dense foliage overhead, and the lighting of fireflies. In¬
sects began to hum. Rustlings in the brush augmented
Muella’s sensitiveness. A strange call of a night bird star¬
tled her, and instinctively she shrank closer to Augustine.
She wished to speak to him, to make the silence bearable;
but stealthy steps off to the right made her heart leap and
her tongue mute.
Augustine heard, for he struck the leaves with his
machete. From the enshrouding blackness came the snap¬
ping of twigs, pattering little steps, the rush of animals run¬
ning through grass or ferns, and soft rustlings in the brush.
Then the night silence awoke to strange cries—squall of cat
and scream of panther, squeaks and grunts and squeals of
peccaries, and inexpressibly wild sounds, too remote to dis¬
tinguish.
[ 183 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“Oh, Augustine!” whispered Muella, fear at last un¬
locking her lips. “Listen! All before us—do you hear?”
“ Senora , we have not greatly to fear ahead,” he replied.
“But behind—a trailing tigre warms with the night! We
must not lag!”
“I’m not tired. I can walk so, all night; but the
steps, the cries, frighten me. It grows darker, and I
stumble.”
She fancied she saw him reach out as if to help her, and
then draw suddenly back. The darkness became so thick
that she could scarcely see him. Like a tall specter he
moved on.
She groped for his arm, found it, and slipped her hand
down to his. Instantly she felt his strong fingers con¬
vulsively close round hers. The warm clasp helped and
cheered her.
So, mile after mile, Muella kept tireless pace with the
herder; and when the jungle creatures ceased their hue
and quest, and the dead silence once more settled thickly
down, the strange night flight lost its reality and seemed
a dream. The black shadows lifted and paled to opaque
gloom. A whiteness stole into the jungle; silver shafts
gleamed through the trees. The moon was rising. Muella
hailed it with joy, for it meant that the night was far ad¬
vanced, and that their way would be lightened.
[ 184 ]
TIGRE
Soon all about her was a radiant, encompassing world of
silver shadows and gleams. It was a beautiful night. The
cold fear weighting her heart lessened, seemed momentarily
to be thrilled and warmed away. She loved that great, sil¬
ver-orbed, golden-circled moon; and now she looked up at
it through a streaked and fringed and laced web.
She wondered if Augustine saw the beauty of the sharp-
cut palms, the delicate-leaved bamboos, and the full-foli-
aged ceibas, all festooned with long silver streamers of
moss. Gnarled branches of a dead monarch of the forest,
silhouetted against the deep blue of the sky, showed or¬
chids and aloes and long, strangling vines—parasites that
had killed it. Every unshadowed leaf along the trail glis¬
tened white with dew. The glamor of the white night was
upon Muella.
Augustine’s voice broke the spell.
“You are tiring, but we must not lag. Shall I carry
you?”
“No, no! I can keep up.”
His words and the glint of his naked machete brought
her back to actuality. She slipped her hand from his.
Slowly a haze overspread the moon. The brightness
failed, and then the moonlit patches imperceptibly merged
into the shadows, until all was gray. The jungle trees rose
dim and weird and lost their tips in clouds of mist. A
[ 185 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
chicolocki burst into song, and the broken notes heralded
the coming of day.
“Augustine, it is near dawn,” said Muella. “Oh, how
good the light will be! I’m so cold—so wet. We shall be
safe in Micas soon, shall we not?”
The herder mumbled a reply that she did not under¬
stand.
[ 186 ]
IV
S WIFTLY upon the gray dawn came the broad daylight.
The clouds of creamy mist rose and broke and rolled
away, letting the sunshine down into the jungle. The
balmy air rang with the melodies of birds. Flocks of par¬
rots passed overhead, screeching discordant clamor.
Presently it struck Muella that the trail was growing
narrow and rough and overgrown. She had journeyed to
Micas often enough to be familiar with the trail, and this,
so wild and crooked, was not the right one.
“Augustine, have you missed the way?” she queried
anxiously.
Briefly he replied that he was making a short cut.
Muella did not believe him. She walked on, and began
again to look back. When she caught Augustine doing like¬
wise, she gave way to dread.
The morning wore on, the sun grew warm, and with the
heat of day came the jungle flies and mosquitoes. Augus¬
tine was inured to their attacks, but Muella impatiently
fought them, thus adding to her loss of energy.
When, at the crossing of a network of trails, Augustine
1187 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
chose one at random, Muella was certain of the worst. She
asked him about it, and he admitted he was off the course,
but as he was sure of his direction there was no need of
fear. He assured her that he would have her at her sis¬
ter’s home in Micas by noon.
Noon found them threading a matted jungle where they
had to bend low along the deer and peccary trails. The
character of the vegetation had changed. It was now dry,
thorny, and almost impenetrable.
Suddenly Muella jerked her hand away from a swinging
branch, which she had intended to brush aside.
“Look, Augustine, on my hand. Garapatas! Ugh, how
I loathe them!”
Her hand and wrist were dotted with great black jungle
ticks. Augustine removed them, and as he did so, Muella
saw his fingers tremble. The significance of his agitation
did not dawn upon her until she was free of the pests, and
then she fancied that her touch had so moved him. It was
wonderful, it warmed her blood, and she stole a glance at
him. But Augustine was ashen pale; his thoughts were
far from the softness and beauty of a woman’s hand.
“Augustine! You have lost your way!” she cried.
Gloomily he dropped his head, and let his silence answer.
“Lost in the jungle! We’re lost! And Tigre is on our
trail!” she shrieked.
[ 188 ]
TIGRE
Panic overcame her. She tottered and fell against him.
Her whole slender length rippled in a violent trembling.
Then she beat her hands frantically on Augustine’s shoul¬
ders, and clutched him tight, and besought him with inar¬
ticulate speech.
“Listen, senora , listen,” he kept saying. “If you give
up now, I can’t save you. We’re lost, but there’s a way
out. Listen—don’t tear at me so—there’s a way out. Do
you hear? You go on alone—follow these deer tracks till
you come to water. Soon they’ll lead to water. That water
will be the Santa Rosa. Follow up the stream till you come
to Micas. It’ll be hard, but you can do it.”
“Go on alone! And you?” she said brokenly.
“I’ll turn on our back trail. I’ll meet Tigre and stop
him.”
“Tigre will kill you!”
“He is blind and deaf. I shall be prepared. I’ve a
chance, at least, to cripple him.”
“At the end of a trail Tigre is a demon. He has been
trained to kill the thing he’s put to trail. You—with only
a machete! Ah, senor , I’ve heard that you are brave and
strong, but you must not go back to meet Tigre. Come!
We’ll follow the deer tracks together. Then if Tigre catches
us—well, he can kill us both!”
“ Senora , I can serve you best by going back.”
[ 189 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
“ You think that if you took me to Micas the old women
would talk—that my good name would be gone?” she asked
searchingly.
“ Senora , we waste time, and time is precious,” he pro¬
tested.
Muella studied the haggard, set face. This man meant
to sacrifice his life for her. Deep through the fire of his
eyes she saw unutterable pain and passion. If she had
doubted his love, she doubted no more. He must be made
to believe that she had followed him, not alone to save him
from Tigre, but because she loved him. Afterward he
would be grateful for her deceit. And if her avowal did not
break his will, then she would use a woman’s charm, a
woman’s sweetness.
“ Senor , you told Bernardo the truth—and I lied to
him!” she said.
Stranger than all other sensations of that flight was the
thrill in her as she forced herself to speak.
“What do you mean?” demanded Augustine.
“He asked you if you loved me. You told the truth.
He asked me if—if I loved you. And—I lied!”
“Santa Maria /” the man cried, starting up impulsively.
Then slowly he fell back. “ Senora, may the saints reward
you for your brave words. I know! You are trying to keep
me from going back. We waste precious time—go now!”
[ 190 ]
TIGRE
“Augustine, wait, wait!” she cried.
Running blindly, she flung herself into his arms. She
hid her face in his breast, and pressed all her slender, pal¬
pitating body close to his. As if he had been turned to
stone, he stood motionless. She twined her arms about
him, and her disheveled hair brushed his lips. She tried to
raise her face—failed—tried again, and raised it all scar¬
let, with eyes close shut and tears wet on her cheeks.
Blindly she sought his mouth with her lips—kissed him
timidly—tremulously—and then passionately.
With that, uttering a little gasp, she swayed away and
turned from him, her head bowed in shame, one beseeching
hand held backward to him.
“Don’t go! Don’t leave me!”
“Dios!” whispered Augustine.
Presently he took the proffered hand, and, leading her,
once more plunged into the narrow trail.
[ 191 ]
V
F OR hours Muella walked with lowered eyes. She
plodded on, bending her head under the branches,
and constantly using her free hand to fight the pests.
Her consciousness, for the while, was almost wholly ab¬
sorbed with a feeling of an indefinable difference in herself.
She seemed to be in a condition of trembling change, as if
the fibers of her soul were being unknit and re woven.
Something illusive and strange and sweet wavered before
her—a promise of joy that held vague portent of pain.
This inexplicable feeling reminded her of fancies, longings,
dreams of her girlhood.
At length sensations from without claimed full share of
Muella’s attention. The heat had grown intense. She was
becoming exhausted. Her body burned, and about her
ankles were bands of red-hot fire. Still she toiled on, be¬
cause she believed that Micas was close at hand.
The sun went down, and night approached. There was
no sign of water. Augustine failed to hide his distress. He
was hopelessly lost in the jungle. All the trails appeared
to lead into the same place—a changeless yellow and gray
jungle.
[ 192 ]
TIGRE
The flies pursued in humming wheel, and clouds of whin¬
ing mosquitoes rose from the ground. The under side of
every leaf, when brushed upward, showed a red spot which
instantly disintegrated, and spilled itself like a bursting
splotch of quicksilver upon the travelers. And every in¬
finitesimal red pin point was a crawling jungle pest. The
dead wood and dry branches were black with innumerable
garapatas.
Muella had been born a hill native, and she was not
bred to withstand the savage attack of the jungle vermin.
The time came when she fell, and implored Augustine to
put her out of her misery with his machete. For answer he
lifted her gently and moved on, carrying her in his arms.
Night came. Augustine traveled by the stars, and tried
to find trails that led him in a general direction northward.
By and by Muella’s head rolled heavily, and she slept.
At length the blackness and impenetrable thicket hin¬
dered his progress. He laid Muella down, covered her with
his blanket, and stood over her with drawn machete till the
moon rose.
The light aiding him, he found a trail, and, taking up
his burden, he went on. And that night dragged to dawn.
Muella walked little the next day. She could hardly
stand. She had scarcely strength to free her hair from the
brush as it caught in passing. The burning pain of her skin
[ 193 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
had given place to a dull ache. She felt fever stealing into
her blood.
Augustine wandered on, over bare rocks and through
dense jungles, with Muella in his arms. He was tireless,
dauntless, wonderful in his grim determination to save her.
Worn as she was, sick and feverish, she yet had moments
when she thought of him; and at each succeeding thought
he seemed to grow in her impression of strength and courage.
But most of her thoughts centered on the trailing Tigre.
The serpents and panthers and peccaries no longer caused
Muella concern; she feared only the surely gaining jaguar.
[ 194 ]
YI
N IGHT closed down on them among tangled mats and
labyrinthine webs of heavy underbrush.
“Listen!” whispered Muella suddenly, with great black
eyes staring out of her white face.
From far off in the jungle came a sound that was like a
cough and growl in one.
“Ah! Augustine, did you hear?”
“Yes.”
“Was it a tigre ?”
“Yes.”
“A trailing tigre?”
“Yes, but surely that could not have been Bernardo’s.
His tigre would not give cry on a trail.”
“Oh, yes. Tigre is deaf and blind, and he has been
trained, but he has all the jungle nature. He has Ber¬
nardo’s cruelty, too!”
Again the sound broke on the still night air. Muella
slipped to the ground with a little gasp. She heard Au¬
gustine cursing against the fate that had driven them for
days under trees, trees, trees, and had finally brought them
[ 195 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
to bay in a corner where there was no tree to climb. She
saw him face about to the trail by which they had come;
and stand there with his naked blade upraised. He blocked
the dim, narrow passageway.
An interminable moment passed. Muella stopped breath¬
ing, tried to still the beating of her heart so that she could
listen. There was no sound save the low, sad hum of in¬
sects and the rustle of wind in leaves. She seemed to feel
Tigre’s presence out there in the blackness. Dark as it
was, she imagined she saw him stealing closer, his massive
head low, his blind eyes flaring, his huge paws reaching out.
A slight rustling checked all motion of her blood. Tigre
was there, ready to spring upon Augustine. Muella tried
to warn him, but her lips were dry and dumb. Had he lost
his own sense of hearing?
Her head reeled and her sight darkened; but she could
not swoon. She could only wait, wait, while the slow mo¬
ments wore on.
Augustine loomed over the trail, a dark, menacing fig¬
ure. Again there came a rustling and a stealthy step, this
time in another direction; and Augustine turned toward it.
Long silence followed; even the humming of insects and
the moaning of the wind seemed to grow fainter. Then
came more tickings of the brush and a padded footfall.
Tigre had found them—was stalking them!
[ 196 ]
TIGRE
Muella lay there, helplessly waiting. In the poignancy
of her fear for Augustine, expecting momentarily to see the
huge jaguar leap upon him, she forgot herself. There was
more in her agony of dread than the sheer primitive shrink¬
ing of the flesh, the woman’s horror of seeing death in¬
flicted. Through that terrible age-long flight through the
jungle, Augustine had come to mean more than a protector
to her.
She watched him guardedly facing in the direction of
every soft rustle in the brush. He was a man at the end of
his resources, ready to fight and die for a woman.
The insects hummed on, the wind moaned in the leaves,
the rustlings came from one point and another in the
brush, but Tigre did not appear. The black night light¬
ened and the moon rose. Muella now distinctly saw Au¬
gustine—disheveled and ragged, white and stern and wild,
with his curved blade bright in the moonlight.
Then the gray mist crept up to obscure the white stars
and the moon, and at last the blue vault. The rustlings
ceased to sound in the brush. From far off rasped the
cough of a tigre . It appeared to come from the same place
as when first heard. Hope had new birth in Muella’s heart.
Moments like hours passed; the insects ceased to hum
and the wind to moan. The gray shadows fled before a
rosy dawn.
[ 197 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Augustine hewed a lane through the dense thicket that
had stopped him, and presently he came upon a trail. He
hurried back to Muella with words of cheer. Strength born
of hope returned to her, and she essayed to get up.
Helping her to her feet, he half led and half carried her
into the trail. They went on for a hundred paces, to find
that the path suddenly opened into a wide clearing. To
Muella it had a familiar look, and Augustine’s exclamation
assured her that he had seen the place before. Then she
recognized a ruined corral, some old palm-thatched huts,
and a water hole as belonging to the clearing through which
they had long before passed. N
“We’ve traveled back in a circle!” exclaimed Augustine.
“We’re near the hacienda—your home!”
Muella leaned against him and wept. First of all was
the joy of deliverance.
“Muella, you are saved,” Augustine went on. “The
distance is short—I can carry you. Bernardo will forgive—
you know how he flies into a passion, and then how he re¬
pents.”
“Yes, yes. I’ll go back to him—tell him the truth—
ask his mercy!”
From the center of the clearing came a rustling of dry
leaves, then a loud purr, almost a cough. Augustine stif¬
fened, and Muella clutched frantically at him.
[ 198 ]
TIGRE
For a long moment they stood, dark eyes staring into
dark eyes, waiting, listening. Then Augustine, releasing
his hold on the trembling girl, cautiously stepped upon a
log and peered over the low palms. Almost instantly he
plunged down with arms uplifted.
“Santa Maria! Tigre! He’s there!” he whispered.
“He’s there, beside the body of something he’s killed. He’s
been there all night. He was there when we first heard
him. We thought he was trailing. Muella, I must see
closer. Stay back—you must not follow!”
But as he crept under the low palms she followed him.
They came to the open clearing. Tigre lay across the trail,
his beautiful yellow and black body stretched in lax grace,
his terrible sightless eyes riveted on a dead man beside him.
“Muella—stay back—I fear—I fear!” said Augustine.
He crept yet a little farther, and returned with pale face
and quivering jaw.
“Muella, it’s Bernardo! He’s dead—has been dead for
days. When you started off that day to warn me, Ber¬
nardo must have run round by the old wagon road to
head off Tigre. The blind brute killed him!”
“ Bernardo repented! ” moaned Muella. “ He repented! ”
[ 199 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
THE RUBBER HUNTER
T QUITOS was a magnet for wanderers and a safe hiding
-*■ place for men who must turn their faces from civiliza¬
tion. Rubber drew adventurers and criminals to this Peru¬
vian frontier town as gold lured them to the Klondike.
Among the motley crowd of rubber hunters boarding
the Amazonas for the up-river trip was a Spaniard, upon
whom all eyes were trained. At the end of the gangplank,
Captain Valdez stopped him and tried to send him back.
The rubber hunter, however, appeared to be a man whom
it would be impossible to turn aside.
“There’s my passage,” he shouted. “Pm going aboard.”
No one in Iquitos knew him by any other name than
Manuel. He headed the list of outlaw rubber hunters, and
was suspected of being a slave hunter as well. Beyond the
Andes was a government which, if it knew aught of the
slave traffic, had no power on that remote frontier. Valdez
and the other boat owners, however, had leagued them¬
selves together and taken the law into their own hands,
for the outlaws destroyed the rubber trees instead of tap¬
ping them, which was the legitimate work, and thus threat¬
ened to ruin the rubber industry. Moreover, the slave
dealers alienated the Indians, and so made them hostile.
[ 203 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Captain Valdez now looked doubtfully at Manuel. The
Spaniard was of unusual stature; his cavernous eyes glowed
from under shaggy brows; his thin beard, never shaven,
showed the hard lines of his set jaw. In that crowd of des¬
perate men he stood out conspicuously. He had made and
squandered more money than any six rubber hunters on
the river; he drank chicha and had a passion for games of
chance; he had fought and killed his men.
“I’m going aboard,” he repeated, pushing past Valdez.
“One more trip, then, Manuel,” said the captain slowly.
“We’re going to shut down on you outlaws.”
“They’re all outlaws. Every man who has nerve enough
to go as far as the Pachitier is an outlaw. Valdez, do you
think I’m a slaver?”
“You’re suspected—among others,” replied the captain
warily.
“I never hunted slaves,” bellowed Manuel, waving his
brawny arms. “I never needed to sell slaves. I always
found cowcha more than any man on the river.”
“Manuel, I’ll take you on your word. But listen—if
you are ever caught with Indians, you’ll get the chain gang
or be sent adrift down the Amazon.”
“Valdez, I’ll take my last trip on those terms,” returned
Manuel. “I’m going far—I’ll come in rich.”
Soon after that the Amazonas cast off. She was a stern-
[204 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
wheeler with two decks—an old craft as rough-looking as
her cargo of human freight. On the upper deck were the
pilot house, the captain’s quarters, and a small, first-class
cabin, which was unoccupied. The twenty-four passengers
on board traveled second-class, down on the lower deck.
Forward it was open, and here the crew and passengers
slept, some in hammocks and the rest sprawled on the
floor. Then came the machinery. Wood was the fuel used,
and stops were made along the river when a fresh supply
was needed.
Aft was the dining saloon, a gloomy hole, narrow and
about twelve feet long, with benches running on two sides.
At meal times, the table was lowered from the ceiling by a
crude device of ropes and pulleys.
The night of the departure this saloon was a spectacle.
The little room, with its dim, smelly lamp and blue haze
of smoke, seemed weirdly set between the vast reaches of
the black river. The passengers crowded there, smoking,
drinking, gambling. These hunters, when they got to¬
gether, spoke in very loud tones, for in the primeval silence
and solitude of the Amazonian wilderness they grew unac¬
customed to the sound of their own voices. Many lan¬
guages were spoken, but Spanish was the one that gave
them general intercourse.
It was a muggy night, and the stuffy saloon reeked with
[ 205 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
the odors of tobacco and perspiration and the fumes of
chicha. The unkempt passengers sat coatless, many of
them shirtless, each one adding to the din around the gam¬
bling board.
Presently the door of the saloon was filled by the form
of a powerful man. From his white face and blond hair he
might have been taken for an Englishman. The several
gambling groups boisterously invited him to play. He had
a weary, hunted look that did not change when he began
to gamble. He played indifferently, spoke seldom, and lost
at every turn of the cards. There appeared to be no limit
to his ill luck or to his supply of money.
Players were attracted from other groups. The game,
the stakes, the din, the flow of chicha —all increased as the
night wore on.
Like the turn of the tide, the silent man’s luck changed.
After nearly every play he raked in the stakes. Darker
grew those dark faces about the board, and meaning glances
glittered. A knife gleamed low behind the winner’s back,
clutched in a lean hand of one of the gamesters. Murder
might have been done then, but a big arm swept the game¬
ster off his feet and flung him out of the door, where he
disappeared in the blackness.
“Fair play!” roared Manuel, his eyes glowing like phos¬
phorus in the dark. The sudden silence let in the chug of
[ 206 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
machinery, the splashing of the paddle wheel, the swishing
of water. Every eye watched the giant Spaniard. Then
the game recommenced, and, under Manuel’s burning eyes,
continued on into the night.
At last he flipped a gold piece on the table and ordered
chicha for all.
“Men, drink to Manuel’s last trip up the river,” he
said. “I’m coming in rich.”
“Rubber or Indians?” sarcastically queried a weasel-
featured Spaniard.
“Bustos, you lie in your question,” replied Manuel
hotly. “You can’t make a slave hunter of me. I’m after
rubber. I’ll bring in canoes full of rubber.”
Most of the outlaws, when they could not find a profit¬
able rubber forest, turned their energies to capturing Indian
children and selling them into slavery in the Amazonian
settlements.
“Manuel, where will you strike out?” asked one.
“For the headwaters of the Palcazu. Who’ll go with
me?”
Few rubber hunters besides Manuel had ever been be¬
yond the junction of the Pachitea and the Ucayali; and
the Palcazu headed up in the foothills of the Andes. Little
was known of the river, more than that it marked the ter¬
ritory of the Cashibos, a mysterious tribe of cannibals.
[ 207 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
None of the men manifested a desire to become Manuel’s
partner. He leered scornfully at them, and cursed them
for a pack of cowards.
After that night he had little to do with his fellow pas¬
sengers, used tobacco sparingly, drank not at all, and re¬
treated sullenly within himself. Manuel never went into
the jungle out of condition.
The Amazonas turned into the Ucayali, and day and
night steamed up that thousand-mile river, stopping often
for fuel, and here and there to let off the rubber hunters.
All of them bade Manuel good-by with a jocund finality.
At La Boca, which was the mouth of the Pachitea and the
end of Captain Valdez’s run, there were only three passen¬
gers left of the original twenty-four—Bustos, Manuel, and
the stranger who seemed to have nothing in common with
the rubber hunters.
“Manuel,” said Bustos, “you’ve heard what the Pal-
cazu is—fatal midday sun, the death dews, the man-eating
Cashibos. You’ll never come in. Adios /”
Then Captain Valdez interrogated Manuel.
“Is it true you are going out to the Palcazu?”
“Yes, captain.”
“That looks bad, Manuel. We know Indians swarm up
there—the Chunchus of the Pachitea, and farther out the
Cashibos. We’ve never heard of rubber there.”
[208 1
THE RUBBER HUNTER
“ Would I go alone into a cannibal country if I hunted
slaves?”
“What you couldn’t do has yet not been proven. Re¬
member, Manuel—if we catch you with Indian children, it’s
the chain gang or the Amazon.”
Manuel, cursing low, lifted his pack and went down the
gangplank. As he stepped upon the dock a man accosted
him.
“Do you still want a partner?”
The question was put by the blond passenger. Manuel
looked at him keenly for the first time, discovering a man
as powerfully built as himself, whose gray eyes had a
shadow, and about whom there was a hint of recklessness.
“You’re not a rubber hunter?” asked Manuel.
“No.”
“Why do you want to go with me? You heard what
kind of a country it is along the Palcazu?”
“Yes, I heard. That’s why I want to go.”
“Ha, ha!” laughed Manuel curiously. “ Senor , what
shall I call you?”
“It’s no matter.”
“Very well, it shall be Senor”
Manuel carried his pack to a grove of palms bordering
the river, where there was a fleet of canoes. Capmas In¬
dians lounged in the shade, waiting for such opportunity
[ 209 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
to trade as he presented. Evidently Manuel was a close
trader, for the willing Indians hauled up several canoes,
from which he selected one. For a canoe, its proportions
were immense; it had been hollowed from the trunk of a
tree, was fifty feet long, three wide, and as many deep.
“ Senor , I’m starting,” said Manuel, throwing his pack
into the canoe.
“Let’s be off, then,” replied Senor .
“But—you still want to go?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve taken out strangers to these parts—and they
never came back.”
“That’s my chance.”
“ Senor , up the Pachitea the breeze seldom blows. It’s
hot. Sand flies humming all day long—mosquitoes thicker
than smoke—creeping insects—spiders, snakes, crocodiles,
poison dews, and fevers—and the Cashibos. If we get
back at all, it will be with tons of rubber. I ask no ques¬
tions. I, too, have gone into the jungle and kept my secret.
Senor , do you go?”
Senor silently offered his hand; and these two, outlaw
and wanderer, so different in blood and the fortunes of life,
exchanged the look that binds men in the wilderness.
Whereupon Manuel gave one of the eighteen-foot, wide-
bladed paddles to his companion, and, pushing the canoe
[ 210 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
off the sand, began to pole upstream close to the bank.
None but the silent Campas Indians saw their departure,
and soon they, and the grove of palms, and the thatched
huts disappeared behind a green bend of the river.
The Pachitea, with its smooth current, steamed under
the sun. The voyagers kept close to the shady side. The
method of propelling the canoe permitted only one to work
at a time. Beginning at the bow, he sunk his paddle to
the bottom, and, holding it firmly imbedded, he walked
the length of the canoe. When he completed his walk to
the stern, his companion had passed to the bow. Thus the
momentum of their canoe did not slacken, and they made
fast time.
Gradually the strip of shade under the full-foliaged
bank receded until the sun burned down upon them. When
the tangled balls of snakes melted off the branches, and the
water smoked and the paddles were too hot to handle,
Manuel shoved the canoe into the shade of overhanging
vines. It was a time when all living things, except the
heat-born sand flies, hid from the direct rays of the midday
sun. While the Spaniard draped a net over the bow of the
canoe these sand flies hummed by like bullets. Then
Manuel motioned his comrade to crawl with him under
cover, and there they slept away those hours wherein action
was forbidden.
[ 211 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
About the middle of the afternoon they awoke to resume
their journey; leisurely at first, and then, as the sun de¬
clined, with more energy. Fish and crocodiles rippled the
surface of the river, and innumerable wild fowl skimmed
its green width.
Toward sunset Manuel beached on a sandy bank, where
there was a grove of siteka trees. He had gone into the
jungle at this point and brought out rubber. The camp
site was now waist deep in vegetation, which Manuel mowed
down with his machete. Then he built two fires of damp
leaves and wood, so they would smoke and somewhat lessen
the scourge of mosquitoes. After that he carried up the
charcoal box from the canoe and cooked the evening
meal.
Manuel found it good to unseal the fountain of
speech, that always went dry when he was alone in the
jungle. It took him a little while to realize that he did
all the talking, that Senor was a silent man who re¬
plied only to a direct question, and then mostly in mono¬
syllables. Slowly this dawned upon the voluble Spaniard,
and slowly he froze into the silence natural to him in the
wilderness.
They finished the meal, eating under their head nets,
and then sat a while over the smoky fires, with the splash
of fish and the incessant whining hum of mosquitoes in
[ 212 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
their ears. When the stars came out, lightening the ebony
darkness, they manned the canoe again, and for long hours
poled up the misty gloom of the river.
In the morning they resumed travel, slept through the
sweltering noon, and went on in the night. At the end of
the fifth day’s advance, Manuel pointed out the mouth of
a small tributary.
“So far I’ve been. Beyond here all is strange to me.
White men from Lima have come down the river; but of
those who have gone up farther than this, none have ever
returned.”
What a light flashed from the eyes of his partner!
Manuel was slow to see anything singular in men. But
this served to focus his mind on the strangest companion
with whom he had ever traveled.
Senor was exceedingly strong and implacably tireless; a
perfect fiend for action. He minded not the toil, nor the
flies, nor the mosquitoes, nor the heat; nothing concerned
him except standing still. Senor never lagged, never shirked
his part of the labor, never stole the bigger share of food,
which was more than remarkable in the partner of a rubber
hunter.
So Manuel passed through stages of attention, from a
vague stirring of interest to respect and admiration, and
from these to wonder and liking, emotions long dormant
[213 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
within him. The result was for him to become absorbed in
covert observation of his strange comrade.
Senor ate little, and appeared to force that. He slept
only a few hours every day, and his slumbers were restless,
broken by turning and mumbling. Sometimes Manuel awak¬
ened to find him pacing the canoe or along a sandy strip of
shore. All the hot hours of their toil he bent his broad
shoulders to the paddle, wet with sweat. Indeed, he in¬
vited the torture of the sun and flies. His white face, that
Manuel likened to a woman’s, was burned red and bitten
black and streaked with blood.
When Manuel told him to take the gun and kill wild
fowl, he reached instinctively for it with the action of a
man used to sport, and then he drew back and let his com¬
panion do the shooting. He never struck at one of the
thousands of snakes, or slapped at one of the millions of
flies, or crushed one of the millions of flies, or one of the
billions of mosquitoes.
When Manuel called to Senor, as was frequently neces¬
sary in the management of the canoe, he would start as if
recalled from engrossing thought. Then he would work
like an ox, so that it began to be vexatious for Manuel to
find himself doing the lesser share. Slowly he realized
Senor’s intensity, the burning in him, the tremendous driv¬
ing power that appeared to have no definite end.
[214 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
For years Manuel had been wandering in wild places,
and, as the men with whom he came in contact were brutal
and callous, answering only to savage impulses, so the evil
in him, the worst of him, had risen to meet its like. But
with this man of shadowed eye Manuel felt the flux and
reflux of old forces, dim shades drawn from old memories^
the painful resurrection of dead good, the rising of the
phantom of what had once been the best in him.
The days passed, and the Pachitea narrowed and grew
swifter, and its green color took on a tinge of blue.
“Aha!” cried Manuel. “The Palcazu is blue. We
must be near the mouth. Listen.”
Above the hum of the sand flies rose a rumble, like low
thunder, only a long, unending roll. It was the roar of
rapids. The men leaned on their paddles and trudged the
length of the canoe, steadily gliding upstream, covering the
interminable reaches, winding the serpentine bends. The
rumble lulled and swelled, and then, as they turned a
bend, burst upon their ears with clear thunder. The Pal¬
cazu entered the larger river by splitting round a rocky
island. On one side tumbled a current that raced across
the Pachitea to buffet a stony bluff. On the other side
sloped a long incline of beautiful blue-green water, shining
like painted glass.
Manuel poled up the left shore as far as possible, then
[ 215 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
leaped out to wade at the bow. Senor waded at the stern,
and thus they strove against the current. It was shallow,
but so swift that it made progress laboriously slow, and it
climbed in thin sheets up the limbs of the travelers. Foot
by foot they ascended the rapid, at last to surmount it and
beach the canoe in a rocky shore.
“Water from the Andes!” exclaimed Manuel. “It’s
years since I felt such water. Here’s a bad place to float a
canoe full of rubber.”
“You’ll have jolly sport shooting this rapid,” replied
Senor.
“We’re entering Cashibos country now. We must eat
fish—no firing the guns.”
Wild cane grew thick on the bank; groves of the white
sitekas led to the dark forest where the giant capirona trees
stood out, their tall trunks bare and crimson against the
green; and beyond ranged densely wooded hills to far dis¬
tant purple outline of mountains or clouds.
“There’s cowcha here, but not enough,” said Manuel.
They rested, as usual during the blistering noon hours,
then faced up the Palcazu. Before them stretched a tropi¬
cal scene. The blue water reflected the blue sky and the
white clouds, and the hanging vines and leaning orchid-
tufted, creeper-covered trees. Green parrots hung back
downward from the branches, feeding on pods; macaws of
[216 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
gaudy plumage wheeled overhead; herons of many hues
took to lumbering flight before the canoe.
The placid stretch of river gave place to a succession of
rapids, up which the men had to wade. A downpour of
rain joined forces with the stubborn current in hindering
progress. The supplies had to be covered with palm leaves;
stops had to be made to bail out the canoe; at times the
rain was a blinding sheet. Then the clouds passed over
and the sun shone hot. The rocks were coated with a slime
so slippery that sure footing was impossible.
Manuel found hard wading; and Senor, unaccustomed
to such locomotion, slid over the rocks and fell often. The
air was humid and heavy, difficult to breathe; the trees
smoked and the river steamed. Another chute, a mill race
steep as the ingenuity of the voyagers, put them to tre¬
mendous exertions. They mounted it and rested at the
head, eyes down the glancing descent.
“What jolly sport you’ll have shooting that one!” ex¬
claimed Senor; and he laughed for the first time; not
mirthfully, rather with a note that rang close to envy.
Manuel gazed loweringly from under his shaggy brows.
This was the second time Senor had spoken of the return
trip. Manuel’s sharpening wits divined a subtle import—
Senor’s consciousness that for himself there would be no
return. The thing fixed itself on Manuel’s mind and would
[ 217 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
not be shaken. Blunt and caustic as he was, something
withheld his speech; he asked only himself, and knew the
answer. Senor was another of those men who plunge into
the unbroken fastnesses of a wild country to leave no trace.
Wanderers were old comrades to Manuel. He had met
them going down to the sea and treading the trails; and he
knew there had been reasons why they had left the com¬
forts of home, the haunts of men, the lips of women. Dere¬
licts on the drifting currents had once been stately ships;
wanderers in the wilds had once swung with free stride on
sunny streets.
“He’s only another ruined man,” muttered Manuel,
under his breath. “He’s going to hide. After a while he
will slink out of the jungle to become like all the others—
like me!”
But Manuel found his mind working differently from
its old habit; the bitterness that his speech expressed could
not dispel a yearning which was new to him.
While making camp on a shelf of shore he was absorbed
in his new thoughts, forgetting to curse the mosquitoes and
ants.
When the men finished their meal, twilight had shaded
to dusk. Owing to the many rapids, travel by night had
become impossible. Manuel drooped over one smoky fire
and Senor sat by another. After sunset there never was
[ 218 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
any real silence in the jungle. This hour was, neverthe¬
less, remarkably quiet. It wore, shaded, blackened, into
wild, lonely night. The remoteness of that spot seemed to
dwell in the sultry air, in the luminous fog shrouding the
river, in the moving gloom under the black trees, in the
odor of decaying vegetable life.
Manuel nodded and his shoulders sagged. Presently
Sefior raised his head, as if startled.
“Listen!” he whispered, touching his comrade’s arm.
Then in the semidarkness they listened. Sefior raised
his head net above his ears.
“There! Hear it?” he breathed low. “What on earth
—or in hell? What is it?”
“I hear nothing,” replied Manuel.
Sefior straightened his tall form and stood with clenched
hands.
“If that was fancy—then—•” He muttered deep in his
chest. All at once he swayed to one side. And became
strung in the attitude of listening. “Again! Hear it! Lis¬
ten!”
Out of the weird darkness wailed a soft, sad note, to be
followed by another, lower, sweeter, and then another still
fainter.
“I hear nothing,” repeated Manuel. This time, out of
curiosity and indefinable portent, he lied.
[ 219 ]
TAPPANS BURRO
“No! You’re sure?” asked Senor huskily. He placed
a shaking hand on Manuel. “You heard no cry—like—
like—” He drew up sharply. “Perhaps I only thought I
heard something—I’m fanciful at times.”
He stirred the camp fire and renewed it with dry sticks.
Evidently he wanted light. A slight blaze flickered up, in¬
tensifying the somber dusk. A vampire bat wheeled in the
lighted circle. Manuel watched his companion, studying
the face, somehow still white through the swollen fly blotches
and scorch of sun, marveling at its expression. What had
Senor imagined he had heard?
Again the falling note! Clearer than the clearest bell,
sweeter than the saddest music, wailed out of a succession
of melancholy, descending tones, to linger mournfully, to
hold the last note in exquisite suspense, to hush away, and
leave its phantom echo in the charged air. A woman,
dying in agony and glad to die, not from disease or vio¬
lence, but from unutterable woe, might have wailed out
that last note to the last beat of a broken heart.
Senor gripped Manuel’s arm.
“You heard that—you heard it? Tell me!”
“Oh, is that what you meant? Surely I heard it,” re¬
plied Manuel. “That’s only the Perde-alma.”
“Perde-alma?” echoed Senor.
“Bird of the Lost Soul. Sounded like a woman, didn’t
[ 220 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
it? We rubber hunters like his song. The Indians believe
he sings only when death is near. But that signifies noth¬
ing. For above the Pachitea life and death are one. Life
is here, and a step there is death! Perde-alma sings seldom.
I was years on the river before I heard him.”
“Bird of the Lost Soul! A bird! Manuel, I did not
think that cry came from any living thing.”
He spoke no more, and paced to and fro in the waning
camp-fire glow, oblivious to the web of mosquitoes set¬
tling on his unprotected head.
Manuel pondered over the circumstance till his sleepy
mind refused to revolve another idea. In the night he
awoke and knew from the feeling of his unrested body that
he had not slept long. He had been awakened by his com¬
rade talking in troubled slumber.
“Lost soul—wandering—never to return! Yes! Yes!
But oh let me forget! Her face! Her voice! Could I have
forgotten if I had killed her? Driven, always driven—
never to find—never—”
So Senor cried aloud, and murmured low, and mumbled
incoherently, till at last, when the black night wore gray,
he lay silent.
“A woman!” thought Manuel. “So a woman drove
him across the seas to the Palcazu. Driven—driven! How
mad men are!”
[** 1 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Senor had turned his face from his world, to drift with
the eddying stream of wanderers who follow no path and
find no peace, to be forgotten, to end in evil, to die for¬
lorn—all for a woman.
In the darkness of this Peruvian forest, Senor lay amid
the crawling vermin unconsciously muttering of a woman.
Night spoke aloud thoughts deep hidden by day. Senor
had a sailor’s eye, a soldier’s mien; he had not shrunk from
the racking toil, the maddening insects, the blood-boiling
heat; he was both strong and brave; yet he was so haunted
by a woman that he trembled to hear the fancied voice of
his ghost of love in the wailing note of a jungle bird. That
note was the echo of his haunting pain. Senor’s secret was
a woman.
Manuel understood now why he had been inexplicably
drawn to this man. A ghost had risen out of his own dead
years. It rolled back time for Manuel, lifting from the
depths a submerged memory, that, like a long-sunken bell,
rang the muffled music of its past.
Out of the gray jungle gloom glided the wraith of one
he had loved long ago. She recalled sunny Spain—a grassy
hill over the blue bay—love—home—dark in his inner eye.
And the faint jungle murmuring resembled a voice. Thus
after absence of years, Manuel’s ghost of love and life had
come to him again. It had its resurrection in the agony of
[ 222 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
his comrade. For Manuel there was only that intangible
feeling, the sweetness of remembered pain. Life had no
more shocks to deal him, he thought; that keen ache in
the breastbone, that poignant pang could never again be
his. Manuel was lifeworn. He felt an immunity from fur¬
ther affliction, and consciousness of age crept across the
line of years.
How different from other mornings in the past was the
breaking of this gray dawn! The mist was as hard to
breathe, the humidity as oppressive, the sun as hot, and
the singing spiteful, invisible, winged demons stung with
the same teeth of poisoned fire—all the hardship of jungle
travel was as before, yet it seemed immeasurably lessened.
For many years Manuel had slaved up these smoky riv¬
ers, sometimes with men who hated him, and whom he
learned to hate. But no man could have hated Senor. In
these enterprises of lonely peril, where men were chained
together in the wilderness, with life strained to the last
notch, there could be no middle course of feeling. A man
must either hate his companion and want to kill him, or
love him and fight to save him.
So Manuel loved Senor, and laughed at the great white
wonder of it, lightening it all; and once again the sealed
fountain of his speech broke and flowed. Back in the set¬
tlement chicha had always loosed Manuel’s tongue, liber-
[ 223 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
ated wild mirth, incited fierce passions; here in the jungle
the divining of another’s pain, such as had seared him
years before, pierced to the deeps of his soul, and brought
forth kind words that came haltingly through lips long
grimly set to curse.
In the beginning of that new kinship, Senor looked in
amaze upon his changed comrade, and asked if he had
fever. Manuel shook his shaggy head. Senor then fell
silent; but he listened, he had to listen, and, listening, for¬
got himself. A new spirit fused the relation of these men.
“Senor, we are hunters,” said Manuel. “I for gold that
I do not want and shall easily find, you for—”
“Peace, Manuel, peace, that I ceaselessly want, but
will never find.”
Onward the voyagers poled and waded up the blue Pal-
cazu. The broken waters held them to five miles a day.
Only giants could have made even so many. The slimy
rocks over which floundered the hydra-headed balls of
snakes, the stench of hot ponds behind the bars, the rush
of current to be fought inch by inch, the torrents of rain,
the bailing of the canoe, the merciless heat, and the ever-
whirling, steel-colored bands of venomous flies—these made
day a hell, rest a time of pain, sleep a nightmare; but the
hunters, one grim, the other gay, strengthened with the
slow advance.
[224 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
Often Manuel climbed the banks, to return saying there
was cowcha, more than he had seen, yet still not enough.
They must go higher, to richer soil. They camped where
sunset overtook them. As they sat over the smoky fires or
fished in the river or lay side by side under the tent, Man¬
uel talked. He had gone over the vast fund of his wilder¬
ness knowledge, experience in that sun-festered world,
stories of river and jungle, of fights and fevers. Circling
back on his seafaring life, as castaway, mariner, smug¬
gler, he dredged memory of the happenings of those years
till he reached the catastrophe that had made him a
wanderer.
“What made me a caucho outlaw?” he queried, whip¬
ping his big hand through the flying swarm about his face.
“A woman! What sends most wandering men down the
false trails of the world? What drove you, comrade? Per¬
haps a woman! Quien sabef I loved a girl. She had eyes
like night—lips of fire—she was as sweet as life. See my
hand tremble! Senor, it was years ago—five, maybe ten,
I don’t remember—what are years? We were married, and
had a cottage on a grassy hill above the bay, where the
wind blew, and we could see the white ripples creeping up
the sand. Then a sailor came from over the sea; a naval
man, Senor, of your country. He had seen the world; he
could fascinate women—and women change their love. She
[ 225 ]
TAPPAN S BURRO
walked with me along the beach in the twilight. The wind
tossed her hair. I repeated gossip, accused her of loving
this man I had never seen. She acknowledged her love;
proudly, I thought bravely; surely without shame. Senor,
with these same hands I forced her to her knees, stifled her
cry—and slowly, slowly watched the great staring eyes
grow fixed and awful—the lips fall wide—”
“You strangled her?” burst from Senor in passionate
force.
“I was a fiend,” went on the Spaniard. “I felt nothing
except that her love had changed. I fled over the seas.
For long my mind was dark, but clearness came, and with
it truth. How I knew it I can’t say—these things abide in
mystery—but my girl was innocent. Then hell gaped for
me. Burning days—endless nights under the hateful stars
—no rest—her last cry, like the Perde-alma, Senor—her
great, wide eyes—the beat, the beat, the eternal beat of
pain, made him you see a thing of iron and stone.
“What was left, Senor? Only a wild life. You see the
wanderer with crimes on him thick as his gray hairs. Ah!
What I might have done—might have been! I see that in
your eyes. What a man might have been! Holy Mercy!
A braver part no man ever had chance to play. I could
have left her free. I would not have heard the hound of
remorse ever baying my trail. I could have hidden like a
[226 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
stricken deer, and died alone. But I was a blind coward.
Men see differently after years go by. What is love? What
is this thing that makes one woman all of life to a man?
Constant or fickle, she is fair to him. Bound or free, she
answers to nameless force.
“Where did you—all this happen?” asked Senor hur¬
riedly and low.
“It was at Malaga, on the Mediterranean.”
Senor stalked off into the gloom, whispering.
Manuel did not notice his comrade’s agitation; he was
in the rude grip of unfamiliar emotions. His story had
been a deliberate lie, yet it contained truth enough to re¬
call the old feeling out of its grave. He thought he had
divined Senor’s secret, his sacrifice, the motive behind his
wandering in a God-forsaken land. He believed it was to
leave a woman free and to forget. He felt the man’s burn¬
ing regret that he had not spilled blood in vengeance. So
he had lied, had made himself a murderer, that by a som¬
ber contrast Senor might see in forgiveness and mercy the
nobler part.
Deep in Manuel’s bitter soul he knew how he had lied
—for that woman of his youth had not been innocent; he
had not harmed her, and he had left her free. Senor would
believe his fabricated tragedy, and, looking on this hulk of
a man, this wandering wretch, haunted by what he might
[m ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
have been, and, thanking God for his clean hands, might
yet see the darkness illumined.
More days the hunters poled and pulled up the Pal-
cazu, to enter, at length, the mouth of a deep estuary com¬
ing in from the north.
This water was a blue-green reflection of sky and foli¬
age. It was a beautiful lane, winding between laced and
fringed, woven and flowered walls. The heavy perfume of
overluxuriance was sickening. Life was manifold. The es¬
tuary dimpled and swelled and splashed—everywhere were
movements and sounds of water creatures. Gorgeous par¬
rots screeched from the trailing vines; monkeys chattered
from the swishing branches. Myriads of bright-plumaged
birds, flitting from bank to bank, gave the effect of a many-
colored net stretched above the water. Dreamy music
seemed to soar in the rich, thick atmosphere
The estuary widened presently into a narrow, oval lake,
with a sandy shore on the north. Crocodiles basked in the
sun, and, as Manuel turned the canoe shoreward, they
raised themselves on stumpy legs, jaws wide, grotesque
and hideous, and lunged for the water.
“Cayman! I never saw so many,” exclaimed Manuel,
striking right and left with his paddle. Where I find
caymans, there’s always cowcha. Senor, I believe here is
the place.”
[228 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
They ascended the bank, and threaded a maze of wild
cane rising to higher ground. The soil was a rich alluvial.
Manuel dug into it with his hands, as if, indeed, he ex¬
pected to find gold there. The ridge they mounted was
not thickly forested. Manuel made two discoveries—they
were on the borderland of the eastern Andes, and all
about them were rubber trees. Whether or not Manuel
cared for the fortune represented by one hundredth part
of the rubber he could see, certain it was that he ran
from one tree to another clasping each in a kind of
ecstasy.
“Iquitos will go mad,” he cried. “A thousand tons of
cowcha in sight! It’s here. Look at the trees—fifty, sixty
feet high! Senor, we shall go in rich, rich, rich!”
They packed the supplies up from the river to escape
the sand flies, and built a shack, elevating it slightly on
forked sticks to evade the marching ants and creeping in¬
sects. Inside the palm-leaf walls they hung the net, fitting
it snugly in the cramped space. By clearing away the un¬
derbrush and burning the ground bare, they added still
more to the utility of their camp site, and, as far as it was
possible in that jungle, approached comfort.
A troop of monkeys took refuge in the tops of some
palms and set up a resentful chattering; parrots and ma¬
caws swelled the unwelcoming chorus; a boa wound away
[ 229 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
from the spot, shaking a long line of bushes; and an ant-
eater ran off into the sitekas.
Manuel caught up his gun, making as if to pursue the
beast, then slowly laid the weapon down.
“I’d forgotten. We’re in Cashibos country now. I’ve
seen no signs, but we had best be quiet. At that we may
have to shoot the jaguars. They stalk a man.”
The rubber hunters worked from dawn till the noonday
heat, rested through the white, intense hours, resumed their
tasks in the afternoon, and continued while the light lasted.
The method of honest rubber hunters was to tap a tree in
the evening and visit it the next morning to get the juice.
This was too slow a process for Manuel—as it took several
days for a flow of a few ounces.
He was possessed with exceeding skill in the con¬
struction of clay vessels to catch the milky juice and in
extracting rubber. He carried water from the river and
fashioned large clay repositories, one for so many rubber
trees; also he made small vessels and troughs. These
baked hard in the sun. Then he cut the trees so the sap
would flow freely. They would die; but that was of no
moment to the outlaw. He had brought a number of
kettles, in which he made a thick steam by heating palm
nuts. Taking a stick with a clay mold on the end, he
dipped it first in the milk, and then dried the milk in
[230 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
the stream. From a vessel full of milk, he got one third
its weight in rubber.
“Senor,” he said proudly, “I can make a hundred
pounds of rubber in a day.”
It was a toil-filled time, in which the united efforts of
Manuel and Senor were given to making an immense cargo
of rubber. Swiftly the days passed into weeks, the weeks
summed months, and the rainy season was at hand. Soon
the rubber hunters must expect a daily deluge, a flooded,
sticky forest, intolerable humidity, and sun like an open
furnace door.
Manuel awoke from his lust for rubber.
“The canoe won’t hold another layer,” he said. “She’ll
be loggy enough now. We can rest and drift clear to
Iquitos. How good! We must be starting.”
Like a flitting shadow, a strange, sad smile crossed
Senor’s face. Its meaning haunted Manuel, and recalled
the early days of the trip, before the craze for rubber had
driven all else from his mind. A wonderful change had
come over Senor. He gave all his strength to the gathering
of rubber, but no longer with a madness for sheer action.
He no longer invited the torture of the stinging pests. He
ate like a hungry man, and his sleep was untroubled. Even
his silence had undergone change. The inward burning, the
intensity of mind forever riveted upon the thing that had
[ 231 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
been the dividing spear of his life, had given place to aus¬
tere tranquillity.
Other enlightenment flashed into Manuel’s darksome
thought. The fancy grew upon him that he had come to
be to Senor what Senor was to him. He sensed it, felt it,
finally realized it.
Pondering this man’s deep influence, he tried to judge
what it meant. Something shook his pulse, some power
from without; some warm, living thing drew him to Senor.
It was more than the intimate bond of men of like caliber,
alone in the wilds, facing peril carelessly, dependent upon
one another. Too subtle it was for Manuel, too mysterious
for his crude reasoning; always it kept aloof, in the fringe
of his mind. He floundered in thought, and seemed to go
wandering in the realms of imagery, to become lost in
memory, where the unreal present mingled with the actual
past, through both of which ran Senor’s baffling, intangible
hold on his heartstrings.
“Maybe I’ve got a touch of fever,” he soliloquized.
Another day went by, and still he hesitated to speak
the word for departure. More and more the task grew
harder, for added watching, thought, realization, strength¬
ened his conviction that Senor intended to remain alone on
the Palcazu. Had the man come to hide in the jungle, to
face his soul in the solitude, to forget in the extremes of
[ 232 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
endurance? Yes, but more! He sought the end—annihila¬
tion!
Manuel had never feared to use his tongue, yet now he
could not speak. It was midday, and he lay beside Senor
in the shack, sheltered from the torrid heat. Usually abso¬
lute silence prevailed at this hour. On this day, however,
gentle gusts of wind beat the fronds of the palms. What a
peculiar sound! It had no similarity to the muffled beating
of the heart heard in the ear; yet it suggested that to
Manuel, and wrought ominously upon his superstition.
He listened. Sudden, soft gust—gentle beat, beat, beat
hastening at the end! Was it the wind? How seldom had
he heard wind in the jungle! Was it the fronds of the
palms or the beating of his heart or of Senor’s? His blood
did beat thick in his ears. Then a chill passed over him, a
certainty of some calamity about to be, beyond his com¬
prehension; and he wrenched decision out of his wavering
will, and swore that he would start down the Palcazu on
the morrow, if not with this strange companion, then alone.
Manuel fell into a doze. He awakened presently, and
sat up, drowsy and hot. He was alone in the shack. Then
a hand protruded under the flap of the netting and plucked
at him.
v “Hurry! Hurry!” came the hoarse whisper. “Don’t
speak—don’t make a noise!”
[ 233 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Wide awake in a second, Manuel swept aside the flap
and straightened up outside. Senor stood very close to
him. On the instant, low, whirring sounds caught his ear.
From the green wall of cane streaked little things that he
took for birds. Bright and swift the glints of light shot
through the yellow sunshine. All about him they struck
with tiny, pattering thuds and spats. Suddenly the shack
appeared to be covered with quivering butterflies. They
were gaudy, feathered darts from blowguns of the canni¬
bals.
“Cashibos!” yelled Manuel.
Run! Run!” cried Senor. He thrust his coat over
Manuel and turned him with a violent push. “Run for
the river!”
The frenzy of his voice and will served almost to make
Manuel act automatically. But he looked back, then stood
with suspended breath and leaden feet.
Bronze shadows darted through the interstices of the
cane. Then the open sunlight burnished small, naked sav¬
ages, lean, wild, as agile and bounding as if they were made
of the rubber of their jungle home.
Senor jerked Manuel’s machete from a log of firewood,
and rushed to meet them. His back was covered with
gaudy butterfly darts. The sight held Manuel stricken in
his tracks. Senor had made his broad body a shield, had
[234 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
stood buffer between his comrade and the poisoned darts
of the Cashibos.
Like a swarm of copper bees shining in the sun, the can¬
nibals poured out of the cane, incredibly swift and silent,
leveling their blowguns and brandishing their spears.
Senor plunged at them, sweeping the machete. A row
of nimble bodies wilted before him, went down as grain be¬
fore a scythe. Again the blade swept backward, to whistle
forward and describe a circle through tumbling, copper-
colored bodies.
Rooted in horror, Manuel saw the first spear point come
out of Senor’s back. Another and another! They slipped
out as easily as if coming through water. Senor dropped
the machete, and swaying, upheld by spears, he broke that
silent fight with a terrible cry. It pealed out, piercingly
shrill with pain, horrible in its human note of death, but
strange and significant in its ringing triumph. Then he
fell, and the Cashibos hurdled his body.
Animal instinct to survive burst the bonds that held
Manuel as paralyzed. One leap carried him behind the
shack, another into the cane, where he sprang into headlong
flight. The cane offered little resistance to his giant bounds.
Soon he reached the bank of the river. The canoe was
gone. Rows of caymans lay along the beach. So swiftly
he leaped down that he beat them into the water. Then,
[235 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
drawing Senor’s coat tight around his head and shoulders,
he plunged out with powerful strokes.
He had gained the middle of the estuary, when he saw
arrowy gleams galnce before him. Like hissing hail, a
shower of darts struck the water. Then it seemed that
gaudy butterflies floated about his face. Diving deep, he
swam until compelled to rise for breath.
As he came up, a crocodile rolled menacingly near.
Manuel hit it a blow with his fist, and dove again. The
coat hindered rapid swimming under water. He rose again
to hear the crocodile swirling behind him. Darts splashed big
drops on his cheeks, tugged at his head covering, streaked
beyond him to skitter along the surface of the estuary.
Reaching shallow water, he crawled into the reeds.
White-mouthed snakes struck at him. The bank was low
and overhung with rank growths. Manuel scrambled
through to the solid ground; and then turned to have a
look at his pursuers.
Up and down the sandy beach a hundred or more
Cashibos were running. How wild they were, how springy
and fleet! How similar to the hungry, whirling sand flies!
For a moment the disturbed caymans threshed about in
the estuary, holding the cannibals back. Presently several
of the most daring waded in above the commotion; then
others entered below.
[ 236 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
Manuel breasted the dense jungle. Before him rose an
apparently impenetrable wall of green. He dove into it,
tore through it, leaving a trail of broken branches, twisted
vines, and turned leaves. In places he ran encumbered by
clinging creepers; in others he parted the thick growths
with his hands and leaped high to separate them. Again
he bent low to crawl along the peccary trails.
Despite the obstacles, he went so swiftly that the jun¬
gle pests could not get at him; the few which did could not
keep their hold, because of the scraping brush. Soon he
ran out of a vine-webbed canebrake into a grove of sitekas,
rubber trees, and palms. At every bound he sank into the
moist earth, still he kept on running. He heard a scatter¬
ing of animals before him, and saw a blur of flapping
birds.
The day seemed to darken. He looked up to see trees
branching at a height of two hundred feet, and intermin¬
gling their foliage to obscure sun and sky. Here was the
dim shade of the great forest of the Amazon tributaries.
Sheering off to the right, he ran until the clinging earth
clogged his feet.
The forest was like a huge, dim hall full of humming
life. Lines of shrieking monkeys hung on the ropelike vines
that reached from the ground to green canopy overhead.
Birds of paradise sailed like showers of gold through the
[ 237 ]
TAPPANS BURRO
thick, hazy air. Before him fled boas, peccaries, ant-eat¬
ers, spotted cats, and beasts that he could not name.
Manuel chose the oozy ground, for there the under¬
brush was not higher than his knees. On and on he wal¬
lowed through the moist labyrinth of intricate thickets, of
aisles lined by the red capironas, of peccary trails worn in
the earth, of glades starry with exquisite orchids. A fra¬
grance of nauseous sweetness, like that of rotting jessamine
and tuberose, mingled with fetid odor of wet, hot earth, of
ripe life and luxuriance. The forest was steeped in a steam
from overheat, overmoisture, overgrowth.
The gloom deepened. Somewhere back of Manuel
rasped out the cough of a jaguar. He quickened his weary
steps, soon to strike rising ground and pass out of the dark
forest into groves of sitekas. The day was waning. He
ascended a ridge, following the patches of open ground
where the baked clay shone white. This hard ground would
hide his trail from the cannibals, but he had no hope of
eluding the jaguars. Still, he could climb out of reach of
the hunting cats. It was the little, winged devils, the tiny,
creeping fiends that most menaced his life.
He strode on till the shadows warned him of approach¬
ing night. Selecting a group of palms with tops interlock¬
ing, he climbed one, and perched in the midst of the stems
of the leaves. Laboriously he broke stem after stem, bent
[ 238 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
and laid them crosswise in the middle of the tree. Then
he straddled another stem, let his feet hang down, and lay
back upon the rude floor he had constructed. Finally,
wrapping head and face in Senor’s coat and hiding his
hands, he composed himself to rest.
He was dripping wet, hot as fire, pulsating, seething,
aching, his whole body inflamed. Gradually the riot of his
nerves, the race of hot blood subsided and cooled. Night
set in, and the jungle awoke to the hue and cry of its
bloody denizens. Mosquitoes swarmed around his perch
with a continuous hum not unlike the long, low roll of a
drum. Huge bats whizzed to and fro, brushing the palm
leaves. Light steps on the hard clay, rustling of brush and
snapping of twigs attested to the movement of peccaries.
These sounds significantly ceased at the stealthy, padded
tread of a jaguar. From distant points came the hungry
snarl, the fighting squall, the ominous cough of the jungle cats.
Sometime late in the night Manuel fell asleep. When
he awoke the fog clouds were mustering, bulging, mush¬
rooming all in a swirl as they lifted. Like a disk of molten
silver, the sun glared through the misty curtain. The drip,
drip, drip of dew was all the sound to break the silence.
Manuel’s cramped muscles made descending to the ground
an awkward task.
He estimated that his flight had taken him miles into
[ 239 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
the interior. Evidently for the time being he had eluded
the Cashibos. However, his situation was gravely critical,
and he would never be safe until he got clear of Palcazu
territory. It was impossible for him to protect himself from
the jungle parasites. His instant and inflexible determina¬
tion was to make his way back to the river, find his canoe,
or steal one from the cannibals, and, failing both, lash some
logs together and trust to the current.
The rains were due; soon the rivers would be raging
floods; he would make fast time. Manuel had no fear of
starvation, of the deadly heat, the fatal dews, the rainy-
season fever, or of the Cashibos. What he feared was the
infernal flies, ticks, ants, mosquitoes—the whole blood-suck¬
ing horde. Well he knew that they might bite him blind,
poison his blood, drive him mad, actually kill him before he
got out of the jungle.
As he was about to start, a small leather pocketbook
fell from Senor’s coat. Manuel picked it up. He saw
again those broad shoulders covered with the gaudy but¬
terfly darts. He drew his breath with a sharp catch. Fin¬
gering the little book, unaccountably impelled, he opened
it. Inside was a picture.
He looked down into the dark, challenging eyes, the
piquant, alluring face of the woman who had been his
sweetheart wife!
[240 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
Manuel smiled dreamily. How clear was the vision!
But almost instantly he jerked up his head, hid the picture,
and gazed furtively about him, trembling and startled.
The glaring jungle was no lying deceit of the fancy.
Slowly he drew forth the picture. Again the proud,
dark eyes, the sweet lips, the face arch with girl’s willful¬
ness, importunate with woman’s charm!
Manuel shifted his straining gaze to Senor’s coat.
“Senor! He was the man—that sailor from over the
sea—whom she loved at Malaga! What does it all mean?
I felt his secret—I lied—I hatched that murderous story
to help him. But he knew I did not kill her!”
Manuel pitched high his arms, quivering, riven by the
might of the truth.
“He recognized me! He knew me all the time! He
saved my life!”
Manuel fell backward and lay motionless, with his
hands shutting out the light. An hour passed. At last he
arose, half dazed, fighting to understand.
With Senor’s coat and the picture before him, he traced
the wonderful association between them and him. There
were the plain facts, as clear in his sight as the pictured
face of the woman who had ruined him, but they were be¬
wildering: he could feel but not comprehend them. They
obscured their meaning in mystery, in the inscrutable mys-
[ 241 ]
TAPPAN'S BURRO
tery of human life. He had freed her, had left her to be
happy with the man she loved.
Had she betrayed him, too? It was not impossible that
a woman who had ceased to love one man would cease to
love his successor. Some subtle meaning pervaded the at¬
mosphere of that faded coat, that leather book, that
woman’s face, with its smile, and by the meaning Manuel
knew Senor had suffered the same stunning stroke that had
blighted him. Senor had cried out in the night: “Oh God,
let me forget! ”
It was the same story—hell in the mind, because one
day on a woman’s face shone that mysterious thing, a
light, a smile for him alone, and on the next day it van¬
ished. Fever in the blood, madness to forget, wandering,
a hunt for peace, and the wasting years—how he knew
them!
Manuel thought of Senor, of his magnificent strength,
of the lion in him as he sprang to meet the Cashibos, of
the gaudy butterfly darts imbedded in his back, of the
glory and pathos of his death. What his life might have
been! A strung cord snapped in Manuel’s breast; his heart
broke. Bitter salt tears flowed for Senor, for himself, for
all miserable wretches for all time. In that revealing mo¬
ment he caught a glimpse of the infinite. He saw the help¬
lessness of man, the unintelligible fatality of chance, motive,
[ 242 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
power, charm, love—all that made up the complexity of
life.
How little it mattered, from the view of what made life
significant to him, that he was a rubber hunter, lost in the
jungle, hunted by cannibals, tortured by heat, thirst, hun¬
ger, vermin! His real life was deep-seated in the richly
colored halls of memory; and when he lived at all, it was
when he dreamed therein. His outside existence, habits of
toil, and debauchery were horrors that he hated. On the
outside he was a brutalized rubber hunter, unkempt and
unwashed, a coarse clod, given over to gaming and chicha.
In that inner life he lived on a windy hill, watching white
sails on a blue sea, listening to a woman’s voice.
But some change had come that would now affect his
exterior life; something beautiful crowned the hideous span
of years. His companionship with Senor had softened him,
and the tragedy, with its divine communication of truth,
was a lightning flash into the black gulf of his soul.
By its light he felt pity for her, for Senor, for himself,
for all who lived and loved and suffered. By its light he
divined the intricate web and tangle and cross and coun¬
ter-cross of the instincts and feelings of human nature—all
that made love transient in one heart, steadfast in another,
fleeting as the shadow of a flitting wing—wonderful, terri¬
ble, unquenchable as the burning sun.
[243 ]
TAPPAN S BURRO
By its light he saw woman, the mother of life, the source
of love, the fountain of joy, the embodiment of change—
nature’s tool to further her unfathomable design, forever
and ever to lure man by grace and beauty, to win him, to
fetter him in unattainable, ever-enthralling desires. By its
light he saw himself another man, a long-tried, long-failing
man, faithful to his better self at the last.
Manuel set forth toward the river, keeping in the shade
of trees, walking cautiously, with suspicious eyes ever on
the outlook. He walked all day, covering twice the dis¬
tance he calculated he had fled inland. When night fell, he
went on by the light of the stars until the fog obscured
them. The rest of the night he walked round a tree with
covered head. In the morning the sun rose on the side he
had thought was west. He had become lost in the jungle.
Heretofore panic had always seized him on a like occa¬
sion; this time it did not. Taking the direction he thought
right, he pressed on till the midday sun boiled his blood.
Succulent leaves and the pith of small palms served as
food. He moistened his parching mouth with the sap of
trees. Lying down, he covered himself with the coat and
a pile of brush and slept; then awoke to trudge on, fight¬
ing the flies.
He entered the great jungle forest, and sought his back
trail, but did not find it. Swampy water allayed his thirst,
[ 244 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
and a snake served for meat. The jaguars drove him out
of the forest. He began to wander in a circle; and that
night and the following day and the next were but aug¬
mented repetitions of what had gone before.
The rains did not come. The fronds of the palms beat
in the still air. Manuel heard in them a knell. Bitten
blind, flayed alive by pests, he fell at last with clouded
mind. The whizzing wheel of flies circled lower; the armies
of marching ants spread over him; the red splotches of
ticks on the leaves spilled themselves upon him like quick¬
silver. He crawled on through the hot bushes. The light
of his mind wavered, and he raved of infernal fires. He
was rolling in fire; forked tongues of flame licked at his
flesh; red sparks ate into his brain. Down, down under the
heated earth, through hot vapors blown by fiery gusts! It
was a jungle with underbrush of flame, trees in the image
of pillars of fire, screeching red monkeys in service as imps,
birds of dazzling coals; and over all and under all and
through all a vast humming horde of living embers that bit
with white-hot teeth.
As Manuel’s reason flickered, ready to go out forever,
the rain descended, and it cooled him and washed him
clean of insects. It slaked his thirst and soothed his blinded
eyes. At length the tropical cloudburst roared away, leav¬
ing the jungle drenched. Manuel followed a rushing stream
[245 ]
TAPPAN S BURRO
of water that he knew would lead him to the river. In
him resurged effort and resistance.
By nightfall he had come to the border of cane. Like
an eel through grass, he slipped between the stalks to the
river. On the opposite shore faint lights twinkled. At
first he took them for fireflies. But dark forms moving
across the lights told him he had stumbled upon an en¬
campment of the Cashibos.
The river seemed uneasy, stirring. It was rising
fast. By dawn it would be bank full with a swift current.
Under the pale stars the water shimmered, steely black
in the shade of overhanging shore, dead silver in the center,
where the fish swirled and the crocodiles trailed dimpling
wakes.
Without hesitation, Manuel stepped into the water,
noiselessly sinking himself to his neck. With his ear level
with the surface, he subordinated every sense to that of
hearing. The river was a sounding board, augmenting the
faint jungle sounds. Crossing would be as safe for him
then as it would ever be.
Grim as death, Manuel trusted himself to the river.
He glided off the shoal without making a ripple, and swam
deep with guarded strokes. Fish sported before him; spi¬
ders and snakes grazed his cheeks; caymans floated by
with knotty snout parting the current, and lines of bub-
[246 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
bles bursting with hollow sound betrayed the underwater
passage of more of the lazy reptiles.
Once Manuel felt the swirl and heave of water disturbed
by a powerful force. A soft river breeze wafted to him the
smell of burning wood and the dull roar of distant rapids.
He crossed the shimmering space between the shadows of
shore. Looking backward, he descried a circle of black
snouts lazily closing in upon him. He quickened his strokes.
The twinkling lights disappeared. All before him was
black. He felt slimy reeds touch his face, and, lowering his
feet, found the bottom, and cautiously waded out. Then
he crouched down to rest to gather all his wit and strength
for the final move.
Toward the bank he could not see his hand before his
face; riverward there was a glancing sheen of water that
made the gloom opaque. He began to crawl, feeling in the
darkness for a canoe. Moving downstream, he worked out
of the marshy sedge to ground worn smooth and hard. It
was a landing place for canoes.
He strained his eyes. All about him were shadowy,
merging shades without shape. The low murmur of strange
voices halted him; he was within hearing of the cannibals.
Then in him awoke the stealth and savage spirit of a jaguar
stalking prey. Gliding up the trail, he peeped over the
bank. Fires flickered back in the blackness, lighting wan
[ 247 ]
TAPPAN'S BURRO
circles that were streaked and shadowed by moving, dark
forms. With fateful eyes Manuel watched.
Below him a slight splash drew his attention. He fan¬
cied it too thin, too hard and dead, to be made by water
creature. Again it broke the silence, unnatural to his
trained ear. It was the splash of a paddle. Soundless as
the shadows about him, Manuel glided down to the edge
of the river and lay flat, hugging the sand.
A long, low canoe, black against the background of the
river gloom, swept in to the landing gloom, swept in to the
landing, grated on the sand, and spread gentle, lapping
waves against the beach. A slender form, smooth and wild
in outline, stepped out within a yard of Manuel.
Like a specter Manuel loomed up, and his hands closed
vise-tight around the neck of the cannibal. He lifted him
clear of the ground, and there held him, wrestling, wrig¬
gling till fierce struggles ceased in spasmodic convulsions
and these subsided in a slow, trembling stretch.
When the body hung limp, Manuel laid it down, and
looked up the dim trail leading to the camp of the Cashibos.
Upon him was the spell to kill. He saw again the gaudy
butterfly darts in Senor’s back; he heard again that strange,
terrible cry of triumph. Over him surged Senor’s grand
disdain of life. Almost he yielded to an irresistible impulse
to make that the end.
[248 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
“If I had my machete—” he thought. Then he
threw off the insidious thrall, and, stepping into the canoe,
picked up the paddle and pushed out into the river. The
twinkling lights vanished in the foliage. There was no
sound of pursuit; the dreamy jungle hum remained un¬
broken. He paddled the light canoe swiftly with the
current.
The moon rose, whitening the river lane. A breeze bore
the boom of the Palcazu in flood. Once upon that river of
rapids, Manuel would scorn pursuit. Slackening current
told him that backwater had swelled the estuary. Soon
his ears filled with the rumbling of waters, and he turned
out of the estuary into the sliding, moon-blanched Palcazu.
As he dipped into the glistening channel of the first
rapid, the canoe, quivering and vibrating, seemed to lurch
into the air. Shock on shock kept the bow leaping. Manuel
crouched low in the stern. It took all the strength of his
brawny arms to keep the canoe straight. Whirling suck
holes raced with him; frothy waves curled along the gun¬
wales. One rapid led into another, until the Palcazu was
a thundering succession of broken waters. It ran wild for
freedom. In the plunging inclines, the silver-crested chan¬
nels, the bulging billows, were the hurry and spirit of the
river. The current, splitting on blackheaded stones, hissed
its hatred of restraint. Manuel guided the canoe from side
[249 ]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
to side, glancing along the gulfs, fringing the falls, always
abreast of the widest passages.
A haze crept over the moon and thickened to gray fog.
Shadows shrouded the river, hanging lower and lower, de¬
scending to mingle with the spray. Manuel paddled on
while the hours passed.
The fog curtain lightened to the coming of dawn.
Manuel evinced no surprise to find himself gazing upon the
misty flood of the wide Pachitea. He had run the Palcazu
in one night. Paddling ashore, he beached the canoe to
bail out water he had shipped in that wild ride.
All night he had felt a balancing of some kind of cargo
in the bow. Upon investigating, he found the bottom of
the bow covered with palm leaves. These he lifted to dis¬
cover two naked little savages cowering on a mat of woven
reeds.
“Cashibos!” ejaculated Manuel. “Boy and girl. They
were in the canoe last night when I strangled that fellow,
their father, probably. What’s to be done with them?”
The boy was a dark copper color; his hair grew straight
down over his low forehead; he was pot-bellied and alto¬
gether ugly. The girl was younger, lighter in color, slim
and graceful, and pretty in a wild way, like a bronze elf
of the jungle.
“What’ll I do with them?” repeated Manuel. “I can’t
[250 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
kill them, or leave them here to starve or be eaten by
jaguars. I’ll take them down the Pachitea and turn them
over to a Campas tribe.”
Having decided, Manuel folded a palm leaf and used it
to bail out the canoe. In the bottom he found a bunch of
dwarfish bananas and some dried fish. Here was good for¬
tune in the way of food. He arranged the palm leaves
across the gunwales, making a sun, rain, and dew shield.
Then, pushing off, he paddled into the swollen current.
The blazing sun rose; the sand flies wheeled with the
drifting canoe; the afternoon rain poured; night came,
with its cloud of singing mosquitoes, its poison dews and
fogs.
That day passed, and another like it. Every hour the
canoe drifted speedy as the current. The Cashibos chil¬
dren lost their fear of Manuel. The boy jabbered and
played; the girl smiled at Manuel, which persuaded him
not to give them to a Campas tribe, but to take them home
and care for them himself.
Three more days and nights the canoe drifted. Manuel’s
strength had returned, but it troubled him to think. Some¬
thing had happened up the river. He had for his pillow a
ragged coat that fascinated him, and which he treasured.
Early the next morning he turned the green bend at
La Boca to come abruptly upon the Amazonas , lying at the
[251 ]
TAPPAN'S BURRO
dock. Men shouted from her decks; there was a thudding
of bare feet.
“Look! Look!”
“Is it the outlaw?”
“No—no!”
“Yes—yes. Those shoulders and arms—it’s he!”
Manuel’s blotched face, swollen out of all proportions,
was unrecognizable.
Captain Yaldez leaned hard over the rail. “Manuel, is
it you?”
“Yes, captain.”
“Where’s your cowcha?”
“Lost, captain, lost! A great rubber forest, captain—I
had tons of cowcha—it’s lost—all lost!”
“I suppose so,” replied Valdez ironically. “That’s a
fine cargo to pay you—two half-grown Indian kids. The
nerve of you, Manuel, dropping into La Boca with
slaves.”
“Slaves!” echoed from Manuel. His gaze traveled from
Valdez’s face to the little bronze Cashibos, once more hud¬
dling, frightened, in the bow. “Slaves? Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Manuel, you had your choice,” went on the captain,
“and now you must abide by it. I’ve caught some of you
slave hunters this trip. There’s Bustos in irons. Your
choice Manuel—the chain gang, or the river?”
[ 252 ]
THE RUBBER HUNTER
“The river for me!” said Manuel. “Only up instead of
down!”
“Up! But, Manuel, there’s a chance down the Ama¬
zon. You—”
The rubber hunter faced up the wide Pachitea. His
stentorian cry froze the words upon Captain Valdez’s lips.
It rolled out, a strange, trenchant call to something be¬
yond the wild, silent river.
“Fever,” whispered one of the fettered slave dealers.
“Bitten crazy,” said another.
Manuel started the canoe upstream. He did not look
back.
Captain and crew and prisoners on the boat thrilled to
Bustos’s mocking farewell.
“ Adios, Manuel!”
THE END
[253 ]
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