Saddle And Mocassin Part 5

Don Cabeza mixed the introductory c.o.c.ktail, and took sole charge of the jerked beef and beans; the quails and jacka.s.s rabbit fell to my care, the remaining items were mutual property, with the exception of the rice, which the Celestial was still permitted to boil. Most elaborate (at least in t.i.tles) were the _menus_ we produced. One Mexican dish that the Don used to prepare of jerked beef, pounded and fried to a crisp in b.u.t.ter, with a few chopped chilies, was worthy of note. Jerked beef and jacka.s.s rabbit! We laughed as we compared these frugal meals with the extravagant dinners and breakfasts of the year before, at the "California," "Marchands," and the "Poodle Dog," in San Francisco. And, by-the-way, if you are known at either of the above restaurants, you can be served there in a style that neither "Voisin's" nor "Bignon's" could easily excel.

Every now and then, some Yaqui men or women would come up from their little colony below to purchase something from the store room, which, owing to the distance that we were from town, it was necessary to keep for their convenience; and great was their mirth to see Don Cabeza and me cooking. They said we were "loco," or mad. Good-tempered creatures they were, and certainly easily pleased, for they regarded it as a signal compliment if I sketched either of them.

I never could understand why time sped so rapidly here. There was really no occupation for us. Yet morning had scarcely broken fairly, it seemed, before evening approached, and what evenings they were!

In the rear of the cottage, the spur on which we lived led up to rocky canons and gaunt ridges before it, vast _vegas_ stretched like a sea away to a far-off horizon of mountains, that, in the distance, looked as soft as low-down clouds. Behind these purple veins betwixt sky and landscape, the sun--a molten ma.s.s of palpitating fire, was lost at night. And as it pa.s.sed away, swift shadows fell and dimmed the scenery, knitting its distances together with imperceptible process, and shrouding the intervals in mystery and obscurity. Soon only the deceptively near sky-line was clearly visible, and above it the glow of orange deepening into red still suffused the heavens with subdued illumination. Thus, on the one hand might be seen, high set in fathomless blue, amidst glittering hosts of stars, or far or near, twinkling or fixed, blue, and white, and red, and yellow, the silver beauty of a crescent moon; on the other, the lingering glory of the vanished sun. The effect was curious.

The foreman went early to bed, and was early abroad. Not so Don Cabeza and I. When the mocking-bird in the _mesketis_-bush had ceased its plaintive song, and save for the sound--like dropping water--of crickets, silence fell upon the land, we would light our largest pipes, endue us in our easiest garments, and sit (he on a carpenter's bench, I in a barrow) smoking and yarning, yarning and smoking, without thought of time, through the still watches of those enchanting southern nights.

Many a swift and pleasant hour did we spend thus! But then Cabeza possessed a fund of crisp wit, and an inexhaustible store of anecdotes, experiences, quaint theories, and views.

Occasionally we went into Magdalena for stores and letters. Magdalena can boast a past of some prosperity; a more important future lies before it. At present it bears a stamp of dilapidation, poverty, and squalor.

Probably not a dozen of its inhabitants are unenc.u.mbered with debt; nevertheless, everybody, even to the beggar in the street, possesses from two or three to ten or a dozen mines. It sounds absurd to hear a fellow in rags discoursing glibly about "his mines." Still more ridiculous does it seem when you know that many of them are of great value. The iron safe, however, is only to be opened by a golden key, and a coined dollar in Magdalena is worth a fortune underground. Little doubt exists that, when the railways, now (1882) entering from the States, are completed, and capital and energy pour into the country, enormous wealth will be found hidden in its quartz. The hills around Magdalena give evidence of gold, silver, and galena ore in every direction. Nor is gold wanting in the river beds and valleys. All that is required is a little capital and systematic industry.

The area of country suitable for cultivation is circ.u.mscribed by reason of the scarcity of water, but where this is obtained and utilised, its effect is magical, and the fertility of the land becomes almost incredible. Not a t.i.the of that which is eligible is cultivated, for the indolence of the natives is remarkable. Even such ordinary vegetables as potatoes and onions are extremely difficult to obtain. A _zarapa_, a handful of beans, and a little tobacco, suffice for all the Mexican's requirements. If his vocabulary were limited to "Porque?" and "Poco tiempo," it would not greatly inconvenience him.

Northern Sonora derives its chief support from cattle. In most instances the ranches are of large extent, but poorly stocked. Formerly, they were in better condition, but they suffered severely from Apache raids, from which they are said never to have entirely recovered. The Indians drove off or killed all but the poorest animals, and the ranches have been restocked by the slow process of breeding from those that they left. Latterly a few bulls and stallions of a better cla.s.s have been imported from the States.

One day the Don and I came into Magdalena with the avowed intention of hiring a cook. The foreman had been despatched once or twice, unsuccessfully, on the same errand; but Cabeza was undiscouraged, and said that "He guessed, if we went ourselves, and they saw how real nice we were, they would all want to come." Accordingly we enlisted all the store-keepers in the place in a search for "a real way-up cook, who could make chile-con-carne, tamales, and all the best Mexican dishes, besides understanding American cookery." "And say," Cabeza would conclude, in giving his directions, "she's got to be a beautiful woman, too, because we're good-looking ourselves, and we don't like to see homely women about the place."

Having posted our requirements in the various stores, we went off to the American hotel, where, by dint of making desperate love to the plump hostess, we succeeded in obtaining a sack of potatoes and half a sack of onions--part of a consignment that she had lately received from Hermosillo. She had just been engaged in a battle royal with the waiter, whom she had demolished with the kitchen coal-shovel. She was inclined, therefore, to be very affable, and even volunteered, for a consideration, to come out to the mine and cook for us herself.

"You want a boss cook and a beauty, Don Cabeza, eh? Well, I guess, I'm both. What'll you give me to come out to the mine and cook?"

"Mrs. Bennett," we said, "if we got you out there we should lose the only pleasure we have to look forward to--the only ray of golden sunlight that illuminates our desolate path in life. We should no longer have the treat of coming in here to see you. We mustn't kill the goose that----I mean, we mustn't be greedy, of course."

The subdued condition of Bennett, and the bandaged head of the waiter, were not happy auguries for the peace of any household that Madame Bennett took charge of. And we probably should not have borne our chains as philosophically as did her husband. Bennett's dry, matter-of-fact spirit was aptly ill.u.s.trated in a story that I heard here. A miner named Hess was recounting the following incident in his career as a soldier during the North and South war to him.

It appeared that at Bull's Run Hess had a difference with the colonel of his regiment, and, refusing to fight, went off and sat on a rail by himself. A corporal's guard was sent to bring him into action, but Hess said that he "scared the filling out of _them_ durned quick." A sergeant and a file of men then came, but he "got away with them, too." A lieutenant and half a company was despatched in search of him, but he "cleaned them out." A captain and a full company appeared, but this brave man "made them get." Finally half the regiment came down, and the invincible Hess did not hesitate to say that, he "stood them off." Old Bennett heard him to the end without a smile. Then he said: "Hess, I never hurt you any, did I?" "No." "Will you do me a favour, then?" "Why, cer'nly, if I can." "Well, I've got a bet of ten dollars, with Mike Sheppard, that Doc Brown is the biggest liar in Sonora, and if ever you tell that tale in public I shall lose the money, sure." And Hess said that he would not tell it again.

In the princ.i.p.al square of Magdalena stood the old church, near which were the ruins of a still more ancient edifice. To the latter, called the church of San Francisco, a legend was attached. I give it as it was given to me by a miner.

"Yer see, this here San warn't always a saint, San warn't. They do say as he was 'customed to go on a scoop--on a bend, occasionally, as it were. However, he took a pull in time, and caught on to this preaching racket, and finally he came to be a bishop. Right here was all in his claim. Wal, happened once when he was prospecting around jest to see that the sky pilots under him was keeping at it, that the outfit banked up here for the night. Next morning, when they was all hitched up and ready for a start, and come to hoist old San on his meule, they couldn't prize him up anyhow. They put on fresh hands and tried all they durned knew. But San, he'd kinder taken root, and thar he sot, like the sawed off stump of a Sierra pine, and jest about as nimble too. 'Boys,' says he, at last, 'let up hauling! ye can quit that soon as ye please'

(Independent as a clam at high tide the old cuss was even then). 'Guess I'll stay right here,' says he. 'Waltz in and put up a church right away.' And that's how this church and town come to be built--least, so folks say hereabouts." Then he added reflectively after a pause: "But they do lie here, too."

After the dusty and dirty town we returned to the prettily situated adobe cottage at the mine with renewed pleasure.

At length the time came for me to depart. The horses were driven in from the vega; the near fore-wheel of the cart (which, when not in use, was invalided, and kept in water to prevent the wood shrinking from the tire) was fixed on, the old waggon lined with hay and blankets, and, one night after dinner, we started to drive into Magdalena for the last time.

The day had been oppressive, but now there was a refres.h.i.+ng coolness in the air. At every pace, as we jogged along, hares lolloped across the road, or played amidst the scattered _mesketis_-bush on either side of it. Occasionally the howl of a distant coyote might be heard.

Night-hawks and owls flitted silently to and fro, and "shard-borne beetles" hummed drowsily as they wheeled in the dreamy welkin. The stars, the stillness, and the silken winds combined to work a charm.

Night wore her richest jewellery, sang low her softest melody, whispered her sweetest poem, and showed her beauty all unveiled even by the lightest fleece of cloud. Until I saw these Mexican skies I never knew how much more beautiful night was than day. For every star dimly distinguishable in Europe a thousand are clearly visible there. Their number and refulgence are astonis.h.i.+ng. Were I to live in Mexico I should be strongly tempted to rise at sundown and go to bed at dawn.

Once more the corpulent coach looms in view. Once more am I uncomfortably ensconced therein. With a torrent of Spanish invective, and a terrific cracking of whips, we slowly start. The coach turns round a corner, and I catch a last glimpse of Don Cabeza, with his hat off, in the road, waving a kindly adieu to me.

CHAPTER V.

THE WINCHESTER WATER MEADS.

NOTE.--The following sketch has, locally speaking, no place in the present collection. But since it is somewhat similar in its nature to the others, since it describes a day's fis.h.i.+ng with the well-known angler to whom the book is dedicated, and since, moreover, it serves to mark the interval which elapsed between the time when the foregoing and succeeding sketches were written, I nevertheless introduce it.

There is a wind which belongs only to spring mornings and they are chary of it. Soft, and yet fresh, if winds were subject to the condition of age, this one might be supposed to be in its first sunny childhood. It has no care nor business. If it blew with all its strength it could never stir a mill-sail, or set a s.h.i.+p in motion. A b.u.t.terfly rides out its silken gales, and its boldest blast, like the whispered secret of a child, beguiles you of an involuntary smile. Imagine such a breeze fitfully exploring the Winchester Water Meads. Now it hesitates, now lingers, now pauses altogether; anon with a dainty tinkling of herbage resumes its progress. And a fair march it has.

Once more the sumptuary laws of winter have been repealed, the fas.h.i.+ons of a new _regime_ adopted. The time has come when "the fields catch flower." Tall b.u.t.tercups, and dandelions, and knots of the great marsh marigold strew the thick gra.s.s with ingots of gold. Myriads of daisies and "milkmaids" powder it with snowy flakes. "Welshman's b.u.t.tons" and anemones fill every sheltered nook, and stud the borders of each turf-cut drain. Here and there an early plume of sorrel shows like a vein of rust in this floral mosaic work, and each blade or flower, still wet with dew, flashes brilliantly in the sunlight as it trembles in sweet air.

On all sides the air is thrilling with the full melody of larks. A couple of plovers, that are nesting in the neighbourhood, wheel and turn with plaintive cries aloft; and a solitary cabbage b.u.t.terfly, the melancholy forerunner of its clan, wanders away across the water towards Winnal moors in quest of fellows.

But marigolds and "milkmaids," larks and solitary b.u.t.terflies aside! The Itchen and its trout are at hand, the rod is ready, and the momentous question is: "The fly?"

The swifts and swallows are ranging high, or at any rate totally ignoring the stream, sufficient proof that there is but little of entomological interest for them on the water.

"There's a rise!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.es my companion, however, "and there's another. But they are only feeding on larvae."

Fish are rising occasionally without absolutely breaking the water, and it is evident that their attention is devoted not to the casual insects floating on the surface, but to the larvae ascending from the river bed, which they seize before they reach the upper world. We catch a specimen of the full-fledged fly (a Light-Olive), and, having matched it closely in the fly-book, commence operations.

It is ticklish work, this Hamps.h.i.+re trout fis.h.i.+ng. Long education has developed in the natives of these waters a degree of sagacity that is almost supernatural. Their appreciation of the faintest _nuance_ of exaggeration in colour of wing or body, in the artificial flies offered them, is unerring.

Time was, when to take six or seven brace of fish was a common occurrence. But in the memory of chalk-stream _habitues_ there has been a gradual and steady diminution in angling averages; and now, unless the trout have a silly interval, a brace and a half or two brace is a good day's sport, and to catch these demands far greater knowledge, and the exercise of far more skill and patience than was formerly dreamt of.

Then men walked boldly along the river bank, and fished with ordinary tackle and a wet fly. Now, albeit the flies used are miracles of diminutive workmans.h.i.+p, the gut a filament of fineness, that, with any consideration for its strength, can scarcely be reduced, to stalk and capture a two-pound trout necessitates the use of a dry fly, and a degree of caution and address scarcely less than is required for successful moose hunting.

As the best fly-fisherman in Hamps.h.i.+re said to me: "You want to put the exact fly just over your fish the first time, if he doesn't take it he doesn't mean to. By changing flies, and sticking to him half the day, you _may_ worry him into an indiscretion, but it is a hundred to one that you are only educating him."

What fis.h.i.+ng will eventually become in these streams it is difficult to imagine, for the decrease in sport arises from no reduction in the stock of fish, which are more numerous now than they ever were.

To-day I am not wielding the rod, but act merely as gillie for a master of the art, on whom the mantle of old Isaac Walton has descended.

Gradually we work up stream, trying to convert these Winnal incarnations of perversity from their unholy appet.i.te for larvae, with exquisite imitations of various Olives and of the Red Quill. But they remain obdurate. They come, but come short. They roll up and leisurely inspect the fly, and with not less contemptuous deliberation turn tail upon it.

At length a far cast under the opposite bank is followed by a slight break in the water, a quick tension of the line, and a good fish is in difficulty. But almost immediately the point of the rod flies up, and, owing to the knot attaching the gut to the eyed hook having drawn, the fish escapes.

"None do here Use to swear, Oaths to fray Fish away."

And yet, methinks, with the "poetry of earth," something is mingled now that sounds not like the music of waters, the song of birds, or the fluttering of a b.u.t.terfly's wings--no, nor was it a hymn in praise of tackle-makers' carelessness. Let us hope that the "recording angel" for the day was once a keen sportsman, and appreciated, therefore, the extenuating circ.u.mstances of the case. Eventually the fly is replaced, and the campaign continued.

By lunch-time we reach one of the wooden shanties, with which it is becoming the custom on these streams to provide for temporary shelter.

There is not a fish moving, and for the present it is useless to flog the water. Sandwiches and a pipe fill the interlude; and by-and-by the keeper, a shrewd, wooden-visaged, terrier-looking countryman, suddenly drops upon us (after the fas.h.i.+on of keepers), as it were, from the clouds. Locke, in his way, is a type, and his utterances occasionally have a refres.h.i.+ng dryness.

"Marning sir, marning sir," he says cheerily, laying a six-pound jack on the gra.s.s to leeward of the hut (for wind spoils the look of fish), and depositing his "rod," a bamboo pole furnished with wire noose, beside it. "Have you caught anything?"

"No, nothing; it's too bright."

"It is so; 'sides, the rise was over afore you come. I eyed you coming with my gla.s.s. There was a few fish feeding 'tween nine and ten this marning. I wish you'd been here."

"We came in for the tail of the rise. How did you get the jack?"