Part 1 (1/2)

The Pirates of the Prairies.

by Gustave Aimard.

CHAPTER I.

THE CACHE.

Two months have elapsed since we left the Trail-Hunter commencing his adventurous journey, and we are in the heart of the desert. Before us immensity is unfolded. What pen, however eloquent, would venture to describe those illimitable oceans of verdure to which the North Americans have in their imagery, given the poetic and mysterious name of the Far West? That is to say, the truly unknown region, with its scenes at once grand and striking, soft and terrible; unbounded prairies in which may be found that rich and luxuriant Flora, against whose magic growth only the Indian can successfully struggle.

These plains, at the first glance, offer the dazzled eye of the rash traveller who ventures on them a vast carpet of verdure embossed with flowers, furrowed by large streams; and they appear of a desperate regularity, mingling in the horizon with the azure of the sky.

It is only by degrees, when the sight grows accustomed to the picture, that, gradually mastering the details, the visitor notices here and there rather lofty hills, the escarped sides of the water courses, and a thousand unexpected accidents which agreeably break that monotony by which the eye is at first saddened, and which the lofty gra.s.s and the giant productions of the Flora completely conceal.

How can we enumerate the products of this primitive nature, which form an inextricable confusion and interlacement, describing majestic curves, producing grand arcades, and offering, in a word, the most splendid and sublime spectacle it was ever given to man to admire through its eternal contrasts and striking harmony?

Above the gigantic ferns, the _mezquite_, the cactuses, nopales, larches, and fruit-laden arbutuses, rise the mahogany tree with its oblong leaves, the _moriche_, or pine tree, the _abanijo_, whose wide leaves are shaped like a fan, the _pirijao_, from which hang enormous cl.u.s.ters of golden fruit, the royal palm whose stem is denuded of foliage, and balances its majestic and tufted head at the slightest breath; the Indian cane, the lemon tree, the guava, the plantain, the _chinciroya_, or intoxicating fruit, the oak, the pine tree, and the wax palm, distilling its resinous gum.

Then, there are immense fields of dahlias, flowers whiter than the snows of the Caffre de Perote or the Chimborazo, or redder than blood, immense lianas twining and circling round the stems of trees and vines overflowing with sap; and in the midst of this inextricable chaos fly, run, and crawl, in every direction, animals of all sorts and sizes, birds, quadrupeds, reptiles, amphibious, singing, crying, howling and roaring with every note of the human gamut, some mocking and menacing, others soft and melancholy.

The stags and deer bounding timidly along, with ear erect and eye on the watch, the bighorn leaping from rock to rock, and then resting motionless on the verge of a precipice, the heavy and stupid buffaloes with their sad eyes; the wild horses, whose numerous _manadas_ make the earth re-echo in their purposeless chase; the alligator, with its body in the mud, and sleeping in the sun; the hideous _iguana_ carelessly climbing up a tree; the puma, that maneless lion; the panther and jaguar cunningly watch their prey as it pa.s.ses; the brown bear, that gluttonous honey-hunter; the grizzly, the most formidable denizen of these countries; the _cotejo_, with its venomous bite; the chameleon, whose skin reflects every hue; the green lizard, and the basilisk crawling silent and sinister beneath the leaves; the monstrous boa, the coral snake, so small and yet so terrible; the _cascabel_, the _macaurel_, and the great striped serpent.

The feathered flock sing and twitter on the branches, hidden beneath the dense foliage; the tanagers, the cura.s.sos, the chattering _lloros_, the _haras_, the flycatcher, the toucans, with their enormous beaks, the pigeons, the _trogons_, the elegant rose flamingos, the swans balancing and sporting in the streams, and the light and graceful gray squirrels leaping with unimaginable speed from creeper to creeper, from shrub to shrub.

In the highest regions of air, hovering in long circles over the prairie, the eagle of the Sierra Madre, with wide-spread wings, and the bald-headed vulture, select the prey on which they dart with the rapidity of lightning.

Then, suddenly, crus.h.i.+ng under his horse's hoofs the sand and gold-studded pebbles sparkling in the sun, appears, as if by enchantment, an Indian, with his red skin glistening like new copper, robust limbs, gestures stamped with majesty and grace, and a commanding eye; a Navajo, p.a.w.nee, Comanche, Apache or Sioux, who, whirling his la.s.so or _lakki_ round his head, drives before him a herd of startled buffaloes or wild horses, or else a panther, ounce, or jaguar, that fly his presence with hoa.r.s.e roars of rage and terror.

This child of the desert, so grand, so n.o.ble, and so disdainful of peril, who crosses the prairies with incredible speed, and knows its thousand turnings, is truly the king of this strange country, which he alone can traverse night and day, and whose countless dangers he does not fear. He struggles inch by inch with that European civilisation which is slowly advancing, driving him into his last intrenchments and invading his lands on all sides.

Hence, woe to the trapper or hunter who ventures to traverse these prairies alone! His bones will bleach on the plain, and his scalp adorn the s.h.i.+eld of an Indian chief, or the mane of his horse.

Such is the sublime, striking, and terrible spectacle the Far West offers even at the present day.

The day on which we resume our story, at the moment when the sun attained its zenith, the mournful silence brooding over the desert was suddenly troubled by a slight sound, which was heard in the tufted clumps that border the Rio Gila, in one of the most unknown districts of this solitude.

The branches were cautiously parted, and amid the leaves and creepers a man displayed his face dripping with perspiration, and marked with an expression of terror and despair.

This man, after looking around him anxiously, and a.s.suring himself that no one was on the watch, slowly disengaged his body from the gra.s.s and shrubs that conceal it, walked a few steps in the direction of the river, and fell to the ground, uttering a profound sigh.

Almost simultaneously an enormous mastiff, with a cross of the wolf and Newfoundland, bounded from the shrubs and lay down at his feet.

The man who appeared so unexpectedly on the banks of the Rio Gila was Red Cedar.[1]

His position appeared most critical, for he was alone in the desert, without weapons or provisions. We say without weapons, for the long knife pa.s.sed through his deerskin girdle was almost useless to him.

In the Far West, that infinite ocean of verdure, an unarmed man is a dead man!

The struggle becomes impossible for him with the numberless enemies who watch his pa.s.sing, and only await a favourable moment to catch him. Red Cedar was deprived of those inestimable riches of the hunter, a rifle and a horse. Moreover he was alone!

Man, so long as he can see his fellow, even though that fellow be an enemy, does not believe himself abandoned. In his heart there remains a vague hope for which he cannot account, but which sustains and endows him with courage.