Bending low, now creeping on all fours, now running with his body doubled to his knees, diverging to right or left as projections in the Lava Beds seemed to offer a favourable screen, but ever and always making for the front, the solitary man pressed on, his rifle grasped sometimes in the left hand, sometimes in the right, as the need for using one hand or the other in his advance arose. Twice he stopped to recover breath, while pushing his way onward, and cautiously twisted his head around to see what had become of his Pueblo friends; but they were invisible. Their skill in keeping under cover at least was undeniable. On he went again, till finally he reached the brow of the great rise in the lava bed from which Miguel had reconnoitred the Navajo camp. Past this he tried to get without exposing himself unduly, but thrice he failed to find cover, and retreated again to look for a better spot. The fourth time he found a hollow in the lava with a rise on the right of it that promised him some shelter, and flat on his face in this he wormed himself slowly along, the eager bulldog flattening himself against the rock by his side. Often had he crawled like this beside his master to get a chance at a deer. But it was more dangerous game than deer that they were stalking now. Having gained some twenty yards by this creep, Stevens slowly raised his head to get a view of the new ground that he knew should become visible in front of him from here. He caught sight of a little green oasis amid the lava beyond, of a band of ponies grazing in it, and of figures seated in a group on the far side; and, by Heaven! amid the figures his quick eye detected the flutter of a pink muslin which he had often seen Manuelita wear.
"Great Scot!" he ejaculated, "she's found. There she is." He raised himself a little higher to get a better view, and take in the details of the hostile camp, when suddenly a jet of smoke came out of the lava scarce a hundred yards away, the sharp snap of a rifle was heard, and a bullet clapped loudly on the rock close to his head. The Navajos were not taken by surprise.
The Navajos had spotted the Pueblo scouts; they took their appearance as a signal for fight, and now they were ready to give them or anyone with them a warm reception. This bullet was their first greeting.
The lead, splashing off the rock, spattered sharply on Stephens's cheek. Instinctively he threw up his right hand and passed it over the side of his face, but the splashes did not even draw blood, and his eye was happily uninjured. In a moment he raised his rifle to shoot back, but before he could get a bead the gleam of the rifle-barrel from which the shot had come, and the head of the Indian that had aimed it disappeared. "Dropped down to reload," said the frontiersman to himself. "He's a goodish shot, that Navajo son of a gun; that was a close call."
Lowering his head under cover, he decided to try a trick. Opening a recess in the butt of his Winchester, he drew out four little iron rods which, when screwed together, made a cleaning-rod about thirty inches in length. Then he took off his hat, put the end of the cleaning-rod inside it, and slowly hoisted it into view a yard or so away to the right of where he had looked over before. He lay on his left side and elbow, with his Winchester in his left hand, and the right arm extended raising the hat. Snap went the sharp report of a rifle again; there was a hole through the hat; dropping the rod instantly he seized his rifle with both hands and raised himself for a quick shot. But there was nothing visible worth shooting at. Once more the quick dissolving puff of smoke and the gleam of a rifle-barrel disappearing were all that he got a glimpse of. His little ruse had failed, and he was clearly discomfited, while a loud whoop of derision rang out from the rocks; it was the Navajo equivalent for "Sold again!" It was echoed from another quarter, and from another, by wild unearthly yells.
"Aha, white man," those yells seemed to say, "we've caught you now! How do you feel now? This is our country and not yours; aha! it is our home, and it shall be your grave; the vulture and the coyote know the Navajo war-whoop, and they are hurrying to pick your bones. Aha, aha!"
The solitary man felt his heartstrings quiver at the cruel sounds, but he kept his eyes glued to the place where the puffs of smoke had come from; the next time that devilish redskin put up his head to fire he would try who could draw a bead the quicker.
At this moment he was startled by a loud, coarse voice, quite close to him apparently, but coming from an unseen speaker. The words were Spanish. "Es tu, Sooshiuamo?"—"Is it you, Sooshiuamo?" The voice was the unmistakable voice of Mahletonkwa, with its thick, guttural tones.
Stephens hesitated a moment. Should he break silence and answer? He had neither fired a shot nor uttered a sound so far. But he had been discovered, for all that, and was there any further use in trying to conceal his exact position? He decided to answer.
"Si, soy," he called out in a loud voice. "Yes, that's who I am. Is that you there, Mahletonkwa?" But he did not turn his eyes in the direction of the unseen voice that had addressed him; he kept them fastened on the distant spot where he expected the rifle-barrel to reappear. Nor did he judge amiss. The hidden marksman, who thought that the American's gaze would be turned in the direction of the voice in answer to which he had spoken, put up his rifle for a third shot at him. Quick as lightning Stephens brought the Winchester to his shoulder; but even now he did not pull the trigger, for as his rifle came up the Indian's head went down again, and again those wild derisive whoops rang out, and again the voice of the unseen man, concealed so close to him, addressed him in Spanish.
"What are you doing here, Sooshiuamo? and what do you want?"
Was the voice nearer than before? Was this only a trick of the Navajos to get him off his guard? Stephens mistrusted that it was so; but he coolly made reply. "Why do your men shoot at me, Mahletonkwa? I want to talk to you. I want that Mexican girl, the Señorita Sanchez, whom you have carried off." He would see if they were open to an offer.
"Who is with you?" asked the voice of Mahletonkwa. "Who are those behind you? Where are the soldiers?"
Stephens determined to try to run a bluff.
"They're coming," said he confidently. "Don't you delude yourself. We've got force enough to take her back. You'd better surrender her quietly at once."
"Pooh!" answered Mahletonkwa tauntingly, "you've got no soldiers. The storekeeper burnt the letter you sent to the general, I know."
This was a blow to Stephens, and the moment he heard the Indian say it, he recognised the probability of its truth. Backus must have played traitor, and, what was more, he must have told the Navajos that he had done so. This Indian could never have invented such a story himself.
"Suppose he did," returned Stephens, determined to keep up his bluff; "that doesn't prevent me meeting Captain Pfeiffer and a troop of cavalry on the road and bringing them along." He raised his voice so that all those Indians who were within earshot might hear him. "If you dare hurt one hair of the señorita's head, you will every one of you be shot or hanged. You mark me."
While he was speaking the Navajo who had fired at him twice already put up his head for a third shot, but he bobbed it down quicker than before as the ready Winchester came up to the American's cheek.
The prospector lowered his piece once more instead of letting fly; he was determined not to throw away his first shot. He had plenty of cartridges, but he knew that to risk beginning with a miss would only embolden his enemies, and he meant to strike terror from the start.
The red Indian is as brave as the next man, but he objects to getting killed if he can help it, and he will carefully avoid exposing himself to the aim of a dead-shot. These Navajos had all seen Stephens drive the nail.
Stephens's verbal threat, however, only provoked Mahletonkwa's derision. "Pooh!" he retorted jeeringly, "where are your friends now? It is getting time for them to come and save you. You'll see, though, they can't do it. We'll show you what we are. We are Tinné; we are men." The word Tinné means "men" in the Navajo language. They call themselves "the men" par excellence.
"Chin-music's cheap," rejoined Stephens, taunting him back. "Say, have you forgotten your time on the Pecos at Bosque Redondo already? You felt like 'men' there, didn't you, when you were grubbing for roots and catching grasshoppers and lizards to eat like a lot of dirty Diggers?"
"Hah!" replied the Indian indignantly, "I never saw Bosque Redondo. All the soldiers you could get couldn't take me where I didn't choose to go. I don't take orders from any agent or any general. Nobody ever commands me." There spoke the soul of the true son of the desert. Personal liberty was to him as the breath of his nostrils. Nevertheless, beneath his boastful assertions Stephens thought he detected an undertone that might indicate a willingness to treat, and he slightly altered his own tone.
"Mahletonkwa, you're playing the fool. Why don't you bring the girl back quietly?"
"Well, if you want her," answered the Navajo, "why don't you come out of your hole and talk business?"
"Yes, and get shot by treachery for my pains!" answered Stephens indignantly. "I haven't attacked you. Your men began; they've shot at me twice without warning."
"Well," said the Navajo, "you tell your men, if you have any, that they are not to shoot, and I'll tell mine not to shoot, and then you and I can talk together. I'm willing to treat."
An idea struck Stephens; he had already insinuated that he had Captain Pfeiffer—a name of terror to the Navajoes and Apaches—at his back; he would keep up that pretence, at least for a time. He turned and shouted aloud in English at the pitch of his voice, "O Captain Pfeiffer! O Captain Pfeiffer! Keep your soldiers back. Don't let them fire a shot." He paused, and then continued shouting again, but this time in Spanish, "O Captain of the Indian scouts," he would not give away the Santiago cacique in any wise by calling him by name, "let your scouts keep their posts and watch, but let them not fire a shot. Let them wait till I return. Peace talk."
The four Pueblo Indians heard him, and understood, and from their hiding-places they shouted back in assent.
"You see," cried he to his wily foe, "my men are warned. Do you send your men back to your camp, and come out and meet me in the open, eye to eye."
"No treachery?" said the Indian.
"No treachery," answered the white man.
The Navajo called to his companions, and presently Stephens had glimpses here and there of stealthy forms slinking through the Lava Beds back in the direction of the oasis where their horses were grazing.
"Now you come out," called Mahletonkwa to the American.
"Come forward then, you, too," said Stephens.
"You first," returned the savage.
Stephens decided to take the risk and set the example. Grasping his rifle in his left hand, he held it across his body, while he raised his open right hand above his head in sign of amity, as he rose to his full height. Not twenty yards away, across the ridge of rock that had covered him on his right hand, he caught sight of Mahletonkwa's copper-coloured visage, with the watchful dark eyes fastened on him, as they peered through a loophole-like fissure in the lava, where he was crouching.
Stephens, his head a little thrown back, his breast expanded, braced himself to receive, and to return if he could, the treacherous bullet he more than half expected.
"Stand up there you, Mahletonkwa, like me." He spoke proudly. "Be a man; stand up."
Very watchfully, both hands grasping his gun at the ready, the Indian rose to his feet. He looked like a fierce, cunning wolf hesitating whether to snap or to turn tail.
With right hand still extended, Stephens moved step by step towards his enemy, Faro keeping close to his heels. Not for a moment did the white man remove his eye from the Indian, alert to detect the first motion towards raising the gun, as he felt for his footing on the rough lava blocks, careful not to look down lest an unfair advantage should be taken of him. At five yards off he halted. The fissured rock behind which Mahletonkwa had been crouching was now all that separated them.
"Is there not peace between us?" exclaimed Stephens. "What do you fear? Why does your gun point my way?"
"Is not your gun in your hand, too?" returned the Indian. "Put it down and I will put mine down."
Stephens lowered his right hand, and bending his knees slowly he sank his body near enough to the ground to lay his Winchester at his feet, but he never took his eyes off the Indian, and his fingers still encircled the barrel and the small part of the stock.
"Down with yours too, Mahletonkwa," he said quietly.
The Indian placed his piece at his feet, hesitated a moment, and then removed his hands from it and sat up, resting himself on his heels. Stephens likewise took his hands from his weapon and sat on a rock. Mutual confidence had advanced so far, although each was still intensely suspicious of the other.
"Now, tell me," said Stephens, "what did you carry off the girl for?"
"To get our pay for our dead brother," returned the red man.
"You did wrong then. You should have complained to the agent at Fort Defiance if you thought you had a claim to compensation. You should not have done an act of war by carrying her off."
"Huh! Was it not you who tried to send for the soldiers when we came to claim compensation?"
"Certainly I sent for them. You refused a reasonable offer, and you threatened to kill my Mexican friends instead. That was why I sent for them."
"It was you who caused the Mexicans to refuse compensation. They would have paid up and settled with us if it had not been for you."
"No, not so. It was you who asked a ridiculous price. I urged Nepomuceno Sanchez to make terms with you. But not at your price. You asked for the dead man's weight in silver, pretty near. I don't believe you know how much a thousand dollars is; I don't believe you could count it."
"Yes I could," said the Indian sulkily; "it's a back-load for a man to carry a day's journey."
Stephens figured on the weight, as stated by the Indian, for a moment. "Well, I've got to admit you do seem to know something about it, after all," he answered; "your figures come out about right. And, as I said before, it was a perfectly absurd amount to ask. And then, to make it worse, instead of trying to make terms, you commit an outrage of this kind by carrying off an innocent girl by violence."
"She has not been ill-treated," said the Indian; "she has not been subject to violence while we have had her. We have taken good care of her." He spoke very earnestly and with marked emphasis.
"That's your story," returned Stephens; "I only hope it's true. It'll be better for you if it is. But anyways there's no denying the fact that she's been brutally dragged from her home."
"That's nothing much," said the Indian briefly; "she's not been ill-treated"; and he explained clearly enough what he meant by ill-treatment. Stephens understood him, and shuddered to think of that poor girl having lain for two days and nights completely at the mercy of this savage. But he remembered Madam Whailahay, and the cacique's wonderful account of the power of that superstition over the Tinné. It might prove to be true, as Mahletonkwa asserted, that the captive had been spared the worst. And the Navajo really did seem to have a notion of coming to terms. But on what basis were they to deal? How far could they trust each other? That was the crucial question.
"Look here now, Mahletonkwa," said he, "you take me straight to where she is, and let me talk to her quietly; and you give me your solemn promise that you won't try to make me prisoner, but will let me return to my own men unharmed, and I'll see what I can do to make peace for you." He had a special object in making this speech; it was to test the truth of the Indian's words. If the Navajo refused the permission for him to see her, he would be discrediting his own assertion that the girl was not seriously harmed; moreover, though Stephens had small faith in the Indian's honour, and was by no means unprepared to find that the promise, if given, was given only to entrap him, he nevertheless thought it politic thus to require it, that by making such a show of confidence on his own part in Mahletonkwa's honour he might beget a corresponding return of confidence from the other.
The Navajo pondered a moment on the proposition. "Yes," he said presently, looking up, his distrustful eyes, still full of suspicion, resting doubtfully on Stephens. "Promise, you, that your men stay where they are, and do nothing against us, and I'll take you to her."
"I'll do that much," answered the American; "so then it's a bargain."
"It's a bargain," returned the red man; the confidence shown in him was producing its effect.
"That's all right then," said Stephens cheerfully, rising to his feet and leaving his Winchester still on the ground. He was not one whit less on the alert than before, but his cue now was to betray no distrust. For the first time since their meeting he took his eyes off Mahletonkwa and looked back to where he had left his Pueblo friends, who had remained all this time as invisible as ever, waiting on the event with the inexhaustible patience of their race.
"Hullo!" he called back, "you scouts, stay there where you are till I come back again. I am going to the camp of the Navajos to see about settling things."
As before, the Pueblos acknowledged his message from afar with a wild answering shout of assent.
He turned round, picked up his Winchester in a quiet, undemonstrative manner, and threw it into the hollow of his arm. "Go ahead, Mahletonkwa," said he, "you heard what I said. They will keep still till I return. Let's go to your camp, you and me."
The redskin likewise stood up with his weapon in his hand. "I've got to give some orders, too," he said, and he began to speak in his own tongue. Much to Stephens's surprise he was answered at once from a few yards off. The head of a concealed Navajo suddenly appeared from a fissure near at hand. Stephens instantly recognised him as the Notalinkwa whom Don Nepomuceno had said was as big a villain as the other. He rapidly calculated in his mind what this might mean. It was, in a measure, evidence that the Navajo chief had not been intending to keep faith. At any rate, this was proof positive that he had only made a pretence of sending his men away while he met Stephens alone; and yet during their colloquy he had kept this confederate posted within a few yards of him the whole time. "It's all right," said Mahletonkwa, in answer to the look of surprise apparent on Stephens's face; "no treachery, no lies. I leave Notalinkwa here to watch for us that your men don't advance. Come along. It's all right."
That Mahletonkwa should leave a sentinel now seemed natural enough, and Stephens decided promptly to acquiesce. He was in for it now, and he must play the game boldly, and with unhesitating steps he followed the Navajo chief over the rugged lava to the camp where the prisoner was held.
The camp lay in a narrow sunken meadow, of a few acres in extent, bordered on either side by the black, forbidding wall of the lava bed. An unknown cause had here divided the lava stream for some hundreds of yards, leaving the space between unravaged by the desolating flow. And in the little oasis thus shut off the grass grew rich and green, looking tenfold brighter from its contrast with the blackened wilderness around.
"What a perfect place for stock-thieves to hide in," thought Stephens as he beheld it. "Of course these Navajos know every hidden recess like this in the country." His eyes eagerly scanned the scene for the form that was the object of his search. Close under the rocks, on the far side, was the group of which he had already caught a glimpse from the point where he had had his colloquy with the Indian chief. Yes, it was indeed her dress he had discerned. There she was, sitting on the ground amid the saddles and horse furniture, the Navajo guards standing watchfully about in the space between him and her as he and Mahletonkwa approached. Guns were visible in the hands of most of them, but some carried only bows. He took note that the latter were strung, and that besides the bow two or three arrows were held ready in the fingers of the left hand.
But though his swift, wary glance took in every detail, it was to the face of the captive girl that his eyes were most anxiously directed. As he approached she sprang to her feet, and with a cry of recognition ran forward to meet him. Some of the Indians put out their hands as if to restrain her, but at a sign from Mahletonkwa they refrained. His outstretched hand met hers in a vigorous clasp.
"You have come," she cried in broken tones, "you have come at last. And my father,—is he safe?"
"Yes, he's safe," said the American, "and so are you."