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Page 72
The sign-language of the Indians of the South is an interesting
field of study. On the occasion of a raid like the one
described, the warriors who were to participate would gather at
one point and construct a mound, with as many stones in it as
there were warriors. Then they would scatter into small bands.
When any band returned to the mound, after losing a fight and the
others were not there, the leader would take from the mound as
many stones as he had lost warriors. Thus, the other bands, on
returning, could tell just how many men had fallen.
In the arid regions of the West, water-signs are quite frequent.
They usually consist of a grouping of stones, with a longer
triangular stone in the center, its apex pointing in the
direction where the water is to be found. In some cases the
water is so far from the trail that four or five of these signs
must be followed up before the water is found.
Only the Indian and the mule can smell water. This
accomplishment enabled the fleeing Apaches to take every
advantage of the pursuing troopers, who must travel from spring
to spring along known trails.
In the long, weary chase men and horses began to fail rapidly.
Short rations quickly became slow starvation fare. Hardie fed
his men and horses on mesquit bean, a plant heretofore considered
poisonous. For water he was forced to depend upon the cactus,
draining the fluid secreted at the heart of the plant.
With faces blistered by the sun and caked with alkali, blue
shirts faded to a purple tinge, and trousers and accouterments
covered with a gray, powdery dust, the soldiers rode on silently
and determinedly. Hour after hour the troop flung itself across
the plains and into the heart of the Lava Beds, each day cutting
down the Apache lead.
CHAPTER XIII
The Atonement
False dawn in the Lava Beds of Arizona. The faint tinge on the
eastern horizon fades, and the stars shine the more brilliantly
in the brief, darkest hour before the true daybreak. An icy wind
sweeps down canons and over mesas, stinging the marrow of the
wayfarer's bones. In the heavens, the innumerable stars burn
steadily in crystal coldness. Shadows lie in Stygian blackness
at foot of rock and valley. Soft and clear the lights of night
swathe the uplands. An awesome silence hangs over the desert.
Hushed and humbled by the immensity of space, one expects to hear
the rush of worlds through the universe. At times the bosom
swells with a wild desire to sing and shout in the glory of pure
living.
The day comes quickly; the sun, leaping edge of the world, floods
mesa and canon, withering, sparing no living thing, lavishing
reds and purples, blues and violets upon canon walls and
wind-sculptured rocks. But a remorseful glare, blinding,
sight-destroying, is thrown back from the sand and alkali of the
desert. Shriveled sage-brush and shrunken cactus bravely fight
for life.
A narrow pathway leads from the mesa down the canon's wall,
twisting and doubling on itself to Apache Spring. The trail then
moves southward between towering cliffs, a lane through which is
caught a far-distant glimpse of the mountains. Little whirlwinds
of dust spring up, ever and anon, twirling wildly across the
sandy wastes. The air suffocates, like the breath of a furnace.
Ever the pitiless sun searches and scorches, as conscience sears
and stings a stricken soul.
Down the narrow trail, past the spring, ride in single file the
Apaches, slowly, on tired horses, for the pursuing soldiers have
given them no halting space. Naked, save for a breech-clout,
with a narrow red band of dyed buckskin about his forehead, in
which sticks a feather, each rides silent, grim, cruel, a hideous
human reptile, as native to the desert as is the Gila monster.
The horse is saddleless. For a bridle, the warrior uses a piece
of grass rope twisted about the pony's lower jaw. His legs droop
laxly by the horse's sides. In his right hand he grasps his
rifle, resting the butt on the knee. The only sound to break the
stillness of the day is the rattle of stones, slipping and
sliding down the pathway when loosened by hoofs of the ponies.
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