Part 12

"Did any of yez ever go camel huntin'?" asked the cook, who had been listening to some tales of bear and lion hunting that had been going the rounds of the men about the chuck wagon.

"Camel hunting?" cried the horse-wrangler, a look of astonishment on his face. "What on earth do you mean by camel hunting? We ain't none of us ever been to Afriky."

"Camel huntin' is jest what I said," replied the knight of the dish-rag, flourishing that useful article in the air as he mopped off the lid of the chuck box.

"Do you mean sure enough camels, camels with humps on 'em like what we seen at the circus in Albuquerque las' fall?" queried another doubting one.

"Faith an' I do that," answered the cook; "an' what's more, I didn't have to go to no Afriky to hunt 'em neither."

"Whar did ye find any camels hereabouts, 'ceptin in a circus?" asked "Tex," an old-time puncher who had followed the chuck wagon for thirty years.

"Right here in Arizony, me lads," said the cook, with an affirmative nod of his red head.

"Gee!" and the wagon boss looked incredulous. "Camels in Arizony! Who ever heard tell of any of them critters down this-a-way?"

Pat by this time had finished his after-dinner work, and while the team horses were eating their grain, he sat down to peel a panful of potatoes in readiness for the evening meal.

"Tell us about them there camels, Pat," begged one of the boys.

"Sure," with a grin, "I don't mind givin' yez a little bit of enlightenment on the subject of camels, seein' as none of yez ever heern tell of thim before now. When I first came to Arizony, ye know I was a sojer in the regular army, in the Sixth Cavalry, the gallopin' Sixth, they called it in them days."

"Aw, give us a rest, Pat, about your army days, an' tell us about them camels," for the Galloping Sixth and its adventures was an old story to the boys.

"Well," he resumed, "we was scoutin' down the Santy Cruz valley, west of Too-sawn, a lookin' for old Geronimo and his murderin' gang. One night we was camped in a little openin' in the mesquites, wid guards out on all sides ag'in a surprise, when somethin' stampeded every hoss in the herd an' left us plumb afoot, exceptin' them the guards was a-ridin'. Next morning when the captain asked the sargint of the guard what made 'em stampede, he sort of grinned an' looked sheepish like.

"'Captain,' ses he, 'ye'll not be after thinkin' me a dirty liar, but, sor, by the blissid Saint Patrick I'd be willin' to swear that the animiles that set them there crazy hosses off like a bunch of skeered sheep were nothin' less nor camels--camels, sor, with two humps an' long necks on 'em; the same as I be seein' in the maynageries whin I were a lad.'

"'Camels, sargint?' sez the captain, lookin' sort o' puzzled like. 'Do ye surely mean what ye be a-sayin'?'

"'That I do, sor,' sez the sargint, 'an' the men on guard with me will bear me out--at least them that glimpsed them.'

"Then the captain he sort of grins an' sez, 'That's all right, sargint; I'd plumb forgot there used to be a lot of camels herabouts on these deserts, an' 'twas probably some of thim.'

"Then the captain, he bein' a fine old sojer man, with no frills or grand airs with the men when out on a scout, tells the sargint that before the war Jeff Davis (that same Jeff, by the way, what was Prisident of the Confideracy, he bein' then Secretary of War) gits a fancy that camels was the very trick for usin' out West, for packin' stuff for the troops. So old Jeff he gets Uncle Sam to send 'way off to Afriky an' import a lot of thim an' sint them out to Texas an' Arizony on the deserts.

"But the packers couldn't get used to them, an' besides, they stampeded ev'ry horse an' mule in the entire southwest with their queer ways an' ungainly looks. So one day the quartermaster at Yuma he turns out a lot of thim with a 'Good-bye to yez, an' God bless yez, an' here's hopin' we niver meet ag'in,' slappin' the nearest one with a halter shank to sort of hasten him on his way. They took to the deserts like a duck to water, an' the captain said 'twas doubtless one of thim that the sargint seed."

"How about huntin' of 'em, Pat?" asked an interested listener. "You sure didn't stop to hunt camels then, did you?"

"Hunt camels thin!" snorted the cook with disgust. "By the powers 'twas precious little opportunity we had for camel huntin' thim days, with old Geronimo onto his job ev'ry day from sun-up to dark. No, my son, 'twas ten years or more later whin I went camel huntin'. I was workin' for the M. C. outfit, up to Williams, an' they had a contract to deliver some beef steers to the Injun agent at the Moharvey reservation down below the Needles on the Big Colorado. We'd had an elegant summer for rain, an' the desert was covered with grass an' water. So the old man decides to trail them across the country, an' we takes the herd an' struck off down the mountain towards the head of the big Chino Valley an' then on west till we struck the Bill William's fork of the Big Colorado down which we was to drift till we reached the main river.

"We started with a young moon, an' by the time we hit the Bill William's fork the job of night herding was a plumb picnic, so far as the steers went. We had them all as do-cile as a bunch of trained pigs; an' what with the grand feed to handle them on we'd never yet lost a single one of them nor had a stampoodle of any kind.

"We bedded them oxen down one night in a great open valley after an easy day's drive. There was only five of us, four with the steers, an' me, cook an' horse-wrangler, we havin' everything on four pack mules, which I drove with the remuda.

"That night Billy St. Joe asked me if I wouldn't take his guard for him, he bein' about sick all day with nuralgy. So when I was called along about midnight to spoon them for two hours I jumps an' was soon joggin' around the bunch, which was all a-lyin' down as decent as one could wish fer. 'Twere hard to keep awake, an' I reckon I must 'a' been a-noddin' in the saddle, for, the first thing I knowed there was a snort an' a cracklin' of horns an' hocks, an' away went me steers like the very old divil himself was behind them.

"I pulled meself together, slapped old Shoestring down the hind leg with me quirt, an' put spurs after them, hopin' to turn them. Old Shoestring snorted an' kept them sharp ears of his workin' an' looking' back over his shoulder like, as if he was a-feered too. I hadn't been sidin' them fer more than a hundred yards when, hearin' a snortin' an' a gruntin' behind me, I takes a look meself over me shoulder, an' such a sight as me eyes did get.

"'Twas sure no wonder them steers was a-runnin away, fer right behind us was three great figures with long necks an' humps on their backs like two water kegs a-settin' up there. They wasn't gallopin', nayther was they trottin', but jist a-shufflin' along over the ground like ghosties, an' every once in a little while one of them gives a grunt an' a gurgle which sent them oxen wild with terror. Hangin' to these creatures was long strings of somethin' more like a lot of ragged clothes than anything else, an' what with the flutterin' an' wavin' they resembled a lot of animated scarecrows.

"When we first set out on our race with thim ugly divils a-follerin' of us, the three night horses tied up in camp, takin' wan look an' sniff of them teeterin' figgers a-puffin' an' a-gruntin' in our rear, jist quit the flats wid the rest of the live stock, an' as we tore along we picked up every mother's son of the other horses, them all bein' foot-loose, an' a-hangin' round with the pack mules.

"By the blissed saints, but me an' that Shoestring horse was havin' a lovely ole time of it all by ourselves, for, with the night horses gone, thim lads back in camp had nothin' to do but set there an' lave it to me to hang an' rattle with them. Thim shufflin' monsters behind didn't seem to want to git past us, but jist kep' at the heels of the drags, an' it's mesilf's a-tellin' ye that every toime I'd take wan hasty glimpse of thim 'twould be the cold chills I'd be after havin', an' me a-cursin' the night I ever took Billy St. Joe's guard fer him.

"What wid the fear in his heart, an' good work wid me 'pet makers', I makes out to git old Shoestring up clost to the leaders. I'd also managed to get me slicker untied from the back of me saddle an' was wavin' it in their faces, hopin' by thim means to git the bunch turned an' millin', an' maybe thim lost sowls that was a-follerin' us wud leave us in peace an' quiet.

"Thim three saddle horses a-runnin' an' rompin' an' snortin' in the midst of the steers wasn't helpin' matters, ayther. Iv'ry toime wan of the stake ropes what was a-draggin' after thim struck the hocks of a steer he'd give a wild beller of fright, and thin the entire bunch wud put on a few extra bursts of speed, an' thim preambulatin' scarecrows behind wud do a little more gruntin' an' gurglin' an' make matters all the worse.

"'Bout this time old Shoestring, bein' occupied principally wid lookin' over his shoulder an' takin' stock of those wanderin' hoboes behind, failed to notice a big ole badger hole like an open coal hole in a city sidewalk, an' steps wan of his front legs square into it an' turns a hand-spring, landin' in a bunch of _cholla_ cactus, wid me under him. Whin I come to my sinsis, which was some minutes after, I finds meself afoot on the desert an' it just a-gittin' gray in the east.

"Barrin' a big gash across me cheek, where I digs me face into the ground as me old Shoestring lit, I was none the worse for the fall, 'ceptin' of coorse a large an' illigant assortment of _cholla_ barbs in me anatemy. Comes daylight I limps back to camp, for I were in no fix for ridin' till I'd lain fer two mortal hours flat on me stummick on a saddle blanket--an' me as naked as a Yuma Indian kid in July--whilst Billy St. Joe done a grand job of pullin' them divilish cactus barbs from various an' prominent portions of me system. Thim infernal things stuck out of me carcas till, as one of the byes remarked, 'I was more porcupine than human.'

"'What skeered your cows, Pat?' says Jim, the boss, as I come cripplin' into camp. 'Sure an' if I knowed I'd tell ye,' sez I. They was all a-lyin' that ca'm an' peaceful as wan could well wish fer. Thin up they hops an' immigrates. Me an' old Shoestring we busted out after 'em, an' as we tore along I glimpsed a bunch of hairy, wobbly-legged monsters a-follerin' us, a-groanin' an' a-gurglin' like a lot of hobgoblins from hell,' sez I.

"'Git out' sez Jim; ''twas aslape ye were, ye an' old Shoestring both, an' he had a bad dream an' bucked ye off into a cholla'.

"'Not on yer life,' sez I, mad enough to fight a grizzly between the grin on his face an' the stingin' of the cactus barbs in me back.

"The boys managed to get the horses rounded up, an' all the steers together by noon, but too late to move camp that day. That afternoon Jim sez, 'Git yer gun, Pat, an' come wid me.' So I saddles up me pony, slips me Winchester into me scabbard, an' him an' me rides off from camp.

"'What's up?' sez I.

"'Nothin', sez he, 'only over here a ways I struck the curiousest tracks I ever seen in all me life; an' me a-knowin' the sign of every critter that ever walks on legs in this here country.' We soon struck the trail Jim had seen an' it sure were a new one on both of us. So we follows it up, feelin' it was our juty, as law-abidin' citizens, to run down an' kill all such disorderly, outlandish creatures that was a-runnin' at large. 'Twan't long before we comes to a ridge a-lookin' out over a little valley, an' leadin' our horses we footed it fer the top of the ridge, an' peekin' over we seed down in the middle of the flat three hungry lookin' yaller divils. ''Tis me wanderin' rag-bags what skeered the herd last night,' sez I, triumphant like--after Jim accusin' me of goin' to sleep on guard an' dreamin' things.

"'I reckon you're right,' sez Jim, with a grin on his mug.

"They was a dirty yaller color, an' what wid the bare spots all over thim, like sheep wid the scab, Jim sez they looked more like a lot of mangy coyotes than anythin' he iver seen in all his life. ''Twas sure no fault wid thim steers that they all gits up an' stampoodles whin such a bad-smellin', evil-lookin' lot of monsters come a-driftin' down on top of them,' sez he.

"'Twere not so hard to git closer to thim, an' whin we finally gits as near as we thought we could, an' not skeer thim, we each picks out wan an' let him have it where we believed it would do the most good. Mine never ran ten feet; Jim's fell down within a quarter; the third wan struck off down the valley at a great rate, an' Jim, bein' hell-bent fer ropin' things, hollered, 'Le's rope it, le's rope it!' an' jabbed his spurs into his pony an' tore off, takin' down his rope an' makin a loop as he wint.

"'Rope him if ye will,' sez I, lammin' me old digger wid me quirt, 'but it's meself that ropes no outlandish heathin thing lookin' more like it come out of old Noah's ark than a daycent, respectable range critter'. But I follered along as fast as I could git me pony to move, him bein' none too anxious to git close to the slobberin' cross between a step-ladder an' a hayrack, that was lumberin' along ahead of us.

"Jim's pony was a darlin' to run, an' as he was a-gittin' closer for a throw I sez to meself, 'If iver that crazy lad ahead puts his line on to that there travelin' maynagerie he's a-follerin' he's a-goin' to need help to turn it loose, sure.' So I waits fer the outcome, feelin' certain I'd be needed before long.

"Bimeby Jim he gits a good chanst fer a throw an' drops his line over the long, ungainly head in front of him; but the rope, instid of grippin' the critter's throat, slipped back an' drew up ag'in its breast, an' whin Jim tried to check him up the pony couldn't hold him. Whin the hard jerk come Jim's flank cinch busted, the pony begins to pitch, an' between the pitchin' an' the saddle drawin' up on the pony's neck, poor Jim lost out an' went up into the air like a shootin' star, landin' on his head in a pile of rocks. The saddle stripped over the pony's head, an' away went the whole outfit, through brush, over rocks, across washes, like hell a-beatin' tanbark. The rope bein' tied hard an' fast to the horn, Jim's new $50 saddle wint danglin' along behind, like a tin can tied to a dog's tail. When Jim come to, a few minutes later on, he wiped his hand across his face, looked at the blood on it, an' sez to me, sort of foolish like, 'What struck me, Pat?'

"'I reckon 'twas wan of Jeff Davis's camels,' sez I."

THE TRINIDAD KID

There's a girl I'd love to see, She's a waiting there for me, 'Way down yonder in the southwest land.

She has eyes of dreamy blue, And her heart is always true, 'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande.

The singer was riding slowly around a herd of steers "bedded down" on an open flat about a quarter of a mile from the western, or Mexican bank of the river of which he sang.

It was the first guard, from eight to ten, and the steers, having had a fine day's grazing, were all lying down chewing their cuds as comfortably as a bunch of milk cows in a dairy barn.

Across the herd his "side partner" on the guard was riding toward him, so that twice in each circle of the herd they met for an instant and then each jogged on into the darkness.

As they met this time the singer finished the verse, and his pony acknowledged the slight shifting of his rider's body in the saddle by coming to a stop.

"Gimme a match," demanded the singer as he felt in his vest pocket for the "makings." "Here 'tis," replied the other, "and I reckon I'll just build a smoke myself."

"Let's jog along together," suggested the second man, "and you sing, for if we stand here and strike a match this herd of oxen will just about get up and quit the flats."

Down along the river bank the dim spark of the cook's fire showed where the outfit was camped, while a short distance beyond it the Rio Grande at full flood roared like a sullen yellow monster.

The fringe of cottonwoods and _Tornillos_ along its bank were outlined against the background of the sky like shadow pictures, while an occasional dull crash told of the loss of another slice of the Republic of Mexico where, undermined by the swift flood, a piece of the bank had dropped into the river and was on its way to the gulf.

"Do you reckon we'll have much trouble swimmin' these steers tomorrow?" asked the singer, as, contrary to the rules of night-herding of all cow outfits, they rode along together.

"No, I don't believe we will," was the reply. "Uncle John savvys this river like a native, an' if he looks at it tomorrow an' says 'Cross 'em,' they'll make it all right."

"Well, she's sure high, and 'tain't the water I'm afraid of half so much as the infernal quicksand. I never did like the water, nohow." He shook his head: "Once I got into the quicksand in the Little Colorado over in Arizony and like to ended up in the _Campo Santo_ fer sure."

"Say" and his companion handed him a flaming match--"you smoke up a little an' fergit all that. We got troubles aplenty without huntin' up imaginary things to git skeered of. Did you hear the yarn that stray man was a-tellin' in camp tonight?" he remarked, with the evident intention of drawing his friend from so gloomy an outlook.

"Never a word; I was shoeing my horse when he was talkin' an' didn't hear what he was sayin'. What was he talkin' about?" the singer queried.

"Well," said the other, "it 'pears like he was workin' fer the Turkey Track outfit in Arizony and him an' another Turkey Track screw comes over the line to git a little touch of high life among the _paisanos_ on this side. Well, they gits it all right, for between half a dozen Mexican women, two or three _hombres_, an' a kaig of mescal, 'tain't hard to start something; an' when the dust settled down this stray gent finds hisself with a dead man on his hands an' him over here where it's the eagle an' the snake instead of the Stars an' Stripes a-flyin' overhead. I was busy makin' down my bed an' never heerd how he come out 'ceptin' he says there was some fool law these Mexicans has which don't allow the body of any one what dies on Mexican soil to be taken out of the country for five years. So he had to leave his friend there instead of gittin' him acrost an' plantin' him up in the Pan Handle where his folks lived."

"What for don't they let any dead body be taken out of this here country?" And the boy turned uneasily in his saddle.

"Damfino," replied the other; "reckon it's just some cranky notion these Greasers got; maybeso they likes your sassiety an' hates to part with you, but, anyhow, that's the law all right, all right, an' if you dies here, you stays here, for five years, if no longer."

"Say, Jim," the kid's voice was full of awe; "My old mammy's up yonder in Trinidad, an' by hooky, if I was to die down here an' she couldn't git hold of me to bury me up there where she laid the old man an' my sister, she's like to go plum loco, fer sure."

"Well, you better make your plans to die on 'tother side the line or else so close to it that somebody can haze you across without any of them there _Rurales_ gittin' on to your game," was Jim's reply, as he returned from chasing a steer back into the herd. "So far as I'm concerned," he continued, "I don't reckon it makes much difference where I'm stuck away, for I'm a drifter an' ain't got no kin that I knows of, an' I guess when a feller's dead he kin hear ole Gabe blow his horn on this side the Rio Grande jist as easy as on 'tother."

The next morning the sun was just peeping over the sand hills away to the east when Uncle John, who had been down along the river since the first gray streak in the sky announced the coming of day, rode into camp as the boys were catching out their horses. As the wagon boss glanced at him, he nodded and said, "All right, George, we'll try it this morning; the river has fallen a lot since last night."

"Which means that I turns this here mule loose an' gits me a horse," remarked one of the riders who had just roped a little black saddle mule, "fer a mule ain't no earthly good in water. If they gits their ears wet, they jist lays down on you, an' quits right there."

"On her hand I placed a ring, When I left her in the spring, 'Way down yonder in the southwest land."

The singer's voice rose above the shouts of the other boys as they pushed the cattle along toward the river.

"An' she said she'd not forget me, Oh, she'll be there to meet me, 'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande."

"That's right, Kid, sing to 'em. Time you've got through with this here muddy water job she won't know you if she is there to meet you," laughed the horse-wrangler.

As the herd swung down to the river, the horse-wrangler had his entire _remuda_ at the water's edge, and with two men to help him he slowly forced the horses out into the stream, with old Bennie, the crack "cutting horse" of the outfit, in the lead. The old rascal had been used for this work for ten years and well knew that there was a nose bag full of oats waiting for him on the further bank of the river.

As the steers on the O. T. ranch had always been handled by placing the horse herd ahead of them when corraling or taking a narrow trail down some cañon, they followed the horses with little delay.

On the upper side of the lead cattle rode the Trinidad Kid on his best horse.

"Oh I know a shady spot, Where we'll build a little cot, 'Way down yonder in the southwest land.

"And the mocking birds will sing, And the wedding bells will ring, 'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande,"

he sang loudly as his pony plowed through the muddy water.

"Say Dick," shouted the man behind him, "ain't you going to ask us to all the doings when them wedding bells cut loose?"

"I reckon so," was the answer, "and what's more, if I gets me onto the yonderly side of this streak of mud, I'm a going to stay there. I've seen all I want to of this 'mañana land.'"

Just at the critical time, when everything seemed to be working out all right, a great wave of water swept down the stream and broke with a crash right in front of the leading steers. They hesitated for a moment, then another wave broke, and still another, and in an instant the leaders were swinging back on to each other in their senseless panic. In less than a minute a hundred of them were swimming round and round in the muddy waters, a whirling, struggling mass of horns and bodies. They jumped upon one another, bearing the under ones down into the water, until it was boiling with the fighting, maddened animals.

The kid did not wait for orders. Well he knew that it was up to him to break up that milling mighty quick or the whole day's work was lost. Heading his pony toward the struggling mass of animals, he drove at them without an instant's hesitation.

"Oh the mocking birds will sing, And the wedding bells will ring, 'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande."

Singing at the top of his voice and swinging his slicker over his head, he swept down on the outside steers, being crowded on to them by the swift current against which his plucky pony struggled hard. Had he abandoned the effort and turned the animal up stream, facing the current, he might have breasted it and held his own, but the kid resolutely kept his place as well as he could.

"'Way down yonder on the Rio Grande, 'Way down yonder in that southwest land,"

he sang valiantly as he thrashed the steers with his yellow slicker, trying to turn them from their course. He was rapidly accomplishing his purpose, and a few of the leaders were already turned and about to string out for the shore, when one broad-horned fellow right behind him raised in the water like some huge sea monster, and lunged upon his horse's hips with both front feet.