CHAPTER XI
THE SPANISH TRAIL
"Dick," said I, as we sat together that evening beside our camp-fire,"what do you make of it? That was a queer thing, that young fellowcoming inquiring for El Tejon. I confess, for my part, I can't make heador tail of it."
"I can't either," replied Dick; "at least, as far as this stranger isconcerned. I'm quite in the dark on that point. As to the padron and TheBadger, though, that seems to me simple enough. It is some old feudbetween the two which concerns nobody but themselves."
"That is how it strikes me. You don't think, then, that there is anydanger to us?"
"No, I don't. In fact, I feel sure of it. It is just a personal quarrelof long standing between those two--that's all. I have no more fear ofEl Tejon than I have of any other Mexican. All the same, old chap, ifyou have any doubt about it, I'm ready to quit and go home again."
"No," I replied, emphatically. "I vote we go on. And I'll tell you why,Dick. For one thing, I always did hate to give up."
My partner nodded appreciation.
"For another thing, I have gathered the notion that this Badger is not abad fellow; not at all the kind that would murder a man in his sleep orshoot him from behind a rock. The fact that he let old Galvez go thattime when he had him helpless, seems to me pretty good evidence that heis a man of some generosity and above-boardness."
"That's a fact," Dick assented; "it was rather a fine action, as itseems to me. And unless I'm vastly mistaken, Frank," he went on, "if thecases had been reversed, and the padron had caught The Badger as TheBadger caught the padron, it would have been all up with El Tejon. Inever saw a harder-looking specimen in my life than old Galvez. I know,if he were my enemy, I should be mighty sorry to fall into his hands."
"So should I; and the less we have to do with him the better, to mynotion. I think we shall do well to steer clear of him."
"Yes; and there won't be any temptation to go near him, anyhow,especially as Antonio won't be there to act as a buffer. So, we decideto go on, do we?" Dick concluded, as he arose to put two big logs on thefire for the night. "All right. Then we'll get out to-morrow morning.We'll take the line of the old trail and follow it up into the mountainas far as it goes--or as far as we can, perhaps I should say."
"Very well," I agreed. "And we may as well abandon this camp, take oldFritz and all our belongings with us, and find another place moresuitable higher up the mountain."
"Yes; so now to bed."
We were up betimes next morning, and having packed our traps away wewent, Dick in the lead, Fritz following, and I bringing up the rear.Climbing over the big ridge from whose crest we had surveyed the valleythe day before, we rode down its other side to the line of the oldtrail, and there, turning to the right, we followed it as it graduallyascended, until presently at the head of the ravine the trail, greatlyto our perplexity, came to an end altogether.
The ravine itself had become so narrow and its sides so precipitous thatthere appeared to be no way of climbing out of it, and we began to haveour doubts as to whether it could really be an old trail that we hadbeen following after all, when Dick, spying about, discovered amuch-washed-out crevice on the right-hand side, so grown up with treesand brush as to be hardly distinguishable.
"Frank," said he, "they must have come down here--there's no other waythat I can see. Wait a moment till I get up there and see if the trailisn't visible again up on top."
It was a pretty stiff scramble to get up, but as soon as he had reachedthe top my partner shouted down to me to come up--he had found the trailonce more.
If it had been a stiff climb for Dick's horse, it was stiffer still forold Fritz with his bulky pack. But Fritz was a first-rate animal formountain work, having had lots of practice, and being allowed to choosehis own course and take his own time he made the ascent without damaginghimself or his burden.
As soon as I had rejoined him, Dick pointed out to me the line of thetrail, which, bearing away northward now, was much more distinct than ithad been down below. For one thing, the ground here was a great dealharder; and for another, being well sheltered by the pine woods, thetrail had not drifted full of sand as it had out on the unprotectedvalley. There were, it is true, frequent places where the rains of manyyears had washed the soil down the hillsides and covered it up, but ingeneral it was easily distinguishable as it went winding along the baseof the mountain proper, at the point where the steeper slopes mergedinto the great spurs which projected out into the valley.
The distinctness of the old trail was, indeed, a surprise to me, itsline was so much easier to follow than I had expected. If it continuedto be as plain as this, we should have no trouble in keeping it; and soI remarked to my companion.
"That's true," Dick assented, adding: "I'll tell you what, Frank: thismust surely have been a government enterprise. Just see how much workhas been expended on this trail--and needlessly, I should say--noprivate individual or corporation would have taken the trouble to make acarefully graded road like this--for that is what it really wasapparently. It must have been some manager handling government funds andnot worrying himself much about the amount he spent."
"I shouldn't wonder," said I.
"Just notice," Dick continued, pointing out the places with his finger."See what useless expenditure they made. Whenever they came to a dip,big or little, instead of going down one side and up the other, as anyordinary human being would do, they carried their road round the end ofthe gully--just as though a loaded burro would object to coming up alittle hill like this one, for instance, here in front of us."
"It does seem rather ridiculous," I assented. "And they must have laidout their line with care, too, for, if you notice, Dick, it goes onclimbing up the mountain with a grade which seems to be perfectlyuniform as far as we can see it. It is more like a railroad grade than atrail. It isn't possible, is it, Dick," I asked, as the thought suddenlyoccurred to me, "it isn't possible that they can have used wheeledvehicles?"
"Hm!" replied my companion, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. "No, I thinknot. It would be extremely improbable, to say the least. No, I think itis more likely to be as I said: some lordly government official,spending government funds, and not troubling himself whether the incomewould warrant the expenditure or not."
"I suppose that was probably it," said I. "There's one thing sure,Dick," I added: "if the income did warrant the expenditure, that oldcopper mine must have been a staver and no mistake."
"That's a fact. Well, come on; let us go ahead and see where the trailtakes us."
This following of the trail was a perfectly simple matter; the animalsthemselves, in fact, took to it and kept to it as naturally as thougheven they recognized it as a road. So, on we went, climbing graduallyhigher at every step, when, on rounding the shoulder of a big spur, wewere brought to a sudden and most unexpected halt by coming plump uponthe edge of a deep and very narrow canon. Right up to the very brink ofthis great chasm the trail led us, and there, of necessity, it abruptlyended.
This gorge, which was perhaps a thousand feet deep, and, as I have said,extremely narrow--not more than thirty feet wide at the point where wehad struck it--came down from the north face of the mountain, and, as wecould see from where we stood, ran out eastward into the plain. It wasundoubtedly the stream upon which we had camped when we had come acrossthe valley two days before.
Looking the other way--to the left, that is: up stream--our view waslimited, but from what we could see of it, the country in thatdirection bade fair to be inaccessible, for horses, at least; while asto the canon itself, it curved first to the left and then to the rightin such a manner that we could not see to the bottom. Moreover a largerock, rising from the edge of the gorge, and in fact overhanging it alittle, cut off our view up stream.
On the opposite side of the chasm the ground rose high and rocky, anexceedingly rough piece of country; for though it was in general wellclothed with trees, we could see in a score of places great bare-toppedridges and pinnacles of rock projecting high
above the somber woods.
"Dick," said I, "this looks rather like the end of things. What are weto do now?"
"The end of things!" cried Dick. "Not a bit of it! Don't you see, on theother side of the canon, exactly opposite, that little ravine which goeswinding up the mountain until it loses itself among the trees? Well,that is the continuation of the trail. Come down here to the edge andI'll show you."
Dismounting from our horses, we advanced as near the rim of the chasm aswe dared, when Dick, pointing across to the other side, said:
"Look there, Frank, about a foot below the top. Do you see those twosquare niches cut in the face of the rock? This place was spanned by abridge once, and those two niches are where the ends of the bigstringers rested."
"It does look like it!" I exclaimed. "If there are other similar nicheson this side, that would settle it. Take hold of my feet, will you,while I stick my head over the edge and see?"
With Dick firmly clasping my ankle by way of precaution, I crept to therim and craned my neck out over the precipice as far as I dared venture.As we had expected, there were the two corresponding niches, while aboutten feet below them were two others, the existence of which puzzled me.Squirming carefully back again, I rose to my feet and told Dick what Ihad seen.
"Two others, eh?" said he. "That's easily explained. Look across againand you will see that there are two in the face of the opposite cliff tomatch them. Those people not only laid two big stringers across thecanon, but they supported them from below with four stays set in thoselower holes."
"That must be it!" I exclaimed. "They did things well, didn't they--itis on a par with the work they expended on the trail. The trail itself,of course, went on up that little ravine and has since been washed outby the rains."
"Yes; and the bridge has rotted and fallen into the stream; unless theydestroyed it purposely when they abandoned the mine."
"Well, Dick," said I. "It seems fairly sure that the mine was overthere, somewhere in the rough country on the other side of the canon.The question is, how are _we_ to get over there?"
"Yes, that's the question all right. We can't get down here. That isplain enough. We shall have to find some other way. And that there isanother way is pretty certain. See here! This canon comes down from thenorth side of the mountain, runs out into the valley to the point wherewe struck it day before yesterday, doubles back, and joins the streamscoming down from Mescalero, as well as those others which flow down fromthe north side of the peak."
"Well?"
"Well, this piece of country before us is therefore a sort of island,surrounded, or nearly surrounded, by canons."
I nodded. "Yes," said I. "Or more like a fortress with a thousand-footmoat all round it."
"Well," continued my partner, "the original discoverers of the mine,whether Indians or Spaniards, did not cross here by a bridge, of course;they climbed up from the bottom of one of these canons somewhere, and atfirst, probably, brought out the copper the same way, until, finding howmuch easier it would be to come across here, they built a bridge andmade this road for the purpose."
"That sounds reasonable," I assented. "So if we want to find the placewhere they used to get up, we must climb down into the bottom of thecanon ourselves and hunt for it."
"Yes," replied Dick. "And from the look of it, I shouldn't wonder if wedon't have to go all the way back to our old camping-place in order toget down!"
"Hm!" said I, puckering up my lips and rubbing my chin. "I hope we don'thave to go that far; but if we must, we must. Anyhow, Dick, before we goall the way down to the bottom of the mountain again, let us climb upabove this big rock here and take a look up stream. It is just possiblethere may be a way down in that direction."
"Very well," replied my partner. "I don't suppose there is, but we'lltry it anyhow."
Leaving our horses standing, we went back a little way along the trail,and climbing upward, presently reached a point level with the top of thebig rock which rose above the edge of the gorge. There we found severallittle gullies leading down to the ravine, and Dick taking one of themand I another, we thus became separated for a few minutes. Only for afew minutes, however, for very soon I heard my partner hailing me tocome back. From the tone of his voice I felt sure he had discoveredsomething.
"What is it, Dick?" I asked. "Found a way down?"
"That's what I have, Frank, I'm pretty sure. Come here and look!"