Arizona Nights | Page 6

to build a fire outside.
In a tight fix, a man is pretty apt to get scared till all hope is gone. Then
he is pretty apt to get cool and calm. That was my case. I couldn't go
ahead--there was those hosses coming along the trail. I couldn't go
back--there was those Injins building the fire. So I skirmished around
till I got a bright star right over the trail head, and I trained old
Meat-in-the- pot to bear on that star, and I made up my mind that when
the star was darkened I'd turn loose. So I lay there a while listening. By
and by the star was blotted out, and I cut loose, and old Meat-in-the-pot
missed fire--she never did it before nor since; I think that cartridge--
Well, I don't know where the Injins came from, but it seemed as if the
hammer had hardly clicked before three or four of them bad piled on
me. I put up the best fight I could, for I wasn't figuring to be caught
alive, and this miss-fire deal had fooled me all along the line. They

surely had a lively time. I expected every minute to feel a knife in my
back, but when I didn't get it then I knew they wanted to bring me in
alive, and that made me fight harder. First and last, we rolled and
plunged all the way from the rim-rock down to the canon-bed. Then
one of the Injins sung out:
"Maria!"
And I thought of that renegade Mexican, and what I'd heard bout him,
and that made me fight harder yet.
But after we'd fought down to the canon-bed, and had lost most of our
skin, a half-dozen more fell on me, and in less than no time they had
me tied. Then they picked me up and carried me over to where they'd
built a big fire by the corral."
Uncle Jim stopped with an air of finality, and began lazily to refill his
pipe. From the open mud fireplace he picked a coal. Outside, the rain,
faithful to the prophecy of the wide-ringed sun, beat fitfully against the
roof.
"That was the closest call I ever had," said he at last.
"But, Uncle Jim," we cried in a confused chorus, "how did you get
away? What did the Indians do to you? Who rescued you?"
Uncle Jim chuckled.
"The first man I saw sitting at that fire," said he, "was Lieutenant Price
of the United States Army, and by him was Tom Horn."
"'What's this?' he asks, and Horn talks to the Injins in Apache.
"'They say they've caught Maria,' translates Horn back again.
"'Maria-nothing!' says Lieutenant Price. 'This is Jim Fox. I know him.'"
"So they turned me loose. It seems the troops had driven off the
renegades an hour before."

"And the Indians who caught you, Uncle Jim? You said they were
Indians."
"Were Tonto Basin Apaches," explained the old man--"government
scouts under Tom Horn."
CHAPTER TWO
THE EMIGRANTS
After the rain that had held us holed up at the Double R over one day,
we discussed what we should do next.
"The flats will be too boggy for riding, and anyway the cattle will be in
the high country," the Cattleman summed up the situation. "We'd bog
down the chuck-wagon if we tried to get back to the J. H. But now after
the rain the weather ought to be beautiful. What shall we do?"
"Was you ever in the Jackson country?" asked Uncle Jim. "It's the
wildest part of Arizona. It's a big country and rough, and no one lives
there, and there's lots of deer and mountain lions and bear. Here's my
dogs. We might have a hunt."
"Good!" said we.
We skirmished around and found a condemned army pack saddle with
aparejos, and a sawbuck saddle with kyacks. On these, we managed to
condense our grub and utensils. There were plenty of horses, so our
bedding we bound flat about their naked barrels by means of the
squaw-hitch. Then we started.
That day furnished us with a demonstration of what Arizona horses can
do. Our way led first through a canon-bed filled with rounded boulders
and rocks, slippery and unstable. Big cottonwoods and oaks grew so
thick as partially to conceal the cliffs on either side of us. The rim-rock
was mysterious with caves; beautiful with hanging gardens of tree ferns
and grasses growing thick in long transverse crevices; wonderful in
colour and shape. We passed the little canons fenced off by the rustlers

as corrals into which to shunt from the herds their choice of beeves.
The Cattleman shook his head at them. "Many a man has come from
Texas and established a herd with no other asset than a couple of horses