"What for? Now that we have met, I hope you will come to our camp?"

"I did not like to propose it; you see we are not alone, but have a stranger with us."

"What matter, if you answer for him?"

"With my life."

"Well, then, the friends of our friends are ours, and have a claim to our attention."

"I thank you, Caballero," the Scalper replied with a bow; "I trust you will have no cause to repent having offered me hospitality."

"The company in which I find you is an excellent guarantee to me, Senor," the adventurer continued with a courteous smile.

"Do you intend to lead us to your camp tonight?" Ruperto asked.

"Why not? We are not more than fifteen miles from it at the most."

"That is true; but this caballero is wounded, and so long a distance after a fatiguing day--"

"Oh, I feel very well, I a.s.sure you. My strength has almost entirely returned; I even believe that, were it absolutely necessary, I could sit a horse. Hence do not put yourself out of the way for me, I beg," the old man said.

"As it is so, we will start whenever you like."

"All right," said Sandoval; "however, I will undertake to lead you by a road which will shorten your distance one half."

All being thus arranged, the horses were saddled afresh, and they started. The strangers were on foot; the Scalper would not enter the litter, and even insisted on it being left behind, declaring that he did not want it, and cutting a rather long branch, he converted it into a staff. He then took his place by Sandoval's side, who, delighted by his manner, gave him a glance of satisfaction.

Sandoval, as we have said, was the Chief of the men who had so suddenly fallen on the bivouac of the adventurers. These men were pirates of the prairies. In a previous work, we have described what they are; but as it is probable that many of our readers do not know the book to which we allude, we will explain, in as few words as possible, what sort of persons these gentry are. In the United States, and most of the countries of the new world, men are encountered who, not being restrained by any species of moral obligation or family consideration, yield themselves without restraint to all the violence of their evil pa.s.sions. These men, led in the first instance into debauchery by indolence, and almost certain of impunity in countries where the police are powerless to protect honest people and enforce the laws, at length grow to commit the most atrocious crimes in open daylight, though this is common enough in those countries where the strongest make the laws.

This goes on until the reprobation becomes general, and public indignation at last growing stronger than the terror inspired by these villains, they are compelled to fly from town to town in order to escape the exemplary punishment of Lynch-law. Everywhere pursued like wild beasts, abandoned by all, even by their accomplices, they draw nearer and nearer to the Indian border, which they eventually cross, and are henceforth condemned to live and die in the desert. But there, too, everything is hostile to them--white trappers, wood rangers, Indian warriors, and wild beasts--they are compelled to endure a daily and hourly struggle to defend their life, which is incessantly a.s.sailed. But they have before them s.p.a.ce, the hiding places on the mountains and in the virgin forests, and hence can sustain the combat to a certain point.

Still, if they remained isolated they would infallibly succ.u.mb to cold, hunger, and wretchedness, even supposing they were not surprised, scalped, and ma.s.sacred by their implacable enemies.

These outlaws from society, whom every man thinks he has a right to hunt down, frankly accept their position. They feel proud of the hatred and repulsion they inspire, and collect in numerous bands to requite the anathema cast upon them. Taking as their rule the pitiless law of the prairies, eye for eye and tooth for tooth, they become formidable through their numbers, and repay their enemies the injuries they receive from them. Woe to the trappers or Indians who venture to traverse the prairies alone, for the pirates ma.s.sacre them pitilessly. The emigrant trains are also attacked and pillaged by them with refined and atrocious barbarity. Some of these men who have retained a little shame, put off the dress of white men to a.s.sume that of Redskins, so as to make those they pillage suppose they have been attacked by Indians; hence their most inveterate enemies are the Indians, for whom they try to pa.s.s.

Still, it frequently happens that the pirates, ally themselves with Redskins belonging to one nation to make war on another.

All is good for them when their object is plunder; but what they prefer is raising scalps, for which the Government of the United States, that patriarchal government which protects the natives, according to some heartless optimists, are not ashamed to pay fifty dollars a-piece.

Hence, the pirates are as skilful as the Indians themselves in raising hair; but with them all scalps are good; and when they cannot come across Indians, they have no scruple about scalping white men; the more so, because the United States does not look into matters very closely, and pays without bargaining or entering into details, provided that the hair be long and black.

Captain Sandoval's band of pirates was one of the most numerous and best organised in Upper Arkansas; his comrades, all thorough food for the gallows, formed the most magnificent collection of bandits that could be imagined. For a long period, Fray Antonio, if not forming part of the band, had taken part in its operations, and derived certain though illegal profit by supplying the captain with information about the pa.s.sage of caravans, their strength, and the road they intended to follow. Although the worthy monk had given up this hazardous traffic, his conversion had not been of so old a date for the pirates to have completely forgotten the services he had rendered them; hence, when he was compelled to abandon White Scalper he thought at once of his old friends. This idea occurred to him the more naturally, because White Scalper, owing to the mode of life he had hitherto led in the desert, had in his character some points of resemblance with the pirates, who, like him, were pitiless, and recognised no other law than their caprice.

In the band of Freebooters the monk had organised since his reformation were some men more beaten than the others by the tempest of an adventurous life. These men Fray Antonio had seen at work, and set their full value upon them; but he kept them near him, through a species of intuition, in order to have them under his hand if some day fate desired that he should be compelled to have recourse to an heroic remedy to get out of a sc.r.a.pe, which was easy to foresee when a man entered on the life of a partisan. Among these chosen comrades was naturally Ruperto; hence it was to him he entrusted the choice of three sure men to escort the wounded man to the camp of Captain Sandoval, in Upper Arkansas. We have seen that the monk was not mistaken, and in what way Ruperto performed the commission confided to him.

It has frequently been said that honest men always recognise each other at the first glance; but the statement is far truer when applied to rogues. The White Scalper and the Pirate Chief had not walked side by side for ten minutes ere the best possible understanding was arrived at between them. The Captain admired as an amateur, and especially as a connoisseur, the athletic stature of his new companion. His rigid features, which seemed carved in granite, for they were so firm and marked, his black and sparkling eyes, and even his blunt and sharp mode of speech, attracted and aroused his sympathy. Several times he proposed to have him carried on the shoulders of two of his most powerful comrades across awkward spots; but the old man, although his ill-closed wounds caused him extreme suffering, and fatigue overpowered him, constantly declined these kind offers, merely replying that physical pain was nothing, and that the man who could not conquer it by the strength of his will, ought to be despised as an old woman.

There could be no reply to such a peremptory mode of reasoning, so Sandoval merely contented himself with nodding an a.s.sent, and they continued their march in silence. Night had fallen for some time, but it was a bright and starry night, which allowed them to march in safety, and have no fear of losing their way. After three hours of a very difficult journey, the travellers at length reached the crest of a high hill.

"We have arrived," Sandoval then said, as he stopped under the pretext of resting a moment, but in reality to give his companion, whom he saw to be winded, though he made no complaint, an opportunity to draw breath.

"What, arrived?" the Scalper said in surprise, looking round him, but not perceiving the slightest sign of an encampment.

In fact, the adventurers found themselves on a species of platform about fifteen hundred yards long, entirely denuded of trees, save in the centre, where grew an immense aloe, more than sixty feet in circ.u.mference, which looked like the king of the desert, over which it soared. Sandoval allowed his comrade to look around him for a moment, and then said, as he stretched out his arm to the giant tree---

"We shall be obliged to enter by the chimney. But once is not always, and you will not feel offended at it when I tell you that I only do this to shorten our journey."

"You know that I did not at all understand you," the Scalper answered.

"I suspected it," Sandoval said with a smile. "But come along, and you will soon decipher the enigma."

The old man bowed without replying, and both walked toward the tree, followed by their comrades, who were smiling at the stranger's amazement. On reaching the foot of the tree, Sandoval raised his head--

"Ohe!" he shouted, "Are you there, Orson?"

"Where should I be if I was not?" a rough voice answered, issuing from the top of the tree. "I was obliged to wait for you here, as you have taken it, into your head to wander about the whole night through."

The pirates burst into a laugh.

"Always amiable!" Sandoval continued; "it is astonishing how funny that animal of an Orson always is! Come, let down the ladder, you ugly brute!"

"Ugly brute, ugly brute!" the voice growled, although its owner still remained invisible; "That is the way in which he thanks me."

In the meanwhile, a long wooden ladder was let down through the branches. Sandoval caught hold of it, secured it, and then turned to the wounded man--

"I will go first to show you the way."

"Do so," the Scalper said resolutely; "but I swear that I will be the second."

"Halloh!" the Captain said, turning round, "Why you are a Yankee."

"What does it matter to you?" the other said roughly.

"Not at all. Still, I am not sorry to know the fact."

"Well, you know it. What next?"

"Next?" Sandoval answered with a laugh; "You will be among countrymen, that is all."

"It makes little difference to me."

"Canarios, and how do you suppose it concerns me?" the Captain said, still laughing, and ascended.

The wounded man followed him step for step. The ladder was resting against a platform about two yards in width, completely concealed in a ma.s.s of inextricable foliage. On this platform stood the giant to whom his Chief had given the name of Orson, a name which was exactly suitable, so rough and savage did he appear.

"Any news?" the Captain asked, as he stepped on the platform.

"None," the other answered laconically.

"Have all the detachments returned?"

"All except you."