On this occasion we encountered in his shop a character well known in this part of the world, one "Apache Bill" by name, who was at present residing in Ascension, but had been absent when we previously passed through the town. "Apache" was a ragged, six-foot, dark-eyed, dark-haired, bottle-nosed, bibulous-looking, able-bodied "loafer," who wore mocassins in town, and whose hands were never out of his pockets save for the purpose of lifting a glass, rolling a cigarette, or making an elaborate bow. He had a glib tongue, and spoke Spanish admirably, with the language having picked up something of the flowery politeness, though not the dignity, of the better class of native. It is odd how often good linguists lack common sense and stability. I have noticed this frequently all the world over. A trim tongue and a ragged coat is always a suspicious combination anyhow, and this instance was no exception to the rule. Bill was a fine, candid, unaffected liar. I have encountered many men celebrated for their address in the ways of untruthfulness, who, to keep him in sight, would have been forced to take a long pull at the bottle, and launch out very recklessly indeed. His artless style reminded me a good deal of a Levantine servant that I once had, who had a great gift in this way, and who, upon my remonstrating energetically with him one day for so constantly abusing it, said plaintively: "Mais, Monsieur, c'est mon habitude."

Apache had worked once on a ranch of the Colonel's, but finding that cattle were not to be handled by the simple exercise of eloquence, nor posts set and pastures fenced in by the profession of virtuous convictions, had not remained long in his service. When I say "worked," I believe I do him an injustice. It is not on record that he ever did that, save on one occasion, and this was when the authorities at Ascension condemned him to provide a dollar a day to keep and cure a Mexican whom he had wounded in a drunken brawl. Dollars were not easily earned there, for labour was cheap, and a dollar a day for lying in bed was the best billet that that Mexican had ever had. As may be supposed, he was in no hurry to get well, and the matter (over which Bill waxed positively tearful when he alluded to it) was long the subject of amusement and laughter in the neighbourhood.

At one time he had been chief of scouts in an Apache war, his knowledge of the country in Northern Mexico being really considerable. In this capacity he had been brought into contact with Navajo Bill. The patronising style in which he talked of this personage was delicious.

"Navajo Willy?" he said; "oh, yes, I know Willy—a good boy, sir, a good boy!—ignorant, of course—no education, you know, sir; but he means well—he does what he can. He served under me once, but I found him quite useless. If I sent him out anywhere, he only got lost. However, I wasn't hard on him. We were down at Lake Palomas once, and General Bewel wanted a messenger to take a note over to a detachment of troops camped about ten miles off. So I started Willy off. I showed him the way myself. But it was no good—not a bit. In two hours he came back; he couldn't find it. I sent a Mexican then, and when he brought the answer, I gave it to Willy. 'Here, Willy,' said I, 'take it to Bewel and say that you fetched it.'"

In point of age there was but little to choose between the two Bills, both being men of about five-and-forty. In conversational talents there was also some resemblance between them, although, in all other particulars, Navajo was an immeasurably better man than his former chief.

Apache's anxiety in behalf of his children was very touching. Paternal solicitude was a fine theme for him, and he often enlarged upon it. "There's the boys," he would say, "they're growing up, sir, and down here I can't give them the education they ought to have. I want to take 'em back to do their schooling in the States. If I could only get some regular work there—I shouldn't care how hard it was, or how poor the pay was—I would slave like a nigger to get my children well educated. And there's the girls; this ain't any place to raise girls; they don't get any virtue into 'em here. It ain't right. I do what I can, of course; I try to teach 'em what's right, and I set 'em a good example. 'Be good to your mother, boys,' I always say; 'think of your mother, and be kind to her. If you get any money, give her half. And be honest! No matter how poor a man is, let him be honest.' My honour—my honour is what I look at! And I try to bring the boys up the same way. Am I right, gentlemen?—I leave it to you." We naturally applauded these noble sentiments. "Well, then, let's take a drink on it—let's hit her a lick;" and reaching for the bottle, he would proceed to fill all our glasses, and his own too.

He formally introduced us to every other man who entered the shop, usually concluding the introduction with some such remark as: "This is a good man, gentlemen; he used to be presidente of the town. Treat him, gentlemen; he may be useful to you some day." Treating the new acquaintance necessitated treating Bill as well. I merely note this as a coincidence, and do not in the least degree wish to insinuate that any base thought of self influenced his interest in our welfare.

To pass the time in the evening we had him into our room to talk to us; and, as he had never seen Joe before, represented the latter as being a "tender-foot," or new-comer on the frontier. Since Joe was much better dressed than the rest of us, and, talking but little, did not betray his familiarity with frontier life, Apache believed us, and anxious to astonish "a gentleman from New York," surpassed himself. We had provided a bottle of mascal to prime him with, but maliciously delayed producing it. By degrees, as he talked, his throat got drier and drier; he coughed and expectorated, and expectorated and coughed, and crossed first one leg and then the other, shifting in his seat, and fidgeting to such an extent that finally Don Cabeza could bear the exhibition of so much torture no longer, and told Navajo to hand him the bottle. With a look of gratitude that would have softened the heart of a Thug, Bill raised it to his lips. When he set it down again he had almost exchanged conditions with it. Now he was another man, and for the benefit of the "tender-foot," he "spread himself."

"Tracks! Well, when it came to tracking, he believed that he 'took the cake.' Tracks! ——! Why, he could tell whether they were made by a horse or a mare, and there was a slight difference, too, in geldings' tracks, which he would be only too glad to show the gentleman any day. He could tell whether the horse that he was tracking ran loose, or was ridden, packed, or led, and whether it belonged to a white man or an Indian. He could tell from the 'sign,' what part of the country, even what particular ranch it had fed on. It was a fact, that when he had handled cattle in Colorado, and in a part, too, where half-a-dozen herds ran together, and ranged over the same country, he had never wasted time in following up strays belonging to his neighbours, because he knew the track of every hoof in his own herd!"

But enough of Bill! He was fairly started now, and he did himself credit. In vino veritas, they say. But in Apache there was no veritas, and so the mascal could not affect him in this way. I have often thought that this proverb would have made an excellent text for one of Charles Lamb's "Popular Fallacies."

One of the horses fell sick during the night, and it became necessary to purchase a substitute before we set out next morning. This delayed us for some time. When finally we started with the invalid in tow, the Colonel discovered an ambition to invent a short cut, which took us three or four miles astray. Returning, we had proceeded a mile or more along the road that we did know, when it was found that the grain-sack had been left behind, and consequently we were forced to go back to Ascension. We had started a little "on edge" that morning, and we reappeared at Don Juan's in the severest silence. Unconscious of his danger, that worthy taunted us with our oversight and made merry at our expense.

"He's taking big chances if he only knew it, ain't he?" said Navajo grimly, jerking his thumb towards Juan.

"Don't you feel, Joe, like getting down and beating him up a little, eh?" drawled the Colonel. "Couldn't you swing him around by the heels some—dust the side-walk, and knock a few flies off the wall with him?"

"No," replied Joe sturdily; "I haven't got any kick against Don Juan. He has treated us like a gentleman. He didn't leave the grain behind, and he didn't take us any short cut. Quite right, Don Juan, 'No valle nada,' these chaps, eh?—They can't remember anything."

But long before we pitched camp in the evening, we had had a hearty laugh over the morning clouds.

The Boca Grande was an "Indian place," and strategically speaking there was no point in it that was fit to camp in, no point where, aided by cotton-woods, willow-bushes, cane-brake, long grass, broken ground, or the river bed, a band of Indians might not have approached unobserved within a few yards of a traveller. We trusted to luck, therefore, and chose a site without reference to the Apaches. The odds, of course, were always long against their showing at any given place, but there was never any certainty about it; and this was one of their haunts.

"Indians!" said the Colonel when some one alluded to them. "Well, if I kill four I shall be satisfied. If they come we can't help it; but they'd better not!—they won't. They know more in a day than we could tell them in a week. What a battle it would be, though, if they did come! Gettysburg and those kind would be just flirtations to it. There'd be you charging 'em; and Navajo, he'd get around behind them, and take them in rear, and scare the quill feathers out of them. And there'd be Joe raking them fore and aft, and enfilading them, and out-manoeuvring them, and reconnoitring and changing his front, and just a-sousing it to them red-hot all the time. And as for me, I'd sit right here on this stone, under the bank, and sing to them, just to lure them on, like the Lorelei, and let you boys have all the glory of killing them. Or, maybe, I'd get on one of the six-shooter horses—a six-shooter horse is a heap better than a six-shooting gun in these cases—I'd get on one of them and go right back to Ascension to fetch up some help for you. I'm not wanting to put myself forward, anyhow; there isn't anything mean about me."

"That'd be all right, Colonel," said Navajo; "we should know where to find you when there was any fighting to be done. The boys do say that you're on hand then—sure!"

"How do you want these potatoes cut up?" irrelevantly inquired Joe, who was phlegmatically attending to business, and peeling some potatoes for supper.

"Cut them up just as you'd cut up the Apaches, Joe," said the Colonel.

"Well, how are they going to be cooked?"

"Saratoga chips are good enough for me," suggested the modest Navajo.

"Saratoga chips go then. Joe, you hear what the gentleman says," observed Don Cabeza. He was "bossing" the cooking himself that evening, and at that moment was engaged in stirring some beans that he was frying in the Mexican style, bacon-fat being substituted for lard. Cook-like he tasted them now. "Well, there!" he ejaculated admiringly—"there! When I get through with this, it will make you laugh. You boys won't know whether you are here, or sitting at the corner table at Delmonico's."

"No," said Joe, with a twinkle of dry humour in his kindly eyes, "we shan't know the difference. I always have beans and bacon-fat at Delmonico's—when there's enough to go round, that is."

"If we had only got into camp earlier, we might have shot some ducks," regretted Bill.

"There isn't anybody here that could have made a duck stew," remarked Joe gravely.

"Can you make a duck stew, Colonel?" I asked laughingly—for this was his chef-d'oeuvre in culinary art.

"Can I make a duck stew! Can I make a duck stew!" he echoed rapturously. "Well, you may talk about your chickabiddies, and you chickaweewees, and your Smart Alicks, and your Joe-dandies and daisies, but when it comes to making a duck stew, I'm a darling! I can show you a trick with a hole in it. I don't want to make any boast about it, though; I can't help cooking well any more than Joe can help cooking badly. It's a gift. But duck stews! Lord! I can make a stew with ducks, and teal, and snipe, and potatoes, and chilies, and—and things of that kind, that will make a rheumatic man go out after dinner, and begin jumping backwards and forwards over the house, he'll feel so good."

Joe grunted disparagingly. "If it weren't any better than this coffee, he wouldn't jump far before he lay down and died," he observed, grimly.

"The coffee is bad," assented the chef; "it's bad coffee. But all that you have to do, Joe, is to step right down to the store, close by here, and get some more. There is no reason why you should put up with anything bad when you're camping out in the middle of a big city like this." And he proceeded to prove conclusively, that the fact that the coffee was of inferior quality, was entirely the fault of the Deming store-keeper.

"When we get back, then, we must just drive up and shoot the handle off his door," said Joe cheerfully.

"Why, cer'nly," chimed in Navajo; "like those chaps used to up to Lone Mountain."

The particular incident to which he referred had taken place at a little mining village in New Mexico. It had become a custom amongst certain of the miners, when they came into town on Sunday "to have a time," sooner or later in the day to indulge in revolver practice at the handle of the door of Platt's saloon. Platt could not be said exactly to have encouraged this; but since it brought him custom, and opposition might have transferred the attentions of his clients from the door-handle to himself, he submitted to it with more or less grace. One day he engaged a quiet and industrious youth—a Dutch boy—to assist him in his business, and as he intended to be absent from home on the following Sunday, he informed him of the above circumstance. The good youth evinced a disposition to resist the ungodly miners. Upon the whole, Platt counselled him not to do so, but at his request left a Winchester and six-shooter with him, and gave him free permission to exercise his own discretion in the matter. On Saturday evening the young bar-tender removed an adobe brick from the wall beside the door, and commending himself to Heaven, slept peacefully, confident of the justice of his cause. The following morning the miners appeared as usual in town, and drank freely. But when the boy demanded payment for what he supplied them with, they took advantage of his youth, and replied that "There was no hurry about it, for he was still young; they thought that they might perhaps pay him some day. He might ask them again when his moustache had grown a little mite." Things got lively, and finally they repaired to the street and commenced shooting at the door-handle. This was where the real trouble originated. But it was soon over. Putting the muzzle of his Winchester through the loophole, the bar-tender began to shoot, too. When he had finished, five of his late customers lay stretched out on the road, four of whom died immediately, and the fifth shortly afterwards. It is recorded that so pleased was Mr. Platt with his assistant's devotion that he advanced him rapidly in his service, and subsequently took him into partnership with him. I suppose that he married his master's daughter eventually, and lived happily ever afterwards.

The history is, probably, the American version of the everlasting tale of that artful young clerk who dropped a pin unnoticed in the presence of his master, the great merchant, and when the latter was looking, ostentatiously picked it up again and set it in the collar of his coat.

A rather amusing yarn followed this, detailing an incident that had taken place at the little neighbouring village of Eureka. Mr. McKees, the superintendent of a mine there, had nailed up a board notice outside the office, forbidding revolver practice on the premises. News of this was brought by some one who had seen it to a saloon hard by, where Black Jack, Russian Bill, Broncho Billy, and some other well-known "rustlers" were drinking.

"How's that for high, boys?" concluded the narrator, when he had told his tale.

"That's on top," declared Black Jack; "that takes the cake. It's coming to something, if a chap can't shoot his gun off where he likes in a free country."

"It's a perfect outrage," said Broncho.

"Let's go right down and attend to it at once," proposed Russian Bill.

Black Jack assented, suggesting that Russian Bill, who was a scholar, should read the notice aloud, and he himself then shoot it off.

They started, two or three of their associates, armed with Winchesters, going with them, to occupy a position behind the "dump," near the mouth of the shaft, and see fair play. Russian Bill having read the notice, Black Jack drew a long six-shooter, and opened fire. The office was constructed of boards, and afforded but little protection, therefore, to its inmates. The first shot spoilt the leg of the chair in which the superintendent of the mine was seated; the second lodged in his desk. But Mr. McKees had already left the room, and gone to "take the air" upon the hill-side, nor did he return until the nobility and gentry who were visiting him had shot the board off, and carried the splinters away in triumph.

Black Jack was a fine shot, and remarkably quick. He prided himself upon his ability as a hair-cutter, and was jealous of any rivalry in this line. A friend of his once had the temerity to advance his own claims to distinction as a barber.

"Oh, pshaw, Jack!" he said, "I can cut hair every durned bit as good as you."

But the words had scarcely left his lips when there was a report, and a bullet ploughed through his locks, just grazing the skin, and leaving a bald track.

"I guess you can't," rejoined Black Jack. "Look at that!"

Such tales as these are current coin out West, and the number of them in circulation is countless. How far they are true no one can pretend to say, nor does it matter much.

We sought the blankets early, and were up again before it was light; indeed, by the time that

we had almost finished breakfast.

The gray was worse to-day. As we proceeded he grew weaker and weaker, and less and less disposed to follow, until, ten miles from Smith's Wells, we were obliged to leave him. The halter was removed, and the tried, but now tired out servant, that had been our companion on many a long trip, was left alone in the midst of an arid plain. The breeze had subsided; the afternoon was growing mellow and still; on the summit of a rise, with the blue sky and sun behind him, the old nag stood still, in mid trail, looking stupidly after us as we receded. Without changing his position, he turned his head from side to side, to gaze around him at the desert once. Then, seeming to have realised that we had deserted him, and in that one brief survey of the ground to have recognised that his position was hopeless, his glance followed us again. There was something touching in the immovability with which he accepted the situation.

It was easy to imagine a world of pathos in his heavy attitude and lowered crest, to picture immeasurable reproach in his great swimming eyes—eyes that had never looked viciously at any one. Poor beast! He could not even ask: "Did I ever abandon you when you were sick?" Again and again I looked back. The wheel-ruts and trail led my glance straight to him. The black shadow cast before him on the ground seemed like a thing of evil omen. He looked so forlorn. However simple the illustration may be, there is always a fascination in the old, cruel tale—Deserted. And to desert even a horse in extremity seems cowardly. However, we yet expected to see him again.

"Has the old pillar of salt started after us?" inquired the Colonel prosaically.

"No." Nor did he move as long as we remained in sight.

"He'll be along directly—just as soon as he has rested. You can't leave those old cusses behind when they know the road."

Don Cabeza was right. Before we had finished supper at Smith's Wells, the horse appeared at the drinking-trough there.

It was the last typical evening that I expected to spend on the frontier, after nine months of almost uninterrupted life amongst rancheros and miners, cow-boys and teamsters, gamblers and traders, and all the nondescript flotsam and jetsam of humanity that drift "out West" from the cradles of mankind, and find rough rest upon the shores of unskilled labour. A curious kaleidoscopic field of character lies here. Men grow as chance will have them. No rules of etiquette or fashions trim and compress them into stereotyped moulds. At least they retain some originality, and are not wholly copyists. Rough characters may be found amongst the many fine fellows that one meets, and to spare—men who are narrow-minded, bigoted, and intolerant to a degree that is extraordinary. But since they make no pretence to be what they are not, at least they are not vulgar or snobbish. However marked the faults in any nature may be, if in the main it is natural, it can never be wholly repulsive. The roughest cow-boy is a gentleman by comparison with the effeminate New York dude, who copies his very soul from a flash model in London, or the "society man" of San Francisco who in turn imitates the dude. The one, at any rate, is true metal of its kind, the others are of the poorest kind of pinchbeck.

There is a great charm in the climate "out West." The sun gilds everything. It matters little how poor a cabin be, if the owner live almost entirely outside it. Old Sol sheds a halo of contentment everywhere. A scarcely minor attraction exists in the sense of freedom and independence—of empire, in fact, that the vast stretches of open country which occupy most of the West beget in the native of a land where walls and hedges, gates, fences, and trespass notices bristle at every turn, and create a constant and irritable impulse to lift the elbows and draw deep breaths.

Supper was over, and news of the old gray's reappearance had taken us out into the open air.

A certain clear obscurity was gathering upon the vega; the outlines of things were unnaturally distinct, but their shading was becoming confused. Where the sun had set, still glowed a luminous field of amber light. And in the vault thus formed hung tiny isolated clouds of various tints like crushed blossoms from an Indian garden. Hills above hills and long cloud-reefs were mingled together on the near horizon, and stretched farther and farther away until the former resembled silhouettes of tissue paper, the latter something even more delicate still.

Sixty, seventy, eighty, a hundred miles of country lay before us. And over all the twilight deepened, slowly invading even the mountain-tops, where still some light clung tenderly. Once more the impalpable canopy of darkness drooped over the quiet plains—tissues of gray dusk and soft blue sky, shot with a silver thread of moonlight, all tasselled by dim stars, and crossed by the filmy figure of a bat. With an amnesty of sweet repose Night had begun her reign, but her dream subjects flocked to her sable standard swiftly; the haunted air became filled with the vague population of fancy, and Silence was revealed in all its eternal nakedness, that for once Sound had lost the power to hide. It was a strange night—a night when the spirits of Destiny seemed to hover near, and Mystery to be half-indifferent even if her veil were lifted, and her secrets penetrated—a night that inspired odd speculation. But the voice of the coyote, baying unceasingly in the silence—fit symbol of human interest in the world—kept calling us back, calling us back to earth, and let no thought escape and fairly rise above the dust and ashes of this life.

THE END.

CHARLES DICKENS AND EVANS, CRYSTAL PALACE PRESS.