Chapter One.
In Want of Water

“Mira! El Cerro Perdido!” (See! The Lost Mountain!)

The man who thus exclaims is seated in a high-peak saddle, on the back of a small sinewy horse. Not alone, as may be deduced from his words; instead, in company with other men on horseback, quite a score of them. There are several wagons, too; large cumbrous vehicles, each with a team of eight mules attached. Other mules, pack animals, form an atajo or train, which extends in a long line rearward, and back beyond this a drove of cattle in charge of two or three drovers – these mounted, as a matter of course.

The place is in the middle of a vast plain, one of the llanos of Sonora, near the northern frontier of this sparsely inhabited state. And the men themselves, or most of them, are miners, as might be told by certain peculiarities of costume, further evinced by a paraphernalia of mining tools and machinery seen under the canvas tilts of the wagons. There are women seen there too, with children of both sexes and every age; for it is a complete mining establishment on the move from a veta, worn out and abandoned, to one late discovered and still unworked.

Save two of the party all are Mexicans though not of like race. Among them may be noted every shade of complexion, from the ruddy white of the Biscayan Spaniard to the copper-brown of the aboriginal, many being pure-blooded Opata Indians, one of the tribes called mansos (tamed). Distinctive points of dress also, both as to quality and cut, denote difference in rank and calling. There are miners pur sang– these in the majority; teamsters who drive the wagons; arrieros and mozos of the mule train; vaqueros with the cattle; and several others, male and female, whose garb and manner proclaim them household servants.

The man who has called out differs from all the rest in costume as in calling, for he is a gambusino, or professional gold-seeker. A successful one, too; since he it is who discovered the veta above spoken of, in the Great Sonora Desert, near the border-line of Arizona. “Denounced” it as well – that is, made declaration and registration of the discovery, which, by Mexican law, makes the mine his own, with exclusive right of working it. But he is not its owner now. Without sufficient means to undertake the exploitation, he has transferred his interest to those who can – Villanueva and Tresillian, a wealthy mining firm, long established near the town of Arispe, with all their employés and a complete apparatus for excavating, crushing, and amalgamating – furniture and household gods added – are en route for the new-found lode, with high hopes it may prove a “bonanza.” It is their caravan that is halted on the plain, for to halt it has come at a hail from the gambusino himself, acting as its guide.

He is some distance in advance of the wagons with two other horsemen, to whom his speech is particularly addressed. For they are the chiefs of the caravan – the masters and partners of the mining company composing it. One of them, somewhat over middle age, is Don Estevan Villanueva, a born Mexican, but with features of pure Spanish type, from his Andalusian ancestry. He is somewhat the senior of the two, and senior partner of the firm, the junior being Robert Tresillian, an Englishman, and native of Cornwall.

Up to that moment there had been anxiety on the countenances of both, as on those of their followers, indeed more, a look of gravest apprehension. Its cause is apparent; a glance along the line of animals – ridden horses as well as draught and pack-mules – clearly proclaiming it. All show signs of distress, by sides hollowed in, necks outstretched and drooping, eyes deep down in their sockets, and tongues protruding from lips that look hot and dry. No wonder! For three days they have not tasted water; and the scant herbage of the plains, on which they have been depasturing, is without a particle of moisture. It has been a season of drought all over Sonora, not a drop of rain having fallen for months, and every stream, spring, and pool along their route dried up. Little strange, then, the animals looking distressed, and no more that the minds of the men are filled with gloomy fears as to what might be before them. Another three days, and it may be death to most, if not all.

Just in like proportion are their spirits uplifted on hearing the exclamation of the gambusino. Well know they what it means – good grass and abundance of water. All along has he been telling them of this, picturing the “Lost Mountain,” or, rather, a spot by its base, as a very Paradise of a camping-place. No want of water there, he has said, however dry the season or long-continued the drought; no fear of animals being famished, since not only is there a spring and running stream, but a lake, surrounded by a belt of meadow-like land, with grass thick, succulent, and green as emeralds.

“You’re sure it’s the Cerro Perdido?”

It is Don Estevan who thus doubtingly interrogates, his eyes fixed on a solitary eminence seen afar over the plain.

“Si, señor,” affirms the guide, “sure as that my name’s Pedro Vicente. And I ought to be sure of that, from what my mother told me; the old lady in her life never getting over her anger at the cost of my christening. Twenty silver pesos, with a pair of church candles – big ones, and of best wax! All that for only handing down to me my father’s name, he being Pedro, and a poor gambusino as myself! Carramba! The padres are the veriest extortioners – levy black-mail more rigorously than either footpad or highwayman.”

“Vaya, hombre!” rejoins Don Estevan. “Don’t be so hard upon the poor priests. And as for the expense your mother was put to in celebrating your baptismal rites, that’s all past and gone. If you were poor once, you’re now rich enough to care nothing for such a trifle as twenty dollars and a couple of wax candles.”

The senior partner speaks truth, as any one who had seen Pedro Vicente three months before, seeing him now, would say. Then was he sparely clad, in garments of faded hue, tattered and dust-stained; his mount the scraggiest of mustangs – a very Rosinante. Now bestrides he a horse of best blood and shapely proportions, in a deep tree-saddle of stamped leather, with ornamental housings; his own body bedight with all the glittering adornments peculiar to that special Mexican dress known as “ranchero,” picturesque as any in the world. His lucky find of gold, still in its matrix of quartz —madre de oro, as the Mexican miners call it – with its transference to Villanueva y Tresillian, has given him sufficient of this same metal with the mint stamp on it for all matters of comfort, costume, and equipment.

“Oh! bother your christening and candles,” puts in the Englishman, with a show of impatience; “we’ve something more serious to think about. You’re quite sure, Señor Vicente, that yonder eminence is the Cerro Perdido?”

“I’ve said,” laconically and somewhat gruffly answers the guide, showing slightly nettled at the doubt cast on his affirmation, and by one he supposes a stranger to the country and its ways – in short, a “gringo.”

“Then,” pursues Tresillian, “the sooner we get to it the better. It’s ten miles off, I take it.”

“Twice ten, caballero, and a trifle over.”

“What! Twenty miles? I can’t believe that.”

“If your worship had been roaming about these llanos as long as I have, you could and would,” rejoins the guide, in quiet confidence.

“Oh! if you say so, it must be. You seem to know, Señor Vicente; and should, from all I’ve heard of your skill as a path-finder. That you’re good at finding gold we have the proofs.”

“Mil gracias, Don Roberto,” returns the gambusino, with a bow, his amour propre appeased by the complimentary speech; “I’ve no doubt about the distance, for I’m not trusting to guesswork. I’ve been over this ground before, and remember that big palmilla.” He points to a tree at some distance, with stout stem, and a bunch of bayonet-like leaves on its summit – a species of yucca, of which there are several straggled over the plain, but this one taller than any. Then adds, “If your worship doubts my word, ride up to it, and you’ll see a P and V carved in the bark, the initials of your humble servant. It was done to commemorate the occasion of my first setting eyes on the Cerro Perdido.”

“But I don’t doubt your word,” says Tresillian, smiling at the odd memento in such an out-of-the-way place; “certainly not.”

“Then, señor, let me assure you that from it to the mountain is all of twenty miles, and we’ll do well if we get there before sun-down.”

“In which case, the sooner we start for it the better.”

“Yes, Pedro,” adds Don Estevan, speaking to the gold-seeker in a friendly, familiar way. “Ride back and give the order for resuming route. Tell the teamsters and all to do their best.”

“At your worship’s command,” returns the gambusino, with a bow, and wave of his broad-brimmed hat raised high over his head.

Then, pricking his horse with a spur having rowels full five inches in diameter, he canters off towards the caravan.

Before reaching it he again uncovers, respectfully saluting a group which has not yet been introduced to the reader, though possibly the oddest, with the individuals comprising it, the most interesting of all the travelling party. For two of them are of the fair sex – ladies – one middle-aged and of matronly aspect, the other a girl late entered upon her teens. Only their faces and the upper portion of their forms are visible, for they are inside a sort of palanquin – the litera of Mexico, used by grand dames on long journeys, and roads over which carriages cannot be taken. The face of the older lady, with dark complexion and features of Andalusian type, is still attractive, but that of the younger one strikingly beautiful; and between the two is a strong family resemblance, as there should, since they are mother and child – the Señora Villanueva and her daughter.

The litera is borne between two mules, attached to shafts fore and aft, in charge of a strapping fellow in velveteen jacket, and calzoneras, botas of stamped leather, and sombrero of black glaze, with a band of silver bullion round it. But there is a fourth personage comprising the group, unlike all the others, and bearing no resemblance to any of the wayfarers save one – the Englishman. To him the youth – for young he is – shows the likeness, unmistakable, of son to father; and such is the relationship between them.

Henry Tresillian, just turned seventeen, is a handsome fellow, fair-haired, of bright complexion, and features delicately chiselled, still aught but effeminate in their expression; instead, of a cast which proclaims courage and resolution, while a figure tersely knit tells of strength and activity equal to anything. On horseback, he sits bending over in his saddle with face to the curtains of the litera. There may be eyes inside admiring him; and the expression of his own tells he would fain have it so. But all their eyes, late full of gloom, sparkle delightedly now. The Lost Mountain has been sighted; their fears are over, and so soon will be their sufferings.

“Anda! adalante!” (advance) shouts Pedro Vicente.

His words echoed rearward along the line, followed by other cries, with a creaking of wheels and a cracking of whips, as the wagons once more got into motion.