"It was nip and tuck for us, sure enough," said I; "but if our getting caught in the storm was any fault of Dick's, there is one thing certain, sir: he got us out of it in great style. I wouldn't ask for a better guide. I was pretty badly scared myself, I don't mind owning" the professor nodded, as much as to say, "I don't wonder," "but Dick," I continued, "did not seem to be flustered for a moment; he knew just what to do and pitched right in and did it. It seems to me, sir though of course I don't set up to be a judge that the most experienced mountaineer couldn't have done any better."
"Dick is a good boy," said the professor, evidently pleased at my standing up for his young friend; "and he seems to have a faculty for keeping his wits about him in an emergency. It has always been so, ever since he was a little boy. I suppose he has never told you, has he, how he once saved his donkey from a mountain-lion?"
"No, sir," I replied. "How was it?"
"He was about nine years old at the time, and as his little legs were too short to enable him to keep up with me, I had given him a young burro to ride. We were camped one night on the Trinchera, not far from Fort Garland, when we were awakened by a great squealing on the part of the donkey, which was tethered a few feet away, and sitting up in our beds, which were on the ground under the open sky, we were just in time to see some big, cat-like animal spring upon the poor little beast and knock it over. Instead of crying and crawling under the blankets, as he might well have been excused for doing, little Dick sprang out of his bed as did I also. But the youngster was twice as quick as I was, and without an instant's hesitation he seized a burning stick from the fire, ran right up to the mountain-lion for that was what it was and as the snarling creature raised its head, the plucky little chap thrust the hot end of his stick into its mouth, when, with a yell of pain and astonishment, the beast let go its hold and fled like a yellow streak into the woods again."
"Bully for Dick!" I cried. "That was pretty good, wasn't it? And was the donkey killed?"
"No; rather badly scratched; but Dick's
promptness and courage saved it from anything more serious."
"Well, that was certainly pretty good for such a youngster," said I. "By the way, sir," I continued, "there is one thing I should like to ask you, if you don't mind, about your life in the mountains, especially back in the 'sixties' and earlier, and that is, how you managed to escape being killed and scalped by the Indians."
My host laughed, and I could see by his face that he was thinking backward, as he slowly stirred his coffee round and round; for we were seated at our breakfast, Romero serving us.
"That was a serious question at first," he replied presently, "but I solved it very early in my wanderings; and now I and Dick, too may go among any of the tribes with impunity."
"Will you tell me about it, sir?" I asked, full of curiosity to know how he had worked such a seeming miracle.
The professor leaned back in his chair, stretched out his feet and folded his hands on the edge of the table.
"I will, with pleasure," he replied; "for it is rather a curious incident, I have always thought.
"Before I took up the profession of 'bug-hunting,' as the pursuit of entomology is irreverently termed by the people here, I had graduated as a physician very fortunately for me, as it turned out, for my knowledge of medicine was the basis of my reputation among the Indians. I was down in Arizona at one time, when, on coming to a little Mexican village, I found the poor people suffering from an epidemic of smallpox. Several had died, and the survivors, scared out of their wits, had given themselves up for lost. After my arrival, however, there were no more deaths, I am glad to say, and by the end of about a month I had succeeded in putting all my patients on the highroad to recovery.
"There was a little adobe ranch-house about a quarter of a mile up-stream from the village, the owner of which had died before my arrival, and this building I had utilized as a pest-house. I was on my way out to it one morning, with my little case of medicines in my hand, when I heard behind me a great crying out among the villagers, and looking back I saw them all scuttling for shelter, at the same time shouting and screaming, according to their age and sex, 'Apache! Apache!'
"The next moment, right through the middle of the village, riding like a whirlwind, came ten horsemen, who, paying no attention to the frightened Mexicans, made straight for me. Doubtless they had been hiding in the creek-bed among the willows since daylight, awaiting their opportunity to dash out and capture me for, as I found later, it was I whom they were after.
"To run was useless, to fight impossible, as I was unarmed, so, there being nothing else to do, I just stood still and waited for them. In a moment I was surrounded, when one of the Indians sprang from his horse and advanced upon me. He had, as I very well remember, his nose painted a bright green a fearsome object. This apparition came striding toward me, and I supposed I was to be killed and scalped forthwith; but instead, my friend of the green nose, in halting Spanish, and with a deference which was as welcome as it was unexpected, explained to me that the fame of the great white medicine-man had extended far and wide; that the smallpox was ravaging their village; and that they had come to beg me to return with them and drive out the enemy.