TRUE STORIES OF PERIL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 8053, 4 July 1904, Page 1

TRUE STORIES OF PERIL.

■:"'-;\ -?.■.'■;. ■ ' No; V. IN THE LAND_OF DEATH. (By ROGER POCOCK.) [An, Rights Reserved.] r "November l t 1899, crossed Mexican boundary," so runs my diary. I had rid-' den , down from Canada-, following the Rocky Mountains, a distance of 2099 miles. : \ ,So far I had squeezed through many diffi- . culties, an^ was grateful for much success on a lone venture. But now I had another 1500 miles to go if I would reach the City of ' Mexico, in a country where the water holes were sand to be more than a day's '■: march apart, where the people rode straight .across the: grass, leaving, no permanent trails, and where, not knowing Spanish, I must get on as 'best I could without directions. I had a map, neatly filled in all over with assorted geographical features^ the . \ places which really existed being always ■< " set witbini forty miles or so of their, true : -position./ -V" . . '. " .'•''. ;•;-■' '„':. ' I was 'anxious to get on t but, the Custom '■] j House at la Morita' demanded 100 per cent 1 duty on) my two horses and saddle. If I went without paying I should be captured by the Mexican Frontier Guards^ and they . . . ; usually shoot- their prisoners. Moreover, thertj was a little* border war in progress between the Frontier Guards and the v An^ricaia cowboys. As I was dressed' as a , cowboy, I was a "game" anhnal t and in 6easoh. Indeed, my dress was apt to make , me specially unpopular, while these very Jhuts of la Morita were, full of wounded • ; ;. Mexicans, groaning 'and screaming under y the surgeon's kiiife. The people were al- ,, ready suffering from tod much cowboy. On the whole it was, very awkward. Al"nrays bashful with strangers, I was shy of meeting with any Frontier Guards, and yet so grave was the peril of death by thirst ..••-.■ thaii I dared not venture southward. It eejemed wiser on the whole to follow the boundward eastward across the Rocky Mountain?, and gain the Atlantic ■ slope, , where I might find more water. Without that I should never reach the ' City of • . Mexico. . ; • . ' "Riding back to the United States I fol- ;' lowed the line of boundary monuments, and forty-six miles brought me to a ranche astride of the line, where !• traded my fat American ponies fijr a pair of ' Mexican scarecrows. Now I was safe from arrest by the Frontier Guards! My host/ Mr John < Slaughter, had for his best neighbours the Wilcox.gang of outlaws, forty miles to the N.E , hot there were also, the Frontier Guards, some border ruffians, and a few stray Apache Indians on, the look-out for acalps. Being a Texan, and a dead; shot, Mr Slaughter was able to protect the ladies of his household, and he ; was reputed ,to have taken twenty-seven lives in self-de-. fence. This gentleman treated me> very kindly, and found a Mexican to guide me across the Rocky Mountains. : This great Mother Range, although • the backbone of the Continent, is not a single ridge of mountains, but the crown of a high plateau on which there are many ranges of Alps. Here on the Mexican border there are no mountains at all, but tie plateau is laced all over with a skein of <B 0]«. Any rivers which rise in this broken country would jlow on the one side to ■<?. the Pacific, on the other to the Atlantic, but for the fact that as soon as they leave the hills they are swallowed up in the heat of the burning desert. My guide led me up out of the desert into pleasant rock-walled canyons where there were standing trees and running waters. We saw deer, and' a bear or two, and baited for dinner at a mud cabin where a Mexican family was busy distilling spirits from the juice of the monster cactus on the hills. We reached a second hut at coon of the following day, and by sundown came 'to .the eastern' edge of the -hills, where we camped with the water in our canteens. So far my guide had loafed, making excuses for short marches and wearisome . halts ; indeed, in two days we hid covered but twenty-eight miles. On the third morning I was determined to make him travel, yet we had scarcely entered the desert levels when, sighting deer, he galloped off in chase. By the time he had shot a doe and a'yoaag buck the mux was high in fbe&vez*, w»3 to make amends for the delay. I would* not stop for a noon camp when we reached a. water hole. Neither would I fill my canteens. "Travel," I said, "or y<m.ll get no water." I think it was then th*fc 'he decided upon my death, by way of \ Vengeance, because I slijfhted him, but still he w%« courteous, friendly, cheerful, and I suspected no evil. " - " A RoOTKling the end of a chain of. bills, ■we followed a trail to the southward, a; dear rtronj waggon track, fiy the signs I read that it had not been used for at l«&0t twelve months by any traveller. In (Spanish, ' eked out' with the sign language, my guide explained that this led direct to "i the Rancho San Francisco, and I w* cos " ' ?> tent. But now the man began to lag be- "-?{ itaA, complaining that his horse was playj ed out, unable to travel further, suggest- %' jnp that I could find my way alone." The V crack was plain enough, and having no \,- water I dared not lag at a walking pace, as I did already frqm raging i^-^Hmrti.- By tkpa the man explained that

I should reach the San Francisco ranch at sundown, and I believed him. I paid him off, let him go, cut short hia courtly regrets, farewells and compliments, and rode on. He watched me set off alone on that dead trail which had no water for eighty miles. "May you ride," he cried, '" with •God 1" ', A couple of hours further on the grass failed suddenly) and I knew by the tracks of cattle, bears and deer that there was water witihin five miles ahead. In two miles I reached a water -hole, a trampled waste of black mire, frosted with white alkali, and in the midst of it the" last remains of a puddle. My horse was afraid to drink the stuff, the smell of it sickened' me, and I wentfOn. Now, *tho trail had gone plain and direct to this tract of trampled mud, but on th<» further side there was no sign of it. Perhaps the grass fires of successive years had burned the track away;" in" any case, it could not have led to any inhabited place. I scouted in widening circles until the sun went down, but found no sign of man. Night fell, and I camped, doubtful whether the thirsty horses would \ stay with me until dawn. I knew that twenty years ago the entire population . of thia country for many hundreds of miles- had been" massacred by: the Apache Indians, the men burned, the women — I cannotsay that-rthe little were dashed against^ stone walls. Still there were etray Apaches on the range, and to light a fire was almost suicide. • I made a big fire, hoping it might be seen from the nearest ranch, and supped, on half a cup of cold tea which. l had saved at breakfast. Day broke, and I saddled, 'but while P was leading my pack horse, he smelt the. blood on my hands from' the deer I had helped to skin the, day before. The smell sent him frantic, and I was badly kicked on the knee. Knowing that I' must perish if I. failed to get into the saddle somehow, I scrambled up, then, craaed with pain, and suffering agonies of thirst, set out to scout for water! From a hill-top I looked out through quivering heat mist over the immensities of the bright golden grass to where a violet blur of -(hills ringed the horizon, and in all that, space I knew by unfailing signs there was no water. Yesterday, where my guide had headed me southward on the dead trail, I (had noticed a living trail with quite recent tracks which led due east. Now I had to lay ipy plans well, because within a few hours more I should be delirious. I resolved to strike N.N.E., and see if I could cut the live trail, which must lead within a day's march to water. Ido not know how far I travelled, on a level plain at first, then over hills, crossing a number of deep gulches. Late in the afternoon I found the live trail, and there were tracks upon it, not an hour old, going eastward. . ■ I had travelled some miles when the track led through a gate in a fence, and just beyond that I seemed- to. see in a dream an American cowboy, who rode out from behind' a dump of cactus and swung abreast of me. I spoke to him and he answered. He was real, and we talked. " Did you see a fire last night— S.S.W., yonder?" "You lit afire!" he said. "To attract attention— l was lonesome." ' "Oh, I thought maybe you done it to scare away Apaches.. They. got a maa on our doorstep here a few months ago." "Havo we far to go?" "Quite a piece. There's a -bunch of us camped yonder, hunting bear. Say, partner, what's 'the matter with yo* voice?- I cayn-'t hear y'u speak." " I'm rather thirsty." "Well, here's a canteen full of water!" *That was the end. of my troubles. Three days later I set off once more for the city of Mexico." :

Now that it is too late,. the average German'has suddenly awakened to the fact that, , for the Fatherland, an alliance with England would be worth all other alliances put together.— "World." . ■