Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1872-08-23
THE SCOUTS MISTAKE.
BY DEANE MoNAHAN.

BY DEANE MoNAHAN.
There is a poor adobe house close by
the brink of the 0ceQel5a. The cotton
woods and willows which grow near the
water adet little shade and comfort but
take no. thing from the abiding dreariness
OF the spot. Behind it, up the steep hill
sld.d, Chamber the stunted cedars among
tne huge rocks. Over the hill, half a mile
away, is the quadrangle of houses, the
green parade-ground, the little hum and
hustle Of guard-mount and roll-call, and
the great starry and-striped banner which
hangs all day in the limpid sunshine, and
gathers around almost all there is of COM
mon life, business and pleasure with
In radius of hundred mountainous
miles
You would be puzzled to know from
his appearance whether the man who sits
under the awning of boughs in front of
the adobe be Indian or Spaniard. Which
ever he may be, he is also cousin to the
Anaklm. Were it not for the stoop in his
great shoulders, ne would be many inches
over the standard of ordinary men. His
straight hair, slightly gray, falls upon his
shoulders; his square jaws, high cheek
bones End aquiline nose are the color of
NAH 3gany; and the arms which lie list
UUClT
DraWny length. AS he lifts his head with
q kind OF growl as you approach him, you
can see that his eyes are sloe-black and
small and wicked, and the whole man be-
speaks a capacity for the doing of deeds
as INSCRIPTIONS as they are daring. If
he is q Mexican he lacks the politeness of
his race, for he will not bid you the
courteous ''Buen0 dos" nor ask you to
sit down. If an Indian, he is in the
wrong place and near the wrong people.
He is neither-and both; and as fair
specimen Of the admiXture of Spaniard
and Apache, he offers fair cause for the
hope that the two races have but seldom
mingled.
There is an art which has no place
among the sciences, which the schools
cannot teach, and of which the Swans
know nothing, which is more wonderful
i'll its accuracy, more precise in it's de-
tails, and more curious in it's practice,
than much that Culver and Agassiz teach
It's school is the far verge of civilization,
and its disciples ignorant sons of the will
derness. 1t constructs d tale from q
broken reed, and gathers history from a
dim footstep in the sand, and it's follow
ers are the very sleuth hounds of human
ity 1t is the art of the trailer or scout,
and of these the grim inhabitant of the
adobe was one of the most famous.
Mariana owed his accurate education
as much to birth as to training, and his
whole life is an evidence that isolation
and desert silence are not wanting in the
Incidents which sometimes make exis.
tence a curiosity. His mother was a
Mexican captive, whose name and family
he only guessed, and his father an Apache
dignitary, from whom this his son was
captured at eight years of age. He was
born in the camp of those among whom
he afterwards made his livelihood by
hunting and the Indian instinct, the
frontier training, and the quartermaster's
money, were the three things which made
Mariana what he was. Yet not entirely,
for he had certain characteristics of his
own, namely: colossal strength, a willy
head and strong passions.
Almost the only levity in which Mari
ano ever INDUCED was evoked by nara
tive of his own capture on that early
summer morning long ago, when he fell
off the pony from behind squaw and
ran for cover as fast as his young legs
and his Indian instinct would carry him.
How aca6dLIer0 turned aside from the
pursuit and chased him, and reaching
down as he rode beside him, caught him
by the tuft of hair upon his head, carried
him thus until he grew tired, and then,
placing him beside an immense rock,
which served to mark the place, babe him
wait until he returned. Mariana under
stood and waited. Why none but he
could explain; and certainly he never did.
This was in the old days, when the Mexi-
cans and the Indians had it all to them
selves; and thus began the scouts adven-
turOus life. He dimly remembered the
mama an6 n1a0 Of hic father and tho cod
eyes and handsome face of his slave
mother. He had cause to remember them;
but as he sits listlessly beside his lone
some cottage door, seeming to have moth
ing in common with humanity, you need
not ask him to tell of them. Nothing
makes Mariana so furious as to question
him of these things. Onceshe was boast
full of his ancestry and fond of the de-
tails of his career. But that was years
ago. He has had revelation since then;
and as all mems revelations are apt to do,
it came too late.
Mariana went to live with his captors
in one of the villages of the Rio Grande,
and having in a short time asserted him
self and repealed enslavement, was con-
tented. But he was different character
from those around him. He was restless,
alert, silent, and in his carelessness OF
first learned the rudiments of the strange
profession in the practice of which he
became noted. Among his first efforts,
he followed the trail of the Apache. and
hundreds OF rugged miles became almost
as familiar to him as the village nlaza,
Reckless by birth, and taught bY circum.
stances, he learned to forget that he was
allied by blood to the men he hunted
Besides, he had spent his years with the
race to which his mother belonged, anG
their questionings recalled to him with {
vividnes as of yesterday the sorrowfu
face of the slave who bore him-beaten
spurned, driven. like beast, strange
among fends of her own sex, captiv
and mother. As he grew to manhood
the. memory became passion. He be
come remarkable for his vindictive hatre'
of los Iadjos, and his skill and unscrupu
1ousness in warfare against them. OF al
men, his eye was keenest, his hearing
sharpest, and his head c1earest; and when
at last, the great Republic sent its soldier
to occupy the land, Mariana was one 0
the most INSCRIPTIONS, cunning AM
desperate Indian fighters.