Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1872-07-25

was poor, she was proud, she was hand
some but she had all the weakness Of
her sisters for the Yankee adventures
whose bearing is SO much at variance
with the lazy degeneracy of her race.
But while the 'rest acclaimed against
desertion, she had secret cause for
complaisance. The same night of the
caucus on the street corner, the gen
tlemanly gambler had leaned compla-
Gently against the garden wall, and the
Dona's eyes sparkled upon the other
side with something it must have been
pleasant to hear and wicked to think
of. The gambler protested and enioin-
ed, and the Dona gesticulated and
promised. When his tall figure moved
away III the shadows, the woman look
ed after him with eyes it was we'll he
could not see, "UuchO den0ro, y she
muttered as she weighed the mighty
belt in her hands, s." al, nuchO DINA
TO-" The yellow treasure no longer
sleeps on the hillside. The foolish
idea, so human and common, that some
eye may discover it in your absence, 10
unbecoming of yOu, Matkin. The
Dona Ana may love you, and you may
deceive her, but for the treasure you
have entrusted to her III your cunning,
she would sell her soul
1t is an unwonted clatter that wakes
the quiet street in the early morning.
The gray shadows have scarcely vet
disturbed the feast of the coyote, and
the fog lies asleep upon the desolate
river. The heads of drowsy crones
protrude from open doorways, and
dreamy donkeys hustle clumsily out of
the way. There are certain black eyes,
too, which have been long awake, and
which look from beneath robOsus, after
all more in sadness than in anger. 1t
is the exodus Of the gamblers.
Sixty miles to the westward, beyond
a wilderness in which water never ran
and tree never grew, there is canon
which, since then, has been called by
the name of an army officer, but which,
in those days, was known, in the ex-
pressive language of the country, as
" canon del lNuertO the pass of
death. From time immemorial it has
been a place Of bones and Crosses
Eastward to the Rio Grande the road is
comparatively safe. From here the APP
aches have watched the coming grain
twenty miles away, thousand times,
and waited until, walled in by the eter-
nal rocks, it became an easy prey
At the eastern end of the pass there
is a spring, and the living water is
the lure alike of life and death. At
this spring, as was intended, the nine
men camped late in the evening of the
first day. As vas to be expected, Mat
kin was the tacit commander of the
party. His watch came ut midnight of
this first night, and it was counted
much to his credit that he assumed his
duty 50 early in the long journey.
But when morning came, gray mule
ard the sentinel were missing. They
shouted, and only the drearv noun
tain echoes answered; they searched,
and he could not be found. Days al
forwards, the wandering trail around
the spring showed the search for the
missing man.
In such times men arc not long wait
ed for, and the party, with the five re-
naming mules, moved on through the
canon. Eight IN number now, armed to
tllt IttlIi, anu SStlltliit WIG
chances We're still against them. 1t Is
the old, old story of ambuscade, desper.
ate resistance, thirst, torture, and death.
1t was battle that was fought until the
last cartridge was expended, the last
man dead. Mangas Colorado lost sixty
warriors Had the last wounded wretch
who died with his last cartridge paper
between has teeth lived an hour longer
he might himself have told the story
which the trail told for him. On the
evening of the third day, the troop of
Dragons which came through the pass
from the other side found him yet
warm The garulous scout will yet
show Won, with more of superstition
than fact, the dim trail of the coach
wheels in the turf of the steep hill side
lie will tell you how they overturned
the vehicle, and dragged the dead
mules together for n barricade, and lay
there through the tortures of seventy
hours, wounded, thirsty, dying and
dead, still lighting. And below Won in
the canon, trodden by no passing feet,
is the lonely and rock piled grave OF
the men who redeemed their lives by
their deaths, upon which each traveller
casts a stone, until it has grown into
monument.
The tangled web men weave for de-
ception is cut by ovemeaching fate
with but a stroke. The story of the
gamblers wild rave backward toward
the double allurement of love and gold,
frightened by all the sounds which dis
turb drcariness and darkness in the
wilderness, was never told, The cum
ming man had indeed succeeded in rid
ding himself of those from whom lie
had obtained his wealth. He had in
his mind place of cougenial rest, and
that night, by the garden wall, the Dona