



Produced by Camille Bernard and Marc D'Hooghe at
http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made
available by the Oxford Bodleian Library)





THE BEE HUNTERS

A TALE OF ADVENTURE

BY

GUSTAVE AIMARD


AUTHOR OF "STONEHEART," "SMUGGLER CHIEF," ETC., ETC.


LONDON:

CHARLES HENRY CLARKE, 13 PATERNOSTER ROW.

1865





CONTENTS.


      I.   A MEETING IN THE FAR WEST
     II.   IN THE FOREST
    III.   THE CALLI
     IV.   SUPERFICIAL REMARKS
      V.   CONFIDENTIAL CHAT
     VI.   THE JOURNEY
    VII.   THE SKIRMISH
   VIII.   THE PUEBLO (THE TOWN)
     IX.   DONA HERMOSA
      X.   EL AS DE COPAS (THE ACE OF HEARTS)
     XI.   THE RANCHO
    XII.   THE REDSKINS
   XIII.   THE MIDNIGHT MEETING
    XIV.   DON ESTEVAN DIAZ
     XV.   DON GUZMAN DE RIBERA
    XVI.   THE POST HOUSE IN THE PAMPAS
   XVII.   A DELICATE FEDERAL ATTENTION
  XVIII.   TREACHERY
    XIX.   THE END OF THE STORY




CHAPTER I.

A MEETING IN THE FAR WEST.


Since the discovery of the goldfields in California and on the
Fraser River, North America has entered into a phase of such active
transformation, civilisation has advanced with such giant strides,
that only one region is still extant--a region of which very little
is known--where the poet, or the dreamer who delights in surrounding
himself with the glories of nature, can revel in the grandeur and
majesty, which are the great characteristics of the mysterious
savannahs.

It is the only country, nowadays, where such men can sate themselves
with the contemplation of those immense oceans of alternate verdure and
sand, which spread themselves out in striking contrast, yet wonderful
harmony,--expanding, boundless, solemn, silent, and threatening, under
the eye of the omnipotent Creator.

This region, in which the sound of the squatter's axe has not yet
roused the slumbering echoes, is called the Far West.

Here the Indians still reign as masters, tracing paths on rapid
mustangs, as untamed as their riders, through the vast solitudes, whose
mysteries are known only to themselves; hunting the bison and wild
horse, waging war with each other, or pursuing with deadly enmity, the
white hunters and trappers daring enough to venture into this last
formidable refuge of the redskins.

On the 27th July, 1858, about three hours before sunset, a cavalier,
mounted on a magnificent mustang, was carelessly following the banks of
the Rio Bermejo, a tributary of the Rio Grande del Norte, into which
it falls after a course of from seventy to eighty leagues across the
desert.

This cavalier, clad in the leather dress worn by Mexican hunters, was,
as far as one could judge, a man not more than thirty years of age,
of tall and well-knit frame, and graceful in manner and action. His
face was proud and determined; and his hardy features, stamped with
an expression of frankness and good nature, inspired, at first sight,
respect and sympathy.

His blue eyes, soft and mild as a woman's; the thick curls of blonde
hair, which escaped in masses from under the brim of his cap of vicuna
skin, and wantoned in disorder on his shoulders; the sallowish white
of his skin, very different from the olive tint, approaching to bronze,
peculiar to the Mexicans,--all these would lead one to surmise that he
had not first seen the light under the hot sun of Spanish America.

This man, who was to all appearance so peaceable and so little to be
dreaded, concealed, under a slightly effeminate exterior, a courage
which nothing could daunt, nor even startle: the delicate and almost
diaphanous skin of his white hands, with their rosy nails, served as a
covering to nerves of steel.

At the moment of which we speak this personage seemed to be half-asleep
in his saddle, and allowed his mustang to choose his own pace; and the
beast, profiting by a liberty to which he was not accustomed, nibbled
off with the tips of his lips the blades of sun-dried grass he met with
on his road.

The place where our cavalier found himself was a plain of tolerable
extent, cut into two nearly equal parts by the Rio Bermejo, whose banks
were steep, and here and there strewn with bare, gray rocks.

This plain was enclosed between two chains of hills, rising to right
and left in successive undulations, until they formed at the horizon
high peaks covered with snow, on which the purple splendours of sunset
were playing.

However, in spite of the real or pretended somnolence of the cavalier,
his eyes half opened occasionally and, without turning his head,
he cast a searching glance around him, but betrayed no symptom of
apprehension, which nevertheless would have been quite pardonable in a
district where the jaguar is the least formidable of man's enemies.

The traveller, or hunter,--for