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He heeded not their murmurings. Long before daybreak, we were once more in our saddles, and moving onward, still up the Prieto. We had observed fires at a distance during the night, and we knew that they were at the villages of the "Club" Apache.
His intention was to round Cape Prieto, the south-eastern extremity of it, and search the eastern shore northward. In another hour he saw Russell Island, a green gem in the ocean southward, and beyond this, to the south-east, the peaks of Guadalcanar.
"No, by gosh! not enough to make a drink for a sand-rat." "We must take our chances, then," said Seguin. Here he paused thoughtfully, and with a gloomy expression of countenance. "We must cross the trail," he continued, "and go by the Prieto, or abandon the expedition."
All resistance having ceased, the few of the pirates who escaped having scampered into the woods, where it would have been vain to follow them, we secured our prisoners, and at the close of a bloody day, for fatal had it been to friend and foe, the prizes were got under weigh, and before nightfall we were all at sea, sailing in a fleet, under convoy of the corvette and Gleam. Vomito Prieto.
They'll give no money to him, more than to us; and we can get it ourselves if we show the skins for it. That we can." "Wagh! what cares he for us, now that he has got what he wanted?" "Not a niggur's scalp. He wouldn't let us go by the Prieto, when we kud 'a gathered the shining stuff in chunks." "Now he wants us to throw away this chance too. We'd be green fools to do it, I say."
But the hunters longed to drink from the Prieto itself; and the next morning we drew our pickets, and rode in the direction of that river. By noon we were upon its banks. A singular stream it was, running through a region of bleak, barren, and desolate mountains. Through these the stream had forged its way by numerous canons, and rushed along a channel at most places inaccessible.
I was carefully shifted and put to bed; but during all that night and the following day, I was raving in a furious fever, so that I had to be forcibly held down in my bed, sometimes for half an hour at a time. I say, messmate, have you ever had the yellow fever, the vomito prieto, black vomit, as the Spaniards call it? No? have you ever had a bad bilious fever then? No bad bilious fever either?
Rumour had also given it the title of a "golden river"; at all events, the expedition must cross the head waters of the Prieto in its journey eastward; and this prospect had the effect of quieting the mutineers, at least for the time. There was another influence: the character of Seguin. There was no single individual in the band who cared to cross him on slight grounds.
We broke them easily, but could not pursue, and the experiment cost us a dozen in killed and wounded. "This won't do," said he. "They will eat us up. Crawford, tell O'Brien to retire on us slowly. I intend to retreat. Captain Prieto, get your men posted in that ravine to the left, and hold it until you are told to withdraw."
It could be found only in small quantities, and the hunters began to talk loudly of the Prieto. There, according to them, the yellow gold lay in lumps. On the fourth day after leaving the Gila, we came to a place where the San Carlos canoned through a high sierra. Here we halted for the night.
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