Winnetou, the Apache Knight, Karl Friedrich May [easy books to read txt] 📗

Winnetou, the Apache Knight

Jack Hildreth among the Indians

by Karl May

Translated by Marion Ames Taggart

Copyright, 1898, by Benzinger Brothers.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. TOWARD THE SETTING SUN

CHAPTER II. MY FIRST BUFFALO

CHAPTER III. WILD MUSTANGS AND LONG-EARED NANCY

CHAPTER IV. A GRIZZLY AND A MEETING

CHAPTER V. THE SPEECH OF THE APACHE CHIEF

CHAPTER VI. A WISH AND ITS TRAGIC FULFILMENT

CHAPTER VII. A COMPACT WITH THE KIOWAS

CHAPTER VIII. SAM HAWKINS GOES SPYING

CHAPTER IX. WAITING THE ONSLAUGHT

CHAPTER X. THE CAPTURE OF WINNETOU

CHAPTER XI. A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

CHAPTER XII. A DUEL, AND CAPTURE BY THE APACHES

CHAPTER XIII. NURSED TO HEALTH FOR A CRUEL FATE

CHAPTER XIV. ON TRIAL FOR LIFE

CHAPTER XV. A SWIM FOR FREEDOM

CHAPTER XVI. TANGUA’s PUNISHMENT

CHAPTER XVII. THE END OF RATTLER

CHAPTER XVIII. TEACHING WINNETOU

CHAPTER XIX. THE BURIAL OF KLEKI-PETRAH

WINNETOU, THE APACHE KNIGHT.

CHAPTER I. TOWARD THE SETTING SUN.

IT is not necessary to say much about myself. First of all because there is not very much to tell of a young fellow of twenty-three, and then because I hope what I have done and seen will be more interesting than I am, for, between you and me, I often find Jack Hildreth a dull kind of person, especially on a rainy day when I have to sit in the house alone with him.

When I was born three other children had preceded me in the world, and my father’s dreamy blue eyes saw no way of providing suitably for this superfluous fourth youngster. And then my uncle John came forward and said: “Name the boy after me, and I’ll be responsible for his future.” Now Uncle John was rich and unmarried, and though my father could never get his mind down to anything more practical than deciphering cuneiform inscriptions, even he saw that this changed the unflattering prospects of his latest-born into unusually smiling ones.

So I became Jack Hildreth secundus , and my uncle nobly fulfilled his part of the contract. He kept me under his own eye, gave me a horse before my legs were long enough to bestride him, nevertheless expecting me to sit him fast, punished me well if I was quarrelsome or domineering with other boys, yet punished me no less surely if when a quarrel was forced upon me,&!,& I showed the white feather or failed to do my best to whip my enemy.

“Fear God, but fear no man. Never lie, or sneak, or truckle for favor. Never betray a trust. Never be cruel to man or beast. Never inflict pain deliberately, but never be afraid to meet it if you must. Be kind, be honest, be daring. Be a man, and you will be a gentleman.” This was my uncle’s simple code; and as I get older, and see more of life, I am inclined to think there is none better.

My uncle sent me to the Jesuit college, and I went through as well as I could, because he trusted me to do so. I did not set the college world afire, but I stood fairly in my classes, and was first in athletics, and my old soldier uncle cared for that with ill-concealed pride.

When I left the student’s life, and began to look about on real life and wonder where to take hold of it, I was so restless and overflowing with health and strength that I could not settle down to anything, and the fever for life on the plains came upon me. I longed to be off to the wild and woolly West - the wilder and woollier the better - before I assumed the shackles of civilization forever.

“Go if you choose, Jack,” my uncle said. “Men are a better study than books, after you’ve been grounded in the latter. Begin the study in the primer of an aboriginal race, if you like; indeed it may be best. There’s plenty of time to decide on your future, for, as you’re to be my heir, there’s no pressing need of beginning labor.”

My uncle had the necessary influence to get me appointed as an engineer with a party which was to survey for a railroad among the mountains of New Mexico and Arizona - a position I was competent to fill, as I had chosen civil engineering as my future profession, and had studied it thoroughly.

I scarcely realised that I was going till I found myself in St. Louis, where I was to meet the scouts of the party, who would take me with them to join the surveyors at the scene of our labors. On the night after my arrival I invited the senior scout, Sam Hawkins, to sup with me, in order that I might make his acquaintance before starting in the morning.

I do not know whether the Wild West Show was unconsciously in my mind, but when Mr. Hawkins appeared at the appointed time I certainly felt disappointed to see him clad in ordinary clothes and not in the picturesque costume of Buffalo Bill, till I reflected that in St. Louis even a famous Indian scout might condescend to look like every-day mortals.

“So you’re the young tenderfoot; glad to make your acquaintance, sir,” he said, and held out his hand, smiling at me from an extraordinary face covered with a bushy beard of many moons’ growth and shadowed by a large nose a trifle awry, above which twinkled a pair of sharp little eyes.

My guest surprised me not a little, after I had responded to his greeting, by hanging his hat on the gas-fixture, and following it with his hair.

“Don’t be shocked,” he said calmly, seeing, I suppose, that this was unexpected. “You will excuse me, I hope, for the Pawnees have taken my natural locks. It was a mighty queer feeling, but fortunately I was able to stand it. I went to Tacoma and bought myself a new scalp, and it cost me a roll of good dollars. It doesn’t matter; the new hair is more convenient than the old, especially on a warm day, for I never could hang my own wig up like that.”

He had a way of laughing inwardly, and his shoulders shook as he spoke, though he made no sound.

“Can you shoot?” asked my queer companion suddenly.

“Fairly,” I said, not so much, I am afraid, because I was modest as because I wanted to have the fun of letting him find out that I was a crack marksman.

“And ride?”

“If I have to.”

“If you have to! Not as well as you shoot, then?”

“Pshaw! what is riding? The mounting is all that is hard; you can hang on somehow if once you’re up.”

He looked at me to see whether I was joking or in earnest; but I looked innocent, so he said: “There’s where you make a mistake. What you should have said is that mounting is hard because you have to do that yourself, while the horse attends to your getting off again.”

“The horse won’t see to it in my case,” I said with confidence-born of the fact that my kind uncle had accustomed me to clinging to high-strung beasts before I had lost my milk-teeth.

“A kicking broncho is something to try the nettle of a tenderfoot,” remarked Hawkins dryly.

I suppose you know what a tenderfoot is. He is one who speaks good English, and wears gloves as if he were used to them. He also has a prejudice in favor of nice handkerchiefs and well-kept finger-nails; he may know a good deal about history, but he is liable to mistake turkey-tracks for bear-prints, and, though he has learned astronomy, he could never find his way by the stars. The tenderfoot sticks his bowie-knife into his belt in such a manner that it runs into his thigh when he bends; and when he builds a fire on the prairie he makes it so big that it flames as high as a tree, yet feels surprised that the Indians notice it. But many a tenderfoot is a daring, strong-bodied and strong-hearted fellow; and though there was no doubt that I was a tenderfoot fast enough, I hoped to convince Sam Hawkins that I had some qualities requisite for success on the plains.

By the time our supper was over there was a very good understanding established between me and the queer little man to whose faithful love I was to owe so much. He was an eccentric fellow, with a pretence of crustiness covering his big, true heart; but it was not hard to read him by the law of contraries, and our mutual liking dated from that night of meeting.

We set out in the early dawn of the following morning, accompanied by the other two scouts, Dick Stone and Will Parker, whom I then saw for the first time, and whom I learned to value only less than Sam as the truest of good comrades. Our journey was as direct and speedy as we could make it to the mountain region of New Mexico, near the Apache Indian reservation, and I was welcomed by my fellow-workers with a cordiality that gave rise to hopes of pleasant relations with them which were never realised. The party consisted of the head engineer, Bancroft, and three men under him. With them were twelve men intended to serve as our protectors, a sort of standing army, and for whom, as hardworking pioneers, I, a new-comer, had considerable respect until I discovered that they were men of the lowest moral standards.

Although I had entered the service only for experience, I was in earnest and did my duty conscientiously; but I soon found out that my colleagues were genuine adventurers, only after money, and caring nothing for their work except as a means of getting it.

Bancroft was the most dishonest of all. He loved his bottle too well and got private supplies for it from Santa Fe, and worked harder with the brandy-flask than with his surveying instruments. Riggs, Marcy, and Wheeler, the three surveyors, emulated Bancroft in this unprofitable pursuit; and as I never touched a drop of liquor, I naturally was the laborer, while the rest alternated between drinking and sleeping off the effects.

It goes without saying that under such circumstances our work did not progress rapidly, and at the end of the glorious autumn and three months of labor we found ourselves with our task still unaccomplished, while the section with which ours was to connect was almost completed. Besides our workmen being such as they were, we had to work in a region infested with Comanches, Kiowas, and Apaches, who objected to a road through their territory, and we had to be constantly on our guard, which made our progress still slower.

Personally my lot was not a bed of roses, for the men disliked me, and called me” tenderfoot” ten times a day, and took a special delight in thwarting my will, especially Rattler, the leader of our so-called guard, and as big a rascal as ever went unhanged. I durst not speak to them in an authoritative manner, but had to manage them as a wise woman manages a tyrannical husband without his perceiving it.

But I had allies in Sam Hawkins and his two companion scouts, Dick Stone and Will Parker. They were friendly to me, and held off from the others, in whom Sam Hawkins especially