The Border Rifles Part 45

"Oh, oh, you have a tough job before you; there are eighteen of us, do you know that?"

"I do not care for your numbers. If there were a hundred of you, I would attack you all the same."

"By Heaven! For the rarity of the fact, I should be curious to see the combat of one man against twenty."

"You will do so ere long."

And, while saying this, the Scalper pulled his horse back several paces.

"One moment, hang it," the hunter exclaimed sharply; "let me say a word to you."

"Say it."

"Will you surrender?"

"What?"

"I ask you if you will surrender."

"Nonsense," the Scalper exclaimed with a grin; "you are mad. I surrender! It is you who will have to ask mercy ere long."

"I would not believe it, even if you killed me."

"Come, return to your shelter," the Scalper said with a shrug of his shoulders; "I do not wish to kill you defencelessly."

"All the worse for you, then," the hunter said; "I have warned you honourably, now I wash my hands of it; get out of it as you can."

"Thanks," the Scalper answered energetically; "but I am not yet in so bad a state as you fancy."

John Davis contented himself with shrugging his shoulders, and returned slowly to his shelter in the forest, whistling Yankee Doodle.

The Scalper had not imitated him; although he was perfectly well aware that a great number of enemies surrounded him and watched over his movements, he remained firm and motionless in the centre of the clearing.

"Hola!" he shouted in a mocking voice, "You valiant Apaches, who hide yourselves like rabbits in the shrubs, must I come and smoke you out of your holes in order to make you show yourselves? Come on, if you do not wish me to believe you old cowardly and frightened squaws."

These insulting words raised to the highest pitch the exasperation of the Apache warriors, who replied by a prolonged yell of fury.

"Will my brothers allow themselves any longer to be mocked by a single man?" Blue-fox exclaimed; "Our cowardice causes his strength. Let us rush with the speed of the hurricane on this genius of evil; he cannot resist the shock of so many renowned warriors. Forward, brothers, forward! To us be the honour of having crushed the implacable foe of our race."

And uttering his war-cry, which his comrades repeated, the valiant Chief rushed upon the Scalper, resolutely brandishing his rifle over his head; all the warriors followed him.

The Scalper awaited them without stirring; but so soon as he saw them within reach, drawing in the reins, and pressing his knees, he made his n.o.ble stud leap into the thick of the Indians. Seizing his rifle by the barrel, and employing it like a club, he began smiting to the right and left with a vigour and rapidity that had something supernatural about them.

Then a frightful medley commenced; the Indians rushed on this man, who, being a skilful horseman, made his steed go through the most unexpected curvets, and by the rapidity of his movements prevented the enemy leaping on his bridle and stopping him.

The two hunters at first remained quiet, convinced that it was impossible for a single man even to resist for a few moments such numerous and brave foes; but they soon perceived, to their great amazement, that they were mistaken; several Indians were already stretched on the ground, their skulls split by the Scalper's terrible club, all whose blows went home.

The hunters then began changing their opinion as to the result of the fight, and wished to help their comrades, but their rifles were useless to them in the continued changes of the scene of action, and their bullets might as easily have struck friend as foe; hence they threw away their rifles, drew their knives, and hurried to the a.s.sistance of the Apaches, who were already beginning to give way.

Blue-fox, dangerously wounded, was lying in a state of insensibility.

The warriors, still on their legs, were beginning to think of a retreat, and casting anxious glances behind them.

The Scalper still fought with the same fury, mocking and insulting his enemies; his arm rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum.

"Ah, ah!" he exclaimed, on noticing the hunters; "So you want your share. Come on, come on."

The latter did not allow it to be repeated, but rushed wildly upon him.

But they fared badly; John Davis, struck by the horse's chest, was hurled twenty feet, and fell to the ground; at the same instant his comrade's skull was broken, and he expired without a groan.

This last incident gave the finishing stroke to the Indians, who, unable to overcome the terror with which this extraordinary man inspired them, began flying in all directions with yells of terror.

The Scalper gave a glance of triumph and satisfied hatred at the sanguinary arena, where a dozen bodies lay stretched out, and urging his horse on, he caught up a fugitive, lifted him by the hair, and threw him over his saddle-bow, and disappeared in the forest with a horrible grin.

Once again the Scalper had opened a b.l.o.o.d.y pa.s.sage for himself.

As for Fray Antonio, so soon as he saw that the fight had begun, he thought it needless to await its issue; he, therefore, took advantage of the opportunity, and gliding gently from tree to tree, he effected a skilful retreat and got clear off.

CHAPTER XXIV.

AFTER THE FIGHT.

For more than half an hour the silence of death hovered over the clearing, which offered a most sad and lugubrious aspect through the fight we described in the preceding chapter.

At length John Davis, who in reality had received no serious wound, for his fall was merely occasioned by the shock of the Scalper's powerful horse, opened his eyes and looked around him in amazement; the fall had been sufficiently violent to cause him serious bruises, and throw him into a deep fainting fit; hence, on regaining consciousness, the American, still stunned, did not remember a single thing that had happened, and asked himself very seriously what he had been doing to find himself in this singular situation.

Still, his ideas grew gradually clearer, his memory returned, and he remembered the strange and disproportioned fight of one man against twenty, in which the former remained the victor, after killing and dispersing his a.s.sailants.

"Hum!" he muttered to himself, "Whether he be man or demon, that individual is a st.u.r.dy fellow."

He got up with some difficulty, carefully feeling his paining limbs; and when he was quite a.s.sured he had nothing broken, he continued with evident satisfaction--

"Thank Heaven! I got off more cheaply than I had a right to suppose, after the way in which I was upset." Then he added, as he gave a glance of pity to his comrade, who lay dead near him; "That poor Jim was not so lucky as I, and his fun is over. What a tremendous machete stroke he received! Nonsense!" he then said with the egotistic philosophy of the desert; "We are all mortal, each has his turn; to-day it's he, to-morrow I, so goes the world."

Leaning on his rifle, for he still experienced some difficulty in walking, he took a few steps on the clearing in order to convince himself by a conclusive experiment that his limbs were in a sound state.

After a few moments of an exercise that restored circulation to his blood and elasticity to his joints, completely rea.s.sured about himself, the thought occurred to him of trying whether among the bodies lying around him any still breathed.

"They are only Indians," he muttered, "but, after all, they are men; although they are nearly deprived of reason, humanity orders me to help them; the more so, as my present situation has nothing very agreeable about it, and if I succeed in saving any of them, their knowledge of the desert will be of great service to me."

This last consideration determined him on helping men whom probably without it he would have abandoned to their fate, that is to say, to the teeth of the wild beasts which, attracted by the scent of blood, would have certainly made them their prey after dark.

Still it is our duty to render the egotistic citizen of the United States the justice of saying that, so soon as he had formed this determination, he acquitted himself conscientiously and sagaciously of his self-imposed task, which was easy to him after all; for the numerous professions he had carried on during the course of his adventurous life had given him a medical knowledge and experience which placed him in a position to give sick persons that care their condition demanded.

Unfortunately, most of the persons he inspected had received such serious wounds that life had long fled their bodies, and help was quite unavailing.