The Lost Gold of the Montezumas Part 10

Back went the two discoverers to the cook-room and to their rations, and none who saw them come could have found upon their faces a trace of the excitement they had shown over their bags of doubloons and dollars.

Two hours later all the animals belonging to the party were feeding peacefully in the gra.s.sy open, and behind a knoll, not far from some of them, lay Colonel Bowie. His long, heavy "Mississippi rifle" was thrown forward across the knoll. Just behind him, among some withered weeds, lay the Lipan boy, as if he did not now feel willing to be far away from his white chief. He was watching him closely, and the thought in his mind almost escaped at his lips, so clear was the meaning that he read in the motions of the marksman.

"Big Knife sight deer," he thought. "Long shoot. Whoop! Comanche!"

His whoop was uttered aloud as the fire flashed from the rifle-muzzle, and the report was answered by a chorus of yells from among the dense ma.s.ses of the chaparral.

"Tally one," said Bowie, coolly. "This business is going to cost Great Bear something. I'll get a bead on him next. Six yesterday and five to-day. I'll lie still and load up, though. It's close quarters."

Not one of the other Texans had uttered a word, but each was already near enough to good cover to drop behind it, ready for long-range rifle practice.

One feature of the situation was only too evident, nevertheless, and there was immediate peril of a crushing disaster.

The hot blood ran like fire through the veins of Red Wolf. Here was a grand chance to earn distinction. It would be worthy of the oldest brave in his tribe. The horses! The only hope for escape!

So like a deer he bounded from his cover and went forward. He did not go to the nearest horses, but beyond them, to those which were apparently in the greatest danger of speedy capture by the Comanches.

One of these had belonged to the brave who was killed in the open that morning, and another had been won in the chaparral from his companions.

They were especially valued as prizes of war. Up came the two lariat-pins. Sharp jerks of the lariats called the ponies from their feeding and they followed the pulling. Louder every moment sounded the whoops from among the bushes, and arrow after arrow whizzed through the air.

"Whoop!" yelled the young adventurer. "Red Wolf heap boy! Comanches little dogs! Rabbits! Coyotes! Crows!"

It was genuine Indian glory to be able to send back such screeches of insult and derision in reply to all those arrows. Some of them narrowly missed him, although he managed to make a good shield out of the two ponies. That was the way he lost one of them, for the poor animal was shortly plunging hither and thither with an arrow through his neck.

Down he went, but Red Wolf immediately pulled up another peg, saving the n.o.ble racer of Colonel Bowie, and he therefore got in with a pair.

He was met by Tetzcatl, the only man upon his feet, but he took the lariats into his own hands, remarking in a very business-like way,--

"_Bueno_! Go! Bring all! Quick!"

The remaining animals were hardly near enough to the bushes for arrows to reach them, and the red men under cover seemed to hesitate about exposing themselves.

"Humph!" growled Bowie. "They're only waiting for something or they'd dash out at him. But isn't he a buster! He'll equal his father some day. This is too bad, anyhow. All those dollars must stay where they are for a while."

Every horse was brought in without any further incident, but, for all that, the situation of the mere handful of Texans was becoming extremely unpleasant. It would, however, have been a great deal more so if they had been compelled to rely upon their own scanty knowledge of the neighborhood they were in. It was too new a country.

Colonel Bowie had not moved until the animals were safe, but he now put his fingers to his lips and blew a long, vibrating whistle. Instantly his men arose behind their covers of _adobe_ or of rough ground and began to make their way to the central ruin. It was rapidly done, and Red Wolf was the last to come in, leading his own sorrel.

"We're corralled!" said one of the men.

"Not quite so bad as that," replied another; "and it'll be bad for them if they rush in."

"I reckon they're waiting for more to come," said the colonel, coolly.

"It takes a good many to work a surround."

"_Bueno!_" said Tetzcatl just then. "Time to go. Beat the redskins now."

"Go ahead," responded Bowie; "we're ready."

The men mounted at the word. They had been hurriedly putting on saddles, and bridles, and now they sat like statues on horseback while he exchanged a few swift sentences with their white-headed guide.

"Forward! Take it easy!" was the next command.

Then it looked at first as if he were about to lead a charge directly into the bushes from which had come the arrows and the whooping. So complete was the appearance that several Comanches on the opposite side of the pond came out into the open. They would have been in just the right position to attack the Texans in the rear, after riding around the pond. Moreover, it seemed plain that the "surround" had been very nearly accomplished.

"That's it," said Bowie. "We've drawn 'em out. We know where they are. Now! Gallop! Boys, it's a run, but I reckon we've euchered 'em."

He and Tetzcatl had suddenly wheeled toward the left, and not a Comanche made his appearance on the easterly side of the open as he and his men dashed into one of the widest avenues.

Fierce were the whoops and yells of the outgeneralled red men as, with one accord, they came out of their several covers to follow. Over a score were already in sight, and the yelling indicated that twice as many more were near at hand. The Texans were to run a race for their lives, but every animal that was entered for the race was in good condition, and not one of them was a second-rate runner.

"Pull in!" shouted Bowie, at the end of a quarter of an hour.

"Tetzcatl says we're about safe."

"We've rid through tangles enough," replied a ranger. "How fur are we now from the south side of the chaparral?"

"Not so far as we were," replied his commander, "but we don't get out into prairie right away. You'll see what it is when you get there."

"I want to git thar, then, awful," came from another of the men. "We haven't had a scratch yet, but it's been right smart of a close shave."

So it had, and the Comanches were following upon the plain trail that was made by so many horses. Their real difficulty as pursuers was not the trail itself, by any means. Great Bear was with them now, and he had a high respect for the men he was dealing with. A number of minutes had been lost to him at the outset by the make-believe charge.

After that, as his gathering band rode on, the prudent chief compelled his eager braves to draw rein several times at places where the thick "tangles" suggested the possibility of an ambush and a deadly volley of rifle-bullets. It was really a pokerish business to follow dead shots, men of desperate courage, too, among those dense coverts. He was a wise chief, no doubt, but every time his foremost warriors paused to reconnoitre the white men gained additional time.

Red Wolf all the while kept somewhat diffidently in the rear. He was, after all, only a boy among great warriors. Before long, however, he found himself riding at an easy gait side by side with Colonel Bowie, and the Big Knife was holding out something.

"Young brave!" said he. "Want good knife? Present."

It was one which had been found in the belt of the first Comanche warrior killed in the open, and there had been no claimant for it. It was a very good knife, longer than most others, although not shaped altogether like a bowie. Its sheath was silver-mounted and its edge was keen. It was worth a dozen of common butcher-knives such as the one Red Wolf now carried, and his eyes glistened with pleasure. It would be a war-trophy to show to his father, and all his tribe would envy him so fine a weapon. Its greatest value, however, even to them, would be the fact that it was a battle-token given by the great single-hand knife-fighter of the white men.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Red Wolf. "Heap knife. Great chief give! Whoop!"

He secured it in his belt, and then his old butcher-knife was contemptuously transferred to a place among the fringes of his leggings.

The Texans were not using up their horses, but no halt was made. They went steadily forward for several miles of winding way, and then the chaparral began to change its character. Instead of mere bushes there was heavy timber with much undergrowth, and the land grew rugged and rocky instead of sandy.

Tetzcatl was continually several yards in the advance. He now turned and beckoned, spurred his mule, and seemed almost to vanish.

"Forward, men!" shouted Bowie. "I know what he means! I've been bothered by that very ravine more than once. It runs almost to the Nueces River. Hurrah! Great Bear won't run his braves into such a death-trap as that is. Come on!"

A number of fine old oak-trees stood like sentries grouped around the mouth of a kind of chasm, with rocks on either side. There was a descent at once, and the ravine grew deeper as the rangers rode farther into it. Tetzcatl was ahead of them, but the mule plodded on without waiting for anybody, while his rider turned and put a finger on his lips.

Not a shout was uttered, therefore, to tell how glad they all were to get into that ravine, and Bowie almost instantly exclaimed, in a low voice, to the long-legged Texan who was riding near him,--

"Jim Cheyne! Look! That's what he means. That head, up there at the cliff-edge, among the rosin weeds. Can you fetch him? Long range, but I'll try. One of us may hit."

"Ready! Together!" answered Jim, and in a few seconds more the two rifles cracked almost like one.

Tetzcatl had watched the marksmen, and now he nodded approvingly and rode on, but no one climbed to the upper level to inquire whether one bullet or two had cut short the scouting of the imprudent brave, whose eagle feather had betrayed his weedy lurking-place.