The Lost Gold of the Montezumas Part 5

"What Red Wolf do now? Ugh!"

It was a question which was running through his mind hot-footed, and it was not at first easy to shape a satisfactory answer.

A white boy would have been likely to have let it answer itself. He would have ridden as straight as he could to rejoin the band of Lipans and to tell his father that the Comanches were coming. He would have thought only of getting them to help him in his proposed fight with Great Bear.

Red Wolf was an Indian boy. All his life, thus far, he had been getting lessons in Indian war-methods. He had heard the talks and tales of chiefs and noted braves in their camps and councils. He had, therefore, been taught in a redskin academy of the best kind, and he was a credit to his professors.

"Ugh! No!" he exclaimed, at last. "Comanche find chaparral. No find Lipan."

He had no need to urge his pony, but he rode southward, not eastward.

Already, in the distance, he could see the endless, ragged border of the chaparral. It began with scattered trees and bushes out on the prairie. These increased in number and in closeness to each other, until they thickened into the dense, many-pathed labyrinth. The pursuers also could see, and they could understand that if the fugitive they were following was leading them toward Castro's party, they must close up to him now or never.

The whoops which burst from them as they dashed along were loud, but short, sharp, excited.

"Whoop big!" shouted Red Wolf. "Heap yell! Castro hear whoop."

He had noted that the wind was blowing in the right direction. It could carry a sound upon its wings far away to the eastward, but two very different kinds of human ears received and understood the fierce music the chasers were making.

"Forward! Gallop!" rang from the heavily-bearded lips of the commander of hors.e.m.e.n coming from the northward.

"Comanches! Colonel Bowie!" shouted a grizzled veteran behind him.

"That's Great Bear's band, you bet!"

Another whoop swept by them on the wind as Bowie replied to him,--

"And they've struck the Lipans, I'm afraid. We must try and get into it before too much mischief's done. On, boys! We'll give him a lesson."

Silence followed, but the men looked at the locks of their rifles and felt of their belt pistols as they went forward. It was no light matter to act as police, or even as peacemakers, in that part of the world.

The other listeners were nearer and could hear more distinctly, but no sound was uttered by the warriors with Castro when their chief drew his rein and held up a hand. Every man of them knew, or thought he knew, just what it all meant, but more news was coming.

One brave who had been some distance in their rear, as a lookout in that direction, came on at full speed, followed by another whose duties had detailed him more to the westward. Both brought the same errand, for the first exclaimed, as he came within speaking range,--

"Ugh! Heap Texan," and the other, whose eyes may have been sharper, added, "Big Knife! Many rifle?"

"Comanche! Great Bear!" roared Castro, in a deep-toned, wrathful voice. "Red Wolf lose hair! Ugh! Chaparral!"

He knew that his son must in some way have been the immediate cause of that whooping, but his first duty as a leader was to save his party, letting his vengeance wait for a better opportunity. He led on, therefore, toward the only possible refuge, muttering as he went.

"Ugh!" he said. "Heap boy. Run against Comanche! Young chief! Ugh!

Go to bushes. No good wait for Big Knife. Not enough Texan. Too many Comanche."

He might well be anxious concerning his promising son, but Red Wolf's hair was yet upon his head, for the wind tossed it well as his fleet mustang carried him past the outermost clump of mesquit-bushes.

"Whoop!" he yelled. "Red Wolf beat Great Bear! All Lipans get away.

Ugh!"

He had not beaten his pursuer by more than two hundred yards, however, and several other Comanches were now as near as was their chief.

Could there be such a thing as an escape from all of them? Would not the entire swarm go in after him and surely find him, no matter what path he might take? The situation looked awfully doubtful in spite of the moderate advantage which he had thus far maintained.

Closer grew the trees. Nearer to each other were the thick "tow-heads"

of bushes. On went Red Wolf, veering to the left around each successive cover, but seeming to push directly into the chaparral. It was a complete cover now, and he was well hidden at the next sharp, sudden turn that he made to the eastward.

Paths, paths, paths, fan-like, but that none of them were straight, and fan-like was the spreading out of the wily Comanches. Or perhaps they were more like a lot of mounted, lance-bearing spiders, that were going in to catch a young Lipan fly in that web.

As for him, he had whooped his very loudest just before he reached the chaparral, and a gust of wind had helped him like a brother. Again Castro had raised a hand, but now he shouted fiercely,--

"Hear heap boy! Red Wolf! No lose hair yet. Ugh! Whoop!"

For all he knew, nevertheless, he may have been listening to the last battle-cry of his brave son. He and his braves were at that moment riding in among the bushes, while more than half a mile away, upon the prairie, galloped Bowie and his riflemen.

"Reckon we'll git thar jest about in time to see 'em count the skelps,"

remarked one ranger.

"Reckon not," replied another. "Those Lipans are as safe as jack-rabbits if once they kin fetch the chaparral."

Red Wolf had reached it, but he was by no means safe. Great Bear himself had dashed in so recklessly that he and his first handful of fast racers were galloping upon the wrong paths. They discovered their error, or thought they did, in a minute or so, but a minute was of importance just then. They lost it before a kind of instinct told them to wheel eastward if they expected to find the Lipans.

That had been the direction taken by one of their best-mounted comrades on entering the chaparral, and the soft thud of his horse's hoofs had now reached the quick ears of Red Wolf.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed. "One!"

He had pulled in his panting pony, and he now unslung his bow and put an arrow on the string.

"Red Wolf young chief!" he said. "Wait for Comanche! Tell Big Knife!"

It was not altogether imprudence or bad management to let his hard-pushed mustang breathe for a few moments. It might be called cunning to let his enemies go by him if they would. But stronger than any cunning, or than any prudence concerning his horse, was his burning ambition to do something that he could boast of afterwards. What is called Indian boasting is only the white man's love of fame in another form. Each red hero is his own newspaper, and has to do his own reporting of his feats of arms.

The hoof-beats came nearer, swiftly, upon a path which crossed his own at the bushes behind which he had halted.

Tw.a.n.g went the bow, the arrow sped, and a screeching death-whoop followed. The Lipan boy did but prove himself altogether a son of Castro when he sprang to the ground and secured his b.l.o.o.d.y war-trophy at the risk of his life. The pony and the weapons of the fallen brave were also taken. Then once more Red Wolf was on the sorrel dashing onward, while behind him rose the angry yells of the Comanches, who had heard the death-cry and knew that one of their number had "gone under."

"Ugh! Heap boy! Save hair!" was the hoa.r.s.e-toned greeting given to his son by Castro three minutes later.

"Comanche!" said Red Wolf, holding up his gory prize. "Great Bear come. Not many braves right away. Too many pretty soon. Heap run.

Ugh!"

Castro understood the situation well enough without much explanation, and his prospects did not seem to be very good. He and his braves were too few to win a pitched battle and too many for concealment.

"Ugh!" he replied to Red Wolf. "Great chief no run. Die hard. Heap fight."

The one thing in his favor was the first mistake made by Great Bear.

It had kept him from being in person among the next half-dozen of the braves who had gone to the left, so very close upon the heels of Red Wolf. Even their wrath for the fate of their foremost man did but send them on the more recklessly to avenge him. They whooped savagely as they galloped past his body at the crossing of the paths. They still believed they had only one Lipan to deal with, but they were terribly undeceived, for their blind rush into the presence of Castro and his warriors was as if they had fallen into a skilfully set ambuscade.

They were taken by surprise, outnumbered, almost helpless, and down they went, not one of them escaping.

Away behind them, the fast-arriving main body of the Comanches listened to the death-shouts and to the Lipan whoops of triumph, and they obeyed the astonished yell with which their leader summoned them to gather to him at the spot where he had halted.