The Quest of the Four Part 14

The tread of the Comanches and their occasional talk died away, the lights disappeared from the creek bed, and the regions, outside the medicine lodge and the other lodges, were left to the darkness and the rain. Phil felt deep satisfaction, but he yet remained motionless and silent. He longed to call to Breakstone, but he dreaded lest he might do something rash. Bill Breakstone was older than he, and had spent many years in the wilderness. It was for him to act first. Phil, despite an overwhelming desire to move and to speak, held himself rigid and voiceless. In a half hour came the soft, whispering question:

"Phil, are you there?"

It was Breakstone from the next tree, and never was sound more welcome.

He raised himself a little, and drops of rain fell from his face.

"Yes, I'm here, Bill, but I'm mighty anxious to move," he replied in the same low tone.

"I'm tired of having my home in a graveyard, too," said Bill Breakstone, "though I'll own that for the time and circ.u.mstances it was about the best home that could be found this wide world over. It won't be more than an hour till day, Phil, and if we make the break at all we must make it now."

"I'm with you," said Phil. "The sooner we start, the better it will please me."

"Better stretch yourself first about twenty times," said Bill Breakstone. "Lying so long in one position with the rain coming down on top of you may stiffen you up quite a lot."

Phil obeyed, flexing himself thoroughly. He sat up and gently touched the mummy on either side of him. He had no awe, no fear of these dead warriors. They had served him well. Then, swinging from a bough, he dropped lightly to the ground, and he heard the soft noise of some one alighting near him. The form of Bill Breakstone showed duskily.

"Back from the tombs," came the cheerful whisper. "Phil, you're the greatest boy that ever was, and you've done a job that the oldest and boldest scout might envy.

"I was a captive, The Indians had me; Phil was adaptive, Now they've lost me.

"I composed that rhyme while I was lying on the death platform up there.

I certainly had plenty of time--and now which way did you come, Phil?"

"Under the shelter of the creek bank. The woods run down to it, and it is high enough to hide a man."

"Then that is the way we will go, and we will not linger in the going.

Let the Comanches sing and dance if they will. They can enjoy themselves that way, but we can enjoy ourselves more by running down the dark bed of a creek."

They slipped among the wet trees and bushes, and silently lowered themselves down the bank into the sand of the creek bottom. There they took a parting look at the medicine lodge. It showed through a rift in the trees, huge and dark, and on either side of it the two saw faint lights in the village. Above the soft swishing of the rain rose the steady whistling sound from the lodge, which had never been broken for a moment, not even by the escape of the prisoner and the search.

"I was never before so glad to tell a place good-by," whispered Bill Breakstone.

"It's time to go," said Phil. "I'll lead the way, as I've been over it once."

He walked swiftly along the sand, keeping well under cover of the bank, and Bill Breakstone was close behind him. They heard the rain pattering on the surface of the water, and both were wet through and through, but joy thrilled in every vein of the two. Bill Breakstone had escaped death and torture; Phil Bedford, a boy, had rescued him in face of the impossible, and they certainly had full cause for rejoicing.

"How far down the creek bed do you think we ought to go?" asked Breakstone.

"A quarter of a mile anyway," replied Phil, "and then we can cut across the plain and enter the forest."

Everything had been so distinct and vivid that he remembered the very place at which he had dropped down into the creek bed, when he approached the medicine lodge, and when he came to it again, he said: "Here we are," springing up at one bound. Breakstone promptly followed him. Then a figure appeared in the dusk immediately in front of Phil, the figure of a tall man, naked save the breech cloth, a great crown of brightly colored feathers upon his head. It was a Comanche warrior, probably the last of those returning from the fruitless search for the captive.

The Comanche uttered the whoop of alarm, and Phil, acting solely on impulse, struck madly with the b.u.t.t of his rifle. But he struck true.

The fierce cry was suddenly cut short. The boy, with a shuddering effect, felt something crush beneath his rifle stock. Then he and Bill Breakstone leaped over the fallen body and ran with all their might across the plain toward the woods.

"It was well that you hit so quick and hard," breathed Breakstone, "but his single yell has alarmed the warriors. Look back, they are getting ready to pursue."

Phil cast one hurried glance over his shoulder. He saw lights twinkling among the Comanche lodges, and then he heard a long, deep, full-throated cry, uttered by perhaps a hundred throats.

"Hark to them!" exclaimed Breakstone. "They know the direction from which that cry came, and you and I, Phil, will have to make tracks faster than we ever did before in our lives."

"At any rate, we've got a good start," said Phil.

They ran with all speed toward the woods, but behind them and in other directions they heard presently the beat of hoofs, and both felt a thrill of alarm.

"They are on their ponies, and they are galloping all over the plain,"

said Bill Breakstone. "Some of them are bound to find us, but you've the rifle, and I've the pistol!"

They ran with all their might, but from two or three points the ominous beat of hoofs came closer. They were devoutly glad now of the rain and the shadowed moon that hid them from all eyes except those very near.

Both Phil and Breakstone stumbled at intervals, but they would recover quickly, and continue at undiminished, speed for the woods, which were now showing in a blacker line against the black sky.

There was a sudden swift beat of hoofs, and two warriors galloped almost upon them. Both the warriors uttered shouts at sight of the fugitives, and fired. But in the darkness and hurry they missed. Breakstone fired in return, and one of the Indians fell from his pony. Phil was about to fire at the other, but the Comanche made his pony circle so rapidly that in the faint light he could not get any kind of aim. Then he saw something dark shoot out from the warrior's hand and uncoil in the air.

A black, snakelike loop fell over Bill Breakstone's head, settled down on his shoulders, and was suddenly drawn taut, as the mustang settled back on his haunches. Bill Breakstone, caught in the la.s.so, was thrown to the ground by the violent jerk, but with the stopping of the horse came Phil's chance. He fired promptly, and the Comanche fell from the saddle. The frightened mustang ran away, just as Breakstone staggered dizzily to his feet. Phil seized him by the arm.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "A black, snakelike loop fell over Bill Breakstone's head"]

"Come, Bill, come!" he cried. "The woods are not thirty yards away!"

"Once more unto the breach, or rather the woods!" exclaimed the half-unconscious man. "Lead on, Prince Hal, and I follow! That's mixed, but I mean well!"

They ran for the protecting woods, Breakstone half supported by Phil, and behind them they now heard many cries and the tread of many hoofs.

A long, black, snake-like object followed Bill Breakstone, trailing through the gra.s.s and weeds. They had gone half way before Phil noticed it. Then he s.n.a.t.c.hed out his knife and severed the la.s.so. It fell quivering, as if it were a live thing, and lay in a wavy line across the gra.s.s. But the fugitives were now at the edge of the woods, and Bill Breakstone's senses came back to him in full.

"Well done again, Sir Philip of the Knife and the Ready Mind," he whispered. "I now owe two lives to you. I suppose that if I were a cat I would in the end owe you nine. But suppose we turn off here at an angle to the right, and then farther on we'll take another angle. I think we're saved. They can't follow us on horses in these dense woods, and in all this darkness."

They stepped lightly now, but drew their breaths in deep gasps, their hearts throbbing painfully, and the blood pounding in their ears. But they thanked G.o.d again for the clouds and the moonless, starless sky.

It could not be long until day, but it would be long enough to save them.

They went nearly a quarter of a mile to the right, and then they took another angle, all the while bearing deeper into the hills. From time to time they heard the war cries of the Comanches coming from different points, evidently signals to one another, but there was no sound of footsteps near them.

"Let's stop and rest a little," said Bill Breakstone. "These woods are so thick and there is so much undergrowth that they cannot penetrate here with horses, and, as they know that at least one of us is armed, they will be a little wary about coming here on foot. They know we'd fight like tigers to save ourselves. 'Thrice armed is he who hath his quarrel just,' and if a man who is trying to save his life hasn't got a just quarrel, I don't know who has. Here's a good place."

They had come to a great oak which grew by the side of a rock projecting from a hill. The rain had been gentle, and the little alcove, formed by the rock above and the great trunk of the tree on one side, was sheltered and dry. Moreover, it contained many dead leaves of the preceding autumn, which had been caught there when whirled before the winds. It was large enough for two, and they crept into it, not uttering but feeling deep thanks.

CHAPTER VII

THE GREAT SLEEP

When Phil drew the warm leaves about him he felt a mighty sensation of relief, accompanied by a complete mental and physical relaxation. The supreme tension of the spirit that had borne him up so long was gone now, when it was needed no longer, and he uttered a deep sigh of content. Bill Breakstone put a hand upon his shoulder.

"Phil," he said simply, "I owe you so much that I can't ever repay it."

"Your chance will come," replied the boy. "You'll probably do more for me than I've ever done for you."