The Quest of the Four Part 24

"If he had put down any," said Phil, "it was rubbed out before it reached me. But I don't think it likely that he even made a guess. Do you know, Bill, I'm afraid that maybe, being shut up in a place like that, it might, after a long time--well, touch his head just a little.

To be shut up in a cell all by yourself for a year, maybe two years, or even more, is a terrible thing, they say."

"Don't think that! Don't think it!" said Bill Breakstone hastily. "The letter doesn't sound as if it were written by one who was getting just a little bit out of tune. Besides, I'm thinking it's a wonderful thing that letter got to you."

"I've thought of that often, myself," exclaimed Phil, a sudden light shining in his eyes. "This is a message, a call for help. It comes out of nowhere, so to speak, out of a hidden stone castle or prison, and in some way it reaches me, for whom it was intended. It seems to me that the chances were a million to one against its coming, but it came. It came! That's the wonderful, the unforgettable thing! It's an omen, Bill, an omen and a sign. If this little paper with the few words on it came to me through stone walls and over thousands of miles, well, I can go back with it to the one who sent it!"

His face was transfigured, and for the time absolute confidence shone in his eyes. Bill Breakstone, a man of sympathetic heart, caught the enthusiasm.

"We'll find him, Phil! We'll find him," he exclaimed.

Philip Bedford, so long silent about this which lay nearest to his heart, felt that a torrent of words was rushing to his lips.

"I can't tell you, Bill," he said, "how I felt when that letter was handed to me. Jim Harrington, a farmer who knew us, brought it over from Frankfort. He was on his horse when he met me coming down the street, and he leaned over and handed it to me. Of course he had read it, as it wasn't in an envelope, and he sat there on his horse looking at me, while I read it, although I didn't know that until afterward.

"Bill, I was so glad I couldn't speak for awhile. We hadn't heard from John in two or three years, and we were all sure that he was dead.

After I read the letter through, I just stood there, holding it out in my hand and looking at it. Then I remember coming back to earth, when Jim Harrington leaned over to me from his saddle and said: 'Phil, is it genuine?'

"'It's real,' I replied, 'I'd know his handwriting anywhere in the world.'

"'What are you going to do, Phil?' he asked.

"'I'm going to start for Mexico to-morrow,' I said.

"'It's a powerful risky undertaking,' he said.

"'I'm going to start for Mexico to-morrow,' I said again.

"Then from his height on the horse he put his hand on my head for a moment and said: 'I knew you'd go, Phil. I know the breed. I was in the War of 1812 with your father, when we were boys together. You're only a boy yourself, but you go to Mexico, and I believe you'll find John.'

"So you see, Bill, even at the very start there was one who believed that I would succeed."

"The signs do point that way," admitted Bill Breakstone. "Every fact is against you, but feeling isn't. I've lived long enough, Phil, to know that the impossible happens sometimes, particularly when a fellow is striving all his might and main to make it happen. What kind of a fellow was this brother of yours, Phil?"

"The finest in the world," replied Phil. "He raised me, Bill, as they say up there in Kentucky. He is four years older than I am, and we were left orphans, young. He taught me about everything I know, helped me at school, and then, when I got big enough, we made traps together, and in the fall and winter caught rabbits. Then I had a little gun, and he showed me how to shoot squirrels. We went fishing in the Kentucky often, and he taught me to ride, too. He was big and strong. Although only a boy himself, he could throw anybody in all the towns about there, but he was so good-natured about it that the men he threw liked him.

Then we began to hear about Texas. Everybody was talking about Texas.

Many were going there, too. It seemed to us the most wonderful country on earth. John caught the fever. He was going to make fortunes for both of us. I don't know how, but he meant to do it. I wasn't big enough to go with him, but he would send for me later. He went down the river to New Orleans. I had a letter from him there, and another from San Antonio, but nothing ever came after that until this dirty, greasy little piece of paper dropped out of the skies. It was four years between."

"Four years between!" repeated Bill Breakstone, "and we don't know what has happened in all that time. But it seems to me, Phil, that you're right. If this little piece of paper has come straight out of the dark thousands of miles to you, then it's going to be a guide to us back to the place where it started, because, Phil, I'm going to help you in this. I've got a secret errand of my own, and I'm not going to tell it to you just yet, but it can wait. I'm going to see you through, Phil, and we're going to find that brother John of yours, if we have to rip open every prison in Mexico."

His own eyes were bright now with the light of enthusiasm, and he held out his hand, which Phil seized. The fingers of the two were compressed in a strong clasp.

"It's mighty good of you, Bill," said the boy, "to help me, because this isn't going to be any easy search."

"It won't be any search at all for awhile," said Bill Breakstone, "because a great war is shoving in between. We are approaching the Rio Grande now, Phil."

The summer was now gone, and they were well into autumn. The train had come a great distance, more miles than any of them could tell. Cool winds blew across the Texas uplands, and the nights were often sharp with cold. Then the fires of cottonwood, dry cactus, or buffalo chips were very welcome, and it was pleasant to sit before them and speculate upon what awaited them on the other side of the Rio Grande. They had pa.s.sed beyond the domain of the Comanches, and they were skirting along the edge of a country that contained scattered houses of adobe or log cabins--Mexicans in the former, and Americans in the latter. These were not combatants, but they were full of news and gossip.

There had been a revolution or something like it in Mexico. The report of the American successes, at the beginning, was true. Taylor had defeated greatly superior numbers along the Rio Grande, and, after a severe battle, had taken Monterey by storm. Then the Mexicans, wild with rage, partly at their own leaders, had turned out Paredes, their president, and the famous Santa Anna had seized the power. Santa Anna, full of energy and Latin eloquence, was arousing the Mexican nation against invasion, and great numbers were gathering to repel the little American armies that had marched across the vast wilderness to the Mexican border. This news made Middleton very serious, particularly that about Santa Anna.

"He's been called a charlatan, a trickster, cruel, unscrupulous, and many other things not good," he said one evening as they sat about a fire, "and probably all the charges are true, but at the same time he is a man of great ability. He has intuition, the power to divine the plans of an opponent, something almost Napoleonic, and he also has fire and energy. He will be a very dangerous man to us. He hates us all the more because the Texans took him at San Jacinto. If I remember rightly, two boys looking for stray mules found him hiding in the gra.s.s the day after the battle, and brought him in a prisoner. Such a man as he is not likely to forget such a humiliation as that."

"I have seen him with my own eyes," said Arenberg. "He iss a cruel man but an able one. Much harm iss meant, and much may be done."

That ended the German's comment, and, taking his pipe, he smoked and listened. But his face, lighted up by the flames, was sad. It was habitually sad, although Phil believed that the man was by nature cheery and optimistic. But Arenberg still kept his secret.

They learned, also, that there had been an armistice between the Americans and the Mexicans, but that Santa Anna had used all the time for preparations. Then the negotiations were broken off, and the war was to pa.s.s into a newer and fiercer phase. Taylor was at Saltillo, about two hundred miles beyond the line, but Scott, who had been on the Rio Grande some time earlier, had taken most of his good officers and troops for the invasion by way of Vera Cruz, and Taylor, with his small remaining force, was expected to stand on the defensive, even to retreat to the Rio Grande. Instead of that, he had advanced boldly into the mountains. Politics, it was said, had intervened, and Taylor was to be shelved. Middleton, usually reserved, commented on this to Phil, Breakstone, and Arenberg, who, he knew, would not repeat his words.

"I've no doubt that this news is true," he said, "and it must be a bitter blow to old Rough and Ready--that's what we call Taylor in the army. He's served all his life with zeal and efficiency, and now he's to be put aside, after beginning a successful and glorious campaign.

It's a great wrong that they're doing to Zachary Taylor."

"But we're going to join him anyhow, are we not?" asked Phil.

"Yes, that's our objective. I should have to do so, because my original instructions were to report to him, and they have not been changed.

And, with Santa Anna leading the Mexicans, what our Government expects to happen at one place may happen at another."

The train itself was now in splendid condition. All the wounded men had fully recovered. The sick horses and mules were well again. The weather had been good, game was plentiful, their diet was varied and excellent, and there was no illness. Moreover, their zeal increased as they drew near the seat of war, and the reports, some true, some false, and all lurid, came thick and fast. It was hard to keep some of them from leaving the train and going on ahead, but Middleton and Woodfall, by strenuous efforts, held them in hand.

They shifted back now toward the east, and came at last to the Rio Grande. Phil was riding ahead of the train, when he caught the first view of it--low banks, an immense channel, mostly of sand, with water, looking yellow and dangerous, flowing here and there in two or three streams. The banks were fringed but spa.r.s.ely with trees, and beyond lay Mexico, the Mexico of Cortez and the Aztecs, the Mexico of gold and romance, and the Mexico of the lost one whom he had come so far to find.

It was one of the most momentous events in Philip Bedford's life, this view of Mexico, to which he had come over such a long trail. It was not beautiful, there across the Rio Grande; it was bare, dark, and dusty, with rolling hills and the suggestion of mountains far off to the right.

The scant foliage was deep in autumn brown. Human life there was none.

Nothing stirred in the vast expanse of desolation. The train was so far behind him that he did not hear the rumbling of the wagon wheels, and he sat there, horse and rider alike motionless, gazing into the misty depths of this Mexico which held so much of mystery and which attracted and repelled at the same time. Question after question throbbed through his mind. Would the Americans succeed in penetrating the mountains that lay beyond? And if so, in what direction was he to go? Which way should he look! It seemed so vast, so inscrutable, that he was appalled. For the first time since he had left that little Paris in Kentucky he felt despair. Such a search as his was hopeless, doomed in the beginning. His face turned gray, his chin sank upon his chest, but then Bill Breakstone rode up beside him, and his loud, cheery voice sounded in his ear.

"Well, here we are at last, Phil," he exclaimed. "We've ridden all the way across Texas, and it must have been a hundred thousand miles. Now we stand, or rather sit, on the sh.o.r.es of the Rio Grande.

"Behold the river!

But I don't quiver.

They call it grand.

It's mostly sand.

It's no Mississippi, Phil, but it's a hard stream for an outfit like ours to cross. I'm glad that Taylor has already cleared the way. You remember what a fight we had with the Comanches back at the crossing of that other and smaller river."

"I do," said Phil, "but there is nothing here to oppose us, and doubtless we can make the crossing in peace."

CHAPTER XI

WITH THE ARMY

The crossing of the Rio Grande was a formidable task, and the train could never have accomplished it in the face of a foe, even small in numbers, but no Mexicans were present, and they went about their task unhindered. One of the streams was too deep to be forded, but they cut down the larger trees and constructed a strong raft, which they managed to steer over with long poles. The reluctant horses and mules were forced upon it, and thus the train was carried in safety over the deep water. Nor was the task then ended. It usually took six horses and ten or twelve men to drag a wagon through the sand and carry it up the bank to the solid earth beyond, the way having been carefully examined in advance in order to avoid quicksand.

It took three days to build the raft and complete the pa.s.sage. Phil had never worked so hard in his life before. He pushed at wagon wheels and pulled at the bridles of mules and horses until every bone in him ached, and he felt as if he never could get his strength again. But the train was safely across, without the loss of a weapon or an animal. They were in Mexico, and they did not deceive themselves about the greatness and danger of the task that lay before them. Phil felt the curious effect which the pa.s.sage over the border from one country to another usually has on people, especially the young. It seemed to him that in pa.s.sing that strip of muddy river he had come upon a new soil, and into a new climate--into a new world, in fact. Yet the Texas sh.o.r.e, in reality, looked exactly like the Mexican, and was like it.

"Well, Phil," said Bill Breakstone, "here we are in Mexico. I'm covered with mud, so are you, and so is Arenberg. I think it's Texas and Mexico mud mixed, so suppose we go down, find a clear place in the water, and get rid of it."