The Quest of the Four Part 9

Phil was awakened at midnight to take his turn at the watch. The night, as it is so often on the plains of Texas, even in summer, was cold, and he shivered a little when he drew himself out of his warm blankets. The fires were nearly out, leaving only a few coals that did not warm, and few figures were moving except outside the circle. His body told Phil that he would much rather sleep on, but his mind told him with greater force that he must go ahead and do his duty with a willing heart, a steady hand, and a quick eye. So he shook himself thoroughly, and was ready for action. His orders were to go in the timber a little to the northward and watch for snipers. Three others were going with him, but they were to separate and take regular beats.

Phil shouldered his rifle and marched with his comrades. They pa.s.sed outside the circles of wagons, and stood for a few moments on the bare plain. Afar off they saw their own mounted sentinels who watched to the westward, riding back and forth. The moon was cold, and a chill wind swept over the swells, moaning dismally. Phil shivered and was glad that he had a watch on foot in the timber. His comrades were willing to hasten with him to that shelter, and there they arranged their beats.

The belt of timber was about a hundred yards wide, with a considerable undergrowth of bushes and tall weeds. They cut the hundred yards into about four equal s.p.a.ces, and Phil took the quarter next to the river.

He walked steadily back and forth over the twenty-five yards, and at the western end of his beat he regularly met the next sentinel, a young Mississippian named Welby, whom Phil liked. They exchanged a few words now and then, but, save their low tones, the monotonous moaning of the wind among the trees, and an occasional sigh made by the current of the river, which here flowed rather swiftly, there was no sound. On the opposite bank the trees and bushes reared themselves, a wall of dark green.

The chill of the night grew, but the steady walking back and forth had increased the circulation and warmed the blood in Phil's veins, and he did not feel it. His long sleep, too, had brought back all his strength, and he was full of courage and zeal. He had suffered a reaction after the battle, but now the second reaction came. The young victor, refreshed in mind and body, feared nothing. Neither was he lonely nor awed by the vast darkness of night in the wilderness. The words that he spoke with Welby every few minutes were enough to keep him in touch with the human race, and he really felt content with himself and the world.

He had done his duty under fire, and now he was doing his duty again.

He paused a little longer every time he came to the river, and forcing his mind now to note every detail, he was impressed by the change that the stream had undergone. There was a fine full moon, and the muddy torrent of the day was turned into silver, sparkling more brightly where the bubbles formed and broke. The stream, swollen doubtless by rains about its source, flowed rapidly with a slight swishing noise. Phil looked up and down it, having a straight sweep of several hundred yards either way. Now and then the silver of its surface was broken by pieces of floating debris, brought doubtless from some far point. He watched these fragments as they pa.s.sed, a bough, a weed, or a stump, or the entire trunk of a tree, wrenched by a swollen current from some caving bank. He was glad that he had the watch next to the river, because it was more interesting. The river was a live thing, changing in color, and moving swiftly. Its surface, with the objects that at times swept by on it, was a panorama of varied interest.

Besides Welby he saw no living creature. The camp was hidden from him completely by the trees and bushes, and they were so quiet within the circle of the wagons that no sound came from them. An hour pa.s.sed. It became two, then three. Vaporous clouds floated by the moon. The silver light on the river waned. The current became dark yellow again, but flowing as ever with that soft, swishing sound. The change affected Phil. The weird quality of the wilderness, clothed in dark, made itself felt. He was glad when he met Welby, and they lingered a few seconds longer, talking a little. He came back once more to the river, now flowing in a torrent almost black between its high banks.

He took his usual long survey of the river, both up and down stream.

Phil was resolved to do his full duty, and already he had some experience, allied with faculties naturally keen. He examined the opposite bank with questioning eyes. At first it had seemed a solid wall of dark green, but attention and the habit of the darkness now enabled him to separate it into individual trees and bushes. Comanches ambushed there could easily shoot across the narrow stream and pick off a white sentinel, but he had always kept himself well back in his own bushes, where he could see and yet be hidden.

His gaze turned to the river. Darker substances, drift from far banks, still floated on its surface. The wind had died. The branches of the trees did not move at all, and, in the absence of all other sound, the slight swishing made by the flowing of the river grew louder. His wandering eyes fastened on a small stump that was coming from the curve above, and that floated easily on the surface. Its motion was so regular that his glance stayed, and he watched it with interested eyes.

It was an independent sort of stump, less at the mercy of the current than the others had been. It came on, bearing in toward the western bank, and Phil judged that if it kept its present course it would strike the sh.o.r.e beneath him.

The black stump was certainly interesting. He looked farther. Four feet behind it was floating another stump of about the same size, and preserving the same direction, which was a diagonal line with the current. That was a coincidence. Yet farther was a third stump, showing all the characteristics of the other two. That was remarkable.

And lo! when a fourth, and then a fifth, and then a sixth came, a floating line, black and silent, it was a prodigy.

The first black stump struck lightly against the bank. Then a Comanche warrior, immersed hitherto to the chin, rose from the stream. The water ran in black bubbles from his naked body. In his right hand he held a long knife. The face was sinister, savage, and terrible beyond expression. Another of the stumps was just rising from the stream, but Phil fired instantly at the first face, and then sprang back, shouting, "The Comanches." He did not run. He merely sheltered himself behind a tree, and began to reload rapidly. Welby came running through the bushes, and then the others, drawn by the shout. In a minute the timber was filled with armed men.

"What is it? What is it? What did you shoot at?" they cried, although the same thought was in the minds of every one of them.

"The Comanches!" replied Phil. "They came swimming in a line down the river. Their heads looked like black stumps on the water! I fired at the first the moment he rose from the stream! I think it was their plan to ambush and kill the sentinels!"

Bill Breakstone was among those who had come, and he cried:

"Then we must beat them off at once! We must not give them a chance to get a footing on the bank!"

They rushed forward, Phil with them, his rifle now reloaded, and gazed down at the river. They heard no noise, but that slight swishing sound made by the current, and the surface of the stream was bare. The river flowed as if no foreign body had ever vexed its current. Fifty pairs of eyes used to the wilderness studied the stream and the thickets. They saw nothing. Fifty pairs of ears trained to hear the approach of danger listened. They heard nothing but the faint swishing sound that never ceased. A murmur not pleasant to Phil, arose.

"I've no doubt it was a stump, a real stump," one of the older men said.

A deep flush overspread Phil's face.

"I saw a Comanche with long black hair rise from the water," he said.

The man who had spoken grinned a little, but the expression of his face showed that doubt had solidified into certainty.

"A case of nerves," he said, "but I don't blame you so much, bein' only a boy."

Phil felt his blood grow hot, but he tried to restrain his temper.

"I certainly saw a Comanche," he said, "and there were others behind him!"

"Then what's become of all this terrible attack?"! asked the man ironically.

"Come! Come!" said Woodfall. "We can't have such talk. The boy may have made a mistake, but the incident showed that he was watching well, just what we want our sentinels to do."

Phil flushed again. Woodfall's tone was kindly, but he was hurt by the implication of possible doubt and mistake. Yet Woodfall and the others had ample excuse for such doubts. There was not the remotest sign of an enemy. Could he really have been mistaken? Could it have been something like a waking dream? Could his nerves have been so upset that they made his eyes see that which was not? He stared for a full minute at the empty face of the river, and then a voice called:

"Oh, you men, come down here! I've something to show you!"

It was Bill Breakstone, who had slipped away from them and gone down the bank. His voice came from a point at least a hundred yards down the stream, and the men in a group followed the sound of it, descending the slope with the aid of weeds and bushes. Bill was standing at the edge of a little cove which the water had hollowed out of the soft soil, and something dark lay at his feet.

"I dragged this out of the water," he said. "It was floating along, when an eddy brought it into this cove."

They looked down, and Phil shut off a cry with his closed teeth. The body, a Comanche warrior, entirely naked, lay upon its back. There was a bullet hole in the center of the forehead. The features, even in death, were exactly those that the boy had seen rising from the water, sinister, savage, terrible beyond expression. Phil felt a cold horror creeping through all his bones, but it was the look of this dead face more than the fact that he had killed a man. He shuddered to think what so much malignant cruelty could have done had it gained the chance.

"Well, men," said Bill Breakstone quietly, "was the story our young friend here told such stuff as dreams are made on, or did it really happen?"

"The boy told the truth, and he was watching well," said a half dozen together.

The old frontiersman who had so plainly expressed his disbelief in Phil--Gard was his name--extended his hand and said to the lad:

"I take it all back. You've saved us from an ambush that would have cost us a lot of men. I was a fool. Shake hands."

Phil, with a great leap of pride, took the proffered hand and shook it heartily.

"I don't blame you, Mr. Gard," he said. "Things certainly looked against me."

"The Comanches naturally took to flight when their leader was killed,"

said Woodfall. "They could not carry through such an attempt without surprise, but good eyes stopped them."

Phil's heart leaped again with pride, but he said nothing. They climbed back up the slope, and the guard in the timber was tripled for the short time until day. Phil was told that, as he had already done so much, he might go off duty now.

He was glad enough to seek rest, and so rapidly was he becoming used to danger that he lay down calmly before one of the fires and went to sleep again. He awoke two or three hours later to a crisp fresh morning, and to the news that the train would promptly resume its advance, whether or not Comanches tried to bar the way. With the intoxicating odor of victory still in their nostrils, the hardy frontiersmen were as willing as ever for another combat. But the enemy had disappeared completely.

A brilliant sun rose over the gray-green swells, disclosing nothing but a herd of antelope that grazed far to the right.

"The antelope mean that no Comanches are near," said Arenberg. "The warriors will now wait patiently and a long time for a good opportunity.

Sometimes much harm iss done where much iss intended."

"That is so," chanted Bill Breakstone.

"Over the plains we go, Our rifles clear the way.

The Indians would say no.

Our band they cannot stay.

"As I have often remarked before, Phil, my poetry may be defective in meter and some other small technicalities, but it comes to the point.

That, I believe, was the characteristic of Shakespeare, also. I agree, too, with Arenberg, that the Comanches will not trouble us again for some time. So, I pray thee, be of good cheer, Sir Philip of the Merry Countenance, Knight of the Battle beside the Unknown River, Slayer of Comanches in the Dark, Guardian of the Public Weal, et cetera, et cetera."

"I am cheerful," said Phil, to whom Breakstone was always a tonic, "and I believe that we can beat off the Comanches any time and every time."

"Jump on your horse," said Breakstone, a little later; "we're all ready."