The Scalp Hunters Part 42

I saw it piercing his brown breast, as a drop of sleet strikes upon the pane of gla.s.s; the red spout gushed forth, and the victim fell forward upon the body of one of the animals.

"Wagh! Rube!" exclaimed one of the men; "why didn't ye give him time to skin the meat? He mout as well 'a done that when he war about it;" and the man laughed at his savage jest.

"Look 'ee hyur, boyees!" said Rube, pointing to the motte; "if 'ee look sharp, yur mout scare up another calf yander away! I'm a-gwine to see arter this Injun's har; I am."

The hunters, at the suggestion, galloped off to surround the motte.

I felt a degree of irresolution and disgust at this cool shedding of blood. I drew my rein almost involuntarily, and moved forward to the spot where the savage had fallen. He lay back uppermost. He was naked to the breech-clout. There was the debouchure of a bullet below the left shoulder, and the black-red stream was trickling down his ribs.

The limbs still quivered, but it was in the last spasms of parting life.

The hide in which he had disguised himself lay piled up where it had been flung. Beside it were a bow and several arrows. The latter were crimsoned to the notch, the feathers steeped in blood and clinging to the shafts. They had pierced the huge bodies of the animals, pa.s.sing through and through. Each arrow had taken many lives! The old trapper rode up to the corpse, and leisurely dismounted from his mare.

"Fifty dollar a plew!" he muttered, unsheathing his knife and stooping over the body. "It's more'n I got for my own. It beats beaver all hollow. Cuss beaver, say this child. Plew a plug--ain't worth trappin'

if the varmint wur as thick as gra.s.s-jumpers in calf-time. 'Ee up, niggur," he continued, grasping the long hair of the savage, and holding the face upward; "let's get a squint of your phisog. Hooraw! Coyote 'Pash! Hooraw!"

And a gleam of triumph lit up the countenance of the old man as he uttered these wild exclamations.

"Apash, is he?" asked one of the hunters, who had remained near the spot.

"That he are, Coyote 'Pash, the very niggurs that bobtailed this child's ears. I kin swar to thur ugly picters anywhur I get my peepers upon 'em. Wouwough--ole woofy! got 'ee at last, has he! Yur a beauty, an'

no mistake."

So saying, he gathered the long crown locks in his left hand, and with two slashes of his knife, held quarte and tierce, he cut a circle around the top of the head, as perfect as if it had been traced by compa.s.ses.

He then took a turn of the hair over his wrist, giving it a quick jerk outward. At the same instant, the keen blade pa.s.sed under the skin, and the scalp was taken!

"Counts six," he continued, muttering to himself while placing the scalp in his belt; "six at fifty--three hunder shiners for 'Pash har; cuss beaver trappin'! says I."

Having secured the bleeding trophy, he wiped his knife upon the hair of one of the buffaloes, and proceeded to cut a small notch in the woodwork of his gun, alongside five others that had been carved there already.

These six notches stood for Apaches only; for as my eye wandered along the outlines of the piece, I saw that there were many other columns in that terrible register!

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

ANOTHER "COUP."

A shot ringing in my ears caused me to withdraw my attention from the proceedings of the earless trapper. As I turned I saw a blue cloud floating away over the prairie, but I could not tell at what the shot had been fired. Thirty or forty of the hunters had surrounded the motte, and, halted, were sitting in their saddles in a kind of irregular circle. They were still at some distance from the timber, as if keeping out of arrow-range. They held their guns crosswise, and were shouting to one another.

It was improbable that the savage was alone; doubtless there were some of his companions in the thicket. There could not be many, however, for the underwood was not large enough to conceal more than a dozen bodies, and the keen eyes of the hunters were piercing it in every direction.

They reminded me of so many huntsmen in a gorse waiting the game to be sprung; but here, the game was human.

It was a terrible spectacle. I looked towards Seguin, thinking that he might interfere to prevent the barbarous battue. He noticed my inquiring glance, and turned his face from me. I fancied that he felt ashamed of the work in which his followers were engaged; but the killing, or capture, of whatever Indians might be in the motte had now become a necessary measure, and I knew that any remonstrance of mine would be disregarded. As for the men themselves, they would have laughed at it. This was their pastime, their profession, and I am certain that, at that moment, their feelings were not very different from those which would have actuated them had they been driving a bear from his den. They were, perhaps, a trifle more intense; certainly not more inclined towards mercy.

I reined up my horse, and awaited with painful emotions the _denouement_ of this savage drama.

"Vaya, Irlandes! What did you see?" inquired one of the Mexicans, appealing to Barney. I saw by this that it was the Irishman who had fired the shot.

"A rid-skin, by j.a.pers!" replied the latter.

"Warn't it yer own shadder ye sighted in the water?" cried a hunter, jeeringly.

"Maybe it was the divil, Barney?"

"In trath, frinds, I saw a somethin' that looked mighty like him, and I kilt it too."

"Ha! ha! Barney has killed the devil. Ha! ha!"

"Wagh!" exclaimed a trapper, spurring his horse toward the thicket; "the fool saw nothin'. I'll chance it, anyhow."

"Stop, comrade!" cried the hunter Garey; "let's take a safer plan.

Redhead's right. Thar's Injuns in them bushes, whether he seen it or not; that skunk warn't by himself, I reckin; try this a way!"

The young trapper dismounted, and turned his horse broadside to the bushes. Keeping on the outside, he commenced walking the animal in a spiral ring that gradually closed in upon the clump. In this way his body was screened; and his head only could be seen above the pommel of his saddle, over which he rested his rifle, c.o.c.ked and ready.

Several others, observing this movement on the part of Garey, dismounted, and followed his example.

A deep silence prevailed as they narrowed the diameters of their circling courses.

In a short time they were close in to the motte, yet still no arrow whizzed out. Was there no one there? So it seemed; and the men pushed fearlessly into the thicket.

I watched all this with excited feelings. I began to hope there was no one in the bushes. I listened to every sound; I heard the snapping of the twigs and the muttering of the men. There was a moment's silence as they pushed eagerly forward.

Then I heard a sudden exclamation, and a voice calling out--

"Dead red-skin! Hurrah for Barney!"

"Barney's bullet through him, by the holies!" cried another. "Hollo, old sky-blue! Come hyar and see what ye've done!"

The rest of the hunters, along with the _ci-devant_ soldier, now rode forward to the copse. I moved slowly after. On coming up, I saw them dragging the body of an Indian into the open ground: a naked savage, like the other. He was dead, and they were preparing to scalp him.

"Come now, Barney!" cried one of the men in a joking manner, "the har's your'n. Why don't ye off wid it, man?"

"It's moine, dev yez say?" asked Barney, appealing to the speaker.

"Sartinly; you killed him. It's your'n by right."

"An' it is raaly worth fifty dollars?"

"Good as wheat for that."

"Would yez be so frindly, thin, as to cut it aff for me?"

"Oh! sartinly, wid all the plizyer of life," replied the hunter, imitating Barney's accent, at the same time severing the scalp, and handing it to him.

Barney took the hideous trophy, and I fancy that he did not feel very proud of it. Poor Celt! he may have been guilty of many a breach in the laws of garrison discipline, but it was evident that this was his first lesson in the letting of human blood.

The hunters now dismounted, and commenced trampling the thicket through and through. The search was most minute, for there was still a mystery.

An extra bow--that is to say, a third--had been found, with its quiver of arrows. Where was the owner? Could he have escaped from the thicket while the men were engaged around the fallen buffaloes? He might, though it was barely probable; but the hunters knew that these savages run more like wild animals, like hares, than human beings, and he might have escaped to the chapparal.