The Texan Star Part 14

"Shall we take the musket?" asked Ned. "It's unloaded, and we have nothing with which to load it."

"I think we'll stick to it," replied Obed, "we may find a use for it, but the first thing we want, Ned, is something to eat, and we've got to get it. Curious, isn't it, how the fear of recapture, the fear of everything, melts away before the demands of hunger."

"Which means that we'll have to go to some Mexican hut and ask for food," said Ned. "Now, I suggest, since we have no money, that we offer the musket for as much provisions as we can carry."

"It's not a bad idea. But our pistols are loaded and we'll keep them in sight. It won't hurt if the humble peon takes us for brigands. He'll trade a little faster, and, as this is a time of war so far as we are concerned, we have the right to inspire necessary fear."

They started toward the north and west, anxious to leave the tierra caliente as soon as they could and reach the mountains. Ned saw once more the silver cone of Orizaba now on his left. It had not led him on a happy quest before, but he believed that it was a true beacon now. They walked rapidly, staying their hunger as best they could, not willing to approach any hut, until they were a considerable distance from Vera Cruz. It was nearly nightfall when they dared a little adobe hut on a hillside.

"We'll claim to be Spaniards out of money and walking to the City of Mexico," said Obed. "They probably won't believe our statements, but, owing to the sight of these loaded pistols, they will accept them."

It was a poor hut with an adobe floor and its owner, a surly Mexican, was at home, but it contained plenty of food of the coa.r.s.est Mexican type, and Obed White stated their requests very plainly.

"Food we must have," he said, "sufficient for two or three days.

Besides, we want the two serapes hanging there on the wall. I think they are clean enough for our use. In return we offer you this most excellent musket, a beautiful weapon made at Seville. Look at it. It is worth twice what we demand for it. Behold the beautifully carved stock and the fine steel barrel."

The Mexican, a dark, heavy-jawed fellow, regarded them maliciously, while his wife and seven half-naked children sat by in silence, but watching the strangers with the wary, shifting eyes of wild animals.

"Yes, it is a good musket," he said, "but may I inquire if it is your own?"

"For the purposes of barter and sale it is my own," replied Obed politely. "In this land as well as some others possession is ten points of the law."

"The words you speak are Spanish but your tone is Gringo."

"Gringo or Spanish, it does not change the beauty and value of the musket."

"I was in Vera Cruz this morning. Last night there was a storm and the great guns at the mighty Castle of San Juan de Ulua were firing."

"Did they fire the guns to celebrate the storm?"

"No. They gave a signal that two prisoners, vile Texans, were escaping from the dungeons under the sea. But the storm took them, and buried them in the waters of the bay. I heard the description of them. One was a very tall man, thin and with very thick, red hair. The other was a boy, but tall and strong for his age. He had gray eyes and brown hair.

Wretched infidel Texans they were, but they are gone and may the Holy Virgin intercede for their souls."

He lifted his heavy lashes, and he and Obed White looked gravely into the eyes of each other. They and Ned, too, understood perfectly.

"You were informed wrongly," said Obed. "The man who escaped was short and fat, and he had yellow hair. The boy was very dark with black hair and black eyes. But the statement that they were drowned in the bay is correct."

"One might get five hundred good silver pesos for bringing in their bodies."

"One might, but one won't, and you, amigo, are just concluding an excellent bargain. You get this fine, unloaded musket, and we get the food and the serapes for which we have so courteously asked. The entire bargain will be completed inside of two minutes."

The blue eyes and the black eyes met again and the owner of each pair understood.

"It is so," said the Mexican, evenly, and he brought what they wished.

"Good-day, amigo," said Obed politely. "I will repeat that the musket is unloaded, and you cannot find ammunition for it any nearer than Vera Cruz, which will not trouble you as you are here at home in your castle. But our pistols are loaded, and it is a necessary fact for my young friend and myself. We purpose to travel in the hills, where there is great danger of brigands. Fortunately for us we are both able and willing to shoot well. Once more, farewell."

"Farewell," said the Mexican, waving his hand in dignified salute.

"That fellow is no fool," said Obed, as they strode away. "I like a man who can take a hint. A word to the wise is like a st.i.tch in time."

"Will he follow us?"

"Not he. He has that musket which he craved, and at half its value. He does not desire wounds and perhaps death. The chances are ninety-nine out of a hundred that he will never say a word for fear his government will seize his musket."

"And now for the wildest country that we can find," said Ned. "I'm glad it doesn't rain much down here. We can sleep almost anywhere, wrapped in our serapes."

They ate as they walked and they kept on a long time after sunset, picking their way by the moonlight. Two or three times they pa.s.sed peons in the path, but their bold bearing and the pistols in their belts always gave them the road. Brigands flourished amid the frequent revolutions, and the humbler Mexicans found it wise to attend strictly to their own business. They slept again in the open, but this time on a hill in a dense thicket. They had previously drunk at a spring at its base, and lacking now for neither food nor water they felt hope rising continually.

Ned had no dreams the second night, and both awoke at dawn. On the far side of the hill, they found a pool in which they bathed, and with breakfast following they felt that they had never been stronger. Their food was made up in two packs, one for each, and they calculated that with economy it would last two days. They could also reckon upon further supplies from wild fruits, and perhaps more frijoles and tortillas from the people themselves. When they had summed up all their circ.u.mstances, they concluded that they were not in such bad condition. Armed, strong and bold, they might yet traverse the thousand miles to Texas.

Light of heart and foot they started. Off to the left the great silver head of Orizaba looked down at them benignantly, and before them they saw the vast flowering robe of the tierra caliente into which they pushed boldly, even as Cortez and his men had entered it.

Ned was almost overpowered by a vegetation so grand and magnificent.

Except on the paths which they followed, it was an immense and tangled ma.s.s of gigantic trees and huge lianas. Many of the lianas had wound themselves like huge serpents about the trees and had gradually pulled them, no matter how strong, into strange and distorted shapes. Overhead parrots and paroquets chattered amid the vast and gorgeous bloom of red and pink, yellow and white. Ned and Obed were forced to keep to the narrow peon paths, because elsewhere one often could not pa.s.s save behind an army of axes.

The trees were almost innumerable in variety. They saw mahogany, rosewood, Spanish cedar and many others that they did not know. They also saw the cactus and the palm, turned by the struggle for existence in this tremendous forest, into climbing plants. Obed noted these facts with his sharp eye.

"It's funny that the cactus and the palm have to climb to live," he said, "but they've done it. It isn't any funnier, however, than the fact that the whale lived on land millions of years ago, and had to take to the water to escape being eaten up by bigger and fiercer animals than himself. I'm a Maine man and so I know about whales."

They came now and then to little clearings, in which the peons raised many kinds of tropical and semitropical plants, bananas, pineapples, plantains, oranges, cocoa-nuts, mangoes, olives and numerous others. In some places the fruit grew wild, and they helped themselves to it. Twice they asked at huts for the customary food made of Indian corn, and on both occasions it was given to them. The peons were stolid, but they seemed kind and Ned was quite sure they did not care whether the two were Gringos or not. Two or three times, heavy tropical rains gushed down in swift showers, and they were soaked through and through, despite their serapes, but the hot sun, coming quickly afterward, soon dried them out again. They were very much afraid of chills and fever, but their const.i.tutions, naturally so strong, held them safe.

Deeper and deeper they went into the great tropical wilderness of the tierra caliente. Often the heat under the vast canopy of interlacing vines and boughs was heavy and intense. Then they would lie down and rest, first threshing up gra.s.s and bushes to drive away snakes, scorpions and lizards. Sometimes they would sleep, and sometimes they would watch the monkeys and parrots darting about and chattering overhead. Twice they saw fierce ocelots stealing among the tree trunks, stalking prey hidden from the man and boy. The first ocelot was a tawny yellow and the second was a reddish gray. Both were marked with black spots in streaks and in lengthened rings. The second was rather the larger of the two. He seemed to be slightly over four feet in length, of which the body was three feet and the tail about a foot.

Ned and Obed were lying flat upon the ground, when the second ocelot appeared, and, as the wind was blowing from him toward them, he did not detect their presence. At the distance the figure of the great cat was enlarged. He looked to them almost like a tiger and certainly he was a ferocious creature, as he stalked his prey. Neither would have cared to meet him even with weapons in hand. Suddenly he darted forward, ran up the trunk of a great tree and disappeared in the dense foliage. As he did not come down again they inferred that he had caught what he was pursuing and was now devouring it.

Ned shivered a little and put his hand on the b.u.t.t of his loaded pistol.

"Obed," he said, "I don't like the jungle, and I shall be glad when I get out of it. It's too vast, too bewildering, and its very beauty fills me with fear. I always feel that fangs and poison are lurking behind the beauty and the bloom."

"You're not so far wrong, Ned. I believe I'd rather be on the dusty deserts of the North. We'll go through the tierra caliente just as quickly as we can."

The next day they became lost among the paths, and did not regain their true direction until late in the afternoon. Sunset found them by the banks of a considerable creek, the waters of which were cold, as if its source were in the high mountains. Being very tired they bathed and arranged couches of gra.s.s on the banks. After the heat and perplexity of the jungle they were very glad to see cold, running water. The sight and the pleasant trickle of the flowing stream filled Ned with desires for the north, for the open land beyond the Rio Grande, where cool winds blew, and you could see to the horizon's rim. He was sicker than ever of the jungle, the beauty of which could not hide from him its steam and poison.

"How much longer do you think it will be before we leave the tierra caliente?" he asked.

"We ought to reach the intermediate zone between the tierra caliente and the higher sierras in three or four days," replied Obed. "It's mighty slow traveling in the jungle, but to get out of it we've only to keep going long enough. Meanwhile, we'll have a good snooze by the side of this nice, clean little river."

As usual after hard traveling, they fell asleep almost at once, but Ned was awakened in the night by some strange sound, the nature of which he could not determine at first. The jungle surrounded them in a vast, high circle, wholly black in the night, but overhead was a blue rim of sky lighted by stars. He raised himself on his elbow. Obed, four or five feet away, was still sleeping soundly on his couch of gra.s.s. The little river, silver in the moonlight, flowed with a pleasant trickle, but the trickle was not the sound that had awakened him.

The forest was absolutely silent. Not a breath of wind stirred, but the boy, although awed by the night and the great jungle, still listened intently.

The sound rose again, a low, hoa.r.s.e rumble. It was distant thunder. A storm was coming. He heard it a third time. It was not thunder. It was the deep growl of some fierce, wild animal. For a moment the boy was afraid. Then he remembered the heavy pistol that never left his belt. It still carried the original load, a large bullet with plenty of gunpowder behind it.

The sounds were repeated and they were nearer. They were like a long drawn p-u, p-u, p-u. The tone was of indescribable ferocity. Ned was brave, but he shivered all over and there was a p.r.i.c.kly sensation at the roots of his hair. He felt like some primeval youth who with club alone must face the rush of the saber-toothed tiger. But he drew upon his reserves of pride which were large. He would not awaken Obed, but, drawing the pistol and holding his fingers on trigger and hammer, he walked a little distance down the bank of the stream. That terrible p-u, p-u, p-u, suddenly sounded much closer at hand, and Ned shrank back, stiffening with horror.

A great black beast, by far the largest wild animal that he had ever seen, came silently out of the jungle and stood before the boy. He was a good seven feet in length, black as a coal, low but of singularly thick and heavy build. His shoulders and paws were more powerful than those of a tiger. As he stood there before Ned, black and sinister as Satan, he opened his mouth, and emitted again that fearful, rumbling p-u, p-u, p-u.

Ned could not move. All his power seemed to have gone into his eyes and he only looked. He saw the red eyes, the black lips wrinkling back from the long, cruel fangs, and the glossy skin rippling over the tremendous muscles. Ned suddenly wrenched himself free from this paralysis of the body, leveled the pistol and fired at a mark midway between the red eyes.