The White Scalper Part 32

"Good!" the Chief continued, "Let my son look."

He then went up to the stake and fastened to it the feather and lock of hair Blue-fox had given him.

"This feather and this hair will remain here until the man to whom they belong returns to claim them," he said.

The Apache Chief answered in his turn--

"I swear on my totem to come and redeem them at the appointed time."

"Wah! My brother is free," Black-deer continued; "here is the feather of a Chief; it will serve him as a recognition if the warriors of my nation were to meet him. Still, my brother will remember that he is forbidden communicating in any way with the braves of his nation ambushed round the village."

"Blue-fox will remember it."

After uttering these few words without even exchanging a look with his son, who stood motionless by his side, the Chief took the feather Black-deer offered him, leaped on the horse which had brought the young man, and started at a gallop, not looking back once. When he had disappeared in the darkness, the Chiefs went up to the boy, bound him securely, and confined him in the Medicine Lodge under the guardianship of several warriors.

"Now," said Black-deer, "for the others."

And mounting his horse in his turn, he left the village.

CHAPTER XV.

THE AMBUSCADE.

The European traveller, accustomed to the paltry landscapes which man has carved out corresponding with his own stature and the conventional nature he has, as it were, contrived to create, can in no way figure to himself the grand and sublime aspect presented by the great American forests, where all seems to sleep, and the ever open eye of G.o.d alone broods over the world. The unknown rumours, without any apparent cause, which incessantly rise from earth to sky like the powerful breathing of sleeping nature, and mingle with the monotonous murmur of the streams, as they rustle over the pebbles of their bed; and at intervals, the mysterious breeze which pa.s.ses over the tufted tops of the trees, slowly bending them with a gentle rustling of leaves and branches--all this leads the mind to reverie, and fills it with a religious respect for the sublime works of the Creator.

We fancy we have given a sufficiently detailed account of the village of the Antelope Comanches, to be able to dispense with further reference to it; we will merely add that it was built in an amphitheatrical shape, and descended with a gentle incline to the river. This position prevented the enemy surrounding the village, whose approaches were guarded from surprise by the trees having been felled for some distance.

Loyal Heart and his comrades advanced slowly, with their rifles on their thigh, attentively watching the neighbourhood, and ready, at the slightest suspicious movement in the tall gra.s.s, to execute a vigorous charge. All, however, remained quiet round them; at times they heard a coyote baying at the moon, or the noise of an owl concealed by the foliage; but that was all, and a leaden silence fell again on the savannah. At times they saw in the bluish rays of the moon indistinct forms appear on the banks of the river; but these wandering shadows were evidently wild beasts which had left their lurking places to come down and drink.

The march continued thus without enc.u.mbrance or alarm of any description, until the adventurers had reached the covert, when a dense gloom suddenly enveloped them, and did not allow them to distinguish objects ten yards ahead. Loyal Heart did not consider it prudent to advance further in a neighbourhood he did not know, and where he saw the risk at each step of falling into an ambuscade; consequently the little band halted. The horses were made to lie down on their side, their legs were fastened, and their nostrils drawn in with a rope, so that they could neither stir nor make a sound, and the adventurers, concealing themselves, waited while watching with the most profound attention.

From time to time they saw hors.e.m.e.n crossing a clearing, and all going in different directions; some pa.s.sed close enough to touch them without perceiving the hunters, owing to the precautions the latter had taken, and then disappeared in the forest. Several hours pa.s.sed thus, the hunters being quite unable to comprehend the delay, the reason for which the reader, however, knows; the moon had disappeared, and the darkness become denser. Loyal Heart, not knowing to what he should attribute Black-deer's lengthened absence, and fearing some unforeseen misfortune had burst on the village, was about to give the order for returning, when Tranquil, who, by crawling on his hands and knees, had reached the open plain where he remained for some time as scout, suddenly returned to his comrades.

"What is the matter?" Loyal Heart whispered in his ear.

"I cannot say," the hunter answered, "I do not understand it myself.

About an hour back, an Indian suddenly sprung up by my side as if emerging from the ground, and leaping on a horse of whose presence I was equally ignorant, started at full speed in the direction of the village."

"That is strange," Loyal Heart muttered; "and you do not know who the Indian is?"

"Apache."

"Apache, impossible!"

"That is just the point that staggers me; how could an Apache venture to the village alone?"

"There is something up we do not know; and then the signals we heard?"

"This man answered them."

"What is to be done?"

"Find out."

"But in what way?"

"Why, hang it, by rejoining our friends."

Loyal Heart shook his head.

"No," he said, "we must employ some other method, for I promised Black-deer to help him in this expedition, and I will not break my word."

"It is evident that important events have occurred among the tribe."

"That is my opinion too, but you know the prudence of the Indians, so we will not despair yet; stay," he added, as he tapped his forehead, "I have an idea, we shall soon know what is taking place; leave me to act."

"Do you require our help?"

"Not positively; I shall not go out of sight, but if you see me in danger, come up."

"All right,"

Loyal heart took a long rope of plaited leather, which served him as a picquet cord, and laying down his rifle, which might have impeded him in the execution of the daring plan he had formed, lay down on the ground and crawled away like a serpent. The plain was covered with dead trees and enormous stones, while there were wide trenches at certain spots.

This open ground, so singularly broken up, offered, therefore, all the facilities desirable for forming an ambuscade or a post of observation.

Loyal Heart stopped behind an enormous block of red granite, whose height enabled him to stand up, in shelter on all sides save in the direction of the forest. But he had no great risk to run from any enemies concealed in the chaparral, for the night was so dark that it would have been necessary to have followed the hunter's every movement, to discover the spot where he now was.

Loyal Heart was a Mexican; like all his countrymen, whose skill is proverbial in the management of certain weapons, from his youth he had been familiarized with the la.s.so, that terrible arm which renders the Mexican hors.e.m.e.n so formidable. The la.s.so or reata, for this weapon has two names, is a strip of plaited leather, rendered supple by means of grease. It is ordinarily forty-five to fifty feet in length, one of the ends terminating in a running knot, the other being fastened to an iron ring riveted in the saddle; the rider whirls it round his head, sets his horse at a gallop, and on arriving within thirty or five-and-thirty yards of the man or animal he is pursuing, he lets the la.s.so fly, so that the running knot may fall on the shoulders of his victim. At the same time that he lets the la.s.so go, the rider makes his horse suddenly turn in the opposite direction, and the enemy he has la.s.soed is, in spite of the most strenuous resistance, hurled down and dragged after him. Such is the la.s.so and the way in which it is employed on horseback.

Afoot, matters are effected much in the same fashion, save that, as the la.s.soer has no longer his horse to aid him, he is obliged to display great muscular strength, and is often dragged along for a considerable distance. In Mexico, where this weapon is in general use, people naturally study the means to neutralize its effects, the most efficacious being to cut the la.s.so. This is why all hors.e.m.e.n carry in their boot, within arm's length, a long and sharp knife; still, as the horseman is nearly always unexpectedly la.s.soed, he is strangled ere he has had time to draw his knife. Of one hundred riders la.s.soed thus in a combat or chase, seventy-five are inevitably killed, and the others only escape by a miracle, so much skill, strength, and coolness are needed to cut the fatal knot.

Loyal Heart had the simple idea of forming a running knot at the end of his picquet rope, and la.s.soing the first rider who pa.s.sed within reach.

On getting behind the rock he unrolled the long cord he had fastened round his body; then, after making the slip knot with all the care it demands, he coiled the la.s.so in his hand and waited. Chance seemed to favour the project of the bold hunter, for, within ten minutes at the most, he heard the gallop of a horse going at full speed. Loyal Heart listened attentively; the sound approached with great rapidity, and soon the black outline of a horseman stood out in the night. The direction followed by the rider compelled him to pa.s.s within a short distance of the block of granite behind which Loyal Heart was concealed. The latter spread out his legs to have a firmer holdfast, bent his body slightly forward, and whirled the la.s.so round his head. At the moment when the horseman came opposite to him, Loyal Heart let the la.s.so fly, and it fell with a whiz on the shoulders of the rider, who was roughly hurled to the ground ere he knew what was happening to him. His horse, which was at full speed, went on some distance further, but then perceiving that its rider had left it, it slackened its pace, and presently halted.

In the meanwhile Loyal Heart bounded like a tiger on the man he had so suddenly unsaddled. The latter had not uttered a cry, but remained motionless at the spot where he had been hurled. Loyal Heart at first fancied him dead, but it was not so; his first care was to free the wounded man from the running knot, drawn so tightly round his neck, in order to enable him to breathe; then, without taking the trouble to look at his victim, he pinioned him securely, threw him over his shoulders, and returned to the spot where his comrades were awaiting him.

The latter had seen, or at least heard, what had happened; and far from dreaming of the means employed by the young man, although they were well acquainted with it, they knew not to what they should attribute the rough way in which the rider had been hurled from his horse.

"Oh, oh," Tranquil said, "I fancy you have made a fine capture."

"I think so too," Loyal Heart answered, as he deposited his burden on the ground.

"How on earth did you manage to unsaddle him so cleverly?"

"Oh! In the simplest way possible. I la.s.soed him."