Kitobni o'qish: «The Lost Gold of the Montezumas: A Story of the Alamo», sahifa 6

CHAPTER XI.
THE CHARGE OF THE LANCERS

Days that go by with nothing in them but steady riding, buffalo-killing, and undisturbed camps at the end of each day may be very pleasant but they are not exciting. As Colonel Bowie remarked to his men, however, —

"A squad like ours, mounted as we are, can get ahead faster than a big band like Great Bear's. They'll send scouting-parties ahead, but we can keep out of their way. We're making first-rate time."

So they were, and they were also carefully keeping their horses in good condition for any required run. They carried no baggage, and they had now, they thought, a long "start" ahead of their Comanche pursuers.

The most silent rider among them, not excepting Castro himself, was Red Wolf, and it was not altogether because he was a boy. The fact was that he had been seeing and hearing a great deal, and that he was full to bursting with the spirit of adventure which all the while spoke out in the talk of the Texans.

They told wild stories of old war-paths; of fights of every kind, and of visits to cities and towns of the white men. They talked, too, about gold and silver and what could be done with money, so that the young Lipan grew more and more interested in an idea he never had before, – the idea of riches. It did not yet take complete shape in his mind, excepting in one form, given by Big Knife, the hero. It was what he said about the great gun in the plaza of the Alamo, and the money it would cost to kill Mexicans with that and the other cannon. The "heap guns" themselves had cost a great deal of money. In that shape, or even in the shape of rifles or horses, Red Wolf could now understand it fairly well. He thought of the bags in the hole in the adobe wall, but these, he believed, belonged to Big Knife and the Texans. They could not be the property of a Lipan boy, and he never thought of such a thing for a moment. Very vaguely, moreover, he had gathered that this present war-party expected to find gold and silver and to bring it back with them, after killing enemies and winning glory in fights.

It was all new and it was all wonderful, but there was no use in talking about it, so he kept still and was inclined to ride ahead, or else to linger some distance behind his party.

As yet there had been no sign of any pursuers near them, but toward the close of one long, bright day Red Wolf had fallen so far behind that he was almost out of sight of his pale-face friends.

The swift mustang under him was in fine condition. So very well did he feel that he was restive, and a deer that sprang out of a covert of hazel-bushes as he was going by made him jump and throw up his heels. Not that he was at all afraid of a deer, but that it was curious, perhaps, to find himself carrying a hunter who would not so much as send an arrow after such capital game.

"Ugh!" exclaimed Red Wolf, and it came out sharply, from utter surprise.

In his sudden prancing his pony had wheeled around, and there, coming over a rise of ground not two hundred yards away, rode three Comanches. The instant they were discovered they uttered fierce whoops and dashed forward.

"Wh-oo-p!" yelled the young Lipan, lashing his too spirited pony to a run. "Comanche dog! Red Wolf!"

There was no more to be said just then, however. The warm wind from the south seemed to whistle past him. Far to the right and far to the left yet other war-whoops were sounding. Not the whole band of Great Bear, he thought, but a sufficient number of their best mounted braves to make trouble for Bowie and his men.

There is no such thing as mistaking a war-whoop for any other sound, and now Red Wolf exclaimed "Ugh!" again in still greater astonishment. He knew that there was no bugle among the Texans with Big Knife, but he had heard the sound of one at the fort and afterwards. "Heap whistle" would have been a good translation of his Lipan word for bugle music, and he uttered it loudly. It came from the left, and it was faint at first, but in a few moments it was repeated more sonorously, and he wheeled his mustang in that direction.

At that very moment Castro himself, riding at the head of the squad, lifted his left hand as if pointing and exclaimed, —

"Ugh! Big Knife hear! Mexicans!"

"It's a cavalry bugle, colonel!" shouted Jim Cheyne. "I can ketch it. Thar it comes ag'in – "

"Wheel to the right! Gallop!" replied Bowie. "It's Bravo's lancers. They are this side of the Rio! Now, boys, the chief was just saying we were only a half-hour's ride from the hacienda. His Lipans are there."

Were they? It is not always that a man can give the whereabouts of other men from whom he has been several days absent. A ride of half an hour is also to be measured by the speed of a horse, rather than by feet and inches. Very near them, therefore, if the distance were that of a swift horse on a run, a mule and his rider had halted on the northerly bank of a broad and very muddy river.

Directly across the river, on a low bluff of seemingly bare, sandy ground, there was a long range of low-built houses, part of them surrounded by a wall. They were altogether like a vast number of other Mexican-Spanish haciendas, or head-quarters of important country estates. If this, however, were the Hacienda Dolores, and if Castro's Lipans were there, they had raised over the largest of the adobe structures the eagle flag of Mexico. They had stationed uniformed sentinels here and there, and they had picketed horses, with saddles and military trappings, in long rows near at hand.

"Tetzcatl counts more than four hundred," said the man on the mule. "The Lipans are safe, but the Mexicans must not catch Bowie."

He spoke in Spanish and his voice was quiet enough, but his face was all one quiver of rage and hate as he stared across the river. What if his entire plan was to be broken up and his red and white allies destroyed by this unexpected activity of his Mexican enemies? It was, moreover, a dangerous place of waiting for a solitary old man, to whom no quarter would be given if he were found there by Mexican soldiers.

"Too long! Too long!" he exclaimed. "They ought to be here. It is time!"

At that moment the mule under him stretched his neck and head to send forth a loud and seemingly uncalled-for bray. He had an abundance of ears, but what could he have heard? His white-headed master at first heard nothing at all, but then he drove his spurs into the sides of his trumpeting beast in a way that cut off braying.

"Bowie!" he shouted. "Running. He is trapped by Bravo's men!"

There, indeed, racing as if for life, were the six Texans and Castro, but where was their young Lipan scout, and what was he doing?

Castro was asking that question, and so was the colonel, only the moment before, but now they pulled in their horses to look across the river, in blank dismay, at the flag over the hacienda.

"They've got us this time, colonel!" roared a broad-chested ranger. "Our call has come. Let's die game!"

"You bet we will," said Joe, "but we ain't dead yit. Something's a-goin' on away back yonder. I heard an Injin yell sure's you live."

If he and his friends had not been running away so fast they might have heard a number of Indians yell.

Red Wolf had ridden toward the bugle, not away from it. Hardly three minutes of so swift a run had been required to bring him out in full view of a strong party of mounted men in the brilliant uniform of the Mexican regular lancers. It was just as they obeyed the musical order to go forward at a charging gait. They were splendid horsemen and they moved together in perfect array, but it was not to make a dash upon one Indian boy. They had some reasons for expecting an encounter with the band of Lipans which had quartered, during several days, in and around the deserted hacienda. Here these were now, they thought, apparently ready to be pounced upon and overwhelmed, but this nearest brave upon the mustang showed no sign of hostility. On the contrary, he pulled in, almost halted, and waved his hand to them before pointing back, as if he would say, —

"Your enemies and mine are there. Be ready for them."

Swift orders rang along the charging column, but the solitary Indian wheeled out of their way, still making friendly signs, while over the swells of the prairie came the wild riders of whom he was evidently telling.

To him no more attention could be given just then, for there were more Comanches arriving than Bowie had believed at all likely. They had travelled faster and in better condition than he had calculated, and fully a third of Great Bear's warriors were within reaching distance.

It was a tremendous surprise all around. The fast-gathering braves had expected to close in upon a mere handful of tired-out Texans. The lancers had counted upon a brush with a small war-party of Lipans. Here the two forces were, however, face to face, altogether too near to escape a collision, unless one side or both should lose courage and run away.

Red Wolf had lashed his mustang to its best speed in wheeling from between the combatants, and he barely succeeded, for the Comanches were careering in various directions. It was not their custom to charge in close column.

"Ugh!" said the boy warrior. "Heap fool Comanche. See Great Bear."

The great war-chief was indeed among his men, as cool as ever in spite of the surprise. He had his best braves with him, and they greatly outnumbered the Mexicans. The latter, indeed, rather than the red men, had stumbled into a bad place. They were brave enough, but the Comanches have been called by army officers "the best light cavalry in the world." Not one of them turned to follow Red Wolf any farther, and he did not wait to be followed. He looked behind him only to catch a fleeting view of a terribly confused skirmish. Both sides carried lances. At close quarters, the bows and arrows of the red men were even better weapons than were such firearms as were carried by the cavalry. It certainly took less time to load a bow-string than it did to put a charge into a horse-pistol or a carbine.

The Mexicans were fighting well, Red Wolf could take note of that. What he did not see was the fact that they were going down very fast and that more Comanches were arriving. The one idea in his mind was to overtake his friends.

The river! The great, muddy Rio Grande! Here it was, with not a sign of Colonel Bowie's party upon its desolate bank.

Red Wolf halted in something like dismay, but it was no time for hesitation. His friends could not have gone down southward. Their errand would lead them up the river. He must hunt for them in that direction. Whether he should ever reach them or not was a difficult question, as his first glance across the river told him. It was not so much the flag on the hacienda. He was not afraid of a flag. But the river was shallow and fordable at this point, and a party of lancers had already made its way well out from the farther shore. They, as well as he, could hear the rattling reports and the fierce whooping from the battle that was going on, and they were making as much haste as the muddy bottom permitted. They uttered loud shouts when they caught sight of the one "brave" on the bank, and they fired shot after shot at him, but he was out of range of the short, smooth-bore carbines they were firing. He answered them with a yell of derision and rode on.

"Ugh!" he said. "Heap Mexican! All lose hair. Great Bear come."

Even a Lipan boy could feel more exultation than anything else over the idea that one enemy of his tribe was doing much harm to another. As an Indian, moreover, he could be proud of the prowess of a chief like Great Bear, almost as great a man, in his estimation, as Big Knife or as Castro.

It was a hot skirmish, but it was a short one. Half the lancers were down, but their charge had carried them through the unsteady swarm of their enemies. All that were left were keeping well together and were galloping toward the river, followed by flights of arrows. They would have been more closely followed by wild horsemen but for the fact that the Comanche ponies were at the end of a long, tiresome "push," while the animals of the cavalry were fresh. There was no such thing as catching up with them, and they reached the bank just as their comrades from the opposite shore were wading out.

There were loud shouts of explanation. There were signals to and from the hacienda, but all that could be done was to recross the river. After all, Red Wolf had not won any glory, but his enemies had once more suffered severely in trying to get hold of him.

CHAPTER XII.
THE HORSE-THIEVES AND THE STAMPEDE

"Boys," said Colonel Bowie, sitting upon his panting horse and looking back down the river, "they saw us. I don't think we could make another run. Dismount!"

They were barely a mile and a half above the point where they had struck the Rio Grande, but it was time to give their horses a rest and to consider the situation. They had halted on the brow of a bluff, and they were looking in all directions. Not a man of them could guess from what quarter their next disaster might come.

"Big Knife wait," replied the Lipan chief. "Castro go back for Red Wolf."

"Guess not!" exclaimed Jim Cheyne. "Colonel, if thar isn't that thar old cuss Tetzcatl on his mule."

Here he came, plodding along as calmly as ever, but there was very little news that he could tell them. He could not even explain the presence of General Bravo's regiment of lancers.

"The general said, at the Alamo, that he was going after the Apaches," remarked the colonel, "but here he is."

"Whoop!" rang out from the lower ground easterly. "Who-o-o-oop!"

"Red Wolf!" exclaimed Castro. "Boy no lose hair! Ugh! Heap young brave!"

On he came, and there was no one following him. How could he have escaped? He tried to tell how when he reached them, but before he had finished his story of the Comanches and the lancers Tetzcatl turned his mule toward the river.

"Bueno!" he said. "We can cross here. The lancers are busy. So are the Comanches. The Lipans are on the other side and we can find them. Come!"

"All right!" shouted Bowie. "Forward! Boys, Great Bear is our best hold just now. He got in just in the nick of time."

The chief himself had not said so, nor had the beaten lancers. Both sides of that fight had been severely surprised.

It seemed to the Comanches that their long chase had reached a stopping-place, and what to do next they could not say, except to rest their horses. As for the lancers, what was left of the fighting party was now safe at the hacienda.

The Texans had no choice but to follow their white-headed guide. Not one of them heard him say, as his mule waded into the river, —

"Bueno! The Comanches got them. It is a great satisfaction. I will take the Texans into the mountains and give them to Huitzilopochtli. They shall go down to him when he calls for them. The gods are hungry."

There had, indeed, been vast changes in the manner and amount of worship paid them since the landing of Cortez. There had been a time of fanatical devotion before that, when from twenty thousand to fifty thousand human victims had been sacrificed annually to the terrible divinities of the Mexicans. The scattered remnants of the old, dark tribes, who still clung to their heathenish faith, might be as ready as their fathers had been to offer sacrifices, but the offerings were not so easily to be provided.

"The days have been too many," grumbled Tetzcatl, "in which not one Spaniard stood before the altar. We have had to give them mission men, women, children. They shall have six white men from the North."

Those Mexican Indians who, from time to time, had nominally accepted the religion brought to them by the missionaries of the Church of Rome were not to be classed as Spaniards exactly, but they would answer as less valuable substitutes. Perhaps they were really as available for sacrificial purposes as had been the yearly prisoners of war, entirely unconverted heathen, who had been slaughtered at the teocallis, or idol temples, before any Spaniards were to be had.

Altogether ignorant of the religious fate intended for them, the Texans gained the southerly bank of the river, but their guide did not pause there. He spurred his mule, waved his hand to them, and pushed onward. He was upon ground that he knew, and their weary day's journey ended in a dense forest, where they could believe themselves safe, for the time, from their enemies.

"Night come," said Castro to his son. "Red Wolf go see Mexicans. No take horse."

"Ugh!" replied the young warrior. "Find lancers. See hacienda. Where great chief go?"

"Castro find Comanches," replied his father. "Big Knife keep camp. Tetzcatl hunt Lipans. Texan sleep."

It was a time for vigorous scouting, but the condition of the horses required that the scouts should use their own legs. No one went out at once, however. After a hearty supper they all lay down for a while. All but Tetzcatl. Nobody could say just at what moment the old Tlascalan disappeared, leaving his mule behind him.

"Boys," remarked Joe, "we're all here and we ain't corked up, but thar isn't a blamed thing we can do. It's been a pretty tough kind of spree far as we've gone."

"Wall, ye-es," drawled Jim Cheyne, "and thar's no tellin' what 'll turn up next."

"Jesso," came from another ranger, "and we needn't crow loud. Thar wouldn't ha' been a head o' ha'r left among us if it hadn't been for that cub o' Castro's; he's a buster."

"So's his dad," remarked Jim; "but whar are they now?"

He was looking, as he spoke, at the spot where he had seen them spread their blankets. Those were there, but neither a young Lipan nor an old one.

"They ain't in this camp," said Joe, after a wider search. "Gone visitin'?"

They had not gone together. A very little later the chief was wading into the river at a place somewhat below where Tetzcatl had led them across, and he was alone.

His son was at the same time slipping along among the bushes and trees toward the Hacienda Dolores. He was making rapid headway, and his bright, black eyes were dancing with excitement. Fatigue was a thing he seemed to know little about. Probably it had rested him to sit down long enough to eat his supper.

The old hacienda had a number of lights burning in it that night, and there were campfires kindled here and there outside of the wall for the lancers. There were a few tents, but the greater part of the force was compelled to bivouac upon its blankets. The Comanches were known not to have crossed the Rio Grande, and there was no fear of a night attack, so that only the ordinary sentries and patrols had been posted. The most important of these were in charge of the "corral," where the cavalry horses were picketed, and with them a large drove of half-trained mustangs which had been gathered to fill the places of such animals as were from time to time used up by reckless riders. The rancheros are horsemen, but they are almost horse-killers in their merciless spurring.

"Heap pony!" said Red Wolf to himself, when at last he was able to crawl along the ground, within watching distance of the corral. "Mexican bad eye. Lose pony. Great Bear send brave. Ugh!"

An indistinct shadow was moving along not many yards from him. Another lay very still a little farther off, but this latter shadow was the body of the sentry who had gone to sleep on his post. There was no one there now but Red Wolf to note the passage of several more shadows, not in uniform. He crept a little farther and lay still in a hollow. He hardly breathed, for it was equally dangerous to retreat or to go forward.

"Lie down heap," he thought. "See what come. Ugh! Comanche bring horse. Pin pony. Go back for more."

That was precisely what had been done by the daring and expert red horse-thieves. They were unsurpassed in that line of business, and they had made their selections with care. Only the best of the animals tethered near that point by the lancers had been selected for removal.

Nevertheless, the red men were few. They could not spare a sentry. They did but secure their first string of prizes by lariats and pins before they went in for another lot.

"Big Knife want horse," remarked the young Lipan to himself. "Red Wolf take. Comanche lose pony."

It was short creeping, and then the pins were out and the string of stolen quadrupeds was once more in motion. Their feet hardly made a sound upon the sand as they went. They were led on to the shelter of some bushes, and there Red Wolf left them that he might once more snake his way back to his perilous post of observation. It seemed like going to almost certain death, but he worked his stealthy way along until he could see a tall warrior, leading several ponies, come to a sudden halt at the place where the first captures had been left.

"Ugh!" exclaimed the warrior. "Heap pony gone. More braves come take 'em. Good. Take more pony."

He believed, therefore, that his own tribesmen had been there, but at that moment a shrill "Who-o-o-op" sounded from the darkness near him. Almost unconsciously, or from the force of habit, he replied to it with his own war-cry. Following that came a dozen more from within the corral. One after another, in quick succession, every Mexican sentinel fired off his musket in sudden alarm. A bugler caught up his bugle and began to blow it loudly. It was a hubbub of mingled sounds, but the warriors in the corral sprang each upon the back of the nearest pony and plied his whip savagely upon the frightened animals around him. Horses neighed, mules brayed, red men whooped, cavalrymen shouted, and the net result was a wild stampede of every brute that was loose or that could break his tether. Of course, they all ran after the first to get away, and these had struck out into the open country.

It was no time for Red Wolf to care what became of the drove, the hacienda, or the Comanches. He had retreated after sounding his mischievous whoop, and he was now on the back of one of the stolen horses, with the others following patiently in a string behind him. They at least had escaped being stampeded, and at the same time a large number of their four-footed comrades were on their way to the river under the care of the successful warriors of Great Bear.

There was no danger that General Bravo's crack regiment would be in pursuit of anybody very early the next morning.

The night was indeed nearly gone when Jim Cheyne, standing sentry for the Texans, was hailed from among the bushes, —

"Red Wolf! Want Big Knife. Bring pony."

"Colonel," shouted Jim, "here's that buster boy again. He's been stealing ponies from the Greasers. He'll do."

"He will!" exclaimed Bowie, springing to his feet and coming forward.

In a few minutes more he said it again, and so did they all with emphasis, but the colonel added, gloomily, —

"It's almost sun-up, boys. What I want is to hear from Tetzcatl and Castro and the Lipans."

"Glad we've a lot of fresh mounts, anyhow," said Joe. "What we need most is to be able to git away."

"We will go to the river-bank first," said Bowie. "Castro is to meet us there. Even Tetzcatl believed the Lipans had gone across the river."

"If they did it's all day with them," replied Cheyne, but Red Wolf did not at all understand him. He was just then, under Colonel Bowie's instructions, selecting for his own use the very best of the fine animals he had so daringly captured and brought to camp.

The camp-fires were soon blazing, but little time could be given to breakfast. Their present position was too perilous. Parties of lancers would surely be out, and there were too many of them. Besides, there were the Comanches, and no man knew when or where they might make their appearance.

It was bright morning when the little cavalcade, with its fine supply of extra horses, filed out from among the woods and went slowly northward.

"I kind o' wish we were all back at the Alamo," remarked Joe.

"We won't go in that direction jest yit," said Jim Cheyne. "We'd better ride clean across the continent."

"Halt!" sprang from the lips of Colonel Bowie. "Here he comes! My God, boys! What's happened?"

Not with his usual swiftly gliding step, but staggering and panting as if in pain, the old Tlascalan appeared at a little distance ahead of them. He was alone, and he motioned to them to stay where they were.

"Find Comanche," suggested Red Wolf.

Bowie was silent, but when the old man drew near enough he asked, —

"Did you sight the Lipans?"

"All gone!" gasped Tetzcatl.

"Castro?"

"Gone!" came faintly back. "Great Bear's whole band. My mule! We must push on! They are crossing the Rio!"

Bowie sprang to the ground and strode forward.

"Man alive!" he said. "Where are you hurt? Tell us the rest of it while I fix you up. Jim, get that plaster and scissors out of my saddle-bags. We mustn't lose him just now."

Off came the serape from the old man's shoulders and an awful gash was discovered. His left arm told of an arrow, and there was a deep cut on his head. He was tough indeed to have carried all those hurts with him across the Rio Grande.

"I'm surgeon enough," remarked the colonel. "I don't believe he can live, boys, but we must do the best we can. Put him on his mule."

The wounds had been dressed with much care and skill, but the wounded man had hardly seemed to think of them. Briefly and clearly he told of his scouting beyond the river; of a meeting with Castro and then with the party of Lipans. There had been an attempt to rejoin the Texans, but in making it the entire force of Great Bear, called out by the return of the horse-thieves from the hacienda, had suddenly swarmed around them. Tetzcatl had escaped mainly because he was on foot, but a lance-thrust in the dark and the arrows that fell like snow had done their work upon him. Here he was now, to say as persistently as ever, —

"Gold! The treasure of Montezuma."

"What do we care for gold just now?" grumbled Jim Cheyne. "I'm thinkin' of the ha'r on my head."

Tetzcatl raised his uninjured arm, as he sat upon his mule, and pointed toward the hacienda.

"Bravo's lancers," he said, "sweeping the whole country."

"Fact!" said Jim, but Tetzcatl now pointed northward.

"Great Bear and his Comanches all the way to the Alamo."

"That's about so," came from one of the rangers. "We can't git through 'em."

Once more Tetzcatl turned, and now he pointed westward.

"Apaches!" he said. "Bowie must come with me. A few days' ride. Then he will come back with his ponies loaded."

He spoke with some difficulty, and at the end of his very pointed remarks he spurred his mule, as if he were going his own way whether or not the Texans were to follow.

"Boys," said Bowie, "what do you say?"

"Thar isn't a word to say," growled Joe. "We've jest got to git. Come on, fellers. This crowd's travelling gold or no gold."

"The coast 'll be clear by the time we want to come back," said the colonel. "We shall hardly meet an enemy going or coming."

So they turned and rode on after the old Tlascalan. Behind them quietly followed the Lipan boy. His young face was clouded with sorrow, but the only words that escaped him were, —

"Castro! Great chief of the Lipans! Gone! Red Wolf will strike the Comanches!"