CHAPTER V.LITTLE CAYUSE ON THE WAR-PATH.
The Piute boy had an easy time of it, compared with the strenuous experience fate had marked out for old Nomad.
Bernritter did not linger long in the hotel. When he came out he made directly for the corral, to which Jacobs was later followed by the trapper.
Little Cayuse, shadowing along on the super’s trail, knew at once that the man he was watching must have gone to the corral for his horse.
The boy, therefore, made rapidly for Nickerson’s, and got his bridle and riding-blanket on his pinto cayuse.
“Take um Black Cañon trail to Three-ply Mine?” he queried, of one of Nickerson’s men.
“Thet’s ther way ye go, ef ye go direct,” answered the man.
Little Cayuse galloped to the Five Points, and then along the dusty thoroughfare known as Grand Avenue. His sharp eyes were always straight ahead, keenly scrutinizing the road for some sign of Bernritter.
The boy was several miles down the Black Cañon trail before he glimpsed the man he was looking for. Although Cayuse could see only Bernritter’s back, yet the form of the man, and the clothes he wore, were indelibly impressed upon the little Indian’s mind, and he knew he could not be mistaken.
From that point he followed slowly and cautiously,keeping his distance and hugging the trail-side, and the cottonwood-trees.
Yet Bernritter did not seem to have the least idea he was being followed. Not once, so far as Cayuse could discover, did he look back.
Quite probably Bernritter was deep in his nefarious plans for the next day, and had no time to watch his back trail. Be that as it might, Cayuse found the trailing easy; and it grew easier when the sun went down and the evening shadows began to lengthen.
At sunset Bernritter had crossed the Arizona canal, eighteen miles out of Phœnix. From there on the trail led across several miles of flat desert, and directly into the scarred and cactus-covered hills.
The twilight favored the boy while crossing the level ground, and when they drew into the hill valleys he needed no favoring of any sort.
The Indian instinct, born in him, made him as wary as a fox, and as quick and certain in his movements as a wildcat.
Cutting pieces from his riding-blanket, he tied them about his pinto’s hoofs, thus muffling the noise of his own travel, and bringing out distinctly the ringing fall of the hoofs ahead.
His trailing, through the gloomy gullies, was almost entirely by ear alone. Whether Bernritter was galloping, or trotting, or walking he knew at any moment, and he kept a distance that gave the hoof-beats in the lead the same volume of sound.
Suddenly he heard the hoof-strokes come to a halt. On the instant Little Cayuse drew rein and backed silently into a cranny of the hills.
Was Bernritter coming back to see whether he was being followed?
He did not show himself, however; nor did the hoofs of his horse resume their clatter.
Cayuse dismounted and slipped forward along the gully to investigate.
Before he had gone far he heard voices, one voice Bernritter’s, and the other unmistakably that of an Indian.
The Piute had no love for the Apaches, and a thrill shot through him as he realized that this redskin with whom the superintendent was talking must be one of the hated people.
Then Cayuse had another thought: Why was Bernritter talking with an Apache—holding with him a pow-wow that had already lasted several minutes?
Little Cayuse crawled closer, slipping through the loose stones like a snake.
When he paused again, he was as near the two men as he dared to go. One was an Apache, and the boy was not slow to realize that his danger was greater than if he had been lying in the vicinity of two white men.
From his last position Cayuse was able to see the dark form of the horse, and the upright figures of the men. While he watched, Bernritter turned to his horse and thrust his foot into the stirrup.
“Yousabe, eh?” Cayuse heard Bernritter ask the Apache. “Round up the warriors and wait for word from Bascomb. You’ll hear from him in two, three hour, mebbyso.”
“Mesabe,” grunted the Indian.
Bernritter, without speaking further, rode on up thegully. The Apache, whisking up the gully-bank like an antelope, vanished over the rim.
Little Cayuse returned to his waiting pinto, kicked the pony with his heels, and rode on after Bernritter.
When he caught the tinkling sound of the hoofs ahead, he slowed his pace with a grunt of satisfaction.
Then, from the beaded medicine-pouch that swung from his belt, he took some yellow pigment, dabbed one of his fingers into it, and ran a wavering line up and down either side of his face.
This was Cayuse’s war-paint. He put it on, now that he knew he was to take the war-path against foes of his own color.
White men like Bernritter and Jacobs were not worth the trouble of dipping into his medicine-bag. Besides, Cayuse’s grievance against them was not yet well defined.
Pa-e-has-ka had set him on Bernritter’s trail, but that was all. Recent developments had given a fresh twist to the course of events. Who was Bascomb? And why was the Apache to round up more warriors?
Little Cayuse did not like the prospect.
As he followed along after Bernritter, he became suddenly aware that the hoofs in the lead were being drowned out by a steadily increasing roar.
The mill-stamps! Ah! At last they were coming close to the Three-ply Mine.
The gully the two were following suddenly opened out into a wide valley.
At the entrance to the valley Cayuse drew rein; then, dismounting, he sat down on a boulder and watched Bernritter ride down into the camp and lose himselfamong the twinkling lights in mill, bunk-house, and chuck-shanty.
For a long time the boy sat there, watching the trailing plume of smoke from the mill, and listening to the clamor of the stamps.
Suddenly he was startled. Another horseman galloped past him. Cayuse and his pinto were a little to one side of the trail, and somewhat in the shadow. Fortunately they had not been seen.
The man was Jacobs. In spite of the darkness, the boy instinctively recognized the galloping horseman.
If the man was Jacobs, then Nomad must be somewhere near.
Eagerly the Piute waited, straining his eyes back along the gully.
But no Nomad appeared. Had Wolf-killer lost the trail? It was not like him to do that, for Wolf-killer could follow a trail like an Indian.
Mounting his pinto, Little Cayuse retraced his course through the gully.
When he had reached a place where the drumming of the stamps sounded low in his ears, the echoes were taken up by more hoof-beats. Cayuse drew aside, and McGowan, owner of the mine, swung past.
The boy had thought, at first, that it might be Nomad and only his native caution had kept him from giving a shout from the trail-side. A moment later he had recognized McGowan as instinctively as he had recognized Jacobs.
He recalled that McGowan had told Jacobs to return to the mine with Bernritter, and both to go at once. And here Jacobs had preceded his employer into the camp by only a few minutes!
The boy plagued himself with questions in an attempt to account for this, and for Bernritter’s meeting and talking with the Apache.
Above these things, which mightily puzzled the Piute, was the more important question as to what had become of old Nomad.
Still riding and hoping, Cayuse drew well away from the croon of the stamps.
Then he heard a sound, far in the distance, that sent a chill to his heart.
The sound was a pistol-shot!
Just the one report, and no more. Cayuse listened breathlessly, but only deep and ominous silence followed the faint but incisive note of the six-shooter.
The boy’s fears leaped to Nomad. He had met with treachery, of some sort, on the trail!
Setting the pinto to a rapid gait, the Piute rode like the wind along the gully, the pony, with his muffled hoofs, carrying him onward like a darting shadow.
All roads, that night, seemed to lead to the Three-ply Mine. At least it seemed so to Little Cayuse.
And, for the young Indian, the way seemed wrapped in profound and forbidding mystery.
As he made in the direction of the pistol-shot, he believed he had a clue to at least part of the puzzle.
Bernritter had told the Apache to round up more warriors and wait for Bascomb. This had been done; and Wolf-killer, galloping along the trail after Jacobs, had fallen into a snare laid by Bascomb and the Apaches.
This is what the boy thought, but he was soon to be undeceived. A snare had been laid, but not for Nomad.
A few minutes of swift riding brought Little Cayuse into a zone where a sixth sense told him of danger.
Turning from the gully into a small defile that broke through its left-hand bank, he halted, secured the pinto to a white-thorn bush, and carried out his further investigations on foot.
Proceeding onward along the gully, keeping in the shadow and dodging from boulder to boulder, Cayuse presently came upon a scene that made him congratulate himself that he had not plumped into it full tilt on his pinto.
At the point where the scene unrolled before the boy’s eyes the gully widened, and the starlight sifted brightly downward and dispelled much of the gloom.
He saw two horses quite near him. They were riderless, had been roped together, and the riata tethering them had been wrapped about a stone.
Beyond the horses were many Apaches; just how many the boy could not tell, but certainly there were a dozen, at the least.
The Apaches were working over some objects lying on the ground, and a white man was moving about among them, hurrying them about their work with gruff oaths.
Presently the Apaches started up the eastern bank of the gully in two groups, each group apparently carrying a burden.
What those burdens were Cayuse could guess.
Without doubt they were the men who had ridden the two horses that now stood bound together and secured to the stone.
Up and up the steep slope toiled the Apaches, the white man swearing and urging them on. In a little while the whole villainous crew disappeared over the top of the gully-bank, each group still carrying its helpless burden.
Cayuse ran to the horses. He felt them over with hishands; felt of their legs, their heads, and, lastly, groped his fingers over the saddles.
One horse he could not recognize, either by sight or touch. The other, unless his reasoning deceived him, belonged to Pa-e-has-ka!
Pa-e-has-ka! The Piute caught his breath.
Was Buffalo Bill one of the prisoners just captured by the white man and the Apaches?
It was a startling thing for Cayuse to come looking for Nomad and find Buffalo Bill.
That was not a time for useless thought, however, but for action.
Hurrying to the eastern wall of the gully, Cayuse climbed the slope. Its top gave him an outlook over a small, flat plain, stretching eastward and lying distinctly under the starlight.
The Indians and the white man were carrying their prisoners across the level ground toward a little hill of stones. A black opening yawned in the top of the stone hill, and Cayuse knew it to be an old, and probably abandoned, mine.
The boy dared not go farther, and he knelt where he was and continued to watch. Owing to the distance, he could trace the movements of the white man and the Apaches but indistinctly; yet he saw enough to convince him that the two prisoners were being lowered down into the old mine.
The white man and his red helpers clambered up the ore-dump, hovered together there for several minutes, all busily engaged, and then came back down the ragged little hill. And on their return Cayuse could see that they were carrying no one.
Facing about, the boy scrambled back into the gully,untied the riata that tethered the two horses to the stone, jumped into the saddle of Buffalo Bill’s mount, and galloped toward the place where he had left his pinto, with the other of the two horses in tow.
This move was characteristic of Little Cayuse. The white man and the Apaches were Buffalo Bill’s enemies, and Cayuse considered them his. It is always the proper thing to get away from an enemy everything you can. On this principle, partly, Cayuse was taking the horses. Then, again, he was looking forward to the time when Buffalo Bill and the man with him should be taken out of the old mine and need their mounts.
On reaching the defile where he had left his pinto, Cayuse pulled the pinto’s thong from the thorn-bush, changed his seat to the pony’s back, and raced up the defile, leading the animals picked up in the gully.
The boy was now in his element. He understood very well that the white man and the Apaches would miss the horses, and would imagine that they had broken away. Search would be made for the missing animals, but Cayuse would make it his business to see that the search was not successful.
If the Apaches caught him, Cayuse knew that a bullet or a knife would settle his earthly account.
But the Piute was not intending to let himself be caught. He was an Indian no less than the Apaches, and fully as able to take care of himself.
The defile the boy was following led out onto the flat desert.
Leading his horses, he circled to the south over the plain, found a place where he could descend into the gully, and was just crossing to the western wall, when arider spurred out from behind a pile of rocks and laid his horse lengthwise across his path.
A revolver gleamed feebly in the starlight, leveled straight at the Piute’s breast.
“Ugh!” grunted Little Cayuse.
“Waugh, ye pizen varmint!” growled a voice. “Whar ye goin’ with them cabyos?”
“Wolf-killer!” muttered Little Cayuse.
“Snarlin’ hyeners ef et ain’t Cayuse? Waal, blazes ter blazes an’ all hands round! Say, I thort ye was told ter foller Bernritter?”
“All same,” answered Cayuse. “You no follow Jacobs, huh?”
“I’m follerin’ him now. But look hyar, son, what ye doin’ with them two hosses? One of ’em looks like Buffler’s, blamed ef et don’t.”
“Wuh! All same Pa-e-has-ka. We no stay here. Heap Apache right ahead. Cayuse steal um cayuses from Apaches.”
“What’s thet ye’re tellin’? Apaches loose in this part o’ ther range? I reckons, Cayuse, ye must be shy a few, ain’t ye?”
Nomad was himself keeping a sharp lookout for redskins. In fact, when he saw Little Cayuse coming over the eastern wall of the gully with the two led horses, he had felt sure that he was one of Bascomb’s Apaches, and had screened himself behind the rock-pile.
The question he had put to the boy was for the purpose of making certain the Piute had made no mistake.
“Heap Apache,” insisted Cayuse; “one white man.”
“Jumpin’ tarantelers!” breathed the trapper, “I was gittin’ warmer’n I thort. Ye’ve got Buffler’s hoss, an’ther baron’s. Aire ye meanin’ ter tell me thet Buffler an’ ther baron hev been captered?”
“Wuh! Me see um take Pa-e-has-ka and Dutch brave and put um in old mine.”
“Ole mine? What ole mine?”
“Him little way from here; not far. We get out of gully, so Apaches no find us when they come looking for horses.Sabe?”
“I’m savvyin’ like er house afire. But tell me fust off ef Buffler was hurt?”
“No can tell, Wolf-killer. Him carried to old mine; and Dutch brave, him carried to old mine, too.”
“Ain’t this er piece o’ thunderin’ mean luck for ye?” grumbled the old trapper. “Thar was me, knowin’ all erbout this hyar trap in ther hills, layin’ in ther closet o’ thet hotel like er trapped rat, an’ not able ter do er thing ter keep Buffler from runnin’ inter thet ambush. Things sartinly does turn out all-fired queer sometimes.”
While the old man was spluttering, he and Cayuse were climbing up the steep slope, each with one of the led horses.
They reached the top, went a little way down on the other side, and then dismounted to watch for some sign of the Apaches.
But no Apaches showed themselves.
While they were waiting, Cayuse told of his trailing, of the way Jacobs and McGowan had passed him, of his search for Nomad, of his hearing the pistol-shot, discovering the two horses, and watching the white man and the Indians carry Buffalo Bill and the baron to the old mine. He finished with an account of how he had taken the two animals and rode off with them.
Cayuse never wasted words. His recital was terse yetgraphic, and Nomad listened with profound admiration for the little Piute’s pluck and resourcefulness.
“Ye’ve done well, Cayuse,” said Nomad, when the boy had finished. “From what ye say, Buffler an’ Schnitz aire in some ole mine-shaft whar this hyar Bascomb fixes ter keep ’em pris’ners all durin’ ter-morrer. But you an’ me’ll fool Bascomb an’ his reds, Cayuse. Jest as soon as we’re shore the Apaches hev given up lookin’ fer the missin’ cabyos, we’ll make headway to’rds thet ole mine an’ snake Buffler an’ ther baron out o’ et quick.”
“Wuh!” said Little Cayuse.
For half an hour longer they watched the gully, and as the Apaches failed to appear, they reasoned that the redskins had given up the horses and had gone away about their own business, whatever that might be.
“I reckon we kin hike out now, Cayuse,” said Nomad, “an’ feel purty safe about Bascomb an’ his Injuns. Straddle yer pinto, boy, an’ lead ther way ter this hyar ole mine. Ye don’t reckon any o’ Bascomb’s reds aire watchin’ et, do ye?”
“All come away,” answered Cayuse. “Me see um.”
“Kerect. Mount an’ ride, Cayuse, an’ we’ll soon put Pard Buffler inter ther game ag’in.”