For the second time within a week, Texas Smith found himself upon the brink of opportunity, without being able (as he had phrased it to Coronado) to do what was right.
He levelled at Thurstane, and then it did not seem to be Thurstane; he had a dead sure sight at Kelly, and then perceived that that was an error; he drew a bead on Shubert, and still he hesitated. He could distinguish the Lieutenant's voice, but he could not fix upon the figure which uttered it.
It was exasperating. Never had an assassin been better ambuscaded. He was kneeling behind a little ridge of sandstone; about a foot below its edge was an orifice made by the rains and winds of bygone centuries; through this, as through an embrasure, he had thrust his rifle. Not a chance of being hit by a return shot, while after the enemy's fire had been drawn he could fly down the ravine, probably without discovery and certainly without recognition. His horse was tethered below, behind another rock; and he felt positive that these men had not come upon it. He could mount, drive their beasts before him into the plain, and then return to camp. No need of explaining his absence; he was the head hunter of the expedition; it was his business to wander.
All this was so easy to do, if he could only take the first step. But he dared not fire lest he should merely kill a soldier, and so make an uproar and rouse suspicions without the slightest profit. It was not probable that Coronado would pay him for shooting the wrong man, and setting on foot a dangerous investigation. So the desperado continued to peer through the dim night, cursing his stars and everybody's stars for not shining better, and seeing his opportunity slip rapidly away. After Thurstane and the others had passed, after the chance of murder had stalked by him like a ghost and vanished, he left his ambush, glided down the ravine to his horse, waked him up with a vindictive kick, leaped into the saddle, and hastened to camp. To inquiries about the lost couple he replied in his sullen, brief way that he had not seen them; and when urged to go to their rescue, he of course set off in the wrong direction and travelled but a short distance.
Meantime Ralph had found the captives of the cañon. Clara, wrapped in her blankets, was lying at the foot of a rock, and crying while she pretended to sleep. Coronado, unable to make her talk, irritated by the faint sobs which he overheard, but stubbornly resolved on carrying out his stupid plot, had retired in a state of ill-humor unusual with him to another rock, and was consoling himself by smoking cigarito after cigarito. The two horses, tied together neck and crupper, were fasting near by. As Coronado had forgotten to bring food with him, Clara was also fasting.
Think of Apaches, and imagine the terror with which she caught the sounds of approach, the heavy, stumbling steps through the darkness. Then imagine the joy with which she recognized Thurstane's call and groped to meet him. In the dizziness of her delight, and amid the hiding veils of the obscurity, it did not seem wrong nor unnatural to fall against his arm and be supported by it for a moment. Ralph received this touch, this shock, as if it had been a ball; and his nature bore the impress of it as long as if it had made a scar. In his whole previous life he had not felt such a thrill of emotion; it was almost too powerful to be adequately described as a pleasure.
Next came Coronado, as happy as a disappointed burglar whose cue it is to congratulate the rescuing policeman. "My dear Lieutenant! You are heaven's own messenger. You have saved us from a horrible night. But it is prodigious; it is incredible. You must have come here by enchantment. How in God's name could you find your way up this fearful cañon?"
"The cañon is perfectly passable on foot," replied the young officer, stiffly and angrily. "By Jove, sir! I don't see why you didn't make a start to get out. This is a pretty place to lodge Miss Van Diemen."
Coronado took off his hat and made a bow of submission and regret, which was lost in the darkness.
"I must say," Thurstane went on grumbling, "that, for a man who claims to know this country, your management has been very singular."
Clara, fearful of a quarrel, slightly pressed his arm and checked this volcano with the weight of a feather.
"We are not all like you, my dear Lieutenant," said Coronado, in a tone which might have been either apologetical or ironical. "You must make allowance for ordinary human nature."
"I beg pardon," returned Thurstane, who was thinking now chiefly of that pressure on his arm. "The truth is, I was alarmed for your safety. I can't help feeling responsibility on this expedition, although it is your train. My military education runs me into it, I suppose. Well, excuse my excitement. Miss Van Diemen, may I help you back through the gully?"
In leaning on him, being guided by him, being saved by him, trusting in him, the girl found a pleasure which was irresistible, although it seemed audacious and almost sinful. Before the cañon was half traversed she felt as if she could go on with him through the great dark valley of life, confiding in his strength and wisdom to lead her aright and make her happy. It was a temporary wave of emotion, but she remembered it long after it had passed.
Around the fires, after a cup of hot coffee, amid the odors of a plentiful supper, recounting the evening's adventure to Mrs. Stanley, Coronado was at his best. How he rolled out the English language! Our mother tongue hardly knew itself, it ran so fluently and sounded so magniloquently and lied so naturally. He praised everybody but himself; he praised Clara, Thurstane, and the two soldiers and the horses; he even said a flattering word or two for Divine Providence. Clara especially, and the whole of her heroic, more than human sex, demanded his enthusiastic admiration. How she had borne the terrors of the night and the desert! "Ah, Mrs. Stanley! only you women are capable of such efforts."
Aunt Maria's Olympian head nodded, and her cheerful face, glowing with tea and the camp fires, confessed "Certainly!"
"What nonsense, Coronado!" said Clara. "I was horribly frightened, and you know it."
Aunt Maria frowned with surprise and denial. "Absurd, child! You were not frightened at all. Of course you were not. Why, even if you had been slightly timorous, you had your cousin to protect you."
"Ah, Mrs. Stanley, I am a poor knight-errant," said Coronado. "We Mexicans are no longer formidable. One man of your Anglo-Saxon blood is supposed to be a better defence than a dozen of us. We have been subdued; we must submit to depreciation. I must confess, in fact, that I had my fears. I was greatly relieved on my cousin's account when I heard the voice of our military chieftain here."
Then came more flattery for Ralph, with proper rations for the two privates. Those faithful soldiers—he must show his gratitude to them; he had forgotten them in the basest manner. "Here, Pedronillo, take these cigaritos to privates Kelly and Shubert, with my compliments. Beggingyourpermission, Lieutenant.Thankyou."
"Pooty tonguey man, that Seenor," observed Captain Phineas Glover to Mrs. Stanley, when the Mexican went off to his blankets.
"Yes; a very agreeable and eloquent gentleman," replied the lady, wishing to correct the skipper's statement while seeming to assent to it.
"Jess so," admitted Glover. "Ruther airy. Big talkin' man. Don't raise no sech our way."
Captain Glover was not fully aware that he himself had the fame of possessing an imagination which was almost too much for the facts of this world.
"S'pose it's in the breed," he continued. "Or likely the climate has suthin' to do with it: kinder thaws out the words 'n' sets the idees a-bilin'. Niggers is pooty much the same. Most niggers kin talk like a line runnin' out, 'n' tell lies 's fast 's our Fair Haven gals open oysters—a quart a minute."
"Captain Glover, what do you mean?" frowned Aunt Maria. "Mr. Coronado is a friend of mine."
"Oh, I was speakin' of niggers," returned the skipper promptly. "Forgot we begun about the Seenor. Sho! niggers was what I was talkin' of. B' th' way, that puts me in mind 'f one I had for cook once. Jiminy! how that man would cook! He'd cook a slice of halibut so you wouldn't know it from beefsteak."
"Dear me! how did he do it?" asked Aunt Maria, who had a fancy for kitchen mysteries.
"Never could find out," said Glover, stepping adroitly out of his difficulty. "Don't s'pose that nigger would a let on how he did it for ten dollars."
"I should think the receipt would be worth ten dollars," observed Aunt Maria thoughtfully.
"Not 'xactly here," returned the captain, with one of his dried smiles, which had the air of having been used a great many times before. "Halibut too skurce. Wal, I was goin' to tell ye 'bout this nigger. He come to be the cook he was because he was a big eater. We was wrecked once, 'n' had to live three days on old shoes 'n' that sort 'f truck. Wal, this nigger was so darned ravenous he ate up a pair o' long boots in the time it took me to git down one 'f the straps."
"Ate up a pair of boots!" exclaimed Aunt Maria, amazed and almost incredulous.
"Yes, by thunder!" insisted the captain, "grease, nails, 'n' all. An' then went at the patent leather forepiece 'f his cap."
"What privations!" said Aunt Maria, staring fit to burst her spectacles.
"Oh, that's nothin'," chuckled Glover. "I'll tell ye suthin' some time that 'll astonish ye. But jess now I'm sleepy, 'n' I guess I'll turn in."
"Mr. Cluvver, it is your durn on card do-night," interposed Meyer, the German sergeant, as the captain was about to roll himself in his blankets.
"So 'tis," returned Glover in well feigned astonishment. "Don't forgit a feller, do ye, Sergeant? How 'n the world do ye keep the 'count so straight? Oh, got a little book there, hey, with all our names down. Wal, that's shipshape. You'd make a pooty good mate, Sergeant. When does my watch begin?"
"Right away. You're always on the virst relief. You'll fall in down there at the gorner of the vagon bark."
"Wal—yes—s'pose I will," sighed the skipper, as he rolled up his blankets and prepared for two hours' sentry duty.
Let us look into the arrangements for the protection of the caravan. With Coronado's consent Thurstane had divided the eighteen Indians and Mexicans, four soldiers, Texas Smith, and Glover, twenty-four men in all, into three equal squads, each composed of a sergeant, corporal, and six privates. Meyer was sergeant of one squad, the Irish veteran Kelly had another, and Texas Smith the third. Every night a detachment went on duty in three reliefs, each relief consisting of two men, who stood sentry for two hours, at the end of which time they were relieved by two others.
The six wagons were always parked in an oblong square, one at each end and two on each side; but in order to make the central space large enough for camping purposes, they were placed several feet apart; the gaps being closed with lariats, tied from wheel to wheel, to pen in the animals and keep out charges of Apache cavalry. On either flank of this enclosure, and twenty yards or so distant from it, paced a sentry. Every two hours, as we have said, they were relieved, and in the alternate hours the posts were visited by the sergeant or corporal of the guard, who took turns in attending to this service. The squad that came off duty in the morning was allowed during the day to take naps in the wagons, and was not put upon the harder camp labor, such as gathering firewood, going for water, etc.
The two ladies and the Indian women slept at night in the wagons, not only because the canvas tops protected them from wind and dew, but also because the wooden sides would shield them from arrows. The men who were not on guard lay under the vehicles so as to form a cordon around the mules. Thurstane and Coronado, the two chiefs of this armed migration, had their alternate nights of command, each when off duty sleeping in a special wagon known as "headquarters," but holding himself ready to rise at once in case of an alarm.
The cooking fires were built away from the park, and outside the beats of the sentries. The object was twofold: first, to keep sparks from lighting on the wagon covers; second, to hide the sentries from prowling archers. At night you can see everything between yourself and a fire, but nothing beyond it. As long as the wood continued to blaze, the most adroit Indian skulker could not approach the camp without exposing himself, while the guards and the garrison were veiled from his sight by a wall of darkness behind a dazzle of light.
Such were the bivouac arrangements, intelligent, systematic, and military. Not only had our Lieutenant devised them, but he saw to it that they were kept in working order. He was zealously and faithfully seconded by his men, and especially by his two veterans. There is no human machine more accurate and trustworthy than an old soldier, who has had year on year of the discipline and drill of a regular service, and who has learned to carry out instructions to the letter.
The arrangements for the march were equally thorough and judicious. Texas Smith, as the Nimrod of the party, claimed the right of going where he pleased; but while he hunted, he of course served also as a scout to nose out danger. The six Mexicans, who were nominally cattle-drivers, but really Coronado's minor bravos, were never suffered to ride off in a body, and were expected to keep on both sides of the train, some in advance and some in rear. The drivers and muleteers remained steadily with their wagons and animals. The four soldiers were also at hand, trudging close in front or in rear, accoutrements always on and muskets always loaded.
In this fashion the expedition had already journeyed over two hundred and twenty miles. Following Colonel Washington's trail, it had crossed the ranges of mountains immediately west of Abiquia, and, striking the Rio de Chaco, had tracked its course for some distance with the hope of reaching the San Juan. Stopped by a cañon, a precipitous gully hundreds of feet deep, through which the Chaco ran like a chased devil, the wagons had turned westward, and then had been forced by impassable ridges and lack of water into a southwest direction, at last gaining and crossing Pass Washington.
It was now on the western side of the Sierra de Chusca, in the rude, barren country over which Fort Defiance stands sentry. Ever since the second day after leaving San Isidore it had been on the great western slope of the continent, where every drop of water tends toward the Pacific. The pilgrims would have had cause to rejoice could they have travelled as easily as the drops of water, and been as certain of their goal. But the rivers had made roads for themselves, and man had not yet had time to do likewise.
The great central plateau of North America is a Mer de Glace in stone. It is a continent of rock, gullied by furious rivers; plateau on plateau of sandstone, with sluiceways through which lakes have escaped; the whole surface gigantically grotesque with the carvings of innumerable waters. What is remarkable in the scenery is, that its sublimity is an inversion of the sublimity of almost all other grand scenery. It is not so much the heights that are prodigious as the abysses. At certain points in the course of the Colorado of the West you can drop a plumb line six thousand feet before it will reach the bosom of the current; and you can only gain the water level by turning backward for scores of miles and winding laboriously down some subsidiary cañon, itself a chasm of awful grandeur.
Our travellers were now amid wild labyrinths of ranges, and buttes, and cañons, which were not so much a portion of the great plateau as they were thedébristhat constituted its flanks. Although thousands of feet above the level of the sea, they still had thousands of feet to ascend before they could dominate the desert. Wild as the land was, it was thus far passable, while toward the north lay the untraversable. What course should be taken? Coronado, who had crimes to commit and to conceal, did not yet feel that he was far enough from the haunts of man. As soon as possible he must again venture a push northward.
But not immediately. The mules were fagged with hard work, weak with want of sufficient pasture, and had suffered much from thirst. He resolved to continue westward to the pueblas of the Moquis, that interesting race of agricultural and partially civilized Indians, perhaps the representatives of the architects of the Casas Grandes if not also descended from the mound-builders of the Mississippi valley. Having rested and refitted there, he might start anew for the San Juan.
Thus far they had seen no Indians except the vagrants who had robbed Phineas Glover. But they might now expect to meet them; they were in a region which was the raiding ground of four great tribes: the Utes on the north, the Navajos on the west, the Apaches on the south, and the Comanches on the east. The peaceful and industrious Moquis, with their gay and warm blankets, their fields of corn and beans, and their flocks of sheep, are the quarry which attracts this ferocious cavalry of the desert, these Tartars and Bedouin of America.
Thurstane took more pains than ever with the guard duty. Coronado, unmilitary though he was, and heartily as he abominated the Lieutenant, saw the wisdom of submitting to the latter's discipline, and made all his people submit. A practical-minded man, he preferred to owe the safety of his carcass to his rival rather than have it impaled on Apache lances. Occasionally, however, he made a suggestion.
"It is very well, this night-watching," he once observed, "but what we have most to fear is the open daylight. These mounted Indians seldom attack in the darkness."
Thurstane knew all this, but he did not say so; for he was a wise, considerate commander already, and he had learned not to chill an informant. He looked at Coronado inquiringly, as if to say, What do you propose?
"Every cañon ought to be explored before we enter it," continued the Mexican.
"It is a good hint," said Ralph. "Suppose I keep two of your cattle-drivers constantly in advance. You had better instruct them yourself. Tell them to fire the moment they discover an ambush. I don't suppose they will hit anybody, but we want the warning."
With two horsemen three or four hundred yards to the front, two more an equal distance in the rear, and, when the ground permitted, one on either flank, the train continued its journey. Every wagon-driver and muleteer had a weapon of some sort always at hand. The four soldiers marched a few rods in advance, for the ground behind had already been explored, while that ahead might contain enemies. The precautions were extraordinary; but Thurstane constantly trembled for Clara. He would have thought a regiment hardly sufficient to guard such a treasure.
"How timorous these men are," sniffed Aunt Maria, who, having seen no hostile Indians, did not believe there were any. "And it seems to me that soldiers are more easily scared than anybody else," she added, casting a depreciating glance at Thurstane, who was reconnoitring the landscape through his field glass.
Clara believed in men, and especially in soldiers, and more particularly in lieutenants. Accordingly she replied, "I suppose they know the dangers and we don't."
"Pshaw!" said Aunt Maria, an argument which carried great weight with her. "They don't know half what they claim to. It is a clever man who knows one-tenth of his own business." (She was right there.) "They don't know so much, I verily and solemnly believe, as the women whom they pretend to despise."
This peaceful and cheering conversation was interrupted by a shot ringing out of a cañon which opened into a range of rock some three hundred yards ahead of the caravan. Immediately on the shot came a yell as of a hundred demons, a furious trampling of the feet of many horses, and a cloud of the Tartars of the American desert.
In advance of the rush flew the two Mexican vedettes, screaming, "Apaches! Apaches!"
When the Apache tornado burst out of the cañon upon the train, Thurstane's first thought was, "Clara!"
"Get off!" he shouted to her, seizing and holding her startled horse. "Into the wagon, quick! Now lie down, both of you."
He thundered all this out as sternly as if he were commanding troops. Because he was a man, Clara obeyed him; and notwithstanding he was a man, Mrs. Stanley obeyed him. Both were so bewildered with surprise and terror as to be in a kind of animal condition of spirit, knowing just enough to submit at once to the impulse of an imperious voice. The riderless horse, equally frightened and equally subordinate, was hurried to the rear of the leading wagon and handed over to a muleteer.
By the time this work was done the foremost riders of the assailants were within two hundred yards of the head of the train, letting drive their arrows at the flying Mexican vedettes and uttering yells fit to raise the dead, while their comrades behind, whooping also, stormed along under a trembling and flickering of lances. The little, lean, wiry horses were going at full speed, regardless of smooth faces of rock and beds of loose stones. The blackguards were over a hundred in number, all lancers and archers of the first quality.
The vedettes never pulled up until they were in rear of the hindermost wagon, while their countrymen on the flanks and rear made for the same poor shelter. The drivers were crouching almost under their seats, and the muleteers were hiding behind their animals. Thus it was evident that the entire brunt of the opening struggle would fall upon Thurstane and his people; that, if there was to be any resistance at all, these five men must commence it, and, for a while at least, "go it alone."
The little squad of regulars, at this moment a few yards in front of the foremost wagon, was drawn up in line and standing steady, precisely as if it were a company or a regiment. Sergeant Meyer was on the right, veteran Kelly on the left, the two recruits in the centre, the pieces at a shoulder, the bayonets fixed. As Thurstane rode up to this diminutive line of battle, Meyer was shouting forth his sharp and decisive orders. They were just the right orders; excited as the young officer was, he comprehended that there was nothing to change; moreover, he had already learned how men are disconcerted in battle by a multiplicity of directions. So he sat quietly on his horse, revolver in hand, his blue-black eyes staring angrily at the coming storm.
"Kelly, reserfe your fire!" yelled Meyer. "Recruits, ready—bresent—aim—aim low—fire!"
Simultaneously with the report a horse in the leading group of charging savages pitched headlong on his nose and rolled over, sending his rider straight forward into a rubble of loose shales, both lying as they fell, without movement. Half a dozen other animals either dropped on their haunches or sheered violently to the right and left, going off in wild plunges and caracolings. By this one casualty the head of the attacking column was opened and its seemingly resistless impetus checked and dissipated, almost before Meyer could shout, "Recruits, load at will, load!"
A moment previous this fiery cavalry had looked irresistible. It seemed to have in it momentum, audacity, and dash enough to break a square of infantry or carry a battery of artillery. The horses fairly flew; the riders had the air of centaurs, so firm and graceful was their seat; the long lances were brandished as easily as if by the hands of footmen; the bows were managed and the arrows sent with dazzling dexterity. It was a show of brilliant equestrianism, surpassing the feats of circus riders. But a single effective shot into the centre of the column had cleft it as a rock divides a torrent. It was like the breaking of a water-spout.
The attack, however, had only commenced. The Indians who had swept off to right and left went scouring along the now motionless train, at a distance of sixty or eighty yards, rapidly enveloping it with their wild caperings, keeping in constant motion so as to evade gunshots, threatening with their lances or discharging arrows, and yelling incessantly. Their main object so far was undoubtedly to frighten the mules into a stampede and thus separate the wagons. They were not assaulting; they were watching for chances.
"Keep your men together, Sergeant," said Thurstane. "I must get those Mexicans to work."
He trotted deliberately to the other end of the train, ordering each driver as he passed to move up abreast of the leading wagon, directing the first to the right, the second to the left, and so on. The result of this movement would of course be to bring the train into a compact mass and render it more defensible. The Indians no sooner perceived the advance than they divined its object and made an effort to prevent it. Thurstane had scarcely reached the centre of the line of vehicles when a score or so of yelling horsemen made a caracoling, prancing charge upon him, accompanying it with a flight of arrows. Our young hero presented his revolver, but they apparently knew the short range of the weapon, and came plunging, curveting onward. Matters were growing serious, for an arrow already stuck in his saddle, and another had passed through his hat. Suddenly there was a bang, bang of firearms, and two of the savages went down.
Meyer had observed the danger of his officer, and had ordered Kelly to fire, blazing away too himself. There was a headlong, hasty scramble to carry off the fallen warriors, and then the assailants swept back to a point beyond accurate musket shot. Thurstane reached the rear of the train unhurt, and found the six Mexican cattle-drivers there in a group, pointing their rifles at such Indians as made a show of charging, but otherwise doing nothing which resembled fighting. They were obviously panic-stricken, one or two of them being of an ashy-yellow, their nearest possible approach to pallor. There, too, was Coronado, looking not exactly scared, but irresolute and helpless.
"What does this mean?" Thurstane stormed in Spanish. "Why don't you shoot the devils?"
"We are reserving our fire," stammered Coronado, half alarmed, half ashamed.
Thurstane swore briefly, energetically, and to the point. "Damned pretty fighting!" he went on. "Ifwehad reserved our fire, we should all have been lanced by this time. Let drive!"
The cattle-drivers carried short rifles, of the then United States regulation pattern, which old Garcia had somehow contrived to pick up during the war perhaps buying them of drunken soldiers. Supported by Thurstane's pugnacious presence and hurried up by his vehement orders, they began to fire. They were shaky; didn't aim very well; hardly aimed at all, in fact; blazed away at extraordinary elevations; behaved as men do who have become demoralized. However, as the pieces had a range of several hundred yards, the small bullets hissed venomously over the heads of the Indians, and one of them, by pure accident, brought down a horse. There was an immediate scattering, a multitudinous glinting of hoofs through the light dust of the plain, and then a rally in prancing groups, at a safe distance.
"Hurrah!" shouted Thurstane, cheering the Mexicans. "That's very well. You see how easy it is. Now don't let them sneak up again; and at the same time don't waste powder."
Then turning to one who was near him, and who had just reloaded, he said in a calm, strong, encouraging tone—that voice of the thoroughly good officer which comes to the help of the shaken soldier like a reinforcement—"Now, my lad, steadily. Pick out your man; take your time and aim sure. Do you see him?"
"Si, señor," replied the herdsman. His coolness restored by this steady utterance and these plain, common-sense directions, he selected a warrior in helmet-shaped cap, blue shirt, and long boots, brought his rifle slowly to a level, took sight, and fired. The Indian bent forward, caught the mane of his plunging pony, hung there for a second or two, and then rolled to the ground, amid a yell of surprise and dismay from his comrades. There was a hasty rush to secure the body, and then another sweep backward of the loose array.
"Good!" called Thurstane, nodding and smiling at the successful marksman. "That is the way to do it. You are a match for half a dozen of them as long as you will keep cool."
The besieged travellers could now look about quietly and see how matters stood with them. The six wagons were by this time drawn up in two ranks of three each, so as to form a compact mass. As the one which contained the ladies had been the leader and the others had formed on it to right and left, it was in the centre of the first rank, and consequently pretty well protected by its neighbors. The drivers and muleteers had recovered their self-possession, and were all sitting or standing at their posts, with their miscellaneous arms ready for action. Not a human being had been hit as yet, and only three of the mules wounded, none of them seriously. The Apaches were all around the train, but none of them nearer than two hundred yards, and doing nothing but canter about and shout to each other.
"Where is Texas Smith?" demanded Thurstane, missing that mighty hunter, and wondering if he were a coward and had taken refuge in a wagon.
"He went off shutin' an hour ago," explained Phineas Glover. "Reckon he's astern somewhere."
Glover, by the way, had been useful. In the beginning of the affray he had brought his mule alongside of the headmost wagon, and there he had done really valuable service by blazing away alarmingly, though quite innocuously, at the gallopading enemy.
"It's a bad lookout for Texas," observed the Lieutenant "I shouldn't want to bet high on his getting back to us."
Coronado looked gloomy, fearing lest his trusted assassin was lost, and not knowing where he could pick up such another.
"And how are the ladies?" asked Thurstane, turning to Glover.
"Safe 's a bug in a rug," was the reply. "Seen to that little job myself. Not a bugger in the hull crew been nigh 'em."
Thurstane cantered around to the front of the wagon which contained the two women, and called, "How are you?"
At the sound of his voice there was a rustle inside, and Clara showed her face over the shoulder of the driver.
"So you were not hurt?" laughed the young officer. "Ah! that's bully."
With a smile which was almost a boast, she answered, "And I was not very frightened."
At this, Aunt Maria struggled from between two rolls of bedding into a sitting posture and ejaculated, "Of course not!"
"Did they hit you?" asked Clara, looking eagerly at Thurstane.
"How brave you are!" he replied, admiring her so much that he did not notice her question.
"But I do hope it is over," added the girl, poking her head out of the wagon. "Ah! what is that?"
With this little cry of dismay she pointed at a group of savages who had gathered between the train and the mouth of the cañon ahead of it.
"They are the enemy," said Thurstane. "We may have another little tussle with them. Now lie down and keep close."
"Acquit yourselves like—men!" exhorted Aunt Maria, dropping back into her stronghold among the bedding.
Sergeant Meyer now approached Thurstane, touched his cap, and said, "Leftenant, here is brifate Sweeny who has not fired his beece once. I cannot make him fire."
"How is that, Sweeny?" demanded the officer, putting on the proper grimness. "Why haven't you fired when you were ordered?"
Sweeny was a little wizened shaving of an Irishman. He was not only quite short, but very slender and very lean. He had a curious teetering gait, and he took ridiculously short steps in marching, as if he were a monkey who had not learned to feel at ease on his hind legs. His small, wilted, wrinkled face, and his expression of mingled simplicity and shrewdness, were also monkey-like. At Thurstane's reprimand he trotted close up to him with exactly the air of a circus Jocko who expects a whipping, but who hopes to escape it by grinning.
"Why haven't you fired?" repeated his commander.
"Liftinint, I dasn't," answered Sweeny, in the rapid, jerking, almost inarticulate jabber which was his usual speech.
Now it is not an uncommon thing for recruits to dread to discharge their arms in battle. They have a vague idea that, if they bang away, they will attract the notice of some antagonist who will immediately single them out for retaliation.
"Are you afraid anybody will hit you?" asked Thurstane.
"No, I ain't, Liftinint," jabbered Sweeny. "I ain't afeard av them niggers a bit. They may shoot their bow arrays at me all day if they want to. I'm afeard of me gun, Liftinint. I fired it wonst, an' it kicked me to blazes."
"Come, come! That won't do. Level it now. Pick out your man. Aim. Fire."
Thus constrained, Sweeny brought his piece down to an inclination of forty-five degrees, shut his eyes, pulled trigger, and sent a ball clean over the most distant Apaches. The recoil staggered him, but he recovered himself without going over, and instantly roared out a horse-laugh.
"Ho! ho! ho!" he shouted. "That time I reckon I fetched won av 'em."
"Sweeny," said Thurstane, "you must have hit either the sun or the moon, I don't know which."
Sweeny looked discomfited; the next breath he bethought himself of a saving joke: "Liftinint, it 'ud sarve erry won av 'em right;" then another neigh of laughter.
"I ain't afeard av the ball," he hastened to asseverate; "it's the kick av it that murthers me. Liftinint, why don't they put the britch to the other end av the gun? They do in the owld counthry."
"Load your beece," ordered Sergeant Meyer, "and go to your bost again, to the left of Shupert."
The fact of Sweeny's opening fire did not cause a resumption of the close fighting. Quiet still continued, and the leaders of the expedition took advantage of it to discuss their situation, while the Indians gathered into little groups and seemed also to be holding council.
"There are over a hundred warriors," said Thurstane.
"Apaches," added one of the Mexican herdsmen.
"What band?"
"Manga Colorada or Delgadito."
"I supposed they were in Bernalillo."
"That was three weeks ago," put in Coronado.
He was in profound thought. These fellows, who had agreed to harry Bernalillo, and who had for a time carried out their bargain, why had they come to intercept him in the Moqui country, a hundred and twenty miles away? Did they want to extort more money, or were they ignorant that this was his train? And, supposing he should make himself known to them, would they spare him personally and such others as he might wish to save, while massacring the rest of the party? It would be a bold step; he could not at once decide upon it; he was pondering it.
We must do full justice to Coronado's coolness and readiness. This atrocious idea had occurred to him the instant he heard the charging yell of the Apaches; and it had done far more than any weakness of nerves to paralyze his fighting ability. He had thought, "Let them kill the Yankees; then I will proclaim myself and saveher; then she will be mine." And because of these thoughts he had stood irresolute, aiming without firing, and bidding his Mexicans do the same. The result was that six good shots and superb horsemen, who were capable of making a gallant fight under worthy leadership, had become demoralized, and, but for the advent of Thurstane, might have been massacred like sheep.
Now that three or four Apaches had fallen, Coronado had less hope of making his arrangement. He considered the matter carefully and judiciously, but at last he decided that he could not trust the vindictive devils, and he turned his mind strenuously toward resistance. Although not pugnacious, he had plenty of the desperate courage of necessity, and his dusky black eyes were very resolute as he said to Thurstane, "Lieutenant, we trust to you."
The young veteran had already made up his mind as to what must be done.
"We will move on," he said. "We can't camp here, in an open plain, without grass or water. We must get into the cañon so as to have our flanks protected. I want the wagons to advance in double file so as to shorten the train. Two of my men in front and two in rear; three of your herdsmen on one flank and three on the other; Captain Glover alongside the ladies, and you and I everywhere; that's the programme. If we are all steady, we can do it, sure."
"They are collecting ahead to stop us," observed Coronado.
"Good!" said Thurstane. "All I want is to have them get in a heap. It is this attacking on all sides which is dangerous. Suppose you give your drivers and muleteers a sharp lecture. Tell them they must fight if the Indians charge, and not skulk inside and under the wagons. Tell them we are going to shoot the first man who skulks. Pitch into them heavy. It's a devilish shame that a dozen tolerably well-armed men should be so helpless. It's enough to justify the old woman's contempt for our sex."
Coronado rode from wagon to wagon, delivering his reproofs, threats, and instructions in the plainest kind of Spanish. At the signal to march, the drivers must file off two abreast, commencing on the right, and move at the fastest trot of the mules toward the cañon. If any scoundrel skulked, quitted his post, or failed to fight, he would be pistolled instanter by him, Coronadosangre de Dios, etc.!
While he was addressing Aunt Maria's coachman, that level-headed lady called out, "Mr. Coronado, your very voice is cheering."
"Mrs. Stanley, you are an example of heroism to our sex," replied the Mexican, with an ironical grin.
"What a brave, noble, intelligent man?" thought Aunt Maria. "If they were only all like him!"
This business took up five minutes. Coronado had just finished his round when a loud yell was raised by the Apaches, and twenty or thirty of them started at full speed down the trail by which the caravan had come. Looking for the cause of this stampede, the emigrants beheld, nearly half a mile away, a single horseman rushing to encounter a score. It was Texas Smith, making an apparently hopeless rush to burst through the environment of Parthians and reach the train.
"Shall we make a sally to save him?" demanded Coronado, glancing at Thurstane.
The officer hesitated; to divide his small army would be perilous; the Apaches would attack on all sides and with advantage.
But the sight of one man so overmatched was too much for him, and with a great throb of chivalrous blood in his heart, he shouted, "Charge!"
An hour before the attack Texas Smith had ridden off to stalk a deer; but the animal being in good racing condition in consequence of the thin fare of this sterile region, the hunting bout had miscarried; and our desperado was returning unladen toward the train when he heard the distant charging yell of the Apaches.
Scattered over the plateau which he was traversing, there were a few thickets of mesquite, with here and there a fantastic butte of sandstone. By dodging from one of these covers to another, he arrived undiscovered at a point whence he could see the caravan and the curveting mêlée which surrounded it. He was nearly half a mile from his comrades and over a quarter of a mile from his nearest enemies.
What should he do? If he made a rush, he would probably be overpowered and either killed instantly or carried off for torture. If he waited until night for a chance to sneak into camp, the wandering redskins would be pretty apt to surprise him in the darkness, and there would be small chance indeed of escaping with his hair. It was a nasty situation; but Texas, accustomed to perils, was as brave as he was wicked; and he looked his darkling fate in the face with admirable coolness and intelligence. His decision was to wait a favorable moment, and when it came, charge for life.
When he perceived that the mass of the Indians had gathered on the trail between the wagons and the cañon, he concluded that his chance had arrived; and with teeth grimly set, rifle balanced across his saddle-bow, revolver slung to his wrist, he started in silence and at full speed on his almost hopeless rush. If you will cease to consider the man as a modern bushwhacker, and invest him temporarily with the character, ennobled by time, of a borderer of the Scottish marches, you will be able to feel some sympathy for him in his audacious enterprise.
He was mounted on an American horse, a half-blood gray, large-boned and powerful, who could probably have traversed the half-mile in a minute had there been no impediment, and who was able to floor with a single shock two or three of the little animals of the Apaches. He was a fine spectacle as he thundered alone across the plain, upright and easy in his seat, balancing his heavy rifle as if it were a rattan, his dark and cruel face settled for fight and his fierce black eyes blazing.
Only a minute's ride, but that minute life or death. As he had expected, the Apaches discovered him almost as soon as he left the cover of his butte, and all the outlying members of the horde swarmed toward him with a yell, brandishing their spears and getting ready their bows as they rode. It would clearly be impossible for him to cut his way through thirty warriors unless he received assistance from the train. Would it come? His evil conscience told him, without the least reason, that Thurstane would not help. But from Coronado, whose life he had saved and whose evil work he had undertaken to do—from this man, "greaser" as he was, he did expect a sally. If it did not come, and if he should escape by some rare chance, he, Texas Smith, would murder the Mexican the first time he found him alone, so help him God!
While he thought and cursed he flew. But his goal was still five hundred yards away, and the nearest redskins were within two hundred yards, when he saw a rescuing charge shoot out from the wagons. Coronado led it. In this foxy nature the wolf was not wanting, and under strong impulse he could be somewhat of a Pizarro. He had no starts of humanity nor of real chivalry, but he had family pride and personal vanity, and he was capable of the fighting fury. When Thurstane had given the word to advance, Coronado had put himself forward gallantly.
"Stay here," he said to the officer; "guard the train with your infantry. I am a caballero, and I will do a caballero's work," he added, rising proudly in his stirrups. "Come on, you villains!" was his order to the six Mexicans.
All abreast, spread out like a skirmish line, the seven horsemen clattered over the plain, making for the point where Texas Smith was about to plunge among the whirling and caracoling Apaches.
Now came the crisis of the day. The moment the sixty or seventy Apaches near the mouth of the cañon saw Coronado set out on his charge, they raised a yell of joy over the error of the emigrants in dividing their forces, and plunged straight at the wagons. In half a minute two wild, irregular, and yet desperate combats were raging.
Texas Smith had begun his battle while Coronado was still a quarter of a mile away. Aiming his rifle at an Apache who was riding directly upon him, instead of dodging and wheeling in the usual fashion of these cautious fighters, he sent the audacious fellow out of his saddle with a bullet-hole through the lungs. But this was no salvation; the dreaded long-range firearm was now empty; the savages circled nearer and began to use their arrows. Texas let his rifle hang from the pommel and presented his revolver. But the bowshots were more than its match. It could not be trusted to do execution at forty yards, and at that distance the Indian shafts are deadly. Already several had hissed close by him, one had gashed the forehead of his horse, and another had pierced his clothing.
All that Texas wanted, however, was time. If he could pass a half minute without a disabling wound, he would have help. He retreated a little, or rather he edged away toward the right, wheeling and curveting after the manner of the Apaches, in order to present an unsteady mark for their archery. To keep them at a distance he fired one barrel of his revolver, though without effect. Meantime he dodged incessantly, now throwing himself forward and backward in the saddle, now hanging over the side of his horse and clinging to his neck. It was hard and perilous work, but he was gaining seconds, and every second was priceless. Notwithstanding his extreme peril, he calculated his chances with perfect coolness and with a sagacity which was admirable.
But this intelligent savage had to do with savages as clever as himself. The Apaches saw Coronado coming up on their rear, and they knew that they must make short work of the hunter, or must let him escape. While a score or so faced about to meet the Mexicans, a dozen charged with screeches and brandished lances upon the Texan. Now came a hand-to-hand struggle which looked as if it must end in the death of Smith and perhaps of several of his assailants. But cavalry fights are notoriously bloodless in comparison to their apparent fury; the violent and perpetual movement of the combatants deranges aim and renders most of the blows futile; shots are fired at a yard distance without hitting, and strokes are delivered which only wound the air.
One spear stuck in Smith's saddle; another pierced his jacket-sleeve and tore its way out; only one of the sharp, quickly-delivered points drew blood. He felt a slight pain in his side, and he found afterward that a lance-head had raked one of his ribs, tearing up the skin and scraping the bone for four or five inches. Meantime he shot a warrior through the head, sent another off with a hole in the shoulder, and fired one barrel without effect. He had but a single charge left (saving this for himself in the last extremity), when he burst through the prancing throng of screeching, thrusting ragamuffins, and reached the side of Coronado.
Here another hurly-burly of rearing and plunging combat awaited him. Coronado, charging as an old Castilian hidalgo might have charged upon the Moors, had plunged directly into the midst of the Apaches who awaited him, giving them little time to use their arrows, and at first receiving no damage. The six rifles of his Mexicans sent two Apaches out of their saddles, and then came a capering, plunging joust of lances, both parties using the same weapon. Coronado alone had sabre and revolver; and he handled them both with beautiful coolness and dexterity; he rode, too, as well as the best of all these other centaurs. His superb horse whirled and reared under the guidance of a touch of the knees, while the rider plied firearm with one hand and sharply-ground blade with the other. Thurstane, an infantryman, and only a fair equestrian, would not have been half so effective in this combat of caballeros.
Coronado's first bullet knocked a villainous-looking tatterdemalion clean into the happy hunting grounds. Then came a lance thrust; he parried it with his sabre and plunged within range of the point; there was a sharp, snake-like hiss of the light, curved blade; down went Apache number two. At this rate, providing there were no interruptions, he could finish the whole twenty. He went at his job with a handy adroitness which was almost scientific, it was so much like surgery, like dissection. His mind was bent, with a sort of preternatural calmness and cleverness, upon the business of parrying lance thrusts, aiming his revolver, and delivering sabre cuts. It was a species of fighting intellection, at once prudent and destructive. It was not the headlong, reckless, pugnacious rage of the old Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian berserker. It was the practical, ready, rational furor of the Latin race.
Presently he saw that two of his rancheros had been lanced, and that there were but four left. A thrill of alarm, a commencement of panic, a desire to save himself at all hazards, crisped his heart and half paralyzed his energy. Remembering with perfect distinctness that four of his barrels were empty, he would perhaps have tried to retreat at the risk of being speared in the back, had he not at this critical moment been joined by Texas Smith.
That instinctive, ferocious, and tireless fighter, while seeming to be merely circling and curveting among his assailants, contrived to recharge two barrels of his revolver, and was once more ready for business. Down went one Apache; then the horse of another fell to reeling and crouching in a sickly way; then a charge of half a dozen broke to right and left in irresolute prancings. At sight of this friendly work Coronado drew a fresh breath of courage, and executed his greatest feat yet of horsemanship and swordsmanship. Spurring after and then past one of the wheeling braves, he swept his sabre across the fellow's bare throat with a drawing stroke, and half detached the scowling, furious, frightened head from the body.
There was a wide space of open ground before him immediately. The Apaches know nothing of sabre work; not one of those present had ever before seen such a blow or such an effect; they were not only panic-stricken, but horror-stricken. For one moment, right between the staring antagonists, a bloody corpse sat upright on a rearing horse, with its head fallen on one shoulder and hanging by a gory muscle. The next moment it wilted, rolled downward with outstretched arms, and collapsed upon the gravel, an inert mass.
Texas Smith uttered a loud scream of tigerish delight. He had never, in all his pugnacious and sanguinary life, looked upon anything so fascinating. It seemed to him as ifhisheaven—the savage Walhalla of his Saxon or Danish berserker race—were opened before him. In his ecstasy he waved his dirty, long fingers toward Coronado, and shouted, "Bully for you, old hoss!"
But he had self-possession enough, now that his hand was free for an instant from close battle, to reload his rifle and revolver. The four rancheros who still retained their saddles mechanically and hurriedly followed his example. The contest here was over; the Apaches knew that bullets would soon be humming about their ears, and they dreaded them; there was a retreat, and this retreat was a run of an eighth of a mile.
"Hurrah for the waggins!" shouted Texas, and dashed away toward the train. Coronado stared; his heart sank within him; the train was surrounded by a mob of prancing savages; there was more fighting to be done when he had already done his best. But not knowing where else to go, he followed his leader toward this new battle, loading his revolver as he rode, and wishing that he were in Santa Fé, or anywhere in peace.
We must go back a little. As already stated, the main body of the Apaches had perceived the error of the emigrants in separating, and had promptly availed themselves of it to charge upon the train. To attack it there were seventy ferocious and skilful warriors; to defend it there were twelve timorous muleteers and drivers, four soldiers, and Ralph.
"Fall back!" shouted the Lieutenant to his regulars when he saw the equestrian avalanche coming. "Each man take a wagon and hold it."
The order was obeyed in a hurry. The Apaches, heartened by what they supposed to be a panic, swarmed along at increased speed, and gave out their most diabolical screeches, hoping no doubt to scare men into helplessness, and beasts into a stampede. But the train was an immovable fortress, and the fortress was well garrisoned. Although the mules winced and plunged a good deal, the drivers succeeded in holding them to their places, and the double column of carriages, three in each rank, preserved its formation. In every vehicle there was a muleteer, with hands free for fighting, bearing something or other in the shape of a firelock, and inspired with what courage there is in desperation. The four flankers, necessarily the most exposed to assault, had each a United States regular, with musket, bayonet, and forty rounds of buck and ball. In front of the phalanx, directly before the wagon which contained the two ladies, sat as brave an officer as there was in the American army.
The Apaches had also committed their tactical blunder. They should all have followed Coronado, made sure of destroying him and his Mexicans, and then attacked the train. But either there was no sagacious military spirit among them, or the love of plunder was too much for judgment and authority, and so down they came on the wagons.
As the swarthy swarm approached, it spread out until it covered the front of the train and overlapped its flanks, ready to sweep completely around it and fasten upon any point which should seem feebly or timorously defended. The first man endangered was the lonely officer who sat his horse in front of the line of kicking and plunging mules. Fortunately for him, he now had a weapon of longer range than his revolver; he had remembered that in one of the wagons was stored a peculiar rifle belonging to Coronado; he had just had time to drag it out and strap its cartridge-box around his waist.
He levelled at the centre of the clattering, yelling column. It fluctuated; the warriors who were there did not like to be aimed at; they began to zigzag, caracole, and diverge to right or left; several halted and commenced using their bows. At one of these archers, whose arrow already trembled on the string, Thurstane let fly, sending him out of the saddle. Then he felt a quick, sharp pain in his left arm, and perceived that a shaft had passed clean through it.
There is this good thing about the arrow, that it has not weight enough to break bones, nor tearing power enough to necessarily paralyze muscle. Thurstane could still manage a revolver with his wounded arm, while his right was good for almost any amount of slashing work. Letting the rifle drop and swing from the pommel, he met the charge of two grinning and scowling lancers. One thrust he parried with his sabre; from the other he saved his neck by stooping; but it drove through his coat collar, and nearly unseated him. For a moment our bleeding and hampered young gladiator seemed to be in a bad way. But he was strong; he braced himself in his stirrups, and he made use of both his hands. The Indian whose spear was still free caught a bullet through the shoulder, dropped his weapon, and circled away yelling. Then Thurstane plunged at the other, reared his tall horse over him, broke the lance-shaft with a violent twist, and swung his long cavalry sabre. It was in vain that the Apache crouched, spurred, and skedaddled; he got away alive, but it was with a long bloody gash down his naked back; the last seen of him he was going at full speed, holding by his pony's mane. The Lieutenant remained master of the whole front of the caravan.
Meantime there was a busy popping along the flankers and through the hinder openings in the second line of wagons. The Indians skurried, wheeled, pranced, and yelled, let fly their arrows from a distance, dashed up here and there with their lances, and as quickly retreated before the threatening muzzles. The muleteers, encouraged by the presence of the soldiers, behaved with respectable firmness and blazed away rapidly, though not effectively. The regulars reserved their fire for close quarters, and then delivered it to bloody purpose.
Around Sweeny, who garrisoned the left-hand wagon of the rearmost line, the fight was particularly noisy. The Apaches saw that he was little, and perhaps they saw that he was afraid of his gun. They went for him; they were after him with their sharpest sticks; they counted on Sweeny. The speck of a man sat on the front seat of the wagon, outside of the driver, and fully exposed to the tribulation. He was in a state of the highest Paddy excitement. He grinned and bounced like a caravan of monkeys. But he was not much scared; he was mainly in a furious rage. Pointing his musket first at one and then at another, he returned yell for yell, and was in fact abusive.
"Oh, fire yer bow-arreys!" he screamed. "Ye can't hit the side av a waggin. Ah, ye bloody, murtherin' nagers! go 'way wid yer long poles. I'd fight a hundred av the loikes av ye wid ownly a shillelah."
One audacious thrust of a lance he parried very dexterously with his bayonet, at the same time screeching defiantly and scornfully in the face of his hideous assailant. But this fellow's impudent approach was too much to be endured, and Sweeny proceeded at once to teach him to keep at a more civil distance.
"Oh, ye pokin' blaggard!" he shouted, and actually let drive with his musket. The ball missed, but by pure blundering one of the buck-shot took effect, and the brave retreated out of the mêlée with a sensation as if his head had been split. Some time later he was discovered sitting up doggedly on a rock, while a comrade was trying to dig the buckshot out of his thick skull with an arrow-point.
"I'll tache 'em to moind their bizniss," grinned Sweeny triumphantly, as he reloaded. "The nasty, hootin' nagers! They've no rights near a white man, anyhow."
On the whole, the attack lingered. The Apaches had done some damage. One driver had been lanced mortally. One muleteer had been shot through the heart with an arrow. Another arrow had scraped Shubert's ankle. Another, directed by the whimsical genius of accident, had gone clean through the drooping cartilage of Phineas Glover's long nose, as if to prepare him for the sporting of jewelled decorations. Two mules were dead, and several wounded. The sides of the wagons bristled with shafts, and their canvas tops were pierced with fine holes. But, on the other hand, the Apaches had lost a dozen horses, three or four warriors killed, and seven or eight wounded.
Such was the condition of affairs around the train when Coronado, Texas Smith, and the four surviving herdsmen came storming back to it.