Not necessary to say that the horsemen riding up to the ranche are
Captain Haynes and his company of Rangers. They have come up the canon
guided by Barbato.
Even more than they is the renegade surprised at seeing a house in that
solitary spot. It was not there on his last passing through the valley
in company with his red-skinned confederates, the Tenawas, which he did
some twelve months before. Equally astonished is he to see Walt Wilder
spring out from the door, though he hails the sight with a far different
feeling. At the first glance he recognises the gigantic individual who
so heroically defended the waggon-train, and the other behind--for
Hamersley has also come forth--as the second man who retreated along
with him. Surely they are the two who were entombed!
The unexpected appearance produces on the Mexican an effect almost
comical, though not to him. On the contrary, he stands appalled, under
the influence of a dark superstitious terror, his only movement being to
repeatedly make the sign of the Cross, all the while muttering Ave
Marias.
Under other circumstances his ludicrous behaviour would have elicited
laughter from the Rangers--peals of it. But their eyes are not on him,
all being turned to the two men who have issued out of the cabin and are
coming on towards the spot where they have pulled up.
Several of them have already recognised their old comrade, and in
hurried speech communicate the fact to the others.
"Walt Wilder!" are the words that leap from a dozen pairs of lips, while
they, pronouncing the name with glances aghast, look as if a spectre had
suddenly appeared to them.
An apparition, however, that is welcome; altogether different to the
impression it has produced upon their guide.
Meanwhile, Wilder advances to meet them; as he comes on, keeping up a
fire of exclamatory phrases, addressed to Hamersley, who is close
behind.
"Air this chile awake, or only dreaming? Look thar, Frank! That's Ned
Haynes, my old captin'. An' thar's Nat Cully, an' Jim Buckland. Durn
it, thar's the hul strenth o' the kumpany."
Walt is now close to their horses' heads, and the rangers, assured it is
himself and not his ghost, are still stricken with surprise. Some of
them turn towards the Mexican for explanation. They suppose him to have
lied in his story about their old comrade having been closed up in a
cave, though with what motive they cannot guess. The man's appearance
does not make things any clearer. He still stands affrighted,
trembling, and repeating his Paternosters. But now in changed tone, for
his fear is no longer of the supernatural. Reason reasserting itself,
he has given up the idea of disembodied spirits, convinced that the two
figures coming forward are real flesh and blood; the same whose blood he
assisted in spilling, and whose flesh he lately believed to be decaying
in the obscurity of a cave. He stands appalled as ever; no more with
unearthly awe, but the fear of an earthly retribution--a terrible one,
which he is conscious of having provoked by the cruel crime in which he
participated.
Whatever his fears and reflections they are not for the time intruded
upon. The rangers, after giving a glance to him, turn to the two men
who are now at their horses' heads; and, springing from their saddles,
cluster around them with questions upon their tongues and eager
expectations in their eyes.
The captain and Cully are the two first who interrogate.
"Can we be sure it's you, Walt?" is the interrogatory put by his old
officer. "Is it yourself?"
"Darn me ef I know, cap. Jess now I ain't sure o' anythin', arter
what's passed. Specially meetin' you wi' the rest o' the boys. Say,
cap, what's fetched ye out hyar?"
"You."
"Me!"
"Yes; we came to bury you."
"Yis, hoss," adds Cully, confirming the captain's statement. "We're on
the way to gie burial to your bones, not expecting to find so much flesh
on 'em. For that purpiss we've come express all the way from Peecawn
Crik. An' as I know'd you had a kindly feelin' for yur ole shootin'-
iron, I've brought that along to lay it in the grave aside o' ye."
While speaking, Cully slips out of his saddle and gives his old comrade
a true prairie embrace, at the same time handing him his gun.
Neither the words nor the weapon makes things any clearer to Walt, but
rather add to their complication. With increased astonishment he cries
out,--
"Geehorum! Am I myself, or somebody else? Is't a dream, or not?
That's my ole shootin' stick, sartin. I left it over my hoss, arter
cuttin' the poor critter's throat. Maybe you've got him too? I shedn't
now be surprised at anythin'. Come, Nat; don't stan' shilly-shallyin',
but tell me all about it. Whar did ye git the gun?"
"On Peecawn Crik. Thar we kim acrost a party o' Tenawa Kimanch, unner a
chief they call Horned Lizart, o' the whom ye've heern. He han't no
name now, seein' he's rubbed out, wi' the majority of his band. We did
that. The skrimmage tuk place on the crik, whar we foun' them camped.
It didn't last long; an' arter 'twere eended, lookin' about among thar
bodies, we foun' thar beauty o' a chief wi' this gun upon his parson,
tight clutched in the death-grup. Soon's seeing it I know'd 'twar
yourn; an' in coorse surspected ye'd had some mischance. Still, the gun
kedn't gie us any informashun o' how you'd parted wi' it. By good luck,
'mong the Injuns we'd captered a Mexikin rennygade--thet thing ye see
out thar. He war joined in Horned Lizart's lot, an' he'd been wi' 'em
some time. So we put a loose larzette roun' his thrapple, an' on the
promise o' its bein' tightened, he tolt us the hul story; how they hed
attackted an' skuttled a carryvan, an' all 'bout entoomin' you an' a
kimrade--this young fellur, I take it--who war wi' ye. Our bizness out
hyar war to look up yur bones an' gie 'em a more Christyun kind o'
beril. We were goin' for that cave, the rennygade guidin' us. He said
he ked take us a near cut up the gully through which we've just come--
arter ascendin' one o' the heads o' the Loosyvana Rod. Near cut!
Doggone it, he's been righter than I reck'n he thort o'. Stead o' your
bones thar's yur body, wi' as much beef on't as ever. Now I've told our
story, we want yourn, the which appears to be a darned deal more o' a
unexplainable mistry than ourn. So open yur head, ole hoss, and let's
have it."
Brief and graphic as is Cully's narrative, it takes Walt still less time
to put his former associates in possession of what has happened to
himself and Hamersley, whom he introduces to them as the companion of
his perilous adventures--the second of the two believed to have been
buried alive!