A STERN CHASE
Could Felipe but have known what the stage-driver knew, that the rise of
the river had begun two days ago, he would never have made the sad
mistake of taking the straight route to Ensenada. Alas, now, when he and
Josefa reached the spot where the ford should have been, his cry,
"_Valgame Dios_, the river is up," was only too true. As they passed
through the grove of cottonwoods they beheld right from their feet to
the farther bank, full a half-mile off, a turbid yellow flood, rolling
rapidly southward towards Texas and the Gulf, twelve hundred miles away.
All autumn and winter long, a broad expanse of dry water-worn pebbles
and boulders, and beds of shingle and sand, through which ran half a
dozen easily forded streams of clear water, had been all that lay
between La Boca on the west bank and Ensenada on the east. During those
seasons both horses and waggons, and people on foot by picking their way
through the shallows, could cross almost anywhere without wading much
above knee-deep. But all autumn and winter long, on the great mountain
ranges of Colorado, two hundred miles away to the north where the river
had its sources, the snows of successive storms had been piled up deeper
and deeper. And now the sun was well past the vernal equinox, and his
growing heat had loosened those snows and was sending their cold floods
down ten thousand gulches and tributaries to swell the current of the
Rio Grande. This takes place every April, and Felipe ought to have
thought of it, but he was young and had not yet learned to think of
everything. This was a possibility he had forgotten.
"It must have come down in the last two days," he groaned, as he looked
hopelessly at the flood. "I know Juan and Miguel passed here only three
days ago from Santa Fé, and it was all light then, and now it is like
this."
"We are lost," said Josefa. "What shall we do, Felipe?"--even her brave
heart succumbing to this unexpected calamity.
"Don't cry, dear heart, don't cry," said he tenderly, taking her in his
arms, and lifting her from the horse. "Perhaps there is a boat. I will
go and see." He pulled the bridle from the horse's head. "Do you rest
here a minute," he said, spreading his blanket for her to rest her weary
limbs, "and let him feed here on the green grass, but don't let him
drink. I will run back to La Boca and ask." He threw her the rope, and
darted back like the wind in the direction of the houses they had lately
passed. The unkempt Mexican was milking a cow in the corral as Felipe
dashed up breathless. "Where is the boat?" he asked eagerly. "Is it
running? Is it this side?"
"The boat?" said the Mexican slowly, going on with his milking. "No,
friend. The river only came down like this yesterday. It was high the
day before, but we could still ford it up above. It was yesterday it
came down big."
The leisurely manner of the man, and the indefiniteness of his reply,
were maddening to the excited Indian.
"Yes, but the boat," he almost shouted, "the boat, where is it?"
The Mexican had finished milking his cow, and putting down the milk jar
he began to unfasten the rawhide strap with which her hind legs were
tied.
"The boat, friend?" said he; "there is no boat here now. Last year Don
Leandro had the boat, but she is hauled up, and they say there is a hole
in her. Perhaps he will talk of getting it mended after a while. I
suppose the Americano at the mail station in Ensenada will be wanting to
send the mail across next week."
"_Valgame Dios!_" cried the boy. "And will there be no way of getting
over the river till next week?"
"The water will have run by in a month, or perhaps in three weeks, if
God wills it," remarked the Mexican piously; "and then, friend, you can
cross without a boat."
"And is there no boat anywhere up or down the river on this side?"
exclaimed Felipe. "Is there no way over?"
"There are the Indians at San Miguel, eight leagues below," said the
man, proceeding to take down the bars of the corral for the purpose of
turning out the cow to pasture. "They have a bridge of single logs to
cross on foot by. I do not know if the river will have carried it down.
Probably not. They have land on both sides, and are always crossing."
"Eight leagues below!" cried the young Indian in a despairing voice.
"And a sandy road from here they say--deep sand, is it not?" He followed
the man and the cow outside the corral.
"Yes, friend," said the man, "it is deep sand along the river. But
there is a better way: to take the trail to Santiago as far as the
Banded Mesa and then turn to the left. So you keep up on the mesas the
whole way, and it is better going."
"Thanks, sir; _adios_," said Felipe; and without waiting for more
discourse he tore along back towards Josefa as fast as he could run.
She was lying on the blanket where he had left her, and holding the end
of the lariat. Felipe rushed up to the horse and began to bridle him.
"There is no boat, sweetheart," he panted, "but there is a bridge of the
Indians at San Miguel. Let us go there. We can leave the horse with the
Indians on this side, and get a horse from some of them on the other,
and come on to Ensenada that way. Make haste."
Once more he lifted her to the saddle, and springing up behind her
turned the horse's head.
"They must be after us long ago," said he wearily, looking at the sun,
which was already well up. "I expect they are half-way here by this
time. They will be here in a little while."
"My father will have no horse," suggested Josefa, trying to make the
best of it.
"Oh, he will take the Americano's. Don Estevan will lend it to _him_,"
said Felipe bitterly. "The cacique can take what he wants."
He revolved their position in his mind. If he rode the back trail as far
as the Banded Mesa, and there turned off the trail just where it was
hard and stony, he would be almost certain to throw the pursuers off the
track. But could he reach the Banded Mesa before they got there? That
was the question. He considered it well. It was an up-hill road, and
the horse, gallantly as he had carried his double burden, was beginning
to flag. He doubted whether to try it did not mean running into the very
jaws of the lion. It seemed more hopeful to turn out as soon as they
were out of sight of the people at La Boca, and go down parallel to the
Rio Grande, trusting to the sand, which was here in drifts almost like
the seashore, being so loose that no definite trail of theirs could be
traced.
On this idea he acted. But no sooner were they in the deep sand than the
tired horse could no longer raise the semblance of a gallop. Felipe
sprang off and ran on foot, urging the horse on. Relieved of half his
load he went better, but even under the most favourable circumstances
the deep sand was very heavy going, and their progress was but slow.
Thus they struggled on for two weary miles, and Felipe kept uttering
words of encouragement to his mistress, whose silence proclaimed her
sinking spirits; but all the time his eyes kept turning in the direction
of the Santiago trail, for every moment he expected their pursuers to
appear.
Suddenly on the brow of the topmost of the low, rolling hills that rose
between the Rio Grande and the mesas, his keen sight discerned a black
speck, which he knew had not been there a minute before. In the clear
air of New Mexico, and over those bare, open downs far-off things are
seen with amazing distinctness; but at that distance it was impossible
to say for certain what it was. Felipe said nothing of it to Josefa;
what was the use of adding unnecessarily to her terrors. He kept his eye
vigilantly on the object of his suspicions.
"It is no use to try to hide," said he to himself. "There isn't cover
enough among these scattering juniper bushes to hide a sheep. If it is
a man he can see us as plain as we do him, and he will know what we are
by our actions. If it is a cow or a horse feeding, it will move slowly
about; if it is a man riding, he will move straight on in a minute or
two, and then I shall know."
His uncertainty did not last long. Before five minutes elapsed the speck
moved again, and this time it descended the hill straight towards the
fugitives, till it was lost to sight behind the brow of a nearer ridge.
There was no longer any doubt left in Felipe's mind.
"_Ay de mi!_" said he to his mistress, "we are pursued. It is one man
only, as far as I can see. It must be your father," and he urged the
horse on freshly.
"Run, run, Felipe!" said the girl. "Hide yourself somewhere! He will
kill you if he catches us. Never mind me. He won't kill me, you know."
"No, not that! I can't do that!" he cried; but dark despair came over
him. His feet seemed like lead as he struggled forward. He looked over
his shoulder again. The black speck had reappeared again much closer and
much larger; it was a galloping horseman. His last hope fled. "There he
comes!" he cried--and he seized the horse's bridle, and, turning him to
the left, headed him straight for the Rio Grande, which was but a few
hundred yards away.
"What are you doing? Where are you going, Felipe?" exclaimed Josefa,
troubled at this sudden change of direction and at the sudden fury of
his face.
"Where am I going?" he echoed bitterly. "Don Estevan told me yesterday
that I must come to the Rio Grande to find water enough to drown myself,
and I am going to see."
They came near the brink of the rushing river. Behind them the
galloping horseman was fast closing up the gap that separated them.
Felipe recognised his style of riding. "It is your father! see!" he
cried in a voice of despair, "but he sha'n't separate us now," and he
urged the horse towards the water's edge.
"Oh stop, Felipe, stop! What madness is this?" cried the girl, and she
drew rein and pulled up. Felipe seized the bridle, his face aflame with
baffled passion.
"Loose the rein!" he cried to her desperately. "Let the horse come on.
He will carry you over. I can swim."
"Oh, you are mad!" said she, gazing on the wide rolling flood and the
distant shore beyond. "Don't dream of such a thing. We shall both be
drowned."
"Well, let us drown, then; we shall be together," he exclaimed
passionately. "Give him the rein. Come on. Better that than to be beaten
like dogs and separated." As he spoke he looked over his shoulder and
saw that Salvador, his face raging with anger, was within a few yards of
them. Felipe raised his arm to strike Josefa's horse, and force him to
take the desperate plunge into the boiling current.
The desperate plunge was never taken. A shot cracked. Felipe felt a
great blow, and his right arm fell powerless to his side. Salvador was
close by with a smoking pistol in his hand. Josefa's terrified horse
wheeled round and bounded away in terror from the bank of the dreaded
river. Salvador dashed in between her and Felipe and fired at him again.
Felipe hardly knew if he was hit again or not, but instinctively he ran
off some fifty yards and then stopped. Wounded and weaponless, what
could he do against the murderous firearm in the hands of the cacique?
"Yes, run, you villain, you scoundrel!" shouted Salvador. "Run, and
don't stop within a hundred leagues of me! If ever I catch you near the
village again I'll kill you--I will," and he poured forth a torrent of
abuse at the wretched youth who stood there on the river's bank the very
picture of misery, the blood running down his right arm and dropping
from his hand to the ground. Josefa saw him, and overcome with pity and
fear for him turned her horse towards him, but the animal, dreading the
water, refused to approach it.
Salvador rode up to her and seized her rein. "Ah, traitress, ungrateful,
disobedient!" hissed his angry voice. "I'll settle with you for this
piece of work, be sure." And leaving Felipe he started away from the
river, dragging the horse and its rider after him across the sand-dunes.
The horse followed not unwillingly, but too slowly for Salvador's
impatience. He dropped the rein, pulled his horse behind, and striking
the other violently with his whip forced him into a gallop. The position
was a tempting one to his passion, and the cruel rawhide fell once and
again, not on the horse only but also on his rider. The girl uttered no
sound and made no resistance, only she bent forward over the animal's
neck before the shower of blows. At this pitiful sight her lover gave a
great cry of despair and started forward to the rescue, wounded and
unarmed as he was. But bleeding, exhausted, and on foot, it was hopeless
for him to attempt to overtake the horses. He made one despairing rush
with all his failing strength, then he fell headlong and lay senseless
on the sand.