Whatever might be the nature of the tragedy it would be over with long
before this, and those moving black spots away yonder to the west, that
he had discerned from the bluff, were undoubtedly the departing raiders.
There was nothing left for Keith to do except determine the fate of the
unfortunates, and give their bodies decent burial. That any had escaped,
or yet lived, was altogether unlikely, unless, perchance, women had been
in the party, in which case they would have been borne away prisoners.
Confident that no hostiles would be left behind to observe his
movements, Keith pressed steadily forward, leading his horse. He had
thus traversed fully half a mile before coming upon any evidence of a
fight--here the pursuers had apparently come up with the wagons, and
circled out upon either side. From their ponies' tracks there must have
been a dozen in the band. Perhaps a hundred yards further along lay
two dead ponies. Keith examined them closely--both had been ridden with
saddles, the marks of the cinches plainly visible. Evidently one of the
wagon mules had also dropped in the traces here, and had been dragged
along by his mates. Just beyond came a sudden depression in the prairie
down which the wagons had plunged so heavily as to break one of the
axles; the wheel lay a few yards away, and, somewhat to the right, there
lay the wreck of the wagon itself, two dead mules still in the traces,
the vehicle stripped of contents and charred by fire. A hundred feet
farther along was the other wagon, its tongue broken, the canvas top
ripped open, while between the two were scattered odds and ends of
wearing apparel and provisions, with a pile of boxes smoking grimly. The
remaining mules were gone, and no semblance of life remained anywhere.
Keith dropped his reins over his horse's head, and, with Winchester
cocked and ready, advanced cautiously.
Death from violence had long since become almost a commonplace
occurrence to Keith, yet now he shrank for an instant as his eyes
perceived the figure of a man lying motionless across the broken wagon
tongue. The grizzled hair and beard were streaked with blood, the face
almost unrecognizable, while the hands yet grasped a bent and shattered
rifle. Evidently the man had died fighting, beaten down by overwhelming
numbers after expending his last shot. Then those fiends had scalped
and left him where he fell. Fifty feet beyond, shot in the back, lay a
younger man, doubled up in a heap, also scalped and dead. That was all;
Keith scouted over a wide circle, even scanning the stretch of gravel
under the river bank, before he could fully satisfy himself there were
no others in the party. It seemed impossible that these two travelling
alone would have ventured upon such a trip in the face of known Indian
hostility. Yet they must have done so, and once again his lips muttered:
“Of all the blame fools!”
Suddenly he halted, staring about over the prairie, obsessed by a new
thought, an aroused suspicion. There had appeared merely the hoof-prints
of the one horse alongside of the fleeing wagons when they first turned
out from the trail, and that horse had been newly shod. But there were
two dead ponies lying back yonder; neither shod, yet both had borne
saddles. More than this, they had been spurred, the blood marks still
plainly visible, and one of them was branded; he remembered it now, a
star and arrow. What could all this portend? Was it possible this attack
was no Indian affair after all? Was the disfiguring of bodies, the
scalping, merely done to make it appear the act of savages? Driven
to investigation by this suspicion, he passed again over the trampled
ground, marking this time every separate indentation, every faintest
imprint of hoof or foot. There was no impression of a moccasin anywhere;
every mark remaining was of booted feet. The inference was sufficiently
plain--this had been the deed of white men, not of red; foul murder, and
not savage war.
The knowledge seemed to seer Keith's brain with fire, and he sprang to
his feet, hands clinched and eyes blazing. He could have believed this
of Indians, it was according to their nature, their method of warfare;
but the cowardliness of it, the atrocity of the act, as perpetrated
by men of his own race, instantly aroused within him a desire for
vengeance. He wanted to run the fellows down, to discover their
identity. Without thinking of personal danger, he ran forward on their
trail, which led directly westward, along the line of cottonwoods. These
served to conceal his own movements, yet for the moment, burning with
passion, he was utterly without caution, without slightest sense of
peril. He must know who was guilty of such a crime; he felt capable of
killing them even as he would venomous snakes. It was a perfectly plain
trail to follow, for the fugitives, apparently convinced of safety, and
confident their cowardly deed would be charged to Indian raiders, had
made no particular effort at concealment, but had ridden away at a
gallop, their horses' hoofs digging deeply into the soft turf. On this
retreat they had followed closely along the river bank, aiming for the
ford, and almost before he realized it Keith was himself at the water's
edge where the trail abruptly ended, staring vaguely across toward
the opposite shore. Even as he stood there, realizing the futility of
further pursuit amid the maze of sand dunes opposite, the sharp reports
of two rifles reached him, spurts of smoke rose from the farther bank,
and a bullet chugged into the ground at his feet, while another sang
shrilly overhead.
These shots, although neither came sufficiently near to be alarming,
served to send Keith to cover. Cool-headed and alert now, his first
mad rage dissipated, he scanned the opposite bank cautiously, but could
nowhere discover any evidence of life. Little by little he comprehended
the situation, and decided upon his own action. The fugitives were aware
of his presence, and would prevent his crossing the stream, yet they
were not at all liable to return to this side and thus reveal their
identity. To attempt any further advance would be madness, but he felt
perfectly secure from molestation so long as he remained quietly on the
north shore. Those shots were merely a warning to keep back; the very
fact that the men firing kept concealed was proof positive that they
simply wished to be left alone. They were not afraid of what he knew
now, only desirous of not being seen. Confident as to this, he retreated
openly, without making the slightest effort to conceal his movements,
until he had regained the scene of murder. In evidence of the truth of
his theory no further shots were fired, and although he watched that
opposite sand bank carefully, not the slightest movement revealed the
presence of others. That every motion he made was being observed by keen
eyes he had no doubt, but this knowledge did not disconcert him, now
that he felt convinced fear of revealment would keep his watchers at a
safe distance. Whoever they might be they were evidently more anxious to
escape discovery than he was fearful of attack, and possessed no desire
to take his life, unless it became necessary to prevent recognition.
They still had every reason to believe their attack on the wagons would
be credited to hostile Indians, and would consider it far safer to
remain concealed, and thus harbor this supposition. They could not
suspect that Keith had already stumbled upon the truth, and was
determined to verify it.
Secure in this conception of the situation, yet still keeping a wary eye
about to guard against any treachery, the plainsman, discovering a spade
in the nearest wagon, hastily dug a hole in the sand, wrapped the dead
bodies in blankets, and deposited them therein, piling above the mound
the charred remains of boxes as some slight protection against prowling
wolves. He searched the clothing of the men, but found little to reward
the effort, a few letters which were slipped into his pockets to be read
later, some ordinary trinkets hardly worth preserving except that they
might assist in identifying the victims, and, about the neck of the
elder man, a rather peculiar locket, containing a portrait painted
on ivory. Keith was a long time opening this, the spring being very
ingeniously concealed, but upon finally succeeding, he looked upon
the features of a woman of middle age, a strong mature face of marked
refinement, exceedingly attractive still, with smiling dark eyes, and
a perfect wealth of reddish brown hair. He held the locket open in his
hands for several minutes, wondering who she could be, and what possible
connection she could have held with the dead. Something about that face
smiling up into his own held peculiar fascination for him, gripping him
with a strange feeling of familiarity, touching some dim memory which
failed to respond. Surely he had never seen the original, for she was
not one to be easily forgotten, and yet eyes, hair, expression,
combined to remind him of some one whom he had seen but could not bring
definitely to mind. There were no names on the locket, no marks of
identification of any kind, yet realizing the sacredness of it, Keith
slipped the fragile gold chain about his neck, and securely hid the
trinket beneath his shirt.
It was noon by this time, the sun high overhead, and his horse, with
dangling rein, still nibbling daintily at the short grass. There was
no reason for his lingering longer. He swept his gaze the length and
breadth of the desolate valley, and across the river over the sand
hills. All alike appeared deserted, not a moving thing being visible
between the bluffs and the stream. Still he had the unpleasant feeling
of being watched, and it made him restless and eager to be away. The
earlier gust of anger, the spirit of revenge, had left him, but it had
merely changed into a dogged resolution to discover the perpetrators of
this outrage and bring them to justice for the crime. The face in the
locket seemed to ask it of him, and his nature urged response. But he
could hope to accomplish nothing more here, and the plainsman swung
himself into the saddle. He turned his horse's head eastward, and rode
away. From the deeply rutted trail he looked back to where the fire
still smoked in the midst of that desolate silence.