Notwithstanding its number--larger than usual for a party of borderers
merely in search of a strayed neighbour--the expedition pursued its way
with, considerable caution.
There was reason. The Indians were upon the war-trail. Scouts were
sent out in advance; and professed "trackers" employed to pick up, and
interpret the "sign."
On the prairie, extending nearly ten miles to the westward of the Leona,
no trail was discovered. The turf, hard and dry, only showed the tracks
of a horse when going in a gallop. None such were seen along the route.
At ten miles' distance from the Fort the plain is traversed by a tract
of chapparal, running north-west and south-east. It is a true Texan
jungle, laced by llianas, and almost impenetrable for man and horse.
Through this jungle, directly opposite the Fort, there is an opening,
through which passes a path--the shortest that leads to the head waters
of the Nueces. It is a sort of natural avenue among the trees that
stand closely crowded on each side, but refrain from meeting. It may be
artificial: some old "war-trail" of the Comanches, erst trodden by their
expeditionary parties on the maraud to Tamaulipas, Coahuila, or New
Leon.
The trackers knew that it conducted to the Alamo; and, therefore, guided
the expedition into it.
Shortly after entering among the trees, one of the latter, who had gone
afoot in the advance, was seen standing by the edge of the thicket, as
if waiting to announce some recently discovered fact.
"What is it?" demanded the major, spurring ahead of the others, and
riding up to the tracker. "Sign?"
"Ay, that there is, major; and plenty of it. Look there! In that bit
of sottish ground you see--"
"The tracks of a horse."
"Of two horses, major," said the man, correcting the officer with an air
of deference.
"True. There are two."
"Farther on they become four; though they're all made by the same two
horses. They have gone up this openin' a bit, and come back again."
"Well, Spangler, my good fellow; what do you make of it?"
"Not much," replied Spangler, who was one of the paid scouts of the
cantonment; "not much of _that_; I hav'n't been far enough up the
openin' to make out what it means--only far enough to know that _a man
has been murdered_."
"What proof have you of what you say? Is there a dead body?"
"No. Not as much as the little finger; not even a hair of the head, so
fur as I can see."
"What then?"
"Blood, a regular pool of it--enough to have cleared out the carcass of
a hull buffalo. Come and see for yourself. But," continued the scout
in a muttered undertone, "if you wish me to follow up the sign as it
ought to be done, you'll order the others to stay back--'specially them
as are now nearest you."
This observation appeared to be more particularly pointed at the planter
and his nephew; as the tracker, on making it, glanced furtively towards
both.
"By all means," replied the major. "Yes, Spangler, you shall have every
facility for your work. Gentlemen! may I request you to remain where
you are for a few minutes. My tracker, here, has to go through a
performance that requires him to have the ground to himself. He can
only take me along with him."
Of course the major's request was a command, courteously conveyed, to
men who were not exactly his subordinates. It was obeyed, however, just
as if they had been; and one and all kept their places, while the
officer, following his scout, rode away from the ground.
About fifty yards further on, Spangler came to a stand.
"You see that, major?" said he, pointing to the ground.
"I should be blind if I didn't," replied the officer. "A pool of
blood--as you say, big enough to have emptied the veins of a buffalo.
If it has come from those of a man, I should say that whoever shed it is
no longer in the land of the living."
"Dead!" pronounced the tracker. "Dead before that blood had turned
purple--as it is now."
"Whose do you think it is, Spangler?"
"That of the man we're in search of--the son of the old gentleman down
there. That's why I didn't wish him to come forward."
"He may as well know the worst. He must find it out in time."
"True what you say, major; but we had better first find out how the
young fellow has come to be thrown in his tracks. That's what is
puzzling me."
"How! by the Indians, of course? The Comanches have done it?"
"Not a bit of it," rejoined the scout, with an air of confidence.
"Hu! why do you say that, Spangler?"
"Because, you see, if the Indyins had a been here, there would be forty
horse-tracks instead of four, and them made by only two horses."
"There's truth in that. It isn't likely a single Comanch would have had
the daring, even to assassinate--"
"No Comanche, major, no Indyin of any kind committed this murder. There
are two horse-tracks along the opening. As you see, both are shod; and
they're the same that have come back again. Comanches don't ride shod
horses, except when they've stolen them. Both these were ridden by
white men. One set of the tracks has been made by a mustang, though it
it was a big 'un. The other is the hoof of an American horse. Goin'
west the mustang was foremost; you can tell that by the overlap. Comin'
back the States horse was in the lead, the other followin' him; though
it's hard to say how fur behind. I may be able to tell better, if we
keep on to the place whar both must have turned back. It can't be a
great ways off."
"Let us proceed thither, then," said the major. "I shall command the
people to stay where they are."
Having issued the command, in a voice loud enough to be heard by his
following, the major rode away from the bloodstained spot, preceded by
the tracker.
For about four hundred yards further on, the two sets of tracks were
traceable; but by the eye of the major, only where the turf was softer
under the shadow of the trees. So far--the scout said the horses had
passed and returned in the order already declared by him:--that is, the
mustang in the lead while proceeding westward, and in the rear while
going in the opposite direction.
At this point the trail ended--both horses, as was already known, having
returned on their own tracks.
Before taking the back track, however, they had halted, and stayed some
time in the same place--under the branches of a spreading cottonwood.
The turf, much trampled around the trunk of the tree, was evidence of
this.
The tracker got off his horse to examine it; and, stooping to the earth,
carefully scrutinised the sign.
"They've been here thegither," said he, after several minutes spent in
his analysis, "and for some time; though neither's been out of the
saddle. They've been on friendly terms, too; which makes it all the
more unexplainable. They must have quarrelled afterwards."
"If you are speaking the truth, Spangler, you must be a witch. How on
earth can you know all that?"
"By the sign, major; by the sign. It's simple enough. I see the shoes
of both horses lapping over each other a score of times; and in such a
way that shows they must have been thegither--the animals, it might be,
restless and movin' about. As for the time, they've taken long enough
to smoke a cigar apiece--close to the teeth too. Here are the stumps;
not enough left to fill a fellow's pipe."
The tracker, stooping as he spoke, picked up a brace of cigar stumps,
and handed them to the major.
"By the same token," he continued, "I conclude that the two horsemen,
whoever they were, while under this tree could not have had any very
hostile feelins, the one to the tother. Men don't smoke in company with
the design of cutting each other's throats, or blowing out one another's
brains, the instant afterwards. The trouble between them must have come
on after the cigars were smoked out. That it did come there can be no
doubt. As sure, major, as you're sittin' in your saddle, one of them
has wiped out the other. I can only guess which has been wiped out, by
the errand we're on. Poor Mr Poindexter will niver more see his son
alive."
"'Tis very mysterious," remarked the major.
"It is, by jingo!"
"And the body, too; where can _it_ be?"
"That's what purplexes me most of all. If 't had been Indyins, I
wouldn't a thought much o' its being missin'. They might a carried the
man off wi them to make a target of him, if only wounded; and if dead,
to eat him, maybe. But there's been no Indyins here--not a redskin.
Take my word for it, major, one o' the two men who rid these horses has
wiped out the other; and sartinly he _have_ wiped him out in the
litterlest sense o' the word. What he's done wi' the body beats me; and
perhaps only hisself can tell."
"Most strange!" exclaimed the major, pronouncing the words with
emphasis--"most mysterious!"
"It's possible we may yet unravel some o' the mystery," pursued
Spangler. "We must follow up the tracks of the horses, after they
started from this--that is, from where the deed was done. We may make
something out of that. There's nothing more to be learnt here. We may
as well go back, major. Am I to tell _him_?"
"Mr Poindexter, you mean?"
"Yes. You are convinced that his son is the man who has been murdered?"
"Oh, no; not so much as that comes to. Only convinced that the horse
the old gentleman is now riding is one of the two that's been over this
ground last night--the States horse I feel sure. I have compared the
tracks; and if young Poindexter was the man who was on _his back_, I
fear there's not much chance for the poor fellow. It looks ugly that
the other _rid after_ him."
"Spangler! have you any suspicion as to who the other may be?"
"Not a spark, major. If't hadn't been for the tale of Old Duffer I'd
never have thought of Maurice the mustanger. True, it's the track o' a
shod mustang; but I don't know it to be hisn. Surely it can't be? The
young Irishman aint the man to stand nonsense from nobody; but as little
air he the one to do a deed like this--that is, if it's been
cold-blooded killin'."
"I think as you about that."
"And you may think so, major. If young Poindexter's been killed, and by
Maurice Gerald, there's been a fair stand-up fight atween them, and the
planter's son has gone under. That's how I shed reckon it up. As to
the disappearance o' the dead body--for them two quarts o' blood could
only have come out o' a body that's now dead--that _trees me_. We must
follow the trail, howsoever; and maybe it'll fetch us to some sensible
concloosion. Am I to tell the old gentleman what I think o't?"
"Perhaps better not. He knows enough already. It will at least fall
lighter upon him if he find things out by piecemeal. Say nothing of
what we've seen. If you can take up the trail of the two horses after
going off from the place where the blood is, I shall manage to bring the
command after you without any one suspecting what we've seen."
"All right, major," said the scout, "I think I can guess where the off
trail goes. Give me ten minutes upon it, and then come on to my
signal."
So saying the tracker rode back to the "place of blood;" and after what
appeared a very cursory examination, turned off into a lateral opening
in the chapparal.
Within the promised time his shrill whistle announced that he was nearly
a mile distant, and in a direction altogether different from the spot
that had been profaned by some sanguinary scene.
On hearing the signal, the commander of the expedition--who had in the
meantime returned to his party--gave orders to advance; while he
himself, with Poindexter and the other principal men, moved ahead,
without his revealing to any one of his retinue the chapter of strange
disclosures for which he was indebted to the "instincts" of his tracker.