A MYSTERIOUS SHOT.
After the Canadian had trembled, shuddered and brooded awhile without
being alarmed by a second visitation, he began to look into the why and
the wherefore of it. To follow his vague and erratic mind-wanderings
would be a dull task, as he was too terrified and confused to shape his
thoughts into any discernible matter.
An hour perhaps passed and it was now the early morning. In the cave
the torch cast its flickering light over a dull, gloomy scene. Pedro
and Mr. Wheeler lay motionless in a semi-stupor; Duncan muttered
disjointedly in his sleep, bewailing and cursing his hard lot; the
horse of the Mexican stood in his giant proportions quietly in a
corner; and only the Canadian was at all conscious of passing sounds
and events. These had not come--were yet to arrive; and arrive they did
in no very merry manner.
All had been quiet, Duncan in his heavy sleep forgetting to snore, when
the mustang, Dimple, nickered loudly; at the same moment Pedro turned
uneasily and muttered:
“The Trailer--my precious, yellow gold.”
The Canadian started, and springing to his feet glanced round in the
darkness as though momentarily expecting a second visitation of the man
in the towering hat; but all was quiet, the torch flickered weirdly,
and he again sat near the entrance.
“What does he mean?” he soliloquized.
“The Trailer--that means that horrible ghost. And yellow gold--what
does that mean? He has seen the specter--_that_ I am satisfied of; it
accounts for his strange alarm and apathy; but the gold, the gold--what
gold does he mean?”
Another shrill nicker from Dimple outside; in his abstraction he noted
it not but went on with his soliloquy.
“I have hunted the moose on Moosehead Lake, and on the head-waters of
the Penobscot; I’ve lumbered on the Kennebec and Androscoggin; I’ve
fished in the Thousand Isles; I’ve hunted the bear in the Missouri
Ozarks; but of all the ghastly moons that ever shone, this one to-night
is the ghastliest. The very moon in the Land of Silence is different
from other moons--or the same moon at other places. There it is white;
here it is yellow, red, and sometimes even blood-red, like a ruby. What
a quiet, ghastly place--this vast yellow wilderness; how still the air
always is; how sultry and hazy the days and dreamy the nights; how--
Halloa!”
Again the mustang nickered, shriller and wilder than before. He was
about to resume, when a wild, unearthly yell broke upon the quiet night
air--a yell as if Pandemonium had broken loose. Starting back with
fear, he clasped his hands, then ran to the entrance and flung it open.
He closed it as quickly, if not sooner, as a rumbling sound came from
behind the hillock, a sound of thundering hoofs, and the hideous yell
pealed again; then, as he peeped through a chink, he saw the cause.
Riding like wild-fire, screaming and whooping, came a dozen Indians,
charging on the wagons from behind the hill. Clustering together with
tossing arms, they rode swoop down upon them. He started down, then ran
quickly to Pedro.
“Pedro--Pedro Felipe--wake up--arise; we are charged by Apaches.”
At the word Apaches Pedro rose suddenly, from sheer habit, as his
eye was vacant, and his air that of a somnambulist; his energy was
short-lived, and he sunk down again.
“Pedro--for heaven’s sake get your gun; we are attacked.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Seen them? Yes; they are yelling outside--don’t you hear them? Come,
hurry!”
“Have they got my gold?”
Robidoux was sharp enough to take advantage of this question, and he
replied:
“Yes, yes; all of it. Come, hurry!”
Pedro needed no other incentive, but sprung from his couch and grasped
his rifle. Springing toward the door, he hoarsely said:
“Senor, here we go--altogether; _Caramba!_”
Before Robidoux could stop him he had flung back the trap-door and was
standing outside, aiming at a slender Apache just entering a wagon.
The broad, dusky back of the savage, in contrast to the moonlit, white
wagon-cover, offered a good mark; and quickly sighting, the Mexican
drew the trigger. The Apache, with a wild yell, sunk back on the
wagon-tongue and hung suspended across it, killed immediately. This was
a decidedly favorable event; for, awakened by the sight of his habitual
foe, aroused by his successful shot, Pedro was himself again.
The Canadian smiled as Pedro darted back into the cave, at seeing a
once more natural expression on his features. Should he retain his
equanimity they had but little to fear beyond the plundering of the
train, and that might be prevented for the present, as the whole line
of wagons was commanded by the entrance.
The utmost confusion prevailed among the dusky plunderers as the fatal
bullet ended their companion’s career forever. Some darted behind
wagons; some flew to their adjacent mustangs; two clambered into a
wagon; while the rest scattered like rabbits, not knowing by whom the
shot was fired, or where the precise marksman was stationed.
They were thoroughly alarmed, inasmuch as, not belonging to Red-Knife’s
band, they had accidentally fallen upon the train. They had been
surprised at not finding a human being near the wagons; they were
thunder-struck at the mysterious shot and its fatal effect.
Their alarm and surprise was somewhat dissipated very soon by Pedro’s
firing from a chink in the trap-door. He had aimed at the prostrate
form of a savage, lying on the ground behind a wagon; the bullet struck
him fairly in the side, and, with a groan of mortal agony, he stretched
himself prone, to speedily die.
Though by this shot Pedro had reduced his enemies’ number in some
degree, still, upon the whole, the shot was disadvantageous, in this
wise: when he fired, the chink being small, the force of the explosion
had carried away a portion of the rotten planking, making the aperture
distinctly visible from the wagons. The lynx-eyed savages instantly
discovered this, and were instantly aware the hill was hollow--a mere
shell.
A grunt of relief and gratification went around the line of skulking
figures, speedily changed to one of alarm. A hole, black and wide,
suddenly appeared in the hillside; a stream of flame shot out, a report
sounded, and two savages yelled loudly, and, with their comrades,
clambered upon the wheels in order to effectually conceal themselves,
and protect their bodies from the murderous fire.
“Well done!” remarked Pedro to his companions, all of whom had taken
part in the volley. “We killed none, but made them howl, nevertheless.”
Cool, deliberate, noble Pedro was himself again--the far-famed scout
and feared Indian-fighter. Now was his brain clear; now were his nerves
steady; and the famous master of Indian strategy was rapidly running
down his No. 1 buckshot, with eyes sparkling like a ferret’s.
“Senors--sirs, fire not hastily. It is a fault with you Americans--you
are not sufficiently aware of the importance of keeping cool. See! they
have quite concealed themselves; never mind, we are entirely safe, well
ammunitioned, and able to prevent them from plundering the wagons. Keep
cool, watch every point, and when you fire be sure and aim.”
“I hope they won’t hurt any of my tin cups,” anxiously muttered Duncan.
“We haven’t got but five, and one of them leaks. It’ll be just like ’em
to go and eat all my brown sugar up--oh, my boot-heels! if they do how
I’ll get cussed. If the President of the United States was struck by
lightning you fellers ’d cuss me, and say I was to blame.”
“Less talking, senor, if you please,” gently admonished Pedro. “‘All
tongue no sand,’ as Simpson says.”
A few minutes passed, and suddenly Duncan broke out again:
“Every hair of my head! Save it--oh, save it, for heaven’s sake!”
“Save what?” asked Robidoux.
“Don’t you see that small stream running down through the wagon-bottom?”
“I see something dark, I think. What is it?”
“Flour! flour! Oh, save it! My boot-heels! won’t I get a cussing when I
tell ’em they can’t have any more biscuit? Everybody ’ll swear at me:
Cook, I never saw such a clumsy bunch of darned carelessness; cook, the
next time you want buffler-chips or fire-wood you can get ’em yourself;
never ask me to pack water for you again, cook, for I won’t do it, you
careless, wasteful old cook; then Cimarron Jack, or whatever you call
him, ’ll sure desert, ’cause I couldn’t help myself when the Injuns
wasted the flour--he, a feller that don’t get bread of any kind once a
year. Oh, every hair of my head! I’m the cussing-post for the world to
swear at--me, the camp-cook, a low, thankless dog.”
“I will see they are informed of the true state of affairs, now,” said
Pedro, consolingly.
Duncan burst out, in high dudgeon:
“Think that ’ll do any good? think ’ee, think ’ee? Sir, I solemnly
swear it!--if you put your hand on the Bible afore an _alcalde_, or
whatever you call him, and swear--yes, sir, swear upon your oath,
they’d still cuss me and say I’m the one to blame. Oh, curse the
unlucky, miserable day I learned to cook!
“If any young man should come to me and ask me for advice,” he resumed,
after a brief pause, “perhaps I couldn’t tell him what _to_ do, but I
could just naturally tell him what _not_ to do. I’d say, young man,
don’t let any fellow inveigle you into learning the pastry-cook’s
trade--it ’ll be the ruin of you. Oh, look at my flour--going all the
time.”
During the time in which he had been speaking, the moon had been
steadily moving on its downward, westward course, making the
wagon-shadows larger, perceptibly. Though but little longer, they were
of sufficient length to form a black isthmus between the wagons and the
most distant end of the hill. Duncan, on stopping, observed a change
come o’er the face of the grand old strategist. From a cool, impassible
calm it had changed to an expression of positive terror, which as
quickly vanished, giving, in turn, place to a look of moderate anxiety.
Stepping to the torch, he extinguished it, gazing anxiously to the roof
before so doing. Then in the darkness he whispered:
“Senor Wheeler, you will be of more use in guarding the door. Allow me
to advise you to look well to it. Men, you two place yourselves by my
side, in readiness to fire.”
They did so, and he continued:
“I saw, just now, the entire body of the Apaches scamper along that
longest shadow to the right. They have discovered the hill is only a
shell, and will endeavor to force their way into it before daybreak.
There are now nine of them and they will at once go to work. There is
nothing to be feared--the moon shines so brightly that we can see the
slightest crevice they may make.”
No longer they watched the wagons in the bright moonlight; but with
every confidence in their famous leader, with hands touching his
garments, they waited, looking at the small chinks in the roof through
which the white sky shone plainly.
Pedro was an infallible prophet when he prophesied, for this reason--he
never prognosticated without mature deliberation, always ruled by
existing circumstances. Men wondered and marveled, but, superficial
themselves, considered it a marvelous power, when, like many other
strange powers (?), it was only the legitimate offspring of two healthy
parents--shrewdness and thought.
In this case he was right. Before five minutes had passed, a slight
noise was heard on one side of the slanting roof, rather low down, a
grating rasping noise.
“They are boring. God grant they haven’t got my butcher-knife!”
excitedly whispered Duncan, in a fever. “Where do you think they are
boring with their cussed knives and hatchets?”
Pedro chuckled.
“They are working too low to reach us. There is one part--a quarter--of
the hill that is solid. They are boring at that place, ha! ha!”
The rasping continued, growing louder and harsher. The savages were
strangely bold and reckless. No other noise was heard, only the same
quick, grating sounds--grate, grate--as the metal weapons glanced from
the flinty, pebbly soil.
“If they were boring on this side, now, they would be nearly through,
I judge by their vigorous, rapid work,” observed Pedro. “But, as they
are at work on a solid part of the hill, they will get through to us in
about a week. Ha! ha! Apache!” and he laughed, tauntingly.
“I wonder where the others are,” interrogatively spoke the Canadian.
“They might be in trouble for all we know.”
“Near the Dead-Man’s Gulch,” replied Pedro. “I believe they took that
route in pursuit.”
“They stand a slim chance of recovering the horses.”
“I was not well at the time the attack was made,” and if it had been
light a blush would have been seen on Pedro’s cheek. “How many did they
number?
“About thirty, I believe,” Simpson said.
“Six to one--hum! Well, the odds are certainly against them. If we were
only out of this hole now, we might ride to their assistance.”
“And leave the girl--the sweet, pretty lass?”
“Ah, that is a painful mystery--painful indeed. It quite astounds me.”
“Mr. Wheeler and Carpenter are well nigh crazy over it. It is lucky in
one way that these cussed Apaches have been pestering us--they have
kept their thoughts somewhat away from her. Poor Miss Kissie! Where has
she gone?”
“Hark!”
A loud report came to their ears, and at the same time, though unseen
by them, the working Indians, with a loud whoop, fled from the hill. A
shriek of agony at the same time resounded from the roof, and a body
dropped heavily with a hollow sound.
“By every hair of my head!” cried Duncan, “hear them rascals skedaddle!”
“Who shot?” cried Pedro. “Senor, I say, who shot?”
“It came from inside the hill, I’ll take my oath to it!” declared
Robidoux.
“I know it did, senor--I know it did;” and Pedro’s voice showed he was
excited. “No one shot here, and some one shot from inside the hill and
killed a savage. Who shot?”
They could not tell.