THE CAVALRY ESCORT.
The stage which left Santa Fe on that beautiful spring morning, bound
for Fort Havens on the journey heretofore referred to, carried two
passengers. One was Corporal Hugg, a soldier who had been engaged a
dozen years upon the plains--a rough, good-natured, chivalrous fellow,
who, having lost a leg in the service of his country, enjoyed a pension,
and had become a sort of family servant in the employ of Colonel
Chadmund. He was devotedly attached to little Ned and his greatest
delight was in watching or joining him at play, exercising a
surveillance over him something like that which a great, shaggy
Newfoundland holds over a pet child. The corporal was able to stump
about upon his cork leg, and when the time came for the lad to make the
journey through the mountains to Fort Havens--a journey which he had
been looking impatiently forward to for fully a year--it followed as a
natural sequence that the corporal should bear him company.
Ned bade his mother an affectionate good-bye, and she pressed him to her
breast again and again, the tears filling her eyes, and a sad misgiving
chilling her heart. The reports at the time were that the Indians to the
southwest were unusually quiet, no word having yet reached the capital
of New Mexico of the formidable raids that were being organized in the
Apache country. Besides this, the stage, which was properly an
ambulance, drawn by a single powerful horse, was escorted by twelve
Indian fighters armed to the teeth, every one of whom had performed
similar duty before, and so, according to all human probabilities, there
seemed to be less cause than usual for fear. Yet the mother felt a
woeful sinking of the heart, natural, perhaps, under the circumstances;
but she could not break the promise of herself and husband to the boy,
who was overflowing with joy at the prospect of that long journey
through the mountains, and a several months' sojourn at the fort in the
far Southwest.
Finally, the cavalcade lost sight of Santa Fe, and the first night they
encamped a good distance away from that historic, then primitive, town.
The lieutenant who had charge of the escort was more concerned about the
treasure in their possession than he was about the Indians. So far as
possible, the fact that he was carrying a large sum of money to one of
the frontier posts had been kept a secret from the general public; but
he was apprehensive that they might be followed by some of the desperate
characters which infested Santa Fe at that time. But nothing of danger
or lawlessness was seen during their first day and night, and when they
resumed their journey on the morrow, they began to dismiss all thoughts
of danger from that direction.
As they progressed toward Arizona, the country gradually grew wilder and
more rugged, but the trail was followed without trouble, and when they
encamped the second night, they had the satisfaction of reflecting that
they had progressed much further than they had counted upon at first.
Those were days of delight and happiness to young Ned Chadmund. The
weather was not oppressively warm, and the ever-changing scenery was
like the most entrancing panorama passing before his eyes. Sometimes he
rode upon one of the horses with the lieutenant or one of the soldiers.
Then again he ran along-side the ambulance until he was tired, when he
climbed within, and seated himself beside Corporal Hugg, and listened to
his tales of battle and adventures.
On the second day the Indians began to show themselves. A party of
horsemen would be seen upon the top of some hill or bluff, apparently
contemplating the little cavalcade, or they would circle around at a
distance upon the prairie, whooping and indulging in all sorts of
tantalizing gestures, in the hope of drawing out a portion of the party
in pursuit. Their hearts' delight would have been to get them into some
exposed position, where they could be cut off to a man--and had the
cavalry been unaccustomed to border life, the artifice would have
succeeded; but they were not to be seduced to their ruin by any such
transparent stratagem.
Now and then these redskins, a number of Comanches, sent in a rifle ball
or two by way of reminding the cavalry that they were accustomed to that
business. The lieutenant commanding permitted his men to reply
occasionally, but no thought of pursuit was entertained. None of the
soldiers were injured by these shots, although a number passed
uncomfortably close, and the ambulance was pierced several times.
At one time Corporal Hugg checked his horse, and pointing his gun out of
the stage, took deliberate aim at the nearest redskin, who was
displaying his horsemanship by shooting from beneath the neck and belly
of his mustang, and then, as the latter wheeled, flopping upon the other
side of the animal, and firing as before. The corporal held his fire
until he attempted one of these turn-overs, when he pulled the trigger
and "took him on the wing." The result was a whoop, a beating of the air
with a pair of moccasined feet, and the mustang galloped away without a
rider.
This skillful shot was a good thing for the party, as it taught the
Comanches the very lesson they needed. They instantly retreated to a
further point upon the prairie, and finally vanished from view
altogether.
The company had been on the road for nearly a week. Six of them,
including the lieutenant, were riding at the head, and the remainder
were in the rear of the ambulance. Corporal Hugg was holding the reins
of his horse, who was stepping along with his heavy, ponderous tread,
while the driver was drowsy and indolent from the long, monotonous ride
in which he had been engaged for so many days, and for so many hours
during this last day. It was near the middle of the afternoon, and Ned
Chadmund was the only one of the company that seemed to be full of life
and spirits. He had run along by the side of the vehicle, until he was
pretty well jaded; he had crawled in again, and was chatting away to the
corporal in a fashion that left no room for his giving way to
drowsiness. The men sat like statues upon their horses, indifferent and
silent, and wishing, in a general way, that the day were over and the
time had come for going into camp, where they might stretch out their
legs and smoke their pipes to their hearts' content.
"Yes, that 'ere is the place they call Devil's Pass," said the corporal
in reply to a question from the boy. "You see that it was so wide back
there at the beginning that you couldn't see how wide it was, and it
keeps geting narrower and narrower till it reminds me of the canyon of
the upper Yellowstone."
"How is that?" was the question that came when he paused to take breath.
"So narrow that you could toss a ball from one side to the other, and a
thousand feet from the top to bottom, clean and square, and there are
some places where it is all of a half mile."
"But this don't seem as narrow as that."
"I don't s'pose it is; but don't you notice ahead, yonder, that it ain't
more than a hundred yards broad? Well, it keeps it up for all of two
miles just like that."
"Why do they call it Devil's Pass, corporal?"
"I suppose because, if the Old Boy wanted to gobble up a lot of folks,
that is just the place. The walls on each side are straight up and down,
and several hundred feet high, so that a man can't dodge to the right or
left, unless he has a pair of wings to help him. The only thing he can
do is to go forward and backward, and if he happens to have Injuns in
front and rear, you can understand what a purty muss he would be in.
That, I s'pose, is the reason why it's called the Devil's Pass."
"Do you think they will attack _us_?" asked Ned, in a scared voice.
"I can't say," replied the corporal, striving to banish the expression
of alarm from his face. "If they've got any idea of disturbing us, just
here is where they'll do it. It's the worst place on the route, and if
we can get through to the other side all right, I'll feel as safe as if
we was inside the stockades of your father's fort."
"Have you ever been through here before?"
"Yes; all of half a dozen times."
"Did you ever get into trouble?"
"I never traveled through in all my life without having a scrimmage with
some of the redskins. If you'll take a look round as we drive along,
you'll see the bones of men scattered all along. Some belong to white,
and some to redskins; but they all fell fighting."
"How far ahead is the worst part of the route?"
"We're close upon it now, and I may as well tell you, Ned, that I think
we're going to have a fight."