AMONG THE APACHES.
Having run down one Apache warrior, Corporal Hugg, unmindful of his own
personal danger, leaned forward out of the ambulance and shouted and
lashed the furious horse, which was already on a dead run.
"Go it, good fellow," he yelled, his voice rising above the horrid din
of cracking fire arms and whooping assailants. "Keep it up a little
longer, and we shall be clear of the whole crew."
They were the last words the brave soldier uttered. Ned Chadmund, who
had again crouched back in the swaying vehicle, was horrified to see his
friend pitch forward upon the foreboard, and then, as the carriage gave
one unusually violent plunge, he went out head foremost, and vanished
from sight. He had been pierced by a dozen balls, and was dead before he
reached the ground.
The horse, like his human assailants, was frantic, and abated not a jot
of his tremendous speed, though the reins fell slack and dangled around
his feet, and the familiar voice was heard no more. He, too, was wounded
by more than one cruel rifle ball, but he seemed capable of undergoing
far more than his comrades that had fallen at the first fire.
The situation of the lad was fearful, and he was in imminent danger from
more than one form of death. He was cowering in the bottom of the
ambulance, too much terrified to speak or to attempt to help himself in
any way. Bruised and stunned by the terrific bounds of the vehicle, he
was dazed, bewildered and only dimly conscious of the awful pandemonium
reigning around him. Suddenly he felt himself lifted in the air; then
there was a crushing and grinding, as if he was being ground to atoms
between two millstones, then another terrible crash and his senses
forsook him.
The ambulance had overturned and smashed. It was dragged a short
distance, when the infuriated steed broke loose, tore a short distance
further down the pass and fell dead.
When the boy recovered his senses, his eyes opened upon a very different
scene. The sounds of strife had ceased, and the struggle was ended, for
the reason that there were no men left to resist the victorious Apaches.
It was night, and a company of something like fifty were encamped in a
gorge in the mountains. The attacking party, which, including those who
had followed the escort into the pass, but were not in time to
participate in the engagement, numbered several hundred, and had, after
the contest was over, separated and vanished, leaving the chief,
Mountain Wolf, with half a hundred of his best warriors gathered about
him. After securing the treasure in the ambulance, and taking three
horses of the company, which had escaped harm during the massacre, the
Apaches moved on in a westerly direction through the pass for half a
mile, and turned to the left in a sort of ravine or gorge. Several
hundred yards up this the gorge widened into a valley, wherein were a
number of trees and a small stream of water. There they went into camp.
An immense fire was kindled, and as it roared and crackled in the night,
it threw out a glare that made it like midday for many feet away.
Ned Chadmund had been picked up, limp and apparently lifeless, by the
chief, Mountain Wolf, and carried to this spot with as much care and
tenderness as if he were a pet child of his own. The boy still showed a
certain stupor upon reaching the camp, but after he had lain a short
time upon a buffalo robe he revived, and, with wondering eyes, looked
around upon the strange and weird scene. The Indians were passing to and
fro, as if making preparations for some sort of festivity. There was
little noise, but a great amount of activity. Close by the fire were a
half dozen warriors, engaged in cooking several carcasses, and had the
persons concerned been civilized instead of savage, the scene would have
suggested an old-fashioned barbecue.
When the lad arose to a sitting position upon the buffalo hide, he
became sensible of a sharp, stinging sensation in the head, and a sore,
bruised feeling along his side, both caused by the shock received at the
overturning of the ambulance. His action was observed by a number of the
Apaches, but none approached, nor did they pay the least attention to
him; so he had every opportunity for a careful observation of what was
going on around him.
After recovering from the first sensation of terror and amazement, his
thoughts naturally reverted to the tragedy that had been enacted a short
time before in Devil's Pass. It was a fearful scene for a lad like him
to look upon, and he was sure it must remain vividly impressed upon his
memory so long as he lived.
"I'm the only one alive," he repeated to himself, with a shudder. "Poor
Corporal Hugg was the last man left, and I saw him killed. I wonder why
they spared me?"
He had no suspicion of the intention of the Apaches in preserving his
life, and which has already been hinted at in another place; so it was
very natural that he should feel puzzled to understand why it was that
he had been selected from such a party to escape the hatred which these
wild Jiccarillo Apaches had shown toward the whites ever since the
latter encroached upon their domains.
"I guess they're going to make an Indian of me," was his conclusion. "I
wonder what father will think when he hears of it? Poor mother! I know
how she was worried when she bid me good-bye. I hope she won't hear
anything till I carry her the news myself."
Fortunately for his peace of mind it never occurred to Ned that he might
have been spared for the purpose of torture and indignity. There was no
fear of present danger, as he sat upon the buffalo skin, viewing the
strange scene about him. Something like fifteen minutes had passed while
thus engaged, when the figure of a tall, athletic Indian strode slowly
toward him, apparently attracted by the interest which the boy showed in
the proceedings. This warrior was fully six feet in height,
magnificently formed, with long horse-hair like shreds hanging from his
crown, which, like his face, was daubed with startling colors, giving
him the appearance of a variegated zebra of the hues of the rainbow.
It was Lone Wolf, one of the most famous leaders of the Jiccarilla
Apaches.
But the most noticeable feature about this warrior was his dress. He was
enveloped from head to foot in a sort of cloak, of a greenish tinge,
which rattled and crackled as he walked, as if made of paper. And so it
was; for, as he approached, Ned saw that his outer garment was composed
entirely of greenbacks, carefully stitched together in such a way that
they made a blanket of half a dozen feet square. No redskin probably
ever paraded so costly a blanket as this, which included several hundred
new and crisp bank notes, varying in value from twenty to a hundred
dollars each.
They had been united in such a careful manner that he was able to handle
it with as much ease and facility as if composed of a single sheet of
paper of the tough texture of which our national issues are made. He
seemed quite proud of his novel garment, so unique of its kind, and
strode forward with the pompous tread of an Indian chief until he was
within a few feet of where Ned sat, when he paused a few moments to give
the latter full opportunity to admire his envelope.
"That must have taken a good deal of the money that belonged to the
soldiers," was his reflection, "but the country can lose it better than
it can the soldiers themselves."
Lone Wolf was one of the most dreaded, because he was one of the most
skillful and treacherous, of the Apache chiefs. He went to Washington
twice during his life with a delegation from his tribe, visited the
principal cities in the North, was treated in the most hospitable
manner, and professed the most unbounded love for his white brothers. He
announced his deliberate intention of making all haste back to his
tribe, and henceforth devoting his life to peace. He would summon his
brother chiefs about him, he said then, and make known to them the
goodness and love of the whites for the red men. He would explain to
them their invincible power, and make very clear the folly of attempting
to resist their wishes in any way. Furthermore he agreed to show the
numerous gifts that had been showered upon him, and he would explain
that if they conducted themselves aright a similar future was before
them as well. All this Lone Wolf promised; but he had no sooner got
among his own people again than he chose to forget his promises and went
upon the warpath.