AN IRISH-INDIAN ONSLAUGHT
Carlota leaped to her feet and Dennis tried to rise, but a heavy foot
was on his breast and a stern face bent over him, while an uplifted
forefinger pointed dismay into his inmost soul.
“Me hour has come!” thought the unhappy fellow, but he made no further
effort to move. The command of those unflinching eyes was not to be
disobeyed. He wondered if the intruder’s hand held the weapon with
which he would be killed, but was almost too terrified to care. In his
horror he felt himself already dying and his eyelids fluttered back
into place as if for the last time.
“Oh! that is his salvation! If he will only keep them shut till it is
over!” thought Carlota, watching.
After her sudden uprising she had not moved, and this fact was a relief
to the stranger, so steadily regarding the prostrate Irishman. If she
had screamed it would, probably, have brought the affair to a fatal and
immediate climax. Thus a moment passed; another--more--an interminable
time! The trio of human beings remained rigid, spellbound by as many
varying emotions, while those terrible ten minutes which seemed an
eternity dragged by. Then the foot was lifted from Dennis’s chest and
he was gruffly ordered to: “Get up.”
At first, he was powerless to obey. Not until the sound of a sharp
blow, followed by a grunt of satisfaction sent a thrill of new life
through his palsied veins. Then he rose and saw the man who had menaced
him standing a few feet away and pointing to the ground where he lay,
crushed to lifelessness, a monstrous and most poisonous centipede.
“He died, not you,” said the stranger, in broken English.
“Yes, Dennis! That dreadful thing was almost upon your throat. Oh!
horrible,” cried Carlota.
Dennis threw back his knotted hand to his neck and plucked away an
imaginary reptile. He began to feel them crawling over him, everywhere.
He had not sufficient composure left in which to thank the stranger,
who, however, expected nothing of the sort. He comforted the Irishman
by saying:
“No more. Mate killed. Not plenty.”
“Yes, dear Dennis, you’re safe now, I’m sure. It seemed as if the
dreadful creature would never, never finish his crawling over you. The
whole width of your body and so slow! If you’d moved or disturbed him
he would have thrust his deadly fangs into your flesh and you’d have
died. I’ve heard about those things. It was the kind God kept you, dear
old Dennis, and sent this good man just in time to save you.”
Dennis was truly thankful and humble; yet he rubbed his confused head
and wondered what need there had been of the peril if rescue were
foreordained. However, such problems were too deep for his simple mind
and he looked up in a manner to reveal the amusing perplexity he felt.
“Escapin’ the serpent to fall into the Injun’s hands! The fire an’ the
fryin’-pan, belike.”
The rescuer was, indeed, an Indian, though he spoke fairly good
English. But Carlota paid less heed to him than to the possibility of
her wandering brother having suffered the same fate which had just
menaced Dennis and, it might be, herself also. Laying her hand upon the
stranger’s arm, she begged:
“Oh! tell me, please, have you seen a boy anywhere?”
The Irishman shivered in alarm at the girl’s audacity, yet no harm
ensued. The Indian merely looked at her and answered by one word:
“Plenty.”
“Where? Oh! please, please say where! Was it hereabouts? My brother, my
twin--”
Then, indeed, did a curious smile show upon the redskin’s face. He
wheeled around and pointed up the mountain through a canyon that seemed
a continuation of the ravine where they then stood. Whatever his
ability, he made scant use of his English, for all he answered was:
“Come.”
Just then uprose a direful cry from the Fogarty:
“Ochone! Me bread! Me horse! The thievin’ creatur’! I’ll break every
bone in his carcass, I will that!”
Even the dignified Indian was interested. There was Dennis again at war
with his tethered broncho, who was nonchalantly nibbling the last of
the priceless loaf--their own breakfast.
“Dennis! Dennis! Are you going to fight him every day, as you did Mr.
Grady? Stop--I’m ashamed of you.”
“Stop, is it? An’ the breakfast clean gone?”
“But that is your fault, not his. You shouldn’t have left it where
he could get it. Besides, who knows but it is all dirty and--and
centipede-y?”
The Indian waited until there was a lull in affairs, then quietly
untied the broncho, motioned that Carlota should mount her burro--still
unsaddled, and taking the leading straps of both animals, strode up the
canyon at a rapid pace. By a gesture he indicated that Dennis was to
bring the saddles, blankets, and other belongings of the pair; and so
intimidated was Mr. Fogarty that he dared not disobey.
Carlota rode as silent as her guide. She guessed that he was taking
her to some settlement and she saw that he was such as had frequented
Refugio, and from whom she had never received other than kind
treatment. She was consumed by anxiety concerning Carlos but, from her
father’s talks and her own slight experience, she knew sufficient of
Indian character to understand that this silence would best serve her
purpose. She had asked for information and the stranger had answered,
“Come.”
So because of her faith that she was being swiftly led to her brother,
her heart grew light and she began to sing; and hearing the song
floating down to him through the gulch, poor Dennis made a virtue of
necessity and loaded himself worse than any pack mule. Then he started
forward whither the others had now disappeared.
It was a brief but anxious pilgrimage. At every step he fancied a
creeping, stinging reptile beneath his feet, though he reckoned upon
the protection which his mighty boots were to him. On either shoulder
he bore a saddle which continually grew heavier, as is the habit of
burdens carried. The blanket and _serape_ airily floated anywhere it
happened, underfoot or overhead, at the caprice of the wind; and the
tin box of his “little lady” played a jingling accompaniment to the
whole.
“Faith! ’tis well I’d all that fine practice, hod-carryin’ to them tall
buildin’s in Chicago, before I took up with railroadin’, now isn’t it,
Mr. Fogarty?” he ejaculated, as he neared his journey’s end.
A moment later, as he came in sight of the pueblo and a group of its
inhabitants assembled before it, he complacently added:
“An’ sure’s me name’s Dennis, they’re all waitin’ to receive me!”
As he approached the spot a shout was raised, and his elation vanished.
Believing it to be a “war cry,” the vicissitudes of the morning ended
in collapse. He caught a glimpse of Carlota being lifted from her burro
and led away between two squaws. It seemed to him that these forced her
up a steep ladder, then threw her downward into some invisible depth.
Heaped with his own burdens, the Irishman sank to the ground. An ague
of fear shook him, his face paled, and a cold sweat came out upon his
temples. Cowering thus in terror, he saw the assembled Indians swoop
down upon him from the terrace. Then, as do those in mortal extremity,
he began to see visions and dream dreams, and fancy suddenly brought
before him the face, as he had imagined it, of Miguel, the Hated! In
similar circumstance, what would this much-envied “Greaser” have done?
The thought of the Spaniard acted like a tonic. With a yell as wild as
an Indian’s own, Dennis now arose, while the encumbering blankets and
saddles fell unheeded about him. Thrusting his hand into his belt he
unsheathed his dangerous dirk, crying:
“Carlota! Me own little lady! Have no fear! ’Tis comin’ I am--so ’ware
to ye, ye bloodthirsty, murderin’ Injuns! Leave her go--leave!”
Mad with his own prowess he blindly rushed forward, his shining blade
catching the rays of the sun and fiercely heralding his advance.
But, hark! His enemies were upon him! He made one tremendous lunge with
his terrible knife, and Mr. Fogarty knew no more.