THE ESCAPE OF THE RANGERS.
"It won't do for us to hang around this place," was the substance of a
number of remarks that were made by the riflemen as they cared for
their horses and then followed their leader into the central building.
"Now, men," said Bowie, as they gathered around him, "the critters must
have a good rest and a feed. We've run them hard. We'll get our
rations right off."
All that was left of the deer began to go out of sight rapidly.
Hunters like these were not apt to carry any considerable amount of
provisions with them. It was not necessary in a region abounding with
game. They were as independent as so many Indians, and every day's
ride was expected to provide for its own evening camp-fire, with
variations.
The fire blazed up; Tetzcatl and one of the men volunteered as cooks;
the others were stationed here and there as outlooks, with a tendency
to keep well under cover of the old walls. It may have been a
willingness to be out of sight from the bushes that led the old
Tlascalan to his duties at the fireside.
Red Wolf had all the while kept in the background, so to speak, but
now, at last, he found an opportunity he had been waiting for.
"Big Knife great chief," he said to the colonel. "Red Wolf heap boy.
Want talk."
"Come right along," replied Bowie, leading him a little aside. "Speak
out. What is it? Have you found sign?"
"Heap sign," said Red Wolf. "Heap good medicine. Big Knife come, see."
"I'll do that!" exclaimed Bowie, with a sudden increase of interest.
"No Indian boy was ever waked up like that without a reason for it."
Red Wolf's face was indeed "waked up," but it contained also an easily
read warning when he added,--
"Tetzcatl. No good. No want him."
"I don't want him," said Bowie. "Walk slow now. Go right along."
It looked as if they were only strolling from one heap of rubbish to
another. Red Wolf's leading was very direct nevertheless, and they
were entirely hidden from observation when they stood in front of the
covered crypt in the broken wall.
Even then not a word was uttered by either of them while the Indian boy
removed some of his fragments of _adobe_. When, however, he put in his
hand and drew it out full of silver coins, the sombre face of the Texan
blazed fiery red.
"Heap dollar," remarked Red Wolf. "Big Knife find dollar. No
Tetzcatl."
[Illustration: "HEAP DOLLAR," REMARKED RED WOLF]
"All right, my boy,", said Bowie, but he vigorously aided in the
further work of uncovering the bags.
"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Heap lift."
So it was, for some of the bags were quite heavy. All were taken out,
and one after another they were opened and their contents were
inspected.
"Twenty of them are gold doubloons," exclaimed Bowie. "The rest are
silver. Now Houston can buy his rifles! There may be enough for
cannon. What he needs is the hard cash. Why, there isn't powder
enough in all Texas for one sharp campaign. But there will be. This
is glorious!"
He was not thinking of himself, therefore, but of the young republic
which he and his brave comrades had created and were defending. This
money, lying here, so strangely found, so entirely at his disposal, was
not to be regarded as his own. Its only value to him was the service
it could render in gaining the independence of Texas.
Rough, indeed, were the border men, but there are no better examples of
unselfish devotion to a common cause than they were at that hour
giving. Shoulder to shoulder they stood, the most unflinching band of
self-enlisted volunteers that is recorded.
"There must be a good deal more than a hundred thousand dollars," said
Bowie, beginning to put back the bags into the hole. "There may be
twice as much, but if there is, it won't go far enough. My mind's made
up. I'll go with Tetzcatl. If there's anything in that story of his,
we may find the cash to fit out batteries of artillery and buy five
thousand rifles."
"Ugh!" said Red Wolf. "Heap dollars buy heap guns."
"My boy," said Bowie, "you come along with me. I'll take care of you.
You shall have a rifle, pistols, knives, blankets, horses, anything you
want. Now, Red Wolf, look!" He pointed at the covering they were
putting on. "Heap hide! No tell! Dollars lie still!"
"Red Wolf shut mouth," was all the spoken reply, but his eyes blazed
with the pride he felt over the reception of his "find" by the white
hero. It was almost like being already a chief to be on intimate,
confidential terms with so celebrated a warrior, with a leader whose
ordinary manner was as haughty almost as that of Castro.
A few handfuls of dust, a careful wiping out of foot- and hand-marks,
and then the secret of the wall was as safe as it had ever been.
Bowie, however, lingered for a moment, looking at the shattered _adobe_.
"One thing more is true," he muttered. "All that stuff was found and
coined in this country. There is more where it came from, wherever the
mines and placers may be. It stands to reason that the old Mexicans
didn't get it all out. That makes me believe Tetzcatl! Cortez didn't,
couldn't, have gotten hold of all the gold the Aztecs had above-ground
when he came here. The Spaniards knew there was more. I'll go after
it."
Back went the two discoverers to the cook-room and to their rations,
and none who saw them come could have found upon their faces a trace of
the excitement they had shown over their bags of doubloons and dollars.
Two hours later all the animals belonging to the party were feeding
peacefully in the grassy open, and behind a knoll, not far from some of
them, lay Colonel Bowie. His long, heavy "Mississippi rifle" was
thrown forward across the knoll. Just behind him, among some withered
weeds, lay the Lipan boy, as if he did not now feel willing to be far
away from his white chief. He was watching him closely, and the
thought in his mind almost escaped at his lips, so clear was the
meaning that he read in the motions of the marksman.
"Big Knife sight deer," he thought. "Long shoot. Whoop! Comanche!"
His whoop was uttered aloud as the fire flashed from the rifle-muzzle,
and the report was answered by a chorus of yells from among the dense
masses of the chaparral.
"Tally one," said Bowie, coolly. "This business is going to cost Great
Bear something. I'll get a bead on him next. Six yesterday and five
to-day. I'll lie still and load up, though. It's close quarters."
Not one of the other Texans had uttered a word, but each was already
near enough to good cover to drop behind it, ready for long-range rifle
practice.
One feature of the situation was only too evident, nevertheless, and
there was immediate peril of a crushing disaster.
The hot blood ran like fire through the veins of Red Wolf. Here was a
grand chance to earn distinction. It would be worthy of the oldest
brave in his tribe. The horses! The only hope for escape!
So like a deer he bounded from his cover and went forward. He did not
go to the nearest horses, but beyond them, to those which were
apparently in the greatest danger of speedy capture by the Comanches.
One of these had belonged to the brave who was killed in the open that
morning, and another had been won in the chaparral from his companions.
They were especially valued as prizes of war. Up came the two
lariat-pins. Sharp jerks of the lariats called the ponies from their
feeding and they followed the pulling. Louder every moment sounded the
whoops from among the bushes, and arrow after arrow whizzed through the
air.
"Whoop!" yelled the young adventurer. "Red Wolf heap boy! Comanches
little dogs! Rabbits! Coyotes! Crows!"
It was genuine Indian glory to be able to send back such screeches of
insult and derision in reply to all those arrows. Some of them
narrowly missed him, although he managed to make a good shield out of
the two ponies. That was the way he lost one of them, for the poor
animal was shortly plunging hither and thither with an arrow through
his neck.
Down he went, but Red Wolf immediately pulled up another peg, saving
the noble racer of Colonel Bowie, and he therefore got in with a pair.
He was met by Tetzcatl, the only man upon his feet, but he took the
lariats into his own hands, remarking in a very business-like way,--
"_Bueno_! Go! Bring all! Quick!"
The remaining animals were hardly near enough to the bushes for arrows
to reach them, and the red men under cover seemed to hesitate about
exposing themselves.
"Humph!" growled Bowie. "They're only waiting for something or they'd
dash out at him. But isn't he a buster! He'll equal his father some
day. This is too bad, anyhow. All those dollars must stay where they
are for a while."
Every horse was brought in without any further incident, but, for all
that, the situation of the mere handful of Texans was becoming
extremely unpleasant. It would, however, have been a great deal more
so if they had been compelled to rely upon their own scanty knowledge
of the neighborhood they were in. It was too new a country.
Colonel Bowie had not moved until the animals were safe, but he now put
his fingers to his lips and blew a long, vibrating whistle. Instantly
his men arose behind their covers of _adobe_ or of rough ground and
began to make their way to the central ruin. It was rapidly done, and
Red Wolf was the last to come in, leading his own sorrel.
"We're corralled!" said one of the men.
"Not quite so bad as that," replied another; "and it'll be bad for them
if they rush in."
"I reckon they're waiting for more to come," said the colonel, coolly.
"It takes a good many to work a surround."
"_Bueno!_" said Tetzcatl just then. "Time to go. Beat the redskins
now."
"Go ahead," responded Bowie; "we're ready."
The men mounted at the word. They had been hurriedly putting on
saddles, and bridles, and now they sat like statues on horseback while
he exchanged a few swift sentences with their white-headed guide.
"Forward! Take it easy!" was the next command.
Then it looked at first as if he were about to lead a charge directly
into the bushes from which had come the arrows and the whooping. So
complete was the appearance that several Comanches on the opposite side
of the pond came out into the open. They would have been in just the
right position to attack the Texans in the rear, after riding around
the pond. Moreover, it seemed plain that the "surround" had been very
nearly accomplished.
"That's it," said Bowie. "We've drawn 'em out. We know where they
are. Now! Gallop! Boys, it's a run, but I reckon we've euchered 'em."
He and Tetzcatl had suddenly wheeled toward the left, and not a
Comanche made his appearance on the easterly side of the open as he and
his men dashed into one of the widest avenues.
Fierce were the whoops and yells of the outgeneralled red men as, with
one accord, they came out of their several covers to follow. Over a
score were already in sight, and the yelling indicated that twice as
many more were near at hand. The Texans were to run a race for their
lives, but every animal that was entered for the race was in good
condition, and not one of them was a second-rate runner.
"Pull in!" shouted Bowie, at the end of a quarter of an hour.
"Tetzcatl says we're about safe."
"We've rid through tangles enough," replied a ranger. "How fur are we
now from the south side of the chaparral?"
"Not so far as we were," replied his commander, "but we don't get out
into prairie right away. You'll see what it is when you get there."
"I want to git thar, then, awful," came from another of the men. "We
haven't had a scratch yet, but it's been right smart of a close shave."
So it had, and the Comanches were following upon the plain trail that
was made by so many horses. Their real difficulty as pursuers was not
the trail itself, by any means. Great Bear was with them now, and he
had a high respect for the men he was dealing with. A number of
minutes had been lost to him at the outset by the make-believe charge.
After that, as his gathering band rode on, the prudent chief compelled
his eager braves to draw rein several times at places where the thick
"tangles" suggested the possibility of an ambush and a deadly volley of
rifle-bullets. It was really a pokerish business to follow dead shots,
men of desperate courage, too, among those dense coverts. He was a
wise chief, no doubt, but every time his foremost warriors paused to
reconnoitre the white men gained additional time.
Red Wolf all the while kept somewhat diffidently in the rear. He was,
after all, only a boy among great warriors. Before long, however, he
found himself riding at an easy gait side by side with Colonel Bowie,
and the Big Knife was holding out something.
"Young brave!" said he. "Want good knife? Present."
It was one which had been found in the belt of the first Comanche
warrior killed in the open, and there had been no claimant for it. It
was a very good knife, longer than most others, although not shaped
altogether like a bowie. Its sheath was silver-mounted and its edge
was keen. It was worth a dozen of common butcher-knives such as the
one Red Wolf now carried, and his eyes glistened with pleasure. It
would be a war-trophy to show to his father, and all his tribe would
envy him so fine a weapon. Its greatest value, however, even to them,
would be the fact that it was a battle-token given by the great
single-hand knife-fighter of the white men.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Red Wolf. "Heap knife. Great chief give! Whoop!"
He secured it in his belt, and then his old butcher-knife was
contemptuously transferred to a place among the fringes of his leggings.
The Texans were not using up their horses, but no halt was made. They
went steadily forward for several miles of winding way, and then the
chaparral began to change its character. Instead of mere bushes there
was heavy timber with much undergrowth, and the land grew rugged and
rocky instead of sandy.
Tetzcatl was continually several yards in the advance. He now turned
and beckoned, spurred his mule, and seemed almost to vanish.
"Forward, men!" shouted Bowie. "I know what he means! I've been
bothered by that very ravine more than once. It runs almost to the
Nueces River. Hurrah! Great Bear won't run his braves into such a
death-trap as that is. Come on!"
A number of fine old oak-trees stood like sentries grouped around the
mouth of a kind of chasm, with rocks on either side. There was a
descent at once, and the ravine grew deeper as the rangers rode farther
into it. Tetzcatl was ahead of them, but the mule plodded on without
waiting for anybody, while his rider turned and put a finger on his
lips.
Not a shout was uttered, therefore, to tell how glad they all were to
get into that ravine, and Bowie almost instantly exclaimed, in a low
voice, to the long-legged Texan who was riding near him,--
"Jim Cheyne! Look! That's what he means. That head, up there at the
cliff-edge, among the rosin weeds. Can you fetch him? Long range, but
I'll try. One of us may hit."
"Ready! Together!" answered Jim, and in a few seconds more the two
rifles cracked almost like one.
Tetzcatl had watched the marksmen, and now he nodded approvingly and
rode on, but no one climbed to the upper level to inquire whether one
bullet or two had cut short the scouting of the imprudent brave, whose
eagle feather had betrayed his weedy lurking-place.
It was, nevertheless, another proof that Great Bear was a great chief
and that he knew that country, for he had sent his scouts in the right
direction before trying to close in upon the Texans at the pond. He
had even guessed correctly at one of their possible lines of escape.
He could not have calculated beforehand that a feather and a head with
a bullet in it should give so complete a confirmation.
"He won't go back to tell," said Bowie, "but we shall be followed all
the way."