THE CHARGE OF THE LANCERS.
Days that go by with nothing in them but steady riding,
buffalo-killing, and undisturbed camps at the end of each day may be
very pleasant but they are not exciting. As Colonel Bowie remarked to
his men, however,--
"A squad like ours, mounted as we are, can get ahead faster than a big
band like Great Bear's. They'll send scouting-parties ahead, but we
can keep out of their way. We're making first-rate time."
So they were, and they were also carefully keeping their horses in good
condition for any required run. They carried no baggage, and they had
now, they thought, a long "start" ahead of their Comanche pursuers.
The most silent rider among them, not excepting Castro himself, was Red
Wolf, and it was not altogether because he was a boy. The fact was
that he had been seeing and hearing a great deal, and that he was full
to bursting with the spirit of adventure which all the while spoke out
in the talk of the Texans.
They told wild stories of old war-paths; of fights of every kind, and
of visits to cities and towns of the white men. They talked, too,
about gold and silver and what could be done with money, so that the
young Lipan grew more and more interested in an idea he never had
before,--the idea of riches. It did not yet take complete shape in his
mind, excepting in one form, given by Big Knife, the hero. It was what
he said about the great gun in the plaza of the Alamo, and the money it
would cost to kill Mexicans with that and the other cannon. The "heap
guns" themselves had cost a great deal of money. In that shape, or
even in the shape of rifles or horses, Red Wolf could now understand it
fairly well. He thought of the bags in the hole in the _adobe_ wall,
but these, he believed, belonged to Big Knife and the Texans. They
could not be the property of a Lipan boy, and he never thought of such
a thing for a moment. Very vaguely, moreover, he had gathered that
this present war-party expected to find gold and silver and to bring it
back with them, after killing enemies and winning glory in fights.
It was all new and it was all wonderful, but there was no use in
talking about it, so he kept still and was inclined to ride ahead, or
else to linger some distance behind his party.
As yet there had been no sign of any pursuers near them, but toward the
close of one long, bright day Red Wolf had fallen so far behind that he
was almost out of sight of his pale-face friends.
The swift mustang under him was in fine condition. So very well did he
feel that he was restive, and a deer that sprang out of a covert of
hazel-bushes as he was going by made him jump and throw up his heels.
Not that he was at all afraid of a deer, but that it was curious,
perhaps, to find himself carrying a hunter who would not so much as
send an arrow after such capital game.
"Ugh!" exclaimed Red Wolf, and it came out sharply, from utter surprise.
In his sudden prancing his pony had wheeled around, and there, coming
over a rise of ground not two hundred yards away, rode three Comanches.
The instant they were discovered they uttered fierce whoops and dashed
forward.
"Wh-oo-p!" yelled the young Lipan, lashing his too spirited pony to a
run. "Comanche dog! Red Wolf!"
There was no more to be said just then, however. The warm wind from
the south seemed to whistle past him. Far to the right and far to the
left yet other war-whoops were sounding. Not the whole band of Great
Bear, he thought, but a sufficient number of their best mounted braves
to make trouble for Bowie and his men.
There is no such thing as mistaking a war-whoop for any other sound,
and now Red Wolf exclaimed "Ugh!" again in still greater astonishment.
He knew that there was no bugle among the Texans with Big Knife, but he
had heard the sound of one at the fort and afterwards. "Heap whistle"
would have been a good translation of his Lipan word for bugle music,
and he uttered it loudly. It came from the left, and it was faint at
first, but in a few moments it was repeated more sonorously, and he
wheeled his mustang in that direction.
At that very moment Castro himself, riding at the head of the squad,
lifted his left hand as if pointing and exclaimed,--
"Ugh! Big Knife hear! Mexicans!"
"It's a cavalry bugle, colonel!" shouted Jim Cheyne. "I can ketch it.
Thar it comes ag'in----"
"Wheel to the right! Gallop!" replied Bowie. "It's Bravo's lancers.
They are this side of the Rio! Now, boys, the chief was just saying we
were only a half-hour's ride from the hacienda. His Lipans are there."
Were they? It is not always that a man can give the whereabouts of
other men from whom he has been several days absent. A ride of half an
hour is also to be measured by the speed of a horse, rather than by
feet and inches. Very near them, therefore, if the distance were that
of a swift horse on a run, a mule and his rider had halted on the
northerly bank of a broad and very muddy river.
Directly across the river, on a low bluff of seemingly bare, sandy
ground, there was a long range of low-built houses, part of them
surrounded by a wall. They were altogether like a vast number of other
Mexican-Spanish _haciendas_, or head-quarters of important country
estates. If this, however, were the Hacienda Dolores, and if Castro's
Lipans were there, they had raised over the largest of the _adobe_
structures the eagle flag of Mexico. They had stationed uniformed
sentinels here and there, and they had picketed horses, with saddles
and military trappings, in long rows near at hand.
"Tetzcatl counts more than four hundred," said the man on the mule.
"The Lipans are safe, but the Mexicans must not catch Bowie."
He spoke in Spanish and his voice was quiet enough, but his face was
all one quiver of rage and hate as he stared across the river. What if
his entire plan was to be broken up and his red and white allies
destroyed by this unexpected activity of his Mexican enemies? It was,
moreover, a dangerous place of waiting for a solitary old man, to whom
no quarter would be given if he were found there by Mexican soldiers.
"Too long! Too long!" he exclaimed. "They ought to be here. It is
time!"
At that moment the mule under him stretched his neck and head to send
forth a loud and seemingly uncalled-for bray. He had an abundance of
ears, but what could he have heard? His white-headed master at first
heard nothing at all, but then he drove his spurs into the sides of his
trumpeting beast in a way that cut off braying.
"Bowie!" he shouted. "Running. He is trapped by Bravo's men!"
There, indeed, racing as if for life, were the six Texans and Castro,
but where was their young Lipan scout, and what was he doing?
Castro was asking that question, and so was the colonel, only the
moment before, but now they pulled in their horses to look across the
river, in blank dismay, at the flag over the hacienda.
"They've got us this time, colonel!" roared a broad-chested ranger.
"Our call has come. Let's die game!"
"You bet we will," said Joe, "but we ain't dead yit. Something's
a-goin' on away back yonder. I heard an Injin yell sure's you live."
If he and his friends had not been running away so fast they might have
heard a number of Indians yell.
Red Wolf had ridden toward the bugle, not away from it. Hardly three
minutes of so swift a run had been required to bring him out in full
view of a strong party of mounted men in the brilliant uniform of the
Mexican regular lancers. It was just as they obeyed the musical order
to go forward at a charging gait. They were splendid horsemen and they
moved together in perfect array, but it was not to make a dash upon one
Indian boy. They had some reasons for expecting an encounter with the
band of Lipans which had quartered, during several days, in and around
the deserted hacienda. Here these were now, they thought, apparently
ready to be pounced upon and overwhelmed, but this nearest brave upon
the mustang showed no sign of hostility. On the contrary, he pulled
in, almost halted, and waved his hand to them before pointing back, as
if he would say,--
"Your enemies and mine are there. Be ready for them."
Swift orders rang along the charging column, but the solitary Indian
wheeled out of their way, still making friendly signs, while over the
swells of the prairie came the wild riders of whom he was evidently
telling.
To him no more attention could be given just then, for there were more
Comanches arriving than Bowie had believed at all likely. They had
travelled faster and in better condition than he had calculated, and
fully a third of Great Bear's warriors were within reaching distance.
It was a tremendous surprise all around. The fast-gathering braves had
expected to close in upon a mere handful of tired-out Texans. The
lancers had counted upon a brush with a small war-party of Lipans.
Here the two forces were, however, face to face, altogether too near to
escape a collision, unless one side or both should lose courage and run
away.
Red Wolf had lashed his mustang to its best speed in wheeling from
between the combatants, and he barely succeeded, for the Comanches were
careering in various directions. It was not their custom to charge in
close column.
"Ugh!" said the boy warrior. "Heap fool Comanche. See Great Bear."
The great war-chief was indeed among his men, as cool as ever in spite
of the surprise. He had his best braves with him, and they greatly
outnumbered the Mexicans. The latter, indeed, rather than the red men,
had stumbled into a bad place. They were brave enough, but the
Comanches have been called by army officers "the best light cavalry in
the world." Not one of them turned to follow Red Wolf any farther, and
he did not wait to be followed. He looked behind him only to catch a
fleeting view of a terribly confused skirmish. Both sides carried
lances. At close quarters, the bows and arrows of the red men were
even better weapons than were such firearms as were carried by the
cavalry. It certainly took less time to load a bow-string than it did
to put a charge into a horse-pistol or a carbine.
The Mexicans were fighting well, Red Wolf could take note of that.
What he did not see was the fact that they were going down very fast
and that more Comanches were arriving. The one idea in his mind was to
overtake his friends.
The river! The great, muddy Rio Grande! Here it was, with not a sign
of Colonel Bowie's party upon its desolate bank.
Red Wolf halted in something like dismay, but it was no time for
hesitation. His friends could not have gone down southward. Their
errand would lead them up the river. He must hunt for them in that
direction. Whether he should ever reach them or not was a difficult
question, as his first glance across the river told him. It was not so
much the flag on the hacienda. He was not afraid of a flag. But the
river was shallow and fordable at this point, and a party of lancers
had already made its way well out from the farther shore. They, as
well as he, could hear the rattling reports and the fierce whooping
from the battle that was going on, and they were making as much haste
as the muddy bottom permitted. They uttered loud shouts when they
caught sight of the one "brave" on the bank, and they fired shot after
shot at him, but he was out of range of the short, smooth-bore carbines
they were firing. He answered them with a yell of derision and rode on.
"Ugh!" he said. "Heap Mexican! All lose hair. Great Bear come."
Even a Lipan boy could feel more exultation than anything else over the
idea that one enemy of his tribe was doing much harm to another. As an
Indian, moreover, he could be proud of the prowess of a chief like
Great Bear, almost as great a man, in his estimation, as Big Knife or
as Castro.
It was a hot skirmish, but it was a short one. Half the lancers were
down, but their charge had carried them through the unsteady swarm of
their enemies. All that were left were keeping well together and were
galloping toward the river, followed by flights of arrows. They would
have been more closely followed by wild horsemen but for the fact that
the Comanche ponies were at the end of a long, tiresome "push," while
the animals of the cavalry were fresh. There was no such thing as
catching up with them, and they reached the bank just as their comrades
from the opposite shore were wading out.
There were loud shouts of explanation. There were signals to and from
the hacienda, but all that could be done was to recross the river.
After all, Red Wolf had not won any glory, but his enemies had once
more suffered severely in trying to get hold of him.