Texas Jack had been a ranchman in Texas since early boyhood. His
sentiments and affiliations were Southern, and when the war broke out
he joined the Confederate Army as a scout. He was a reckless, daredevil
fellow, yet high-minded, honorable to foe as well as friend. The noble
blood of the Omohondreaus showed through the rough manner of the hardy
frontiersman.
It was Jack Omohondreau who came so near dealing an irreparable blow
to the Northern cause by capturing President Lincoln and taking him
South as a prisoner. How near the daring scout came to accomplishing
this very thing nobody but those few Confederates in the secret--and
possibly Lincoln himself--ever knew.
However, when the Civil War was ended, Buffalo Bill, who had scouted
for the other side, found Jack in Kansas, and it was through his
influence that the young French-American was enlisted in the Federal
Army.
He was of cheery nature, fearless to recklessness, strong as a grizzly,
and possessed of a handsome presence. Such was the man who had
determined to return through the ring of enraged Sioux to give comfort
and help to the besieged garrison of Fort Advance.
He knew all that he had to risk, but, in his Indian disguise, and under
cover of the early darkness, he hoped to accomplish his purpose. If
captured by the redskins he well knew that death by the most frightful
torture would be his portion. The Sioux hated him almost as fiercely as
they hated Buffalo Bill.
That he could speak their language was in Jack’s favor. And he knew
that if he chanced upon any bunch of the reds a word or two might
pass him through all right. Oak Heart had gathered several different
branches of the tribe together, and many of the braves must be
strangers to each other.
The scout had already formed his plan of return to the fort. He had
reloaded his rifle and revolvers, seen that his knife was still in its
scabbard, and, after another long swig at the clear, running water and
a tightening of his belt, Texas Jack climbed one side of the cañon with
infinite caution. He could not return through the gorge itself, for he
did not know how near pursuit might be. And he wormed his way up the
steep ascent like a serpent, that he might not be observed from below.
Night came upon him as he arrived on the summit of the timbered ridge.
The forest was a tangled wilderness, but he knew how to pass through it
without making the slightest disturbance, and, as he might come upon
the Indians at any moment, he was glad of the darkness and the thicket.
A few miles along this ridge and he would come out upon a bluff that
overlooked the valley in which Fort Advance was situated.
He strode on lightly, yet swiftly--threading his way through the
trackless forest with a confidence which brought him straight to his
destination. And as yet he had not passed an Indian.
The dash of the scouts into the cañon had drawn all the outposts from
the hills, and the redskins were either guarding the lower passes,
ringing the fort, or gathered about the camp-fires where the main
encampment had been established.
When Texas Jack came out upon the bluff he could see these camp-fires
twinkling on the other side of the valley, although it was still light
enough for him to see all who moved below him. The encampment was at
the base of the southern hills, some two miles from the fort. Some
half-hundred ponies were feeding in the valley, with the guards about
them doubled. The loss of the bulk of the herd had been a severe blow
to the redskins, and Texas Jack knew that the Indians would put forth
every effort to retake them, should opportunity arise.
Jack decided that Chief Oak Heart was probably at the encampment,
counseling with his old men and the other chiefs regarding the next
blow to be struck at Fort Advance. That plans of deviltry and cunning
were being hatched the scout was certain.
Then he thought of the Border King flying along the trail to Resistence
for help, and he regained his courage.
Awaiting with the stolid patience of a redskin for the night to deepen,
the scout finally pursued his march into the valley. He had carefully
weighed all chances for and against his success. Now he was ready to
take them.
Night spread its wings over the valley. It hid its scars and wounds
and the stark bodies of the dead, lying under the fortress walls. In
the gloaming it might have been the most peaceful valley in all the
Rockies. One coming upon it suddenly, and unwarned, would never have
suspected the blood so recently spilled there and the threatening
aspect of the situation at that very moment!
Texas Jack stole down the declivity with a step as light as the fall of
a leaf. The savage whom he imitated could have moved no more lightly,
and as he came into the valley itself he crouched and crept along like
a shadow.
He knew that the red men would be moving about, passing and repassing
each other, and keeping up a tightening circle about the fort. They
would afford the opportunity for no other white man to escape from the
fort if they could help it. But they moved about as silently as the
scout himself, and as the redskin is notoriously silent, Texas Jack’s
ears were of little good to him in this emergency.
An Indian is not troubled by military accouterments to rattle as he
walks; his moccasins are soundless, and he has schooled himself to
endure all those little discomforts of body or environment that cause
the white man to betray himself by either sound or movement. If a red
warrior lay in wait for an enemy the flies and other insects might half
eat him up without his betraying himself by a movement. He seldom has
catarrhal affections of the throat, or if he does stifles the desire
to cough or sneeze. He has, indeed, his whole body and mind under
perfect control.
Therefore Texas Jack knew that the red men might be near--upon each
side of him--in his very path, perhaps, yet they passed and repassed,
silent as so many ghosts.
Texas Jack crept but a short way from the base of the hill before he
lay flat down in the weeds and brush. There was a big rock on his right
hand, and he believed that that obstacle, looming up as it did in the
gloom, would keep anybody from walking over him.
His reason for lying there was easily understood. From the dark ground
he could look upward and see any form passing between him and the
lighter sky-line. He wished to get a line on the pacing to and fro of
the sentinels. If there was any regularity regarding their beats, the
scout might be able to time his passage so as not to be seen at all.
For if his presence was discovered, although his dress and appearance
might carry him through, still there was a grave danger that they would
not. There might be some password, for the redskins were shrewd, or he
might run against some chief going the rounds of his men to see that
all were properly placed.
Suddenly a form seemed to rise out of the ground before the advancing
scout. It stood a moment directly between him and the lighter sky-line.
Then it passed on--silently as the wind over the grass.
He heard a muffled grunt--a guttural Indian word--dropped by some
invisible redskin in the direction the figure had disappeared. Then
that, or another, sentinel returned and passed slowly across the line
of Texas Jack’s vision. He was quite near the lines of sentinels, and
he determined to lie there and, if possible, time their coming and
going before trying himself to get through.
Once more the figure crossed the line of the scout’s vision. Texas
Jack lay, scarcely moving in the grass, and with fingers on wrist
counted his pulse while the Indian was in sight. In this way he learned
something of the time it took for the sentinel to pace from end to end
of his beat. He lay for some time and timed him back and forth to make
sure that there was some regularity in the redskin’s actions.
Then, at the right moment--as the sentinel passed out of view in one
direction, Texas Jack darted forward like a serpent through the tall
weeds. Although he ran on his feet and touched but one hand now and
then to help retain his balance, the scout’s body could never have been
seen above the waving tops of the grass and weeds.
For several rods he ran in this way and then dropped down again,
panting, hugging the earth, flattening his body upon it, and waiting
with every nerve on the qui vive to discover if his actions had been
noted.
And well he knew that, if the sentinel had seen him, no shout--no
sound--would be raised. The red would sneak up behind him, and his
first audible sound would be the cry of triumph when the scalping-knife
was plunged into the scout’s back!
Jack twisted his neck to see back over his shoulder. After a moment the
Indian sentinel appeared again. He walked upright. Jack could see his
nodding topknot of feathers, and that he carried a gun of some kind. He
passed on without even glancing in the scout’s direction.
“Thanks be for that!” thought the scout. “Now, what’s ahead?”
That the Sioux had but one ring of sentinels around the fort he knew
was not the fact. There were two lines at least--possibly three. He
raised his head like a turtle stretching from its shell and tried to
pierce the gloom of the valley.
And then it was that he suddenly beheld a tall figure standing
motionless not far ahead of him and almost in his path. It was a chief
of some importance from his war-bonnet, and he had perhaps been going
the rounds of his sentinels. Now he stood motionless, his back to the
scout, looking toward the fort, one elbow leaning upon a broken stub
of a tree, the other hand holding his rifle, hanging idly by his side.
The chief was evidently in a reverie--or was he listening? Had he heard
the scout’s breathing--or some other sound that warned him of the white
man’s presence?
The question seared Texas Jack’s brain. It startled him to action. This
was no moment for taking chances.
He rose up like a shadow, and, with great, catlike strides, stole
upon the statuelike Indian. It went against the grain for the scout
to strike even a redskin from behind. Man to man and face to face in
a fair struggle would have pleased Texas Jack better. But the entire
success of his attempt to reach the fort depended upon the action of
the next few seconds.
Suddenly the chief began to turn--with a jerking motion which showed
that he was startled. Some instinct told him that there was an enemy at
hand. Perhaps his lips were already opened to give a warning call.
Like a stone from the sling the scout leaped forward--as the panther
leaps! His knee found the small of the Indian’s back; his left had
clutched his throat like a vise; his right drove his keen blade
downward--_and home_!
The redskin crumpled and fell without a sound upon the earth. Not even
a cough or death-rattle proclaimed the passing of his spirit. And the
number of seconds occupied in the killing were infinitesimal. One
moment the red chief stood there leaning on the broken tree; the next
Texas Jack, in his Indian garb, had taken his place and assumed his
attitude!
Unless some member of the tribe had been near enough to watch the chief
continuously, this action of the scout’s was inspired. The chief had
gone down and lay dead under his feet; the white man had taken his
place, and for several moments, while he recovered his breath, he stood
there in the exact attitude the real Indian had assumed in life.
Carefully he scrutinized his surroundings as closely as might be for
the gloom. He became aware at length that a warrior was stalking toward
him from the left--undoubtedly one of the sentinels. This man came on,
saw the supposed chief standing by the tree stub, and made a gesture as
though he were saluting his superior.
“Ugh!” muttered Texas Jack in an excellent imitation of an Indian
guttural. He did not care to risk his Sioux intonation if he could help
it.
The sentinel went on. Texas Jack was about to change his position
and make for the fort when he saw the sentinel who had just passed
and another, returning. They would pass him very closely. Did they
suspect? Had the first brave become suspicious, and was he bringing
the second to help him attack the supposed chief?
The thought sent a chill to the heart of the courageous scout.
It seemed to him that, thus early in the game, he had come to a
death-struggle with the redskins!