"We got about a ten-hour start on 'em," growled Tom, "but they'll cut that down quick, once they git goin'. Reckon I'll lay back a-ways an'

slow 'em up if they git hyar too soon."

Zeb and Jim wheeled their horses and without a word accompanied him to the rear.

Hank, leading the bell mule, pushed on, looking for the site of his old cache and for a good place to cross the swollen stream, and he soon stopped at the water's edge and howled like a wolf. In a few minutes his companions came up, reported no Mexicans in sight, and unpacked the more perishable supplies. These they carried across to the other bank, their horses swimming strongly and soon the mules were ready to follow. Tom led off, entering the stream with the picket rope of the bell mule fastened to his saddle, and with his weapons, powder horn and "possible"

sack high above his head. His horse breasted the current strongly, quartering against it, and the bell mule followed. After her, with a slight show of hesitation, came the others, the three remaining hunters bringing up the rear.

As the _atejo_ formed again and started forward Hank hung back, peering into the stunted trees and brush on the other side of the stream.

"Come on, Hank," said Tom. "What ye lookin' fer? They warn't in sight."

"I war sorta hankerin' fer 'em ter show up," growled Hank with deep regret. "That's plumb center range from hyar, over thar. Wouldn't mind takin' a couple o' cracks at 'em, out hyar by ourselves, us four. Allus hate ter turn my tail ter yaller-bellies like them varmints. I hate 'em next ter Crows!" He slowly turned his horse and fell in behind the last mule, glancing back sorrowfully. Then he looked ahead. "Thar's my ol'

cache," he chuckled.

Before them on the right was an eroded hill with steep sides, its flat top covered with a thick ma.s.s of brush, berry bushes and scrub timber, and on its right was a swamp, filled with pools and rank with vegetation. The dry wash marking the end of the great buffalo trail was dry no longer, but poured out a roiled, yellow-brown stream into the dirty waters of the Cimarron.

Rounding the hill they stopped and exchanged grins, for in a little horseshoe hollow two horses, with pack saddles on their backs, stopped their grazing, pulled to the end of their picket-ropes, and looked inquiringly at the invaders.

"Thar's jest no understandin' th' ways o' Providence," chuckled Hank as he dismounted. "Hyar we been a-wishin' an' a-wishin' fer a couple o'

hosses to take th' place o' these cold-'la.s.ses mules, an' danged if hyar they ain't, saddles an' all, right under our noses."

While he went along the back trail on foot to a point from where he could see the river, his companions became busy. They pooled their supplies and packed them securely on the Providence-provided horses, put the rest on their own animals, picketed the mules and removed the bell from the old mare, tossing it aside so its warning tinkle would be stilled. Signalling Hank, in a few minutes they were on their way again along the faint and in many places totally effaced trail leading over the wastes to the distant trading post on the Arkansas. Coming to a rainwater rivulet Hank sent them westward down its middle while he rode splashingly upstream. Soon coming to a tangle of brush he forced his horse to take a few steps around it on the bank, returned to the stream and then, holding squarely to its middle, picked his way through the tangle and rode back to rejoin his friends, having left behind him a sign of his upward pa.s.sing. In case Providence went to sleep and took no more interest in his affairs, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had done what he could to hide their trail.

He found his friends waiting for him and he shook his head as he joined them. "Danged if I like this hyar hidin'," he growled, coming back to his pet grievance. "I most gen'rally 'd ruther do it myself."

"But it ain't a question o' fighting," retorted Tom. "We got ter hide our trail from now on in case some greaser gits away, like they did from them Texans back nigh th' Crossin', an' takes th' news in ter th'

settlements that we didn't go ter Bent's after we left th' wagon road.

Ye'll git all th' danged fightin' yer lookin' fer afore ye puts Santa Fe behind ye--an' I'm bettin' we'll all show our trails a hull lot worse afore we git through ter Bent's. Come on; Turley's ranch is a long ways off. If yer itchin' ter try that repeatin' rifle ye'll sh.o.r.e git th'

chance ter, later."

Hank grinned guiltily and while he was not thoroughly convinced of the soundness of their flight, so far as his outward appearances showed, he grunted a little but pushed on and joined his partner. In a few minutes he grinned again.

"I ain't never had th' chanct ter try fer six plumb-centers without takin' th' rifle from my shoulder," he remarked. "Jest wait till I take this hyar Colt up in th' Crow country!" He chuckled with antic.i.p.ated pleasures and then glanced sidewise at his partner. "Say, Tom," he said, reminiscently; "who air th' three other best men yer gal was thinkin'

of, back thar in that little clearin'?"

"What you mean?" demanded Tom, whirling in his saddle, his face flushing under its tan. "An' she ain't my gal, neither."

Hank chirped and twittered a bit. "Then who's is she?"

"Don't know; but she won't like bein' called mine. Ye oughtn't call her that."

"Not even atween us two?"

"Not never, a-tall."

"That so?" muttered Hank, a vague plan presenting itself to his mind, to be considered and used later. "Huh! I must be gittin' old an'

worthless," he mourned. "I been readin' signs fer more'n thirty year, an' I ain't never read none that war airy plainer, arter them thievin'

'Rapahoes turned tail an' lit out. Anyhow, I reckon mebby yer safe if ye keep on _thinkin'_ that she's yer gal." He scratched his chin. "But who war th' other three?"

"Why, I do remember her saying something like that," confessed Tom slowly, tingling as his memory hurled the whole scene before him.

"Reckon she meant Uncle Joe an' her father."

"That accounts fer two o' 'em," said Hank, nodding heavily; "but who in tarnation is th' third?"

"Don't know," grunted Tom.

"Huh! Bet he's that stuck-up, no-'count doctor feller. Yeah; that's who it is." He glanced slyly at his frowning friend. "Told ye I war gettin'

old an' worthless. Gosh! an' she's goin' all th' rest o' th' way ter Santer Fe with him!" He slapped his horse and growled in mock anxiety.

"We better git a-goin' an' not loaf like we air. Santer Fe's a long ways off!"

Two miles further on they turned up a little branch of the stream and Hank, stopping his horse, threw up his hand. "Listen!" he cried.

Four pairs of keen ears sifted the noises of the intermittent wind and three pairs of eyes turned to regard their companion.

"What ye reckon ye heard?" curiously asked Zeb.

"I'd take my oath I heard rifle shots--a little bust o' 'em," replied Hank. "Thar ain't no questionin' it; I _am_ gittin' old. Come along; we'll keep ter th' water fur's we kin, anyhow."

Back at the encampment of the caravan dawn found the animals stampeded, and considerable time elapsed before they were collected and before the absence of Tom and his friends was noticed. Then, with many maledictions, Pedro rallied his friends and set out along the wagon road, following a trail easily seen notwithstanding the rain which had beaten at the telltale tracks all night. Mile after mile unrolled behind them, saturated with Spanish curses; miles covered with all the vengeful ferocity and eagerness of Apaches. The score of Mexicans were well-armed, having spent the winter in the Missouri settlements and procured the best weapons to be had there. The Upper Spring came near and was put behind in a shower of hoof-thrown mud, and without pause they followed the tracks leading into the rough country, like hounds unleashed. They were five to one, and these odds were deemed sufficient in a sudden night attack. There would be satisfaction, glory, and profits for them all. The Governor had demanded Tom Boyd's ears, on him if possible, without him if they could be obtained in no other way; the Governor was powerful and would reward loyal and zealous service. They followed the trail of the _atejo_ around hills, through ravines, and past woods, an advance guard of three men feeling the way. Then the tracks ceased at the side of a creek; but they did not pause. Choosing the straightest practical route to the Cimarron at the beginning of the old Indian trail running northward to the Arkansas, they kept on. At last they saw the muddy flood of the river and as they reached its banks and read them at a glance they sent up an exultant shout. Holding their weapons and powder well above the backs of their swimming horses they reached the further side and took up the trail again.

Pedro dashed forward and flung up an arm and as his followers stopped in answer he cheered them with a Spanish oration, in which Pedro played no minor part. "Pedro never loses!" he boasted. "Before noon we will be on the heels of the gringo dogs and our scouts will find their camp in the night. Before another sun rises in the heavens we will have their ears at our belts and their trade goods on the way to the Valley of Taos!

Forward, my braves! Forward, my warriors! Pedro leads you to glory!"

They snapped forward in their saddles as the spurs went home, their rifles at the ready, their advance guard steadily forging ahead, and thundered along the tracks of the fleeing _atejo_. Rounding the little hill with its frowsy cap of brush and scrub timber, they received a stunning surprise; for dropping down the steep bank as if from the sky charged twenty-odd vengeful Texans, their repeating rifles cracking like the roll of a drum. Pedro's exultant face became a sickly yellow, his burning eyes in an instant changed to gla.s.s, and his boasting words were slashed across by the death rattle in his throat. Volley after volley crashed and roared as the charging Texans wheeled to charge back again, and as they turned once more on the hillside they pulled up sharply and viewed the havoc of their deadly work. No man was left to carry tales, and Pedro had spoken with prophetic vision, for he had indeed led his warriors to glory--and oblivion.

CHAPTER XVII

"'SPRESS FROM BENT'S"

Circling back to the river so as not to lose its guidance nor stray too far out of the direct course, they reached its desolate banks at nightfall and camped at the base of a low hill on the top of which grew dense ma.s.ses of greasewood. Zeb had shot a black-tailed deer on their way to the river and their supper that night, so far as the meat was concerned, would have delighted the palate of an epicure. Cooked over the hot, sputtering, short-lived greasewood, which constantly was added, and kept on the windward side of the blaze, the flavor of the meat was very little affected and they gorged, hunter-like, until they could eat no more; and partly smoked some of the remaining meat to have against some pressing need.

As the stream dwindled the nature of its banks and of the surrounding country changed, the vegetation steadily becoming more desert-like.

White chalk cliffs arose like painted eyebrows from the tops of the banks, where erosion had revealed them; loose and disintegrating sandstone lay about the broken plain in myriads of shapes. Stunted and dead cottonwoods added their touch to the general scene, leaning this way and that, weird, uncanny, ghostlike. The drab sagebrush and the green fan of the palmetto became steadily more common, the latter figuring largely in the daily life of the Mexicans, for its mashed, saponaceous roots provided them with their pulpy _amole_, which was an excellent subst.i.tute for soap. p.r.i.c.kly pears, Spanish bayonets, ma.s.ses of greasewood bushes and scattering fringes of short grama gra.s.s completed the carpeting of the desolate plain.

Doggedly they pushed on, thankful for the heavy rains of the last two days, which had reached even here and left little pools of bad-tasting water for themselves and their beasts. At noon they stopped and built a fire of stunted cedar, for in daylight its telltale flames told nothing.

They cooked another black-tailed deer, smoked some of the meat, and ran bullets until they had all of the latter they could possibly use. On again toward the Canadian until nightfall, lighting no fire, but eating the meat they had cooked at noon. They arranged a four-shift watch and pa.s.sed a peaceful night. In their range of vision were Raton Peak, Pike's Peak, and the Wet Mountain, that paradise for hunters; the twin Spanish Peaks with their caps of snow, and behind these towering sentries loomed the sullen bulk of a great mountain range under a thin streak of glittering white.

At any distance their appearance hardly would tell whether they were white hunters or Indians from Bent's, since their garb was a mixture of both and their skins so tanned, their hair so long as to cause grave doubts. More than once in that country two white men have exchanged shots, each taking the other for an Indian. At Bent's Fort on the Arkansas there were stray Indians from far-off tribes, and they dressed in what they could get; and at The Pueblo, that little trading post farther up on the Arkansas, Indians and whites lived together and intermarried. Not one of the four but could speak more than one savage dialect; and Tom's three companions possessed an Indian vocabulary which left little to be desired. If it came to a test which might prove too severe for him he could be dumb, and fall back on the sign language.

At last the Canadian was reached and pa.s.sed, and Hank led them unerringly up the valley of a little feeding stream which poured its crystal flood down the gorges of a mountain range now almost over their heads. Coming to a rocky bowl scooped out of the sheer, overhanging wall at a bend, he built a fire of dry wood that was safely screened, and from his "possible" sack he took various leaves and stems and roots he had collected on the way. Four white men looking more like Indians had entered that little valley just before dusk. In the morning at dawn two white men, a Blackfoot and a Delaware, a hunting party from Bent's Fort with messages for Bent's little Vermajo ranch, located in a mountain valley, left the ravine and followed a little-used Ute trail that their leader knew well. Hank wore the Blackfoot distinctive double part in his hair just above the forehead, the isolated tuft pulled down to the bridge of his nose, and fastened to his buckskin trousers were thin strips of beadwork made by Blackfoot squaws.

The Mexican herder working for Bent uneasily watched them as they rode up to his makeshift lean-to and demanded a change of horses, a report of his stewardship, and the use of his fire. They were not bad fellows and were generous with their heavenly tobacco, and finally his uneasiness wore away and he gossiped with them while the night more and more shut in his lavish fire and seemed to soften the guttural polyglot of the two Indians. The white men did most of the talking, as was usual, and could make themselves understood in the herder's b.a.s.t.a.r.d Spanish and they answered sociably his numerous questions. Had they heard of the great _Tejano_ army marching to avenge the terrible defeat inflicted by the brave Armijo on their swaggering vanguard? It was the great subject from the upper end of the Valley of Taos to the last settlement along the Rio Grande and the Pecos. The ign.o.ble dogs of _Tejanos_ had basely murdered the brave Mexican scouting party near the Cimarron Crossing of the Arkansas. What could the _soldats_ of Mexico do, attacked in their sleep? Most of the murdered _soldats_ had come from the Valley of Taos, which always had been friendly to Texas. Was it true that the _Tejanos_ spit fire on dry nights and could kill a full-grown bull buffalo with their bare hands? Ah, they were devils and the sons of devils, those _Tejanos_; and at night all doors were tightly barred in the settlements and strange Americans regarded with suspicion.