CHAPTER XVI
THE PASSING OF PEDRO
After supper that night Hank and Tom sat around their fire and soon werejoined by Pedro, who paid them effusive compliments about their defeatof the Arapahoes. They squirmed under his heavy flattery and finally, indesperation, spoke of the secret trail to Taos. His face beamed in thefirelight and he leaned eagerly forward.
"You have decide?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Tom. "Whar we goin' ter meet, and what time?"
"Ah?" breathed Pedro. "To that have I geeve _mucho_ thought. Eet shouldbe ear-rly, so we be far away by thee coming of thee sun. Ees eet notso?"
"Naw," growled Hank. "Folks air not sleepin' sound enough then. Nobody'sgoin' ter foller us. Thar'll be lots o' 'em leavin' camp at night fromnow on, tryin' ter beat each other ter th' customs fellers. Two hoursafore dawn is time enough. But we got lots o' time ter figger that; wewon't be ter th' Upper Spring fer two more days. Time enough then tertalk about it."
"But, eet ees tonight!" exclaimed Pedro. "_Madre de Dios!_ You teenk Imean near thee Upper Spreeng? No! No!"
"Mebby not; but that's whar _we_ mean," said Tom. "Think we're goin'pokin' along through this Injun country fer two nights an' a day byourselves? Th' caravan gits ter Willer Bar tomorrow night, an' camps atth' Upper Spring, or Cold Spring, th' next night. That puts us nearfifty miles further on in th' protection of th' caravan."
"No! No!" argued Pedro in despair. "Eet ees too _mucho_ reesk!"
"Of what?" demanded Tom, in surprise.
"Eet may be that Armijo send _soldats_ to meet thee tr-rain, lak othertimes. Senores, eet mus' be tonight! Tonight eet mus' be!" He lookedaround suddenly. "But where ar-re thee _cargas_, thee packs? I do notsee them. What ees eet you do?"
"We put 'em outside th' corral," chuckled Tom knowingly, "so folks willgit used ter seeing 'em thar. Tomorrow night we'll do th' same, an' doit ag'in at th' Upper Spring. Somebody shore would see us if we had terpack 'em here an' sneak 'em through th' camp. Ye should tell yer friendster put thar packs outside th' waggins, too. How we goin' ter gitthrough th' guards around th' camp?"
"By my fr-riends," answered Pedro. "But eet may be too late at ColdSpreeng!" he expostulated. "Eef thee _soldats_ ar-re there--ah, senores!Eet ees ver' bad, Cold Spreeng!"
"We ain't botherin' 'bout that," said Tom reassuringly. "Hank kin scouton ahead o' us, an' if thar camped up thar we kin drop out o' th' trainbehind any bend on th' way, an' take ter th' brush."
Pedro begged and pleaded, but to no avail. He still was arguing when histwo companions rolled up in their blankets and settled down to go tosleep. Sadly he walked away, hiding his anger until well out of theirsight, and then hastened to his own fire and sent three of hiscompatriots to watch the sleeping pair. They had their watch fornothing, and while they doggedly kept their eyes on the two plainsmen,Uncle Joe and his two wagoners were busy on the other side of the camp,stowing merchandise in the wagons and making false packs. This theyfound easy to do without calling upon many buffalo rugs, for the goodshad been packed in light boxes, over which had been thrown skins andcanvas. By taking out the contents of the boxes and putting thecontainers back into their original wrappings the shapes of the packsdid not change. The pigs of lead, a keg of powder and bundles of stoneswere wrapped in pieces of old skins to give weight to the packs to keepthem from flopping at every step of the mules. They did not start towork until Zeb Houghton and Jim Ogden returned from their tour of guardduty and took up another kind of guard duty near the wagons; and longbefore daylight awakened the encampment the work was done and no one thewiser. Alonzo Webb and Enoch Birdsall had taken care of the packsbelonging to Ogden and Houghton and everything was in shape for quickaction.
On the march again after an early breakfast the caravan plodded alongthe trail to reach Willow Bar in good time for the next night camp. Asthe wagons rolled along the road following the course of the Cimarron,Uncle Joe and Patience dropped back to the rear guard, where HankMarshall scowled at Jim Ogden, but refrained from open hostilities.Hank was glad to see them and entertained them mile after mile withaccounts of his life and experiences in the great West. At times hisimagination set a hard pace for his vocabulary, but the latter managedto keep up. The men exchanged tobacco off and on and no one gave asecond thought to what they were doing. When Uncle Joe and Patience rodeforward again as the train drew near to the noon camping place, UncleJoe was poorer and lighter by the loss of a goodly sum in minted gold,while Hank was richer and heavier. The balance was obtainable in SantaFe in the warehouse of a mutual friend.
The wagons hardly had left the noon camp when a heavy rain storm burstupon them, with a blast of cold air that quickly turned the rain intodriving sheets of hail. These storms were common along the Cimarron andat times raged for two or three days. The animals became frantic withfear and pain, and the train was a scene of great confusion from one endto the other. Alternate downpours of rain, sleet, and heavy hailstonescontinued all the rest of the day and the encampment at Willow Bar wasone of sullenness and discontent. The wind rose during the early part ofthe night and sent the rain driving into the wagons through every crackand crevice, and the flapping and slapping and booming of wagon covers,added to the fury of the wind and the swish of the downpour, filled thenight with a tumult of noise. The guards around the camp either crawledunder skins or crept back to their wagons, not able to see three feet inthe blackness.
Tom and Hank had taken refuge under a great Pittsburg wagon owned byHaviland and had fastened buffalo rugs to its sides to shed some of therain. As soon as darkness set in and Pedro's spies found that they couldnot see an arm's length from them and were drenched and half frozen bythe steady downpour, they fled from their posts and sought refuge fromthe storm. It took very little to convince them that the men they wereto watch would stay where they were until dawn or later, and they didnot let Pedro know of their deflection.
"Nine, ten, eleven," muttered the first of two men leading packmules asthey felt their way from wagon to wagon. "This oughter be Haviland's,Zeb. Yep, I kin feel thar skin walls." He bent down and raised the loweredge of a skin. "Hank! Tom!"
"All right, Jim," came the low answer, and the two partners, bundled inskins until they looked like nothing human, crawled from their snugshelter and stood up, their one and constant thought being for thecovers of the hammers of their heavy rifles. Hank pushed ahead and thenight swallowed up the little party.
Uncle Joe raised himself on one elbow and peered through a small openingin the canvas at the rear end of his first huge wagon, and got a facefulof cold rain before he could close the opening again. He had done this adozen times since dark. Muttering sleepily he rolled up in his blanketsand rugs and dozed again, squirming down into the warm bed as vaguethoughts sped through his mind of what his friends were going to face.
Suddenly the soft whinny of a horse sounded squarely under him, and hebounced from the blankets and crept to a crack where the canvas wasnailed to the tailboard of the wagon. "Hello!" he called. "Hello!"
A low voice answered him and he shivered as a trickle of cold rainrolled down his face. "Thought you had given it up till tomorrow night.This is a hell of a night, boys, to go wandering off from the camp. Sureyou won't get lost among th' hills?" He chuckled at the reply andshivered again. "Sure I'll tell her Bent's. Yes. No, she won't. What?Look here, young man; she's plumb cured of tenderfeet. Yes, I remembereverything. All right; good luck, boys. God knows you'll need it!" Helistened for a moment, heard no sounds of movement, and called again."What's th' matter?" There came no answer and he crept back to hisblankets, his teeth chattering, and lay awake the rest of the night,worrying.
Between the wagons and the road the little pack train waited, kepttogether by soft bird calls instead of by sight. A plaintive,disheartened snipe whistled close by and was answered in kind. Hankalmost bumped into Ogden before he saw him. They both looked likedrowned rats, the water slipping from the buffalo hair and pouring fromthem in little rills.
"Ain't a
guard in sight, or ruther feelin', fifty feet each side o' th'road," Hank reported. "Bet every blasted one o' 'em is back in camp.Mules all tied together? Everybody hyar? All right. Off we go."
All night long the little _atejo_ slopped down the streaming road, keptto it by the uncanny instinct and the oft repeated cheeping andtwittering of the adopted son of the Blackfeet, who could perfectlyimitate any night bird he ever had heard; and he had heard them all.Horses whinnied, mules brayed, wolves and coyotes howled, foxessqualled, chipmunks scolded, squirrels chattered and several otheranimals performed solos in the dark at the head of the little packtrain, to be answered from the rear. Anyone unfortunate enough to becamped at the edge of the trail would have thought himself surrounded bya menagerie.
With the first sullen sign of dawn Tom pushed on ahead, reconnoiteredthe Upper Spring, found it deserted and went on, riding some hundreds ofyards from, but parallel to, the trail and soon came to Cold Spring.Here he saw quantities of camp and riding gear, abandoned firelocks,personal belongings, and other things "forgotten" by the brave Armijoand his army in their precipitate retreat from the Texans, while thelatter were still one hundred and fifty miles away. Scouting in thevicinity for awhile he rode back and met the little _atejo_, which hadbeen plodding steadily on at its pace of three miles an hour; and allthe urging of which the men were capable would not increase that speed.
At the Upper Spring, which poured into a ravine and flowed toward theCimarron a few miles to the north, the wagon road drew farther from theriver and ran toward the Canadian; and here the little party left it toturn and twist over and around hills, ravines, pastures and woods, andthen slopped down the middle of a storm-swollen rivulet. They turned upone of its small feeders and followed it for half a mile and then,crossing a little divide, struck another small brook and splashed downit until they came to the Cimarron. Here they threw into the river theuseless contents of the false packs, distributed the supplies among themules, and pushed on again upstream along the bank.
They now were well up on the headwaters of the river and its width wasnegligible, although its storm-fed torrent boiled and seethed and gaveto it a false fierceness. Their doubling and the hiding of their trailin the streams had not been done so much for the purpose of throwing theMexicans off their track, as to make their pursuers think they weretrying to throw them off. They knew that the Mexicans, upon losing thetracks, would strike straight for the old and now almost abandonedIndian trail for Bent's Fort.
"We got about a ten-hour start on 'em," growled Tom, "but they'll cutthat 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 tothe rear.
Hank, leading the bell mule, pushed on, looking for the site of his oldcache and for a good place to cross the swollen stream, and he soonstopped at the water's edge and howled like a wolf. In a few minutes hiscompanions came up, reported no Mexicans in sight, and unpacked the moreperishable supplies. These they carried across to the other bank, theirhorses swimming strongly and soon the mules were ready to follow. Tomled off, entering the stream with the picket rope of the bell mulefastened 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 aslight show of hesitation, came the others, the three remaining huntersbringing up the rear.
As the _atejo_ formed again and started forward Hank hung back, peeringinto 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 deepregret. "That's plumb center range from hyar, over thar. Wouldn't mindtakin' a couple o' cracks at 'em, out hyar by ourselves, us four. Allushate ter turn my tail ter yaller-bellies like them varmints. I hate 'emnext ter Crows!" He slowly turned his horse and fell in behind the lastmule, 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 flattop covered with a thick mass of brush, berry bushes and scrub timber,and on its right was a swamp, filled with pools and rank withvegetation. The dry wash marking the end of the great buffalo trail wasdry no longer, but poured out a roiled, yellow-brown stream into thedirty waters of the Cimarron.
Rounding the hill they stopped and exchanged grins, for in a littlehorseshoe hollow two horses, with pack saddles on their backs, stoppedtheir grazing, pulled to the end of their picket-ropes, and lookedinquiringly at the invaders.
"Thar's jest no understandin' th' ways o' Providence," chuckled Hank ashe dismounted. "Hyar we been a-wishin' an' a-wishin' fer a couple o'hosses to take th' place o' these cold-'lasses mules, an' danged if hyarthey ain't, saddles an' all, right under our noses."
While he went along the back trail on foot to a point from where hecould see the river, his companions became busy. They pooled theirsupplies and packed them securely on the Providence-provided horses, putthe rest on their own animals, picketed the mules and removed the bellfrom the old mare, tossing it aside so its warning tinkle would bestilled. Signalling Hank, in a few minutes they were on their way againalong the faint and in many places totally effaced trail leading overthe wastes to the distant trading post on the Arkansas. Coming to arainwater rivulet Hank sent them westward down its middle while he rodesplashingly upstream. Soon coming to a tangle of brush he forced hishorse to take a few steps around it on the bank, returned to the streamand then, holding squarely to its middle, picked his way through thetangle and rode back to rejoin his friends, having left behind him asign of his upward passing. In case Providence went to sleep and took nomore interest in his affairs, he had the satisfaction of knowing that hehad done what he could to hide their trail.
He found his friends waiting for him and he shook his head as he joinedthem. "Danged if I like this hyar hidin'," he growled, coming back tohis pet grievance. "I most gen'rally 'd ruther do it myself."
"But it ain't a question o' fighting," retorted Tom. "We got ter hideour trail from now on in case some greaser gits away, like they did fromthem 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 Febehind ye--an' I'm bettin' we'll all show our trails a hull lot worseafore we git through ter Bent's. Come on; Turley's ranch is a long waysoff. If yer itchin' ter try that repeatin' rifle ye'll shore git th'chance ter, later."
Hank grinned guiltily and while he was not thoroughly convinced of thesoundness of their flight, so far as his outward appearances showed, hegrunted a little but pushed on and joined his partner. In a few minuteshe grinned again.
"I ain't never had th' chanct ter try fer six plumb-centers withouttakin' th' rifle from my shoulder," he remarked. "Jest wait till I takethis hyar Colt up in th' Crow country!" He chuckled with anticipatedpleasures 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 flushingunder 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 herthat."
"Not even atween us two?"
"Not never, a-tall."
"That so?" muttered Hank, a vague plan presenting itself to his mind, tobe 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 yekeep on _thinkin'_ that she's yer gal." He scratched his chin. "But whowar th' other three?"
"Why, I do remember her saying something like that,"
confessed Tomslowly, 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 intarnation is th' third?"
"Don't know," grunted Tom.
"Huh! Bet he's that stuck-up, no-'count doctor feller. Yeah; that's whoit 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 terSanter 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 waysoff!"
Two miles further on they turned up a little branch of the stream andHank, stopping his horse, threw up his hand. "Listen!" he cried.
Four pairs of keen ears sifted the noises of the intermittent wind andthree 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," repliedHank. "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 theabsence of Tom and his friends was noticed. Then, with manymaledictions, Pedro rallied his friends and set out along the wagonroad, following a trail easily seen notwithstanding the rain which hadbeaten at the telltale tracks all night. Mile after mile unrolled behindthem, saturated with Spanish curses; miles covered with all the vengefulferocity and eagerness of Apaches. The score of Mexicans werewell-armed, having spent the winter in the Missouri settlements andprocured the best weapons to be had there. The Upper Spring came nearand was put behind in a shower of hoof-thrown mud, and without pausethey followed the tracks leading into the rough country, like houndsunleashed. They were five to one, and these odds were deemed sufficientin a sudden night attack. There would be satisfaction, glory, andprofits for them all. The Governor had demanded Tom Boyd's ears, on himif possible, without him if they could be obtained in no other way; theGovernor was powerful and would reward loyal and zealous service. Theyfollowed the trail of the _atejo_ around hills, through ravines, andpast woods, an advance guard of three men feeling the way. Then thetracks ceased at the side of a creek; but they did not pause. Choosingthe straightest practical route to the Cimarron at the beginning of theold Indian trail running northward to the Arkansas, they kept on. Atlast they saw the muddy flood of the river and as they reached its banksand read them at a glance they sent up an exultant shout. Holding theirweapons and powder well above the backs of their swimming horses theyreached the further side and took up the trail again.
Pedro dashed forward and flung up an arm and as his followers stopped inanswer he cheered them with a Spanish oration, in which Pedro played nominor part. "Pedro never loses!" he boasted. "Before noon we will be onthe heels of the gringo dogs and our scouts will find their camp in thenight. Before another sun rises in the heavens we will have their earsat 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, theirrifles at the ready, their advance guard steadily forging ahead, andthundered along the tracks of the fleeing _atejo_. Rounding the littlehill with its frowsy cap of brush and scrub timber, they received astunning surprise; for dropping down the steep bank as if from the skycharged twenty-odd vengeful Texans, their repeating rifles cracking likethe roll of a drum. Pedro's exultant face became a sickly yellow, hisburning eyes in an instant changed to glass, and his boasting wordswere slashed across by the death rattle in his throat. Volley aftervolley crashed and roared as the charging Texans wheeled to charge backagain, and as they turned once more on the hillside they pulled upsharply and viewed the havoc of their deadly work. No man was left tocarry tales, and Pedro had spoken with prophetic vision, for he hadindeed led his warriors to glory--and oblivion.