CHAPTER XX
THE WOLF'S LAIR
"You'll be all right now," said Stephens; "you've nothing to fear." Hedeliberately assumed a security he was far from feeling, but it was partof the game he must play. Her little hand still lay in his; it was thefirst time it had ever done so; it seemed as if the firm pressure of hisstrong fingers must reassure this poor terrified young thing, the wildleaping of whose pulses he could feel. Her breast heaved convulsively asshe strove to control her sobs; the great tear-drops gathered under hereyelids and ran down her cheeks.
"Great God!" he said, "that you should have suffered like this! Butdon't be afraid; we'll get you out of this all right." His voice soundedin his own ears strained and unnatural. He was trying his best to playhis part by appearing cheerful and consolatory, while at that very samemoment the strongest feeling in him was a burning, fierce desire to pumplead into the gang of savages who had made this tender creature sufferthis agony of terror. And but for her presence he might have done itthere and then. To preserve her, however, it was above all thingsnecessary to temporise; and to preserve her must be his first thought.He must hear her own story and consult with her on his next move; butto do that he must talk in Spanish, which Mahletonkwa understood. What apity she did not speak English, but that could not be helped. How couldhe manage to take her out of earshot.
"Oh, where is my father? where is Andres?" she sobbed, in a passion offear for the possible fate of her own people. "I heard two shots, andthen I heard no more. Were they there?"
"Oh, they're all right," said the American heartily, in the verycheerfullest tones he could muster. "Don't you fret, senorita," and hepatted reassuring the little hand he held in his, loosing his grip ofhis rifle to do so and squeezing the trusty weapon against his body withhis elbow. "It was only me out there that they were shooting at; no harmdone. Your father and brother are all right." Nevertheless thisrepetition by her of her anxious inquiries brought a disturbing ideainto his head. Had she any special reason for thinking that her fatherand her brother were wounded or slain? Could the cacique's conjecturehave been true, and had the Mexicans overtaken Mahletonkwa's band on theMesa del Verendo and fought with them there and been beaten off? Helonged to ask her about this, but he did not like to do so withinhearing of the Navajos. Still, he reflected, Mahletonkwa would hardlyhave met him so boldly if there was fresh blood on his hands. Ah, but hemight have done that to lure him into this trap; and now, behold, herehe was in the wolf's lair! Thoughts raced through his mind likelightning. Then he spoke.
"Mahletonkwa, I suppose you make no objection to her coming with menow?"
"Not go," was the somewhat ominous reply; "stay here; sit down; talk."
"But I want to talk to her by herself," he said; "I suppose you won'tobject, then, if we go to the middle of the meadow and sit down there?"
"Not go," repeated the Indian deliberately; "yes, you can go and sit inthere if you like," and he pointed to the overhanging side of the lavabed, close to which was the camp.
"He means the cave there where the water is," quickly interposed thegirl, who was by this time recovering the control of her voice, thoughher breast still heaved convulsively.
"All right, then, certainly, let's come on there; that'll do as well,"said the American with assumed ease. Still keeping her hand in his, heturned in the direction indicated, and made a move as if to start. Theother Navajos rapidly exchanged some sentences in their own language.
"You must leave your rifle if you go in there," said Mahletonkwa,turning to Stephens again after listening to what they said.
"No," replied he, "certainly not. I'm no prisoner. No treachery,Mahletonkwa." He slung himself round and faced the chief, placinghimself directly in front of the captive girl, as if assuming possessionof her.
"No treachery," re-echoed the Indian promptly, "only"--he hesitated tosay what was in his mind, but Manuelita divined it instantly.
"Their water is in the cave in a great rock-hole," she said, "and hefears you will take cover in there and then shoot at him from thence."
"No, I won't, Mahletonkwa," said Stephens at once; "I won't do that, andI hadn't ever even thought of such a thing. It was your own suggestionthat I should go there. I had rather go out in the middle of the meadowwhere I proposed first; there's no cover out in the meadow."
"No, not there," said Mahletonkwa; "better you go on into the cave"; andfollowing his direction they went forward together hand in hand.
Right in under the lava bed there was visible a wide, overarching cavityextending some twenty or thirty feet back and at the far end of this laya deep natural rock-cistern full of clear dark water. It was a hiddenwell.
"This is their spring," said the girl, pointing to it. "These Navajosknow every secret water-spring in the country."
The extraordinary quickness with which she had mastered her feelings,and now the perfectly natural tone in which she spoke, and thestraightforward way in which she referred to her captors, greatlyrelieved the American's anxiety; had she suffered at their hands whathis knowledge of the nature of Indians had led him to dread, it seemedto him that she could not have spoken of them in this unembarrassedstyle. She had raised her eyes to his as she uttered the words, andthough they were still wet with the tears that she had shed, theirglance was frank and open; there was no trace in her mien of the dulldespair of irreparable wrong he remembered in the victim of the Sioux.His relief was shown by the reassured expression in his own eyes as hereturned her glance, and said lightly;
"Oh yes, of course they must know them all; why, they're simply bound toknow this whole country just like a book. They'd never be able to flyaround in it, keeping themselves out of sight in the way they do, ifthey didn't."
The pair seated themselves on the rock forming the lip of the cistern.They were here out of earshot of the Indians if they did not speak loud.
"Now tell me, senorita," he began in a low voice, "how you were carriedoff."
She blushed and looked down. "I hardly know how to say it," she said,"it was all so quick. I had got up and gone across the patio, thinkingit was near daybreak--you know there was no moon--and never dreaming ofthe possibility of any danger inside the house, when I was seized frombehind, and gagged and bound in a moment; and then they threw a riataround me and lifted me to the top of the house, and down the outside onto a pony's back, and I was hurried off I knew not where. Oh, it wasdreadful! I was gagged so that I could not even cry out, and I did notknow where they were taking me or what would become of me. Oh, I wasterribly frightened!" She paused, quite overcome for the moment by therecollection.
Stephens felt a passion of pity sweep through his whole being at thethought of the helpless plight of this lovely girl in the hands ofenemies--such enemies! "Yes," he said soothingly, taking her hand againin his--they had unclasped hands as they sat down; "don't be afraid;you're all right now; but go on and tell me about it."
"There isn't anything to tell," she answered with a little half-laughthat was almost hysterical. "They held me on a horse, and we rode and werode and we rode, till I was so tired that I thought I should havefainted; but," said she proudly, "I didn't faint. Then, when thedaylight came, I was blindfolded with a rag--pah!"--she added with alittle _moue_ of disgust--"such a dirty rag!--I don't like theseIndians,--they're not at all clean people."
Stephens could not help smiling to himself at this bit of petulance. Ifshe had nothing worse to complain of than their lack of soap and waterthey could afford to smile a little now, he and she both.
"Yes," he assented with amused gravity, "they do show a mostreprehensible neglect of the washtub. In fact, I don't suppose there'ssuch a thing as a proper washboard in the whole Navajo nation."
Their eyes met again, and they both laughed, he of set purpose to raiseher spirits, she because she could not help it. The awful tension of hercaptivity, a tension that had never ceased for a moment, not even in herfitful and broken snatches of sleep, was relaxed at last. In thepresence of this brave man who had come to re
scue her, confidencereturned, and now the reaction of feeling was so strong that, had shelet herself go, she could have laughed as wildly as a maniac. But herspirit was unbroken, and she held herself in.
"So, then, with that rag over your eyes you had no sort of idea whereyou were being taken to?" he said interrogatively.
"No," she answered; "how could I? Except, indeed, for the sun on my necksometimes; that made me think we were going north or west a gooddeal,--at least it seemed as if we were."
"Exactly so; you were quite right," he said encouragingly; thinking tohimself as he said so that she must have been a real plucky girl to havekept her head cool enough to allow her to observe things with so muchaccuracy. "Yes," he repeated, "that was exactly your course at first,between north and west. And about your food? What did you do? Had youanything to eat?"
"Nothing but raw dried meat," she answered, her pretty upper lipcurving with disgust, "and it was so hard. My mouth aches with the painof eating it. These savages don't know how to cook it properly; theychew it raw as they go along, generally; or if they stop and camp andmake a fire, they have nothing to cook it in; they don't boil it or fryit; they don't always even pound it with a stone to make it soften, butjust throw it on the coals till it is scorched, and then eat it so, allblackened and burned. Savages!" and again she made a face to express hercontempt for their very rudimentary ideas of cookery. Once more theireyes met, and they both laughed again.
"I am afraid," said he with grave apology, "that I have been careless,too. I haven't brought along anything nice for you to eat. In fact, Ihave nothing but dried meat myself, not even a scrap of tortilla left,to say nothing of candy; I wish I'd only thought of it when I wasstarting, but the fact is, I came off in a hurry."
"Yes," she cried in a repentant voice, "and I've been talking aboutmyself the whole time. Did you come with my father? Do you know where heis? How did you find us?"
"The Pueblo Indians knew of this place," he answered; "they led mehere." He looked cautiously over his shoulder as he spoke, to see ifthere was any Navajo near trying to play the eavesdropper on them. "Yourfather and Don Andres had set out with a strong party of Mexicans beforeme. They started within an hour after it was known that you were gone.But your father sent word of it all to me up at the pueblo, and I gotsome of the Indians to join me and started out, too. But we didn't comethe same way as Don Andres's party; we picked up the trail off towardsthe Ojo Escondido. You see, my Indians believed that the Navajoscertainly were making for this place, and, in short, they led mestraight here, and that's how we seem to have got in ahead of DonAndres."
"How clever of them to guess the hiding-place!" said she. "And now,shall we go home quite quick? Perhaps we might meet my father and mybrother on the way."
"I've no doubt that'll be all right now," he said confidently; "I mustjust fix up things with Mahletonkwa first." He paused; there was aquestion he could not put to her direct, and yet before treating furtherwith the Indian he wished to feel absolutely certain whether he shoulddeal with him as one guilty of unpardonable wrong or not. He tapped thebutt of his revolver significantly with his right hand, looked her fullin the face for a moment, and then with an abrupt movement he rose tohis feet and turned away from her; his right hand half drew the revolverfrom its holster, and made a gesture as if to offer it to her behind hisback, but his eyes were fixed on the group outside the cave. "Now,senorita," he said, "before I go to speak with him, tell me one thing:are you content to live? Are you content to go back in peace to yourpeople? Or else--I guess you can understand me--here's my revolver foryou; you can make an end with that, and I'll go out to those savages,and then, I swear by the wrath of God, you shall be revenged on some ofthem, anyhow, before I drop."
"But why?" cried she with a little shudder of surprise at him, sounexpected to her was this suggestion. "They haven't done anything badto me. I don't want anyone to be killed. They are very ignorant,uncivilised folk, but they treated me as well as they knew. I'm sorryif I complained about the dried meat they gave me. Don't begin fightingwith them, please,--not on my account. I thought you had made peace. Iwant to go home."
He turned and looked at her. The naive simplicity of her languagereassured him completely. "All right, senorita," he said, "I'll see thatyou get safe home. I'll go and arrange with Mahletonkwa now. I'm gladthey treated you as well as they knew how. But say," he added, stoopingover her and drawing the pistol completely out, "wouldn't you like me toleave this with you, just in case of accidents? There's always a sort offeeling of comfort in having a six-shooter handy."
"No, no," said she, making a movement with her hands as if to push theunaccustomed object away from her, "I've never had one in my life touse. I shouldn't know what to do with it at all."
Half reluctantly he returned it to its case, thinking what a differencethere was between a girl like this and the average Western ranch-woman.American girls who lived on the frontier could shoot; they were morelike men in that way; they were, comparatively speaking, independent;whereas this pretty creature depended solely upon him to protect her; somuch the more reason, then, he argued with himself, for being cautiousand diplomatic in his dealings with the Navajos now.
"Well then, senorita," he said, "you'd better stay here a few minuteslonger while I go back and speak to Mahletonkwa. I guess it won't takeus long to fix things."
He took her hand in his and held it for a moment. It lay there in hisfirm clasp with a confidingness that thrilled through him; thesensation came on him as a new discovery. "Why, this was what hands weremeant for, to clasp each other." The ten long years of the unnaturaldivorce from womankind in which he had lived seemed to roll away as adream. He had forgotten what a girl's hand was like; a quick impulsecame on him to raise it to his lips, to clasp her in his arms andconsole her, only to be as quickly checked again. It would not be thefair thing; here she was relying entirely upon him for protection; itwas for him to guard her, and to do no more. Anything else mustwait--must wait till she was once more in safety, completely mistress ofherself again. But the flood of new ideas for the future sped throughhis mind with lightning rapidity. In moments of danger and excitementthe wheels of thought turn at a rate that seems incredible afterwards.
For one last, long minute he stood there, his hand locked in hers,looking into the deep, dark wells of her eyes. Of what joy had not hisdesolate past robbed him? Oh, why had he been blind to his chances allthis winter, when he might have looked in her eyes like this any day;now he had found what made life worth living--and found it, perhaps, toolate! Was it too late? He would see about that. With a final pressure ofher gentle fingers, each one of which he seemed to feel separatelypressing his in response, he turned away and strode out of the cavetowards the group of Navajos in the meadow.
And who shall say what were the girl's feelings, left thus alone in thecave while her fate was being decided by the men sitting out there inthe sun? Hope lifted her heart high,--hope after despair, like the bluesky after a thunderstorm, unimaginably bright, the hope of recoveredfreedom, of return to the longed-for hearth, of the embraces of herfather and the dear ones at home. But there were fears too: after all,might not her deliverer fail yet? he had reached her,--could he rescueher? would he, single-handed, be able to prevail over these savages? Wasthere nothing she might do, weak woman as she was, to help him?Instinctively her fingers felt within her dress for the beads she wore,and fast flowed her prayers for his success; when she paused and lookedanxiously out she saw him seated on the ground, the rifle in his lap,the Indians in their own style squatting round, and all faces grave withserious debate. It was her fate they were discussing, but it was his,too. In the intense sunlight she could mark the hard-set lines of hisface; he was stubborn with the Indians about something or other; theywanted something he would not give? Why would he not give it. "Oh, giveway to them," she could have cried to him. "Do let them have it--do.Only make peace, and let us return together"; peace, peace, peace, thatwas what she yearned for, peace and freedom! But she spoke no wo
rd, sheknew that she must leave it to him, and once more she fell to herprayers.