*CHAPTER XII*
_*I Am Held as a Hostage*_
It must have been more of a momentary squeamishness, that, rather than afainting fit, I think; for I heard myself moan twice, was conscious ofthe moaning. There seemed something pressing on my heart and forcing meto gasp for breath and relieve the tension on it. A sweat broke on methen, and after that I felt myself, as it were, swinging through space,and with another gasp and a great gulp of air the world spun back againand there I lay, the cold sweat standing on my brow, and the rattlesnakecoiling afresh.
"Why! What's this move now?" I heard one of my captors cry. "What's hedoin' with his rifle carried and waggling his hand in the air thatways?"
"Don't you know what that is? That's the peace sign--flat of the handheld up, palm open and pushed forward wi' that there kind o' to-and-fromovement."
"Peace sign be durned! If I was sure we could get the information outof this here kid laying behind us, I'd put a bullet through his skulland let out his brains--front of his face or back of his neck likeCockeye there--all the same to me."
"Reckon you 'd be safer not to do that."
"Think the kid here won't speak, then?"
"No; I don't think he'll speak. I've just been figurin' that neitherApache Kid nor Larry might tell him. He's liable to be givin' youstraight goods and no lie when he says he don't know the location."
"Pity we did n't drop Apache Kid's hoss that time they charged down. Wecould ha' got him, instead, that way. Reckon we need n't have been soscared o' killin' Apache Kid himself without gettin' the news. But say!This won't do. I don't like the looks of this thing. They all aregetting a move on 'em and edgin' up this way, the whole three of 'em."
"Three of them," thought I, with my eye on the rattler. "That's oneshort. I wonder who has been killed or disabled."
"Say! Shout to him to stop. Tell him if he wants to pow-wow with us tocome up alone."
"Yes, and leave his rifle down. You do the talkin' now, Farrell."
"Right," said Farrell, and then he shouted, "Well, what do you want?"
"I want to come up and talk this out with you," hailed a voice that Irecognised for Apache Kid's.
"He can't come up here," said Farrell. "We don't want 'em to know thatwe 're only a threesome now, same as 'em."
"I 'll tell you what to do," said one of them, with the voice of a manwho has been visited by a sudden inspiration.
"Stop there a minute!" cried Farrell, and then turning to the speaker hesaid sharply: "Spit it out then, Pete; what's your notion?"
"Loosen the kid there," said Pete, "and set him on the front here andhold your gat to his head while we hear what they 've got to palaver."
"Hum!" mused Farrell. "Kind o' hostage notion? Heh? Well, there'ssomething in that," and he stood upright fearlessly and held his handaloft, the palm facing away to those in the valley.
"You can come up the length o' that there white rock," he cried, andthen to his companions: "See! Lend a hand here."
The snake had coiled again. I cannot guess how often it had sprung atme; I do not know. All that I know is that at every fresh rattle Icrouched my head into my shoulders and gasped to myself the one word"God"; for we all, I believe, no matter what manner of lives we haveled, at the last moment give a cry to the Unknown, in our hearts, if notwith our lips. And every leap of the snake I was prepared to find theone that was to make an end of my acquaintance with the sunlight andwith the sweet airs that blow about the world.
But that torment was over now, for with one swift drop of his rifle-buttFarrell cut the head clean from the hideous long body, and then lent theother two men a hand to roll the great stone from off my aching limbs.
"Stand up, you son of a whelp," he said, and spurned me with his boot.
After the terror of the snake there seemed little now that I need heed.
"It's easier said than done!" I cried, angry at his words. "I 'm like ablock of stone from my waist down."
"I guess that's right. He must be feeling that way," said one of theothers, with a touch of commiseration in his voice.
That was the first sign of any heart that I had discovered in theruffians.
"Oh, you guess it's right, do you, Dan?" sneered Farrell. "Well, lend ahand and haul him here to the front of this ledge."
Next moment it was as if a thousand red-hot needles were being run intomy stiff, trailing legs, for they caught me up by my arms and drew melike a sack to the front of the cliff.
And then I saw the whole plateau below us. Apache Kid was half-way upthe rise, among the long wire-grass at the verge of the cliffs; furtherdown, leaning upon a rock, his shoulders and head visible, was LarryDonoghue. The third man that had been spoken of I could not see andsearched the hillside in vain for; but when Farrell stood upright besideme and waved his hand I saw the half-breed, Charlie, who had come afterus with Mr. Pinkerton, rise behind a flat rock and lounge across it,looking up on us with his broad sombrero pushed back on his head.
Mr. Pinkerton, I supposed, had been prevailed upon to return out of ourdispute, lest his life might be the forfeit for his interest in ourbehalf. But just as that explanation for his non-appearance hadsatisfied me I saw, half across the plain, something moving slowly--apack of horses it seemed, and so clear was the air of that lateafternoon that I recognised the form of the mounted man who guardedthem, could almost, with a lengthy and concentrated survey, descry hisgreat beard like a bib upon his breast.
"Well," said Farrell, "what do you want to pow-wow about? You see whowe got here?"
"I see," said Apache Kid, putting a foot upon the white stone. "How areyou, Francis?"
"He 's all right," said Farrell. "But he 's a kind o' prisoner o' warjust now."
"Oh!" said Apache Kid. "Well, I suppose if we want to get him back we'll have to buy him back?"
"That's what!" said Farrell, emphatically.
"Well," said Apache Kid, "we are going on,--my friends and I,--and, aswe have your horses now as well as our own, we thought we might perhapsbe able to trade you them back for the lad."
And here, as you will be wondering how the horses had changed hands, Imust tell you what I had afterwards explained to me.
It seems that no sooner did I fall from my horse, at the time it put itsfoot in the badger hole (Apache Kid having gone past wildly, bringingdown one man and one horse with his two running shots), than the fourmen, seeing my predicament, swung to their horses' backs, opened out,and two of them passing, one on either side of me, swung from theirsaddles and yanked me up by my arms.
Then full tilt they charged down the centre of the plain, intendingevidently to make the rising knoll, of which I spoke, in the valley'scentre. And with me lying across Farrell's saddle, they doubtlessthought they had the key to the Lost Cabin. But Apache Kid wheeled hishorse below, and Donoghue mounted again above, and from the hill-crestthe half-breed spurred down, and so these three set after us, convergingon each other as they came.
But Farrell's mount was falling behind with the burden of my extraweight, and they wheeled sharp to left and put their horses directly tothe cliff-front. These ponies can do marvels in climbing, but they wereover-jaded, having been very hard ridden, and right on the slope it wasevident that not only the half-breed, but Larry next, and Apache Kidfollowing, were coming within effect range. It was Farrell who proposedtheir move then, considering that with me in their hands half the battlewas won if only they had something in the way of a fort from which tostave off attack. So they flung off there, and, letting their horsesgo, up they came, dragging me along. But at the foot of the hill theothers stopped, seeing how they had all the odds against them then andwere so fully exposed. For it had not yet occurred to them, as indeedwas very natural it should not, that the last thing these men wanted todo was to fire upon them.
The intention of this little company of cut-throats had been to followup softly in the rear, as near as possible without being seen
by us,until we came to our journey's end. What they had planned for us thenit is, perhaps, needless to so much as hint. Little did they think thatbetween them and us was Mr. Pinkerton, carrying the news of theirpossible pursuit. But when they saw him riding out of that plain, withthe half-breed, the whole reason for his presence there was guessed bythem, especially when they saw us halted within sight, the whole threeof us turned round as though already watching for their approach. Itwas, undoubtedly, this upsetting of their plans that made them soshort-tempered and snappish with one another.
But by now I think even Farrell was convinced that I was useless to themin so far as the giving of information went. And so I was now to beused as a hostage,--a sort of living breastwork before them,--as thoughthey were to say: "See! if you fire, you kill your partner!"
Farrell laughed loud at Apache Kid's suggestion.
"Why," said he, "you talk as if you held the trumps; but you don't. Andfor why? Why, because we do." And he spat in the sand and put a handon either hip. "We don't need our horses, my mates and me. We ain't inany hurry, and can set here as long as you like,--aye, or go away whenwe like, for that matter. What we want is that Lost Cabin Mine, and ifyou don't tell us where it is, why, then we'll let the wind out of yourpartner here."
"And where do we come in?" yelled Donoghue, rearing up beside his bush.
"Oh!" said Farrell, insolently, "are you talking, too? Well, you don'tcome in at all. There you are! That's something for you to consider!"
Donoghue broke out in a roar of laughter.
"Oh," he said, "the lad is nothing to us. You can do what you like withhim."
Apache Kid turned upon him with a glance as of astonishment, and thenagain to Farrell he said:
"I 'll give you the offer we came up with, and you and your two matescan consider it."
"Three mates, you mean," snapped Farrell.
"Na! Na!" cried Donoghue. "When I look along a rifle I never err."
"Oh, it was you did it?" cried Farrell. "Well, what's your offer?"
"This is our offer," said Apache Kid. "You can come along with us. Weare three, and so are you, and we can split the Lost Cabin between us."
Farrell turned to his two companions and looked a question at them.
"I guess you 'd better take that," said the man Dan, "for I reckon evenif we did suggest killing this kid, it would n't bring the facts out of'em."
"And anyhow," said the other, him they called Pete, speaking low, butyet I caught the drift of his words, "we can easy enough fix them allwhen we get there."
"Come on!" said Apache Kid. "How does our offer strike you? Are youaware that every hour we delay there may be others getting closer to theLost Cabin Mine?"
"Take the offer, man. Take the offer," said Pete and Dan.
"All right," cried Farrell. "But mind, we're bad men, and this willhave to be run on the square."
Donoghue laughed, and for a moment, as I looked at him, I saw an evilglitter in his eye. "Oh, yes!" he ejaculated, "we 're all bad menhere."
My three captors made no delay; but as for their fallen friend, theypaid no heed to him. Only Farrell took the cartridges from his belt andran his hands through the pockets, which contained a knife, a specimenof ore, two five-dollar bills, and a fifty-cent piece.
For my part, I had the utmost difficulty in getting to my legs, andstill more in descending the face of the precipice. I noticed, too,that Farrell kept close by my side, as though he thought still that itwas as well to have me between Apache Kid and himself.
Just as we came down the rise, there was Mr. Pinkerton leading thehorses along toward us.
"Say!" cried Farrell. "What about him?" And he pointed to Pinkerton.
"O!" said Apache Kid. "He wants nothing to do with this expeditionwhatever."
Then suddenly Farrell's face lighted with a new thought. "And he goesdown to the camps and blabs the whole thing, eh?"
"I believe he won't say a word about it,--neither he nor the half-breedhere."
Farrell seemed scarcely convinced, and we went down in silence a littleway. Then suddenly he said: "I think you 've got some game on. Say! doyou swear you are on the square with us?"
Apache Kid frowned on him and, "I give you my word of honour," said he;and so we came ploughing through the loose soil and sand into thesun-dried grass, and thence on to the level below, where Mr. Pinkerton,now aided by his half-breed follower who had gone on down-hill andmounted his horse, was bunching the horses together. And over all wasthe sky with the daylight fading in it.