CHAPTER XII.
THE HORSE-THIEVES AND THE STAMPEDE.
"Boys," said Colonel Bowie, sitting upon his panting horse and lookingback down the river, "they saw us. I don't think we could make anotherrun. Dismount!"
They were barely a mile and a half above the point where they hadstruck the Rio Grande, but it was time to give their horses a rest andto consider the situation. They had halted on the brow of a bluff, andthey were looking in all directions. Not a man of them could guessfrom what quarter their next disaster might come.
"Big Knife wait," replied the Lipan chief. "Castro go back for RedWolf."
"Guess not!" exclaimed Jim Cheyne. "Colonel, if thar isn't that tharold cuss Tetzcatl on his mule."
Here he came, plodding along as calmly as ever, but there was verylittle news that he could tell them. He could not even explain thepresence of General Bravo's regiment of lancers.
"The general said, at the Alamo, that he was going after the Apaches,"remarked the colonel, "but here he is."
"Whoop!" rang out from the lower ground easterly. "Who-o-o-oop!"
"Red Wolf!" exclaimed Castro. "Boy no lose hair! Ugh! Heap youngbrave!"
On he came, and there was no one following him. How could he haveescaped? He tried to tell how when he reached them, but before he hadfinished his story of the Comanches and the lancers Tetzcatl turned hismule toward the river.
"_Bueno!_" he said. "We can cross here. The lancers are busy. So arethe Comanches. The Lipans are on the other side and we can find them.Come!"
"All right!" shouted Bowie. "Forward! Boys, Great Bear is our besthold just now. He got in just in the nick of time."
The chief himself had not said so, nor had the beaten lancers. Bothsides of that fight had been severely surprised.
It seemed to the Comanches that their long chase had reached astopping-place, and what to do next they could not say, except to resttheir horses. As for the lancers, what was left of the fighting partywas now safe at the hacienda.
The Texans had no choice but to follow their white-headed guide. Notone of them heard him say, as his mule waded into the river,--
"_Bueno_! The Comanches got them. It is a great satisfaction. I willtake the Texans into the mountains and give them to Huitzilopochtli.They shall go down to him when he calls for them. The gods are hungry."
There had, indeed, been vast changes in the manner and amount ofworship paid them since the landing of Cortez. There had been a timeof fanatical devotion before that, when from twenty thousand to fiftythousand human victims had been sacrificed annually to the terribledivinities of the Mexicans. The scattered remnants of the old, darktribes, who still clung to their heathenish faith, might be as ready astheir fathers had been to offer sacrifices, but the offerings were notso easily to be provided.
"The days have been too many," grumbled Tetzcatl, "in which not oneSpaniard stood before the altar. We have had to give them mission men,women, children. They shall have six white men from the North."
Those Mexican Indians who, from time to time, had nominally acceptedthe religion brought to them by the missionaries of the Church of Romewere not to be classed as Spaniards exactly, but they would answer asless valuable substitutes. Perhaps they were really as available forsacrificial purposes as had been the yearly prisoners of war, entirelyunconverted heathen, who had been slaughtered at the _teocallis_, oridol temples, before any Spaniards were to be had.
Altogether ignorant of the religious fate intended for them, the Texansgained the southerly bank of the river, but their guide did not pausethere. He spurred his mule, waved his hand to them, and pushed onward.He was upon ground that he knew, and their weary day's journey ended ina dense forest, where they could believe themselves safe, for the time,from their enemies.
"Night come," said Castro to his son. "Red Wolf go see Mexicans. Notake horse."
"Ugh!" replied the young warrior. "Find lancers. See hacienda. Wheregreat chief go?"
"Castro find Comanches," replied his father. "Big Knife keep camp.Tetzcatl hunt Lipans. Texan sleep."
It was a time for vigorous scouting, but the condition of the horsesrequired that the scouts should use their own legs. No one went out atonce, however. After a hearty supper they all lay down for a while.All but Tetzcatl. Nobody could say just at what moment the oldTlascalan disappeared, leaving his mule behind him.
"Boys," remarked Joe, "we're all here and we ain't corked up, but tharisn't a blamed thing we can do. It's been a pretty tough kind of spreefar as we've gone."
"Wall, ye-es," drawled Jim Cheyne, "and thar's no tellin' what 'll turnup next."
"Jesso," came from another ranger, "and we needn't crow loud. Tharwouldn't ha' been a head o' ha'r left among us if it hadn't been forthat cub o' Castro's; he's a buster."
"So's his dad," remarked Jim; "but whar are they now?"
He was looking, as he spoke, at the spot where he had seen them spreadtheir blankets. Those were there, but neither a young Lipan nor an oldone.
"They ain't in this camp," said Joe, after a wider search. "Gonevisitin'?"
They had not gone together. A very little later the chief was wadinginto the river at a place somewhat below where Tetzcatl had led themacross, and he was alone.
His son was at the same time slipping along among the bushes and treestoward the Hacienda Dolores. He was making rapid headway, and hisbright, black eyes were dancing with excitement. Fatigue was a thinghe seemed to know little about. Probably it had rested him to sit downlong enough to eat his supper.
The old hacienda had a number of lights burning in it that night, andthere were campfires kindled here and there outside of the wall for thelancers. There were a few tents, but the greater part of the force wascompelled to bivouac upon its blankets. The Comanches were known notto have crossed the Rio Grande, and there was no fear of a nightattack, so that only the ordinary sentries and patrols had been posted.The most important of these were in charge of the "corral," where thecavalry horses were picketed, and with them a large drove ofhalf-trained mustangs which had been gathered to fill the places ofsuch animals as were from time to time used up by reckless riders. Therancheros are horsemen, but they are almost horse-killers in theirmerciless spurring.
"Heap pony!" said Red Wolf to himself, when at last he was able tocrawl along the ground, within watching distance of the corral."Mexican bad eye. Lose pony. Great Bear send brave. Ugh!"
An indistinct shadow was moving along not many yards from him. Anotherlay very still a little farther off, but this latter shadow was thebody of the sentry who had gone to sleep on his post. There was no onethere now but Red Wolf to note the passage of several more shadows, notin uniform. He crept a little farther and lay still in a hollow. Hehardly breathed, for it was equally dangerous to retreat or to goforward.
"Lie down heap," he thought. "See what come. Ugh! Comanche bringhorse. Pin pony. Go back for more."
That was precisely what had been done by the daring and expert redhorse-thieves. They were unsurpassed in that line of business, andthey had made their selections with care. Only the best of the animalstethered near that point by the lancers had been selected for removal.
Nevertheless, the red men were few. They could not spare a sentry.They did but secure their first string of prizes by lariats and pinsbefore they went in for another lot.
"Big Knife want horse," remarked the young Lipan to himself. "Red Wolftake. Comanche lose pony."
It was short creeping, and then the pins were out and the string ofstolen quadrupeds was once more in motion. Their feet hardly made asound upon the sand as they went. They were led on to the shelter ofsome bushes, and there Red Wolf left them that he might once more snakehis way back to his perilous post of observation. It seemed like goingto almost certain death, but he worked his stealthy way along until hecould see a tall warrior, leading several ponies, come to a sudden haltat the place where the first captures had been left.
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sp; "Ugh!" exclaimed the warrior. "Heap pony gone. More braves come take'em. Good. Take more pony."
He believed, therefore, that his own tribesmen had been there, but atthat moment a shrill "Who-o-o-op" sounded from the darkness near him.Almost unconsciously, or from the force of habit, he replied to it withhis own war-cry. Following that came a dozen more from within thecorral. One after another, in quick succession, every Mexican sentinelfired off his musket in sudden alarm. A bugler caught up his bugle andbegan to blow it loudly. It was a hubbub of mingled sounds, but thewarriors in the corral sprang each upon the back of the nearest ponyand plied his whip savagely upon the frightened animals around him.Horses neighed, mules brayed, red men whooped, cavalrymen shouted, andthe net result was a wild stampede of every brute that was loose orthat could break his tether. Of course, they all ran after the firstto get away, and these had struck out into the open country.
It was no time for Red Wolf to care what became of the drove, thehacienda, or the Comanches. He had retreated after sounding hismischievous whoop, and he was now on the back of one of the stolenhorses, with the others following patiently in a string behind him.They at least had escaped being stampeded, and at the same time a largenumber of their four-footed comrades were on their way to the riverunder the care of the successful warriors of Great Bear.
There was no danger that General Bravo's crack regiment would be inpursuit of anybody very early the next morning.
The night was indeed nearly gone when Jim Cheyne, standing sentry forthe Texans, was hailed from among the bushes,--
"Red Wolf! Want Big Knife. Bring pony."
"Colonel," shouted Jim, "here's that buster boy again. He's beenstealing ponies from the Greasers. He'll do."
"He will!" exclaimed Bowie, springing to his feet and coming forward.
In a few minutes more he said it again, and so did they all withemphasis, but the colonel added, gloomily,--
"It's almost sun-up, boys. What I want is to hear from Tetzcatl andCastro and the Lipans."
"Glad we've a lot of fresh mounts, anyhow," said Joe. "What we needmost is to be able to git away."
"We will go to the river-bank first," said Bowie. "Castro is to meetus there. Even Tetzcatl believed the Lipans had gone across the river."
"If they did it's all day with them," replied Cheyne, but Red Wolf didnot at all understand him. He was just then, under Colonel Bowie'sinstructions, selecting for his own use the very best of the fineanimals he had so daringly captured and brought to camp.
The camp-fires were soon blazing, but little time could be given tobreakfast. Their present position was too perilous. Parties oflancers would surely be out, and there were too many of them. Besides,there were the Comanches, and no man knew when or where they might maketheir appearance.
It was bright morning when the little cavalcade, with its fine supplyof extra horses, filed out from among the woods and went slowlynorthward.
"I kind o' wish we were all back at the Alamo," remarked Joe.
"We won't go in that direction jest yit," said Jim Cheyne. "We'dbetter ride clean across the continent."
"Halt!" sprang from the lips of Colonel Bowie. "Here he comes! MyGod, boys! What's happened?"
Not with his usual swiftly gliding step, but staggering and panting asif in pain, the old Tlascalan appeared at a little distance ahead ofthem. He was alone, and he motioned to them to stay where they were.
"Find Comanche," suggested Red Wolf.
Bowie was silent, but when the old man drew near enough he asked,--
"Did you sight the Lipans?"
"All gone!" gasped Tetzcatl.
"Castro?"
"Gone!" came faintly back. "Great Bear's whole band. My mule! Wemust push on! They are crossing the Rio!"
Bowie sprang to the ground and strode forward.
"Man alive!" he said. "Where are you hurt? Tell us the rest of itwhile I fix you up. Jim, get that plaster and scissors out of mysaddle-bags. We mustn't lose him just now."
Off came the _serape_ from the old man's shoulders and an awful gashwas discovered. His left arm told of an arrow, and there was a deepcut on his head. He was tough indeed to have carried all those hurtswith him across the Rio Grande.
"I'm surgeon enough," remarked the colonel. "I don't believe he canlive, boys, but we must do the best we can. Put him on his mule."
The wounds had been dressed with much care and skill, but the woundedman had hardly seemed to think of them. Briefly and clearly he told ofhis scouting beyond the river; of a meeting with Castro and then withthe party of Lipans. There had been an attempt to rejoin the Texans,but in making it the entire force of Great Bear, called out by thereturn of the horse-thieves from the hacienda, had suddenly swarmedaround them. Tetzcatl had escaped mainly because he was on foot, but alance-thrust in the dark and the arrows that fell like snow had donetheir work upon him. Here he was now, to say as persistently as ever,--
"Gold! The treasure of Montezuma."
"What do we care for gold just now?" grumbled Jim Cheyne. "I'mthinkin' of the ha'r on my head."
Tetzcatl raised his uninjured arm, as he sat upon his mule, and pointedtoward the hacienda.
"Bravo's lancers," he said, "sweeping the whole country."
"Fact!" said Jim, but Tetzcatl now pointed northward.
"Great Bear and his Comanches all the way to the Alamo."
"That's about so," came from one of the rangers. "We can't git through'em."
Once more Tetzcatl turned, and now he pointed westward.
"Apaches!" he said. "Bowie must come with me. A few days' ride. Thenhe will come back with his ponies loaded."
He spoke with some difficulty, and at the end of his very pointedremarks he spurred his mule, as if he were going his own way whether ornot the Texans were to follow.
"Boys," said Bowie, "what do you say?"
"Thar isn't a word to say," growled Joe. "We've jest got to git. Comeon, fellers. This crowd's travelling gold or no gold."
"The coast 'll be clear by the time we want to come back," said thecolonel. "We shall hardly meet an enemy going or coming."
So they turned and rode on after the old Tlascalan. Behind themquietly followed the Lipan boy. His young face was clouded withsorrow, but the only words that escaped him were,--
"Castro! Great chief of the Lipans! Gone! Red Wolf will strike theComanches!"