ON THE BRINK.
The sentinels on duty at the grove detected more than once through the night the Comanches prowling around the encampment; but they evidently saw enough to convince them that it wouldn’t pay to disturb the sleepers, and so they slept on, on, till the bright summer sun pierced the camp, and all was active again. Then, as the preparations were made for resuming the journey to Fort Adams, and a careful reconnaissance of the surrounding prairie was made, not a shadow of a red-skin could be seen.
“I was in hopes that I could get a crack at Swico,” remarked Lightning Jo, as he rode at the head of the company, with Egbert Rodman and Lizzie Manning by his side, he insisting upon her keeping him company when no danger was thereby incurred, as he declared there was no telling when such an opportunity would be given him again, and, as a matter of course, she was only too happy to comply with his wishes.
“I was saying that I had hopes of getting even with Swico, and he and me have an account that must be squared one of these days, but I wasn’t given the chance to draw a bead on his shadow. Howsumever, we’ll get square one of these days, as my uncle used to remark when he cheated me out of my last cent, and then kicked me out doors when I asked him for a trifle. They’ve got some purty big devils among the Comanches, but I think Swico goes ahead of ’em all. Do you know what sort of ornament he has made for himself, and which he thinks more of than any thing he ever had?”
The two replied that they had never heard mention of it.
“He wears a shirt of buck-skin, made without the usual ornaments of beads and porcupine-quills, but hung with a full, long fringe formed from the hair of white women and children! You needn’t look so horrified,” the scout hastened to add, as he noted the expression upon the faces of his friends. “I’ve sent word to Swico that him and me could never square accounts till I got hold of that same thing, and I never can get hold of it till I wipe the owner out, so you can see how that thing has got to be settled atween us.”
“And if you hadn’t come to Dead Man’s Gulch as you did, that fringe would have been ornamented with my tresses,” said Lizzie, looking with an awed, grateful look at her preserver.
“I s’pose,” was the matter-of-fact reply; “the old scamp was expecting me, and I wonder that he waited. But he sloped when some of his scouts sent him word that we was coming. Howsumever, what’s the use of talking? I don’t see as you’ve got any reason to think any thing about him.”
“Where do you suppose this Comanche chief and his band are now?” inquired Egbert.
“Off over the prairie somewhere, looking for more women and children. That’s his forte, as they say down in Santa Fe, and I rather reckon that there are plenty more in the same boat with him.”
The subject, at the present time, seemed distasteful to Lightning Jo. The fight was over, and he considered all danger at an end, and despite the bier, with its awful load, that followed in the rear of the cavalcade, he seemed to feel a certain buoyancy of spirits that was constantly struggling for expression in his words and manner.
The morning was clear and bracing, and but for the lumbering wagons the whole party would have been bounding forward at a rate that would have carried them to Fort Adams within the next few hours.
No interruption occurred until noon, when a halt was made for dinner, the cavalry being provided with sufficient rations to make it unnecessary to use the rifle in quest of game.
By the middle of the afternoon, they were within a dozen miles of the fort; and, as there had been no signs of Indians visible since starting in the morning, it was concluded to be no violation of prudence for the main body to gallop on to their destination, leaving the wagons to follow at their leisure, it being confidently expected that they would come into the stockade shortly after nightfall.
Lightning Jo and a dozen of the best men, including Gibbons, Captain Shields and Rodman, remained with the smaller party. All were mounted, fully armed and provided with an abundance of ammunition, so that no one felt any misgiving as to the result of this proceeding, which at first sight might seem imprudent in the highest degree. In case any formidable body of Indians should put in an appearance, and it was deemed best to avoid a fight, the wagons could be abandoned, and the women and children taken upon the horses with the men, and the flight would be as rapid and sure as could be desired.
Nothing but the sternest necessity could induce Lightning Jo and his party to abandon their dead friends to mutilation and outrage at the hands of the Comanches; but they deemed that necessity so remote as scarcely to require a thought, and so they separated, and the main body rapidly vanished from view.
A few miles further on, the prairie was broken up in ridges and hills of such size as to merit the name of mountains, and Jo declared that several miles could be saved by passing through these. He had done so several times, and knew of a pass through which the wagons could be drawn with as much ease as upon the open plain.
Before entering this, however, he displayed his usual caution by galloping ahead and making a reconnaissance, from which he returned with the announcement that nothing in the shape of Indians was to be feared.
“There seems to be a heavy storm coming,” he added, as he glanced up at the darkening sky, “but we can stand that in the mountains as well as upon the prairies; so let’s go ahead.”
As the little company rode into the ravine, and marked the ominous gathering of the elements, more than one was sensible of a singular depression of spirits—a strange, chilling foreboding such as sometimes comes over us when standing beneath some impending calamity.
And indeed, had Lightning Jo suspected the appalling danger which was already gathering over his brave band, he would have gone a thousand miles before venturing a rod into that ravine!