A REFUGE IN TIME.
Away rode the Apaches galloping south-east, leading the captured horses behind them. In the sudden surprise and retreat they had forgotten to retain those articles which they had fixed their eyes on, only a few diminutive and easily-carried articles being clung to. Their most precious prize had been abandoned—the caddy of “black Navy”—far more precious in their estimation than gold or ornaments. It had been pounded, hammered, dashed against wagon hubs, but in vain; and so, though reluctantly, they rode away minus two braves, with two more fatally wounded, with a paltry prize of twelve aged, heavy horses, whose best run was a mere rapid canter, and who were incumbered with heavy, impeding harness.
Not knowing the nature or number of their foes, they were riding away toward a part of the plain some twenty miles distant, which was traversed by numerous and deep arroyos (small chasms or deep ravines) which in their great number and devious windings afforded excellent shelter.
Looking back, though they could not see more than several miles in the hazy moonlight, they were certain that they were pursued, but by whom or how many they could not determine.
They had been plundering the abandoned wagons of their recent victorious foes—that they were aware of; but where they had been so effectually concealed, or how many they numbered were enigmas the shrewdest could not unravel.
Moonlight still hung over the Land of Silence, and the round full orb in the eastern zenith still shone clearly. Still rode the savages on.
Behind, but gaining, came five white men, or about one-fifth of the savages, riding faster and quite as directly toward the plain of the arroyos. The savages, as they rode over the ground, chattered noisily—these men, too, conversed, but gloomily.
“We can not distinguish the Apaches—perhaps we are straying from the trail,” remarked Louis Robidoux.
“Ain’t nuther!” This from the guide, surlily.
“How do you know?” asked Sam, spurring to the guide’s side.
“Bekase we air goin’ ter the eye-dentical place whar they’re goin’.”
“Where is that—to the ravines?”
“Gulches. Dead Man’s Gulches.”
“Why are they named so strangely?”
“Because a man that gits in thar stands a mighty poor show to git out again. You’ve seen them Chinese puzzles, haven’t you?—we boys used to have them at school. The only difference between the two is, that whar yer kin easy git ter the center of the Gulches, you kain’t in the puzzle; but both air mighty hard ter git out of. I’ve seen a man that said he traveled four days trying ter git out, and didn’t move a mile in the whole time. The creeks are parallel, criss-cross, angling—every which way; and they are deep and wide. God pity the greenhorn that gits inter them.”
“I heard a Mexican tell some whopping yarns about some Dead Man’s Gulches, but I didn’t believe him; but sence ye say so and back him, why I’ll hev ter give in, I reckon,” remarked Burt Scranton.
“Wait till yer git thar an’ then see fur yourself,” suggested the guide. “Durn me ef I want any truck with ’em, you hear ME, gran’mother?”
“Then you are sure the red-skinned knaves will go to the Gulches?” interrogatively spoke Sam.
“Sartain. They’re skeered and don’t know who shot at ’em. Thar’s mighty peert shelter in the Gulches, an’ that’s whar every Apache fur miles ’round skedaddles ter when he’s hard pressed. I’ll bet my bottom dollar we’ll be sure ter find ’em thar.”
“You, too, Jack?” Cimarron Jack nodded.
“Very well; how far distant are they?”
“A matter of fifteen or twenty miles, p’r’aps. About two hours’ sharp spurring.”
“All right then. Spur up, boys, spur up! Here goes for the Gulches—hurrah!”
“Hurrah for Dead Man’s Gulches!” was the answer, as on they sped.
“Three and a tiger for the catamount-chewers; for the rattlesnake-charmers; for the scorpion-eaters; and for the cocks of the walk!” yelled Cimarron Jack, suiting the action (the former one) to the word.
They were given lustily, and the trampled herbage under the ringing hoofs slowly raised to find that the ruthless destroyers were passed on and were rapidly receding from sight.
Two hours later. Now the moon was in the zenith, round, white and gleaming, and the actors in the varying tragedy were passing over a different landscape. The plain, though still level, taken as a whole, was cut into many islands, capes, peninsulas—into all manner of curious shapes by the deceitful ravines and small creeks, called Dead Man’s Gulches.
Winding in and out, slipping, crawling, and at short times and long intervals, trotting, was a serpentine train of dusky forms, twisting and climbing deeper and deeper into the wild and sandy maze.
Ever and anon they looked back, and some grinned sardonically, while others frowned and fingered their tomahawks nervously. They were looking at a small party behind who were just entering the Gulches, a mile away, and who were coming boldly and rapidly on in pursuit.
Unlike the savages they were unincumbered with leading horses, and were able to move much more rapidly. They were also in Indian file and were headed by Simpson, the guide—now a guide in a useful and important sense, for he was acquainted with many (not all, by any means) of the mazes into which they were involving themselves.
“Durn my hide!” he growled, as he mounted an eminence.
“Gee-whiz! what a pile of ’em thar is. Gee-whittaker! ef they’d turn and surround us in these durned gulches what a battue thar’d be. A serround—it’d be the last of every mother’s son of us.”
The guide was losing his taciturnity—a sure sign he was in earnest, and so he was.
“We’d better look sharp,” resumed Jack.
“Keep your eyes open all of you and see that no red rascal leaves the main pack. The moon shines clear and we can easily tell if any one drops into a hole.”
They obeyed his instructions, and leaving the guide to find the way, steadily watched the retreating band. Now they would be sharply outlined against the sky, winding out of view like a tread mill; now they would appear coursing over a level “reach;” and again they would disappear altogether.
“Cuss the place!” sharply exclaimed Burt, as his horse slipped down a low bank. “It’s jest like the old Adirondacks, on a small scale. I’ll bet them devils make two rods ter our one.”
“No, they don’t,” said Jack. “They are held back by our horses—durn ’em. We’ll soon catch ’em.”
“Then what will we do—they are five to our one, and all armed with good rifles the Government gave them?” queried Sam.
“Fight—we can do nothing else. The Government didn’t give ’em rifles—it’s the Ingun agents. They make a handsome profit on the rifles, trading ’em for furs and the like. The Inguns get guns and then turn round and kill whites with them.”
“But the Apaches have no agent.”
“What difference does that make? The northern tribes do—good breech-loading rifles are given them by the stand. There’s such a thing as trade, and swop, and steal—as much among Inguns as whites. The reservation Inguns don’t have much use for rifles, so they trade ’em off to hostile tribes. You bet sometime I’m going to try for an Ingun agency, then—hurrah!”
“K’rect!” came from the guide.
“Hullo!” cried Burt, sharply. “The pack ain’t quite so big as it was.”
They ceased and looked ahead. Surely enough, the band had diminished one-half at least. The remainder still kept on, though with slackened speed. The guide stopped short.
“It’s not any use ter go much further—fust thing we know we’ll be inter a big ambuscade. Any thing but that, say I.”
“We can keep on for three or four hundred yards yet, Tim. They’ve stopped in some big gulch while the rest have gone on. They will lie there to pepper us when we come on and they won’t stir. We might get in a volley on them, too, by riding along.”
The guide cogitated for a moment. The plan seemed feasible, and accordingly he again bent his eyes to the ground, and the party glided in and out among the gulches.
“Now, fellows, and you ’specially, Robidoux, mind your eye. We ain’t on a bare plain, now, but in a devilish mean place. Keep close to Simpson and have your guns cocked and ready. Ride slow, Simpson!”
“Ay, ay!” and as the guide slackened his pace they clustered about him. Now the gulches grew narrower, deeper, and thicker. It became difficult to climb some of the sandy, yielding, and precipitous banks; the descents, too, became attended with danger. Sometimes they were forced to follow a ravine some little distance in order to find an emerging place; then again they were obliged to ride along a bank to find a safe descending spot. This irksome and dangerous task was rendered doubly dangerous by the fact that at some advanced point, they knew not where, nearly a score of bloodthirsty and cunning Apaches lay waiting for their scalps.
The foremost band still retreated, but slowly in order to stimulate them to greater haste, which would, of course, be attended with a large degree of recklessness. They were within half a mile, having lost ground, and were apparently beating the led horses to urge their lagging steps. But the sharp eyes of Scranton had given them timely warning, without which they would surely have run into a fatal trap.
They were now on a “reach” and had space for a fast trot of a hundred yards or more, when they would reach the brink of a yawning chasm, black and gloomy in its dark and serpentine shadow. Here the guide stopped, followed by the others.
“It’s no use ter go further,” he said. “Do yer see that big gulch ahead? Wal, yer may bet yer lives that in that black shadder more ’n a dozen dirty ’Patchies air watchin’ us. We’ll stop fur a change, right hyar.”
“Here’s a splendid place for a stand,” said Jack, pointing to a deep fissure adjacent.
“Le’s climb for that, and if there’s any ’Patchies in the gully, yender, ye’ll see how quick they’ll come skinning out, when they find out we’ve found ’em out.”
“And we’ll rout them out, right out,” said the Canadian, mimicking Jack’s speech. The latter turned upon him and grasped him by the throat.
“This ain’t the first time you’ve insulted me,” he cried; “but, by Judas, it’ll be the last.”
Huff! a stream of flame shot out from the shadow, a loud report sounded, and a bullet whistled past Jack’s head. His timely and sudden change of position had saved his life.
Letting loose the malicious Canadian, he spurred his horse toward the fissure.
“Come on!” he cried, “we are attacked! Yonder’s the other pack coming back to help; right down in this gully; now, lively!”
Pell-mell, helter-skelter, they dashed recklessly into the friendly fissure, while simultaneously a hideous, blood-curdling yell rung out from the black, shadowy gulch, and a harmless volley sped over their heads. They were discovered and perhaps entrapped—the fight had arrived, and they were opposed to and harassed by, five times their number of wily, cruel, unrelenting foes.
In five minutes the “reach” was swarming with yelling, screeching and bloodthirsty Apaches, forming to pounce upon the devoted band below.