A MYSTERIOUS SHOT.
After the Canadian had trembled, shuddered and brooded awhile without being alarmed by a second visitation, he began to look into the why and the wherefore of it. To follow his vague and erratic mind-wanderings would be a dull task, as he was too terrified and confused to shape his thoughts into any discernible matter.
An hour perhaps passed and it was now the early morning. In the cave the torch cast its flickering light over a dull, gloomy scene. Pedro and Mr. Wheeler lay motionless in a semi-stupor; Duncan muttered disjointedly in his sleep, bewailing and cursing his hard lot; the horse of the Mexican stood in his giant proportions quietly in a corner; and only the Canadian was at all conscious of passing sounds and events. These had not come—were yet to arrive; and arrive they did in no very merry manner.
All had been quiet, Duncan in his heavy sleep forgetting to snore, when the mustang, Dimple, nickered loudly; at the same moment Pedro turned uneasily and muttered:
“The Trailer—my precious, yellow gold.”
The Canadian started, and springing to his feet glanced round in the darkness as though momentarily expecting a second visitation of the man in the towering hat; but all was quiet, the torch flickered weirdly, and he again sat near the entrance.
“What does he mean?” he soliloquized.
“The Trailer—that means that horrible ghost. And yellow gold—what does that mean? He has seen the specter—that I am satisfied of; it accounts for his strange alarm and apathy; but the gold, the gold—what gold does he mean?”
Another shrill nicker from Dimple outside; in his abstraction he noted it not but went on with his soliloquy.
“I have hunted the moose on Moosehead Lake, and on the head-waters of the Penobscot; I’ve lumbered on the Kennebec and Androscoggin; I’ve fished in the Thousand Isles; I’ve hunted the bear in the Missouri Ozarks; but of all the ghastly moons that ever shone, this one to-night is the ghastliest. The very moon in the Land of Silence is different from other moons—or the same moon at other places. There it is white; here it is yellow, red, and sometimes even blood-red, like a ruby. What a quiet, ghastly place—this vast yellow wilderness; how still the air always is; how sultry and hazy the days and dreamy the nights; how— Halloa!”
Again the mustang nickered, shriller and wilder than before. He was about to resume, when a wild, unearthly yell broke upon the quiet night air—a yell as if Pandemonium had broken loose. Starting back with fear, he clasped his hands, then ran to the entrance and flung it open.
He closed it as quickly, if not sooner, as a rumbling sound came from behind the hillock, a sound of thundering hoofs, and the hideous yell pealed again; then, as he peeped through a chink, he saw the cause.
Riding like wild-fire, screaming and whooping, came a dozen Indians, charging on the wagons from behind the hill. Clustering together with tossing arms, they rode swoop down upon them. He started down, then ran quickly to Pedro.
“Pedro—Pedro Felipe—wake up—arise; we are charged by Apaches.”
At the word Apaches Pedro rose suddenly, from sheer habit, as his eye was vacant, and his air that of a somnambulist; his energy was short-lived, and he sunk down again.
“Pedro—for heaven’s sake get your gun; we are attacked.”
“Have you seen it?”
“Seen them? Yes; they are yelling outside—don’t you hear them? Come, hurry!”
“Have they got my gold?”
Robidoux was sharp enough to take advantage of this question, and he replied:
“Yes, yes; all of it. Come, hurry!”
Pedro needed no other incentive, but sprung from his couch and grasped his rifle. Springing toward the door, he hoarsely said:
“Senor, here we go—altogether; Caramba!”
Before Robidoux could stop him he had flung back the trap-door and was standing outside, aiming at a slender Apache just entering a wagon. The broad, dusky back of the savage, in contrast to the moonlit, white wagon-cover, offered a good mark; and quickly sighting, the Mexican drew the trigger. The Apache, with a wild yell, sunk back on the wagon-tongue and hung suspended across it, killed immediately. This was a decidedly favorable event; for, awakened by the sight of his habitual foe, aroused by his successful shot, Pedro was himself again.
The Canadian smiled as Pedro darted back into the cave, at seeing a once more natural expression on his features. Should he retain his equanimity they had but little to fear beyond the plundering of the train, and that might be prevented for the present, as the whole line of wagons was commanded by the entrance.
The utmost confusion prevailed among the dusky plunderers as the fatal bullet ended their companion’s career forever. Some darted behind wagons; some flew to their adjacent mustangs; two clambered into a wagon; while the rest scattered like rabbits, not knowing by whom the shot was fired, or where the precise marksman was stationed.
They were thoroughly alarmed, inasmuch as, not belonging to Red-Knife’s band, they had accidentally fallen upon the train. They had been surprised at not finding a human being near the wagons; they were thunder-struck at the mysterious shot and its fatal effect.
Their alarm and surprise was somewhat dissipated very soon by Pedro’s firing from a chink in the trap-door. He had aimed at the prostrate form of a savage, lying on the ground behind a wagon; the bullet struck him fairly in the side, and, with a groan of mortal agony, he stretched himself prone, to speedily die.
Though by this shot Pedro had reduced his enemies’ number in some degree, still, upon the whole, the shot was disadvantageous, in this wise: when he fired, the chink being small, the force of the explosion had carried away a portion of the rotten planking, making the aperture distinctly visible from the wagons. The lynx-eyed savages instantly discovered this, and were instantly aware the hill was hollow—a mere shell.
A grunt of relief and gratification went around the line of skulking figures, speedily changed to one of alarm. A hole, black and wide, suddenly appeared in the hillside; a stream of flame shot out, a report sounded, and two savages yelled loudly, and, with their comrades, clambered upon the wheels in order to effectually conceal themselves, and protect their bodies from the murderous fire.
“Well done!” remarked Pedro to his companions, all of whom had taken part in the volley. “We killed none, but made them howl, nevertheless.”
Cool, deliberate, noble Pedro was himself again—the far-famed scout and feared Indian-fighter. Now was his brain clear; now were his nerves steady; and the famous master of Indian strategy was rapidly running down his No. 1 buckshot, with eyes sparkling like a ferret’s.
“Senors—sirs, fire not hastily. It is a fault with you Americans—you are not sufficiently aware of the importance of keeping cool. See! they have quite concealed themselves; never mind, we are entirely safe, well ammunitioned, and able to prevent them from plundering the wagons. Keep cool, watch every point, and when you fire be sure and aim.”
“I hope they won’t hurt any of my tin cups,” anxiously muttered Duncan. “We haven’t got but five, and one of them leaks. It’ll be just like ’em to go and eat all my brown sugar up—oh, my boot-heels! if they do how I’ll get cussed. If the President of the United States was struck by lightning you fellers ’d cuss me, and say I was to blame.”
“Less talking, senor, if you please,” gently admonished Pedro. “‘All tongue no sand,’ as Simpson says.”
A few minutes passed, and suddenly Duncan broke out again:
“Every hair of my head! Save it—oh, save it, for heaven’s sake!”
“Save what?” asked Robidoux.
“Don’t you see that small stream running down through the wagon-bottom?”
“I see something dark, I think. What is it?”
“Flour! flour! Oh, save it! My boot-heels! won’t I get a cussing when I tell ’em they can’t have any more biscuit? Everybody ’ll swear at me: Cook, I never saw such a clumsy bunch of darned carelessness; cook, the next time you want buffler-chips or fire-wood you can get ’em yourself; never ask me to pack water for you again, cook, for I won’t do it, you careless, wasteful old cook; then Cimarron Jack, or whatever you call him, ’ll sure desert, ’cause I couldn’t help myself when the Injuns wasted the flour—he, a feller that don’t get bread of any kind once a year. Oh, every hair of my head! I’m the cussing-post for the world to swear at—me, the camp-cook, a low, thankless dog.”
“I will see they are informed of the true state of affairs, now,” said Pedro, consolingly.
Duncan burst out, in high dudgeon:
“Think that ’ll do any good? think ’ee, think ’ee? Sir, I solemnly swear it!—if you put your hand on the Bible afore an alcalde, or whatever you call him, and swear—yes, sir, swear upon your oath, they’d still cuss me and say I’m the one to blame. Oh, curse the unlucky, miserable day I learned to cook!
“If any young man should come to me and ask me for advice,” he resumed, after a brief pause, “perhaps I couldn’t tell him what to do, but I could just naturally tell him what not to do. I’d say, young man, don’t let any fellow inveigle you into learning the pastry-cook’s trade—it ’ll be the ruin of you. Oh, look at my flour—going all the time.”
During the time in which he had been speaking, the moon had been steadily moving on its downward, westward course, making the wagon-shadows larger, perceptibly. Though but little longer, they were of sufficient length to form a black isthmus between the wagons and the most distant end of the hill. Duncan, on stopping, observed a change come o’er the face of the grand old strategist. From a cool, impassible calm it had changed to an expression of positive terror, which as quickly vanished, giving, in turn, place to a look of moderate anxiety.
Stepping to the torch, he extinguished it, gazing anxiously to the roof before so doing. Then in the darkness he whispered:
“Senor Wheeler, you will be of more use in guarding the door. Allow me to advise you to look well to it. Men, you two place yourselves by my side, in readiness to fire.”
They did so, and he continued:
“I saw, just now, the entire body of the Apaches scamper along that longest shadow to the right. They have discovered the hill is only a shell, and will endeavor to force their way into it before daybreak. There are now nine of them and they will at once go to work. There is nothing to be feared—the moon shines so brightly that we can see the slightest crevice they may make.”
No longer they watched the wagons in the bright moonlight; but with every confidence in their famous leader, with hands touching his garments, they waited, looking at the small chinks in the roof through which the white sky shone plainly.
Pedro was an infallible prophet when he prophesied, for this reason—he never prognosticated without mature deliberation, always ruled by existing circumstances. Men wondered and marveled, but, superficial themselves, considered it a marvelous power, when, like many other strange powers (?), it was only the legitimate offspring of two healthy parents—shrewdness and thought.
In this case he was right. Before five minutes had passed, a slight noise was heard on one side of the slanting roof, rather low down, a grating rasping noise.
“They are boring. God grant they haven’t got my butcher-knife!” excitedly whispered Duncan, in a fever. “Where do you think they are boring with their cussed knives and hatchets?”
Pedro chuckled.
“They are working too low to reach us. There is one part—a quarter—of the hill that is solid. They are boring at that place, ha! ha!”
The rasping continued, growing louder and harsher. The savages were strangely bold and reckless. No other noise was heard, only the same quick, grating sounds—grate, grate—as the metal weapons glanced from the flinty, pebbly soil.
“If they were boring on this side, now, they would be nearly through, I judge by their vigorous, rapid work,” observed Pedro. “But, as they are at work on a solid part of the hill, they will get through to us in about a week. Ha! ha! Apache!” and he laughed, tauntingly.
“I wonder where the others are,” interrogatively spoke the Canadian. “They might be in trouble for all we know.”
“Near the Dead-Man’s Gulch,” replied Pedro. “I believe they took that route in pursuit.”
“They stand a slim chance of recovering the horses.”
“I was not well at the time the attack was made,” and if it had been light a blush would have been seen on Pedro’s cheek. “How many did they number?
“About thirty, I believe,” Simpson said.
“Six to one—hum! Well, the odds are certainly against them. If we were only out of this hole now, we might ride to their assistance.”
“And leave the girl—the sweet, pretty lass?”
“Ah, that is a painful mystery—painful indeed. It quite astounds me.”
“Mr. Wheeler and Carpenter are well nigh crazy over it. It is lucky in one way that these cussed Apaches have been pestering us—they have kept their thoughts somewhat away from her. Poor Miss Kissie! Where has she gone?”
“Hark!”
A loud report came to their ears, and at the same time, though unseen by them, the working Indians, with a loud whoop, fled from the hill. A shriek of agony at the same time resounded from the roof, and a body dropped heavily with a hollow sound.
“By every hair of my head!” cried Duncan, “hear them rascals skedaddle!”
“Who shot?” cried Pedro. “Senor, I say, who shot?”
“It came from inside the hill, I’ll take my oath to it!” declared Robidoux.
“I know it did, senor—I know it did;” and Pedro’s voice showed he was excited. “No one shot here, and some one shot from inside the hill and killed a savage. Who shot?”
They could not tell.